Adam Lambert’s Generation

I've been thinking about Adam Lambert from a different direction, which I hope provides context that has been missing from this discussion. In a nutshell, we need to consider that Lambert grew up in a generation that wasn't sufficiently schooled in the double standard he is now struggling with.

He was born in 1982. When he was 11, the nation was having its tortured conversation about gay equality with Don't Ask, Don't Tell, followed by the even worse spectacle of the Defense of Marriage Act. While each was a slap in the face to equal rights, the simple fact that kids - that everyone - could hear this very public political discussion reveals how little was left of the closet during Lambert's youth.

Those of us who came of age in the 1960s and 70s (and, it goes without saying, earlier) took the closet for granted - which is why so many of us fought so hard to dismantle it. As a boy growing up in California - and in the theater - Lambert may have simply accepted his sexual orientation, irrespective of public misunderstandings of homosexuality. I certainly don't know this, but Lambert's interview on the CBS Early Show gave me the impression that he truly doesn't see what the fuss is about.

That seems to be characteristic of younger people, and it's an important point of reference. They take it for granted that kissing is an acceptable (and sometimes thrilling) behavior, and don't have a different rule for gays. Those who are agitated by a same-sex kiss, from the Mormon authorities in Salt Lake City to the ABC censors, look as puritan and quaint to them as the folks who put Lucy and Ricky in two different beds.

Grabbing a dancer and shoving him into your crotch is a different matter. Lambert made a game attempt to argue it was spontaneous, and that might be true. Or it might not. But whether that instantaneous move was more like Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl or her crotch-grabbing move on the same show Lambert was on, the bottom line is that this kind of thing is a given in popular music and dancing today, across the board. Whether it's local officials trying to prevent kids at school dances from pretty explicit and unambiguous sexual gyrations, or graphic lyrics, or choreography that may be inspired by the Kama Sutra, we live in a world, and at a time, when popular music is a sexual playpen.

Whether that's good or bad, ABC censors and CBS interviewers and all the other fretters and worrywarts who are aflutter (if not a-Twitter) over Lambert give the appearance of inhabiting a nearly vanished world where gay people could be chastised for things straight people do all the time.

Lambert and his generation are reacting rationally to the hallucinations about homosexuality that older generations grew up with and still cling to. Their view is naturally egalitarian; gay people are part of the world. The closet is another risible relic to them, like commercials for cigarettes. They see the double standard for what it is: unnecessary.

2 Comments for “Adam Lambert’s Generation”

  1. posted by Jorge on

    Possibly, but I don’t know whether or not he encountered any double standard in his personal social and family life as he was growing up. The media and the public arena are more accepting of gays than people are privately.

  2. posted by George Delmerico on

    David, I think you’re onto something here as usual, but Lambert–who has an absolutely thrilling, gorgeous, perfect voice for a mad range of material (if he or his producers allow us to hear more musical diversity)–is also a product of an increasingly superficial Hollywood celebrity culture, the kind of thing called “phony” by earlier generations. I sometimes think mere vocal talent is an afterthought to one’s celebrity Image, to use the L.A. Times’ name for its “style” section. We can only hope the folks close to Adam will allow his Jolson/Garland/Jacko potential to shine through eventually.

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