Well, folks, we’ve reached the end of June, and I could think of no better way to send off Pride month than with a visit to the YMCA!
It’s easy to think of the Village People as nothing but a punchline. They certainly were not afraid to lean into the gimmicky and schticky - in fact, they still aren’t! Original lead singer Victor Willis still leads a new lineup of Village People today. Indeed, the campiness of their aesthetic is part of the point. But I think there’s more to the Village People than that.
This is a band that was formed specifically and explicitly to cater to the predilections of gay men on the disco scene. There was no masking of the content, no hoping to reach a broader audience by painting out the queerness. Just the opposite! They each chose a trope character and heightened the fantasy elements, engaging directly with sexuality and kink — and incredibly, they never crossed over into vulgarity (at least not in their videos and songs — of course, I never saw them live and can’t vouch for how a concert might have gone). They pushed the boundaries as far as they could go while maintaining some real dignity within this heightened fantasy construct.
I use the word dignity, and I mean it, which brings me back to the idea that the Village People are something of a punchline broadly in pop culture. What gay men treasured as true representation was seen by the straight majority as being silly, cringe-worthy — AND YET they still managed to commandeer the Village People’s songs anyhow, making them fodder for people to patronizingly dance to while drunk at straight weddings. The gay fantasy archetypes of VP’s members became the butts of jokes that still fuel many of those cis-het dance floors today.
Meanwhile, the Village People were actually subverting the archetypes of straight macho culture to feed their true audience, never giving in to the pressure of being mocked. A cowboy. A construction worker. A Native American (of actual indigenous descent, honoring his own masculine fantasy archetype). A G.I. A biker/leather man. A cop. They were simultaneously giving gay men permission to shamelessly relish their fantasies and shouting to the world that macho men can be gay too. Fay isn’t the only option for gay expression. I have so much respect for these men who put themselves out there to empower and legitimize gay lifestyle options.
And now for the Young Men’s Christian Association. Interesting, isn’t it, that VP’s biggest hit is the one that, in theory, should be offensive to the largest group of people that could stand against them. In another subversion of mammoth proportions, this song encourages the use of this place as not only a place to get a meal and a shower if you need one, but to…ahem…enjoy that shower. Individual feelings on that kind of behavior aside, setting this song at the YMCA was a clear act of purpose. In that day and culture, there were gay bathhouses all over the West Village. They could easily have written the song about one of those places. Instead, they tricked people into glossing over the more explicit content by focusing the chorus on the YMCA, making it somehow friendlier on a broad scale, and also sticking it to the broader culture in the same breath. The Village People are smart, y’all.
And on top of it all, it really is one of the greatest dance songs there is. I can’t exactly blame straight people for wanting it at every wedding and bar/bat mitzvah. To be clear, I do believe this song is and should be for everyone! It’s just…a little acknowledgement would be nice, right? It may be too late at this point to ask society as a whole to re-inject their opinions on this song with its inherent, subversive dignity. But I don’t care about everyone else. I will dance to this song with abandon today, knowing that it is intelligent, dignified, dirty, sly, heart-pumpingly rhythmic, and especially for me and my boys. And you — you can dance to it with a new perspective and respect for a song you may have never given a second thought to.
Now, get yourself ready, use that first half-minute of slowly building intro music to shake out your limbs a little and loosen up, and then GET IT. Dance out everything you’ve learned and felt this Pride month. Dance all of your queernesses with Pride and abandon. This one’s for you, too.
Thank you, Spirit of Music, for your subversive and Queer voice in the world. You truly are a wonder.
Happy Pride Month!