Welsh singing legend Dame Shirley Bassey has been lured out of blissful seclusion in Monaco to record an album of 11 new songs specially written for her by the likes of Gary Barlow, Rufus Wainwright, the Pet Shop Boys, along with others of note. Simply titled The Performance, this offering from the 72 year old ” girl from Tiger Bay” raises questions quite apart from its musical merits, namely the nature of the relationship between gay men and their adored divas in decline.
It’s well-known that Shirley Bassey avails herself of means of preserving her looks and holding back the effects of time. and the results speak for themselves. However, the album’s cover shot makes her look so improbably youthful you might think she had been at the vampire juice.
Mothership member John Hartley explores the parallels between the gay and vampire cultures
Twilight
With films like Twilight, its sequel New Moon, and tv productions such as True Blood capturing the collective imagination, vampirism is enjoying its biggest revival since Bram Stoker launched his mould-breaking novel Dracula on an unsuspecting world in 1897.
When I speak of dating gay vampires for real, many of us will be aware of guys who can drain the marrow out of a relationship financially and emotionally, and not a few will have met the devouring suction kisser, but what I’m talking about here is a form of historical consciousness.
From a gay point of view (unless you’re a confirmed chubby chaser), these ultra-lean, pale and darkly handsome men who deliver the ultimate in lovebites, prove endlessly fascinating. Read the rest of this entry »
In the 1990s a phenomenon hit our television screens: Sister Wendy Beckett, a reclusive Carmelite nun became the unlikely star presenter of a series of art programmes, and the writer of over 20 books on painting and faith.
Like many other gay men at the time, I avidly collected some of these publications, and when I went to see a performance of an inevitable tribute - Sister Wendy, The Musical - in London, following her footsteps as she was feted in America and around the world, it was no surprise that the audience consisted predominantly of gay men. So what was the fascination of this Christian hermit for guys who more often than not expressed atheism and religious indifference? Read the rest of this entry »
Richard Dawkins, celebrated popular science writer and author of best-selling work, The God Delusion, has argued that not only does God not exist but that religious faith is a delusion too, and sometimes a lethal one, as evidenced by the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Then in January this year Dawkins, in a joint campaign with Guardian journalist and comedy writer Ariane Sherine and inspired by gay outing, whereby prominent figures have been dragged from the closet into the public eye, emblazoned some of London’s red buses with slogans like: “There probably is no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Their aim was to “out” atheists, showing how common such thinking is, and conducive to a happier life. The fact that Dawkins used the word “probably” makes it seem he’s sitting on the fence a bit.
The controversial bus campaign
If Dawkins had taken the time to study some gay dating sites where religious affiliation is included in the profile questions, he might have been encouraged to see that while replies such as Anglican, Catholic, and Buddhist do occur, most register themselves as atheist or agnostic. A few describe themseves as New Age or Spiritual, and I spotted one Jedi. I would answer Spiritual, not as something achieved, but as someting I aspire to. Read the rest of this entry »
The recent adaptation of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights on ITV1 was the best I’ve seen. Coming from West Yorkshire, I know Haworth and the moors very well, and they were stunningly captured in all their grandeur and isolation. Best of all, though, Tom Hardy made a very sexy Heathcliff, with all the erotic, brooding passion to make gay boys go weak at the knees. What struck me most, however, was how the gothic power of this tale may hold a particular relevance for us in the 21st century.
It can’t be stressed too much how shocking Wuthering Heights seemed when the novel was first pubished in 1847, especially when it was discovered that the writer who went under the pen-name of Ellis Bell was not only a woman, but one who lived in a remote country parsonage. What’s more, the novel is full of sex and violence, extreme cruelty, necrophilia, alcoholism, dark powers and revenge; and yet it remains one of the most loved and poetically evocative creations of English Literature.
