Comments on: ‘Your average Hindu temple is more fabulous than the Gay Bombay New Year’s Party’ http://savageminds.org/2008/01/11/your-average-hindu-temple-is-more-fabulous-than-the-gay-bombay-new-years-party/ Notes and Queries in Anthropology — A Group Blog Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:06:13 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Christopher http://savageminds.org/2008/01/11/your-average-hindu-temple-is-more-fabulous-than-the-gay-bombay-new-years-party/comment-page-1/#comment-181321 Christopher Fri, 18 Jan 2008 05:55:32 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2008/01/11/your-average-hindu-temple-is-more-fabulous-than-the-gay-bombay-new-years-party/#comment-181321 I know EXACTLY what you mean about the 'gay end of the street.' The kind of 'styling' you talk about is going on all around the world; I noticed it in China, where on top of the many different strains of homosexual identity that have run through the culture throughout history, the aesthetics and the superficialities of this kind of Queer as Folk lifestyle have started to show up in what kind of clubs guys think are cool or comfortable, ideas about femininity, about sleeping around... In North America, it might not be such a visible process, this kind of growing up as a gay or lesbian or bi or trans kid and seeing all these models in the media of what those identities look like and then sort of adapting that whole package as your own identity (maybe because that package is moving around within the bigger sort of Western framework already), but it's here too. Because that process tends to simplify what can be really complex pictures of what a person is really like, I like to wander back and forth between the jazz and the shitty dance music. I know EXACTLY what you mean about the ‘gay end of the street.’

The kind of ‘styling’ you talk about is going on all around the world; I noticed it in China, where on top of the many different strains of homosexual identity that have run through the culture throughout history, the aesthetics and the superficialities of this kind of Queer as Folk lifestyle have started to show up in what kind of clubs guys think are cool or comfortable, ideas about femininity, about sleeping around… In North America, it might not be such a visible process, this kind of growing up as a gay or lesbian or bi or trans kid and seeing all these models in the media of what those identities look like and then sort of adapting that whole package as your own identity (maybe because that package is moving around within the bigger sort of Western framework already), but it’s here too.

Because that process tends to simplify what can be really complex pictures of what a person is really like, I like to wander back and forth between the jazz and the shitty dance music.

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]]> By: Strong http://savageminds.org/2008/01/11/your-average-hindu-temple-is-more-fabulous-than-the-gay-bombay-new-years-party/comment-page-1/#comment-175325 Strong Sun, 13 Jan 2008 15:03:45 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2008/01/11/your-average-hindu-temple-is-more-fabulous-than-the-gay-bombay-new-years-party/#comment-175325 That sounds about right, at least in respect of our gay friends there who definitely aspire to higher class status. I was assured that those guys who were at the party in question were from elite backgrounds for the most part, so there must be intersections between class aspiration, international orientation, gender, and so on that are visible in the way in which emergent gayness is 'styled' in Bombay. That sounds about right, at least in respect of our gay friends there who definitely aspire to higher class status. I was assured that those guys who were at the party in question were from elite backgrounds for the most part, so there must be intersections between class aspiration, international orientation, gender, and so on that are visible in the way in which emergent gayness is ‘styled’ in Bombay.

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]]> By: Kerim http://savageminds.org/2008/01/11/your-average-hindu-temple-is-more-fabulous-than-the-gay-bombay-new-years-party/comment-page-1/#comment-174025 Kerim Sat, 12 Jan 2008 10:48:23 +0000 http://savageminds.org/2008/01/11/your-average-hindu-temple-is-more-fabulous-than-the-gay-bombay-new-years-party/#comment-174025 Funny. I wonder how much this has to do with class aspirations? The upwardly mobile Indian middle classes often seem quite embarrassed about the garishness of Indian popular culture. Funny. I wonder how much this has to do with class aspirations? The upwardly mobile Indian middle classes often seem quite embarrassed about the garishness of Indian popular culture.

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