ART&CULTURE
THE
ARTS
ISSUE
2021
The Influence of Dame David
EMBRACEMAGAZINE.US
104
David Bowie was the bisexual alien rocker who sold gender exploration to the world. In embracing “otherness” Bowie changed music, art, media and the very nature of fame completely. Steve Pafford, author of “BowieStyle,” explains why, even as we approach the 5th anniversary of his passing, “Dame David” remains the most relevant, reinvented and revolutionary pop artist of our times. BY STEVE PAFFORD
I
“I’m gay and I always have been. Even when I was David Jones.” Who said that? Less than five years after homosexuality had been decriminalised in the UK, it was David Bowie. Dusty Springfield had outed herself a couple of years before, but the man born David Robert Jones in London on January 8, 1947 was the first white male pop star to declare their queerness to the world, over a decade after his hero Little Richard led the way. Yes, that’s the same Goblin King in “80s kids” classic Labyrinth, sporting tights so tight they revealed the Thin White Duke’s appendage, which was almost as impressive as his entire body of work. Dame David, as he was affectionately known, was encouraged to make the declaration in 1972 by then-wife Angela, herself a voracious swinger, and the mother of David’s son, movie director Duncan Jones. Confused? So was he. Bowie’s formative years were spent chasing trends. When the ‘Swinging Sixties’ made London the fashion capital of the world, it proved seductive to metrobolist peacocks like David, who was already on intimate
terms with his bedroom mirror. He was obsessed by stardom, coolness and style, which, for him, was inextricable from art. First, though, was carving a niche for himself on the music scene, changing his name to avoid confusion with The Monkees’ Davy Jones by delving back to his Wild West fascination, and a hunting knife used by Alamo hero Jim Bowie. Alas, there was little demand for his self-titled debut in 1967, when hippie psychedelia dominated. Wrong-footed, David returned in the summer of ’69 as a Dylan style folkie, his Bee Geesian rocket man tale Space Oddity giving him his first chart success. In 1971, the Daily Mirror covered his Man Who Sold The World album. Parodying a Pre-Raphaelite painting, Bowie was on a chaise longue draped in blue velvet, wearing a “man’s dress”. Countering the paper’s prurience, he insisted he was “not queer. My sexual life is normal.” When Ziggy Stardust made his Moonage landing in 1972, his alter-ego worshipped at “the church of Man-Love”, appearing as an alien androgyne decades before Marilyn Manson. While shows became multi-media extravaganzas incorporating mime, theatre, and film. Under 40s
"David Bowie" exhibition in the Martin Gropius-Bau, Berlin-Tiergarten. Illustration by Sooyaart
