Credit: Creative Commons/David Shankbone
Icon. We throw the word around, but do we really know what it means? It found its way into the English language from the original Greek word used for likeness or image (eikṓn). In other words, icons are reflections of what a given group of people hold to be sacred. Given the recent passage of Joan Rivers, and the bewailment of her death as the loss of a great gay icon, I think it’s time to have a frank discussion of just what it is we DO hold sacred in the gay community…and why. We do not ask ourselves this question often enough.
Some have expressed bewilderment as to why Joan Rivers even attained the status of “icon” in the gay community in the first place. To understand this, you must first understand, psychologically speaking, some of the purpose(s) humor serves. Both Plato and Aristotle (yes, they did agree on some things) say that we laugh at the wretched, the fat, the miserable and poor because it asserts our own superiority. Sound familiar? Thought so. Going further, psychiatrist George Eman Vaillant categorized humor as a specialized defense mechanism; in other words, some things are too painful to confront or too terrible to talk about so we just deflect against them.
But let us ask ourselves: just what is it that we’re defending against?
Alan Downs Ph.D., author of The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man’s World, has diagnosed with surgical precision the origin of this cancerous condition in the gay community and largely attributes it to early childhood experiences of overwhelming shame. As a natural counterpoint to this toxic shame, gay men move into a second stage of overcompensation: The disease of More: More money, more muscles, more labels, more cars… multiplied ad infinitum.
Gay men stuck in the ugly adolescence of self-loathing and fear defend against feeling this way at all costs. Instead, they project their own raging insecurities outward. In the process of doing so, they construct false identities of superiority and holier-than-thouness to defend against a raging internal tempest that is the result of their own paralyzing fear of being utterly unlovable. What is the characteristic flavor of this stage’s humor? Cattiness, bitchiness, and just plain meanness. Nowhere has this unholy trinity of inner-hatred-turned-outward been more powerfully and tragically expressed than in the comedic legacy of Joan Rivers.
You don’t have to be hateful to be funny. Carol Burnett and Lucile Ball never stooped to the level of vituperative shtick to demean, dehumanize, or degrade the human condition. Quite the opposite: They ennobled it. Joan Rivers unfurled her fame and secured her fortune by doing exactly the opposite.
Gay icons of yesteryear like Judy Garland were icons in the original sense of the word; Garland reflected and expressed with a trembling vulnerability and raw strength the beating, broken heart of the community, which is why she was – and will forever remain – the greatest icon of them all, having ignited with her passage the gay liberation movement. Now that’s a legacy that matters.
Newer icons such as Madonna and Lady Gaga slashed their way to the top of the charts and into the heart and soul of the gay community with their fierce, unflinching commitment to their art and their messages of manumission (freedom from bondage; whatever those fetters may be.) These grande dames earned their enthronement in the pantheon of figureheads by empowerment, not by hate, and embody ideals to aspire to, whether you like their music or not.
Was Rivers a sarcastic savant? Yes. Was she a fierce fashionista? That’s debatable. But was her Gospel of the Low Blow what we in our community really wish to continue living our lives by? I, for one, do not.
Deaths – whether literal or figurative – are always times of transition and transitions can go either way. Joan Rivers may have been a legend, but she’s no icon that I wish to aspire to. So in our own community’s time of transition I think it’s vital to take a serious moment of pause to ask ourselves, what is the image that we wish to project? What is the community we wish to build? And who are the people we wish to become?
Joan Rivers made a fortune not only demising others but herself. The things that people will do to make a dollar, yet we learn to listen and love her. Well at least some of us did, for if we didn’t, then Mrs Rivers could not have become the so call ICON she became. Someone in the world was entertained by her humor, therefore, I can not just look at Mrs. Rivers as the core of the comical social götterdämmerung of others. Do we need to be reminded that for a buck the late Mrs Rivers publicly criticized herself? It would be interesting to see what Mrs Rivers thinks of her earthly clay vessel, and the earthy clay vessel of others she demised, as she now stands before the ONE who fearfully and wonderful created them all. Giggle through them Pearly Gates Mrs Rivers.
T.L.
Timmie LePrince., I dare you speak this way about the late Mrs Rivers as you refer to her. She made us all laugh you need to admit that! There is no way you listen at Joan’s material and did not find her funny. So what some of the material she used was not socially correct! Still it made you laugh didn’t it? She brought a smile to my life guy! Who are you to crack it?!?! On one hand I get what your saying but on the other hand who made you God? Such self righteousness!
Bobby
Oh my Bobby, well lets just call you BLD. I seem to have hit a nerve? Don’t you get catty with me Bitch! I could care less about how you feel. Especially when it comes to me referring to the late Mrs Rivers asthe LATE Mrs Rivers as I APPROPRIATELY refer to her! I refereed to her as The LATE Mrs Rivers due to her recent earthly expiration date!!! I never said her material was not funny, however, I did however lean to the fact, it was demising, critical, and harmful from a emotional/spiritual prospective. Being happy is an external and temporary fix to experiencing internal everlasting Joy Mr BLD.
TL
.
Bobby, let’s just call you BLD. Don’t you get catty with me bitch! I could care less about what you think about me referring to Mrs Rivers as “The Late Mrs Rivers.” Due to her recent earthly expiration date, I am ABSOLUTELY correct, in referring to Joan as “The Late Mrs Rivers”. I never said Mrs Rivers material was not funny, but I did lean to the fact that the material is social critical, emotional and spiritually eroding for a buck!…. Well to correct, Millions of Bucks LOL! Still, just think BLD, how does this material have any socially redeeming value, if it is demising herself and others? Please don’t say she make people happy by making them feel good inside. Happiness is an external temporary fix, that will never measure up to internal eternal JOY everlasting!
TL.
LOL! Where do you guys come up with this stuff? Timmie LePrince man your nuts but a good nuts! You made me laugh dude! Maybe you should do some standup? Ha! Like the “Götterdämmerung Word.” A big word that really added flare to the conversation.
Your BaBe,
Stan
Clearly, the person who wrote this article did not live in NYC, was not witness to the countless hours that Joan spent personally delivering meals for God’s Love We Deliver and had no idea of the amount of time she spent raising money for this invaluable charity. Back when the AIDS crisis hit, Joan was one of the brave public personalities who rolled up her shirt sleeves and helped deliver meals to AIDS patients in need. By her example, others followed. Any person, gay or straight, who had the privilege of knowing and/or working with Joan was lucky.
https://www.glwd.org/blog.jsp?topic=community&share=18611#18611 Do a little reading and find out why so many in the gay community loved Joan so dearly.
As a straight man, I wish to say that Judy WAS the greatest icon. Just happening to be watching the Boys in the Band. I don’t think it inspired my comment, though.
So Jackie, because she was good to the gay community and horrid to everyone else, that’s okay since the story isn’t about you? This is the same woman who banned Adele from her funeral for being fat (I doubt Adele cares but not the point,) called the first lady “Blackie O”, and made multiple jokes at the expense of three young women who spent 10 years of captivity being raped, beaten, and tortured by Ariel Castro. If you find those things funny, then the author has proved his point.
Jaid, I fail to see how my post had anything to do with me at all, so I don’t understand your first comment. I was simply stating that Joan was there for the gay community when the AIDS crisis hit when so many turned their backs on them and for 25 yrs continued to deliver meals personally to home-bound AIDS patients as well as raise a lot of money for that charity. I happen to be a straight woman who was witness to the incredible amount of charity work that Joan did for them. Her jokes may have offended many and I offered no opinion on her performances in my comments. I was simply stating that in her lifetime, she did a tremendous amount of good for charities, including those who helped the gay community immeasurably.
Joan Rivers was a hateful, insensitive bastard. Just her recent comment that ‘all Palestinians should be dead’ makes her a despicable person. If Joan Rivers was/is an icon to you, and you flame out over someone FINALLY raising the question of “why?” then perhaps you should take a long look in the mirror or a long stroll in the park.
The Great Nietzschean Quest is to “overcome your origins” — not project them on everyone and everything else. He wrote “you are none of the things which you now think, do, or say.”
This write makes great sense; perhaps some of the commenters have poor reading comprehension and they should give it a go one more time. And READ. Don;t skim.
I also think this writer has also described the Americano rat race addiction of of ‘more, more, more’ as WELL as the travesty of Human Liberation and Gay Liberation all becoming ratty, bitchy separatiest group identity politics with a hefty dose of political correctness. In our case, Gay Liberation somehow mutated into GAY INCORPORATED — and perhaps Joan Rivers was an icon of the latter?
GAY INCORPORATED, of course, is all about A-Listers and ‘more, more, more’ and cares nothing about the gay poor, the gay unemployed, the gay underemployed, the gay blacks and browns, you name it.