I was a huge Culture Club fan back in the day and I remember the day after their first Top of the Pops appearance that the discussion on the school bus was all around was George a boy or a girl. Around the same time there was an article on the band in FlexiPop which featured a picture of Jon and George kissing with the caption was Kiss and Tell!
George gave lots of people permission to be or express themselves in a non-conventional way. But what made Culture Club 'acceptable' was the sense of George being in a band made of 'regular' (if colourfully dressed) guys - and of course their music was wonderful!
It's kind of crazy that this band even existed at the time. I mean, only Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Bronski Beat were actually out of the closet in that MTV generation British scene at the time and none of them looked as obvious as George. I have a deep appreciation for his bravery. That link you shared was WILD. It goes to show you how homophobic these articles were then. Thank you for sharing it because I hadn't seen that one!
I think this is a big topic, but I'm willing to throw my 2c in. I wouldn't use the world "precious," but in general, I think his comment is valid. But it's nothing new. To me, his comment is less about the young LGBTQ+ generation, but the younger generation as a whole. But isn't that how it is for every older generation -- they think the younger generations are self-obsessed navel-gazers who don't appreciate the path the older folks carved before them? He is an old codger! He needs to embrace that and stand at his front door screaming "get off my lawn!"
I agree that so often the older generation is aghast by the demands that younger generations make of society, even those who fought for similar demands. There’s often a feeling of “I fought to get us this far and you should just be happy with it” instead of applauding those who aren’t settling for the status quo. I know that people want respect and credit for what they’ve done and the sacrifices they’ve made to make the world better but they run the risk of being “precious” about how and when progress is allowed to continue to be demanded.
Also, someone asking you to respect their gender identity isn’t a heavy lift, even if it is “new” vernacular. Dressing like Boy George used to also be called “attention seeking” when really it represented much more like visibility and re-defining who gets to look masculine and who gets to look feminine. Pronouns are about the exact same thing. Calling it “attention seeking” just plays right into bigotry’s hands.
I wrote a long comment that somehow disappeared when I hit send (damnit!) but I wanted to say this is a great piece and stirred up some memories from high school, where a few kids used to dress up as Boy George and I remember thinking they were so daring. I still think Kissing To Be Clever is one of the best albums of the new wave era and I play it quite often. A lot of Boy George's solo work is also excellent; his voice is so much lower and deeper now.
I saw him as a judge on I think the British Voice, when a contestant sang Karma Chameleon and he didn't recognize it until about 30 seconds in. I don't watch those types of shows, but this was special.
Regarding George's comments about pronouns....he could have phrased his feelings better, but I believe this is a generational issue more than anything else, expressed by him saying: "still trying to “get his head round” modern ways of labeling gender." I am in my late 50s and many of my LGBTQ+ friends struggle with the pronoun identifiers (also my straight friends). They find it has a bit of an attention quality, reinforced by social media. I don't feel that way myself, but I understand the view that younger people don't recognize the histories that have created the world they live in today. But that goes for all generations.
All I know is that I'm glad I didn't grow up with the internet, cell phones and social media. The scrutiny today is crazy. I'm definitely not including Boy George's assault/false imprisonment in my perspective on his comments. From what I have read, he was a huge druggy asshole for those years. I didn't think he would survive that period.
Well said. Change is challenging to a lot of people. Even those who spent most of the their lives fighting for change. Clinging to the world they know, closing off to new ways of identifying and expressing and evolving isn’t age-specific, but seems to be more common in older generations.
Appreciate the background/ context on this song which was one of my childhood favorites. I vividly recall the US MTV version and didn’t realize there was another one. Hearing the details of that was interesting. Regarding Boy George’s tragic but descent into drug addiction - it made me 😡 because all of the forward progression in daring to be different and inclusive and expressing that out loud got eviscerated by the drugs and assault charge. On the other hand it’s a bit less than realistic to expect pioneering difference to not come at a cost. But still...If BG lived a “clean” life would his legacy be more?
Culture Club was such a fascination to me, a naive churchy middle schooler who had both feet in the evangelical world but with eyes toward bridge building with the "worldly" culture around us. (I never understood the "christian bubble" that everyone insisted on.) I remember wondering what gender he was, but also thinking it was so cool that he expressed his style and personality so boldly. I have not followed him past the 80s and didn't know about the drug addiction and jail time. Great read!
As a grown woman who lived a pretty charmed suburban teenage life in the 80s, I have such respect for the barriers queer artists faced then and compassion for the mental toll I now understand they must have endured. It's devastating to see lawmakers in the U.S. start to dismantle all the progress that has been made since then.
Beautifully stated Jen and thank you for reading. I do get rather emotional reading about and being in the company of an older generation who experienced so much more pain and loss than even I did coming of age in the '90s and coming out in the early part of 2000' s.
I was a huge Culture Club fan back in the day and I remember the day after their first Top of the Pops appearance that the discussion on the school bus was all around was George a boy or a girl. Around the same time there was an article on the band in FlexiPop which featured a picture of Jon and George kissing with the caption was Kiss and Tell!
http://totp80s.blogspot.com/2021/04/culture-club-flexipop-1982.html
George gave lots of people permission to be or express themselves in a non-conventional way. But what made Culture Club 'acceptable' was the sense of George being in a band made of 'regular' (if colourfully dressed) guys - and of course their music was wonderful!
It's kind of crazy that this band even existed at the time. I mean, only Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Bronski Beat were actually out of the closet in that MTV generation British scene at the time and none of them looked as obvious as George. I have a deep appreciation for his bravery. That link you shared was WILD. It goes to show you how homophobic these articles were then. Thank you for sharing it because I hadn't seen that one!
I learn so much from your posts. Thanks!
That's so nice of you to say, thank you!
Great read! I didn’t know any of the history of the group and boy George. Insightful as always
“Kids just don’t understand. I don’t want to sound like an old codger, but they don’t get what people went through for them to be so precious..."
I would be genuinely curious to hear any thoughts on whether there's some merit to George's statement here, or it's baseless.
I think this is a big topic, but I'm willing to throw my 2c in. I wouldn't use the world "precious," but in general, I think his comment is valid. But it's nothing new. To me, his comment is less about the young LGBTQ+ generation, but the younger generation as a whole. But isn't that how it is for every older generation -- they think the younger generations are self-obsessed navel-gazers who don't appreciate the path the older folks carved before them? He is an old codger! He needs to embrace that and stand at his front door screaming "get off my lawn!"
I agree that so often the older generation is aghast by the demands that younger generations make of society, even those who fought for similar demands. There’s often a feeling of “I fought to get us this far and you should just be happy with it” instead of applauding those who aren’t settling for the status quo. I know that people want respect and credit for what they’ve done and the sacrifices they’ve made to make the world better but they run the risk of being “precious” about how and when progress is allowed to continue to be demanded.
Also, someone asking you to respect their gender identity isn’t a heavy lift, even if it is “new” vernacular. Dressing like Boy George used to also be called “attention seeking” when really it represented much more like visibility and re-defining who gets to look masculine and who gets to look feminine. Pronouns are about the exact same thing. Calling it “attention seeking” just plays right into bigotry’s hands.
I wrote a long comment that somehow disappeared when I hit send (damnit!) but I wanted to say this is a great piece and stirred up some memories from high school, where a few kids used to dress up as Boy George and I remember thinking they were so daring. I still think Kissing To Be Clever is one of the best albums of the new wave era and I play it quite often. A lot of Boy George's solo work is also excellent; his voice is so much lower and deeper now.
I saw him as a judge on I think the British Voice, when a contestant sang Karma Chameleon and he didn't recognize it until about 30 seconds in. I don't watch those types of shows, but this was special.
https://youtu.be/xQ61wAk0o00?si=AXDEt6tbWWDl33FN
Regarding George's comments about pronouns....he could have phrased his feelings better, but I believe this is a generational issue more than anything else, expressed by him saying: "still trying to “get his head round” modern ways of labeling gender." I am in my late 50s and many of my LGBTQ+ friends struggle with the pronoun identifiers (also my straight friends). They find it has a bit of an attention quality, reinforced by social media. I don't feel that way myself, but I understand the view that younger people don't recognize the histories that have created the world they live in today. But that goes for all generations.
All I know is that I'm glad I didn't grow up with the internet, cell phones and social media. The scrutiny today is crazy. I'm definitely not including Boy George's assault/false imprisonment in my perspective on his comments. From what I have read, he was a huge druggy asshole for those years. I didn't think he would survive that period.
Well said. Change is challenging to a lot of people. Even those who spent most of the their lives fighting for change. Clinging to the world they know, closing off to new ways of identifying and expressing and evolving isn’t age-specific, but seems to be more common in older generations.
Appreciate the background/ context on this song which was one of my childhood favorites. I vividly recall the US MTV version and didn’t realize there was another one. Hearing the details of that was interesting. Regarding Boy George’s tragic but descent into drug addiction - it made me 😡 because all of the forward progression in daring to be different and inclusive and expressing that out loud got eviscerated by the drugs and assault charge. On the other hand it’s a bit less than realistic to expect pioneering difference to not come at a cost. But still...If BG lived a “clean” life would his legacy be more?
I had no idea the video was edited! What a fascinating history - thanks for sharing it!
A pop music Classic if there ever was one. They had many many lovely tunes--this one remains just a cut above. Perfect, really.
Culture Club was such a fascination to me, a naive churchy middle schooler who had both feet in the evangelical world but with eyes toward bridge building with the "worldly" culture around us. (I never understood the "christian bubble" that everyone insisted on.) I remember wondering what gender he was, but also thinking it was so cool that he expressed his style and personality so boldly. I have not followed him past the 80s and didn't know about the drug addiction and jail time. Great read!
As a grown woman who lived a pretty charmed suburban teenage life in the 80s, I have such respect for the barriers queer artists faced then and compassion for the mental toll I now understand they must have endured. It's devastating to see lawmakers in the U.S. start to dismantle all the progress that has been made since then.
Beautifully stated Jen and thank you for reading. I do get rather emotional reading about and being in the company of an older generation who experienced so much more pain and loss than even I did coming of age in the '90s and coming out in the early part of 2000' s.