The Village People are well known for their 1970s hits "Y.M.C.A", "In the Navy" and "Macho Man", among other songs, and were arguably the first openly gay band to have mainstream success. Their music, resting firmly in the disco genre, was catchy, upbeat and emblematic of the sexually liberated 1970s. With song titles like "San Francisco", "Key West" and "Fire Island" they touted locations that were meccas of gay liberation and imparted in their music a sense of openness and hope in the future that quickly faded with the onset of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s and the decline of disco.
More than three decades on, the band is touring again with all but two of the original members. Two weekends ago I had the surreal experience of seeing them play live amongst the flashing lights, greasy food stands and carnival rides of the Barnstable County Fair in Falmouth, Mass. I was more than a little curious to see how the nearly all-white audience, comprised mostly of the heavy-set, folding lawn chair wielding, oversized t-shirt wearing, 40+ crowd, would react to a mixed-race group of openly gay middle-aged men singing disco songs from three decades ago. My mind flashed to the anti-disco riots waged by heterosexual white rock fans in the late 70s, and to the fact that more than a few of the audience members may have felt anti-disco sentiment during that time. And I was curious also, about what disco would sound like in the year 2010. Would their music be updated, mixed with the latest styles and sounds?
The band was well rehearsed and put on a very tight show. Despite a technical glitch that resulted in the band leaving the stage for a minute during the middle of the show, the musical accompaniment was contemporary sounding and well mixed. They knew exactly the audience they were playing for, and between-song time was dedicated to easing their fears (there were a few gendered remarks about “macho ladies” and, of course, “macho men”) and getting them on their feet dancing. By the time the inevitable closing number, “Y.M.C.A”, rolled around, nearly everybody was on his or her feet and doing the obligatory dance that accompanies the song.
So what, if anything, does this experience say about the state of gay acceptance in America at present? Could it be deduced that a new stage of tolerance has been reached when an openly gay act can perform for accepting audiences at a rural agriculture fair? This mini-photo essay focuses mainly on the audience. I think it captures some of their initial ambivalence and then their eventual conversion. Some of the images could be of people at a Christian soul revival if you took away the band. If random audience members were surveyed, perhaps a few would be surprised to learn of the band’s sexuality, a few would declare that “gay is ok”, but a majority might say that it doesn’t matter to them because they put on a good show, even if they are “that way”.
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