SCENE & DONE IT

Icon by Michael Steinhage

Poor Judy Garland, penniless with two children in tow, denied room at the inn because she hasn’t paid her bills. And she’s had a few, of course she just wants to lie down. This is how the recent biopic of her later life starts. Naturally, they take liberties to get the heart strings humming, but it certainly worked.

I wanted to find out more about this undisputed ultimate gay icon. Truth be told, I knew very little about her. I’ve watched The Wizard of Oz just once, and thought it was a waste of time. Too much singing and dancing and prancing about, not my bag. Yet hanging on the walls of as many gay bars as she does, this is the Judy I know. Do I know enough?

The boyfriend, being of a more traditional nature, sometimes likes to point out that I am too liberal in my columns, focused on the youth and the future. Don’t forget about the “old gays” and what they’ve fought for. That’s why you and I are here, he reminds me. So I promised that for this LGBTQ+ History Month edition, I’d look back.

So back to Judy, our icon. Young readers take note, because we’re all Friends of Dorothy after all. Over the decades gay men have sung Over the Rainbow, and donned that blue and white dress and the ruby slippers, and have fallen in love with her music. That is often where it ends, that’s what we know.

The film mentioned is superbly played – Renée Zellweger surely deserves that Oscar, but more so it opens your eyes to a life that ended in despair.

What would her status have meant to her I wonder? When asked by a reporter once what she thought of her gay following, she is said to have replied, “I couldn’t care less. I sing to people”.

Two of her five husbands were gay (or bisexual), it is alleged. One of her many suicide attempts happened when she found her husband, Vincente Minnelli, in bed with a man.

She may be a gay icon for her performances, her camp quality, or the Stonewall riots on the day of her funeral. Or because gay men often identify with those who have suffered. Whatever our reasons, it is heartbreaking that behind a screen of such fun and glamour and laughter there was such human misery.

So as we remember LGBTQ+ history, let’s remember the history of Judy, the human being, the next time we walk down the yellow brick road.