What would it be like if a rock band was fronted by someone openly gay? A band that actually sounded good, strong, full throttle, and no excuses. Not a joke, not for humor, not for a gimmick. Why has it been that some of the greatest bands have been fronted by gays yet we never found this out until years into or after their success? Is it harmful to one part of the audience to have it be known beforehand as much as it would be beneficial to another part? Seems like these days, 2006, it’s okay to be gay but only to an extent. Sure there’s television shows with gay leads- there’s even a whole channel for gays. There are magazines, billboards and even a gay couple now included on the occasional product ad. Cute, right? When it comes to media it’s all coming along but seems, at least to me, a rather narrow perspective. You’ve got your clean cut, wealthy, conservative types of Will & Grace, your troubled and shy teens on MTV reality shows, and your flaming Marys in almost every movie daring to include a “gay”. But when I turn off the television, put down the magazines or leave the movies and go into the “real world” (for lack of a better word), I see quite a different picture.

I see a variety of gay individuals at gay and straight events, covering all types of social circles and cliques. Hell, there’s such a variety of gays that some groups don’t even get along with others! Is that possible? I thought on TV all gays were friends with each other? Hmmm, anyways, though media and culture have evolved, there’s still a set of characters it seems one has to fit into. How could we go from something like a disco band including a gay cowboy, Indian, cop, construction worker and leather daddy over 20 years ago on the top of the pop charts to front page news when a teen pop star of the past several years comes out? How about the shocker of a metal front man coming out and the question arising if the band will ever play together again- wondering if the audience is gone? Why should that even come up after all this time of supposed evolution?

If our media (pop) culture defines us by shaping our worldview, should we speak up when we feel this construction of reality is incomplete? Should we put ourselves out there to show the media that they have missed the mark as often as they have hit it? There are, in fact, a wide variety of individuals and social circles that aren’t seen in ads. Some groups are a bit more invisible and are therefore unnoticed and/or misunderstood by most people. I’d like to be one to speak up and hopefully inspire others to do the same, showing others that the gay stereotype (among other stereotypes) is inaccurate. We are all multidimensional: All the people you know and all the people you don’t, including me. Seeing a gay man holding an electric guitar, playing full-on rock-n-roll might strike some people as unusual. Some have already wondered “Where would they get gigs?”, “Is this only for gays to listen to?”, or my favorite, “Who REALLY wrote and played all this”?… all before a note is even heard. All of which has been a very familiar line of questioning for girl bands even to this day. The gay element might make the band more appealing to some people just as easily as it might turn off certain listeners before they have heard a single note. Why does this happen? The stereotypes in our minds go both ways.

I intend not for it to be a “gimmick” though aware that’s what it’ll be for some people, and that’s fine. With my new project, Nancy FullForce, I hope to change their mind on what people see a “gay person” as capable of and then question any other preconceived judgments and limitations they have about the people they know and all that they don’t.

- JASTEN KING

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