{"id":84811,"date":"2017-01-02T12:00:33","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=84811"},"modified":"2016-12-28T15:10:04","modified_gmt":"2016-12-28T15:10:04","slug":"frank-uncompromising-and-tons-of-fun-what-makes-george-michael-an-lgbt-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/01\/frank-uncompromising-and-tons-of-fun-what-makes-george-michael-an-lgbt-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank, Uncompromising, and Tons of Fun: What Makes George Michael an LGBT Hero"},"content":{"rendered":"

How George Michael inspired us, turning a 1998 arrest for lewd behavior into a big FU to the authorities, and a public declaration of his sexuality.<\/em><\/p>\n

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26 Dec 2016 – <\/em>George Michael told the story<\/a> more than once: the moment when he was 8, tripping over at school, sliding along the floor and banging his head against a radiator. He bled badly, and took quite a knock. But from that moment on, his love was music.<\/p>\n

For the next few days it will be the songs that will be played and lovingly remembered\u2014rightly so, because Michael\u2019s and Wham!\u2019s songs<\/a> not only gave pleasure to so many, they stood for something: sexual pleasure, letting go, getting down, getting political, and also having ridiculous amounts of fun. The songs were \u2018pop\u2019 as pop should be\u2014they made your heart full to bursting, and they knew how to revel in the drama of heartbreak and loss.<\/p>\n

They could sound ridiculous, yet you know every word and drink in every rich, overblown melody.<\/p>\n

As part of Wham!, and later by himself, these songs were lush or loud, stomping or caressing. You could fast-dance to them, or place your head on a loved one\u2019s shoulder\u2014and they were classics, and remain so and transcend time, as we know because George Michael died today on Christmas Day, the day when one of Wham!\u2019s most famous songs\u2014\u201cLast Christmas\u201d\u2014plays seemingly everywhere on a loop.<\/p>\n

A group of ex-pat Brits, this reporter included, were listening to the song as part of a familiar medley in a New York apartment just as the news broke that Michael had died.<\/p>\n

And none of us complain about its omnipresence, especially today, because \u201cLast Christmas\u201d in all its warmly bathetic agony is as reassuring as a shawl with twinkling fairy lights. It\u2019s long transcended its own cheesiness. Now it is just loved, and as much a Christmas pop culture totem as \u201cHave Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so it will be that Michael\u2019s death date, December 25th<\/sup>, will become also marked by this song of lost love, of regret, of something ending far too soon as his life has done at 53<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Death\u2019s ruthless scythe through pop culture this year appears not to be done yet. At the time of writing it is not known what caused Michael\u2019s death. The time of his death was given as 1:42 p.m. The police say Michael\u2019s death is \u201cunexplained but not suspicious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enfolded in that wonderful music\u2014and the stories of drugs and drinking, and the scandals of later years\u2014consider another George Michael. The one who told it as directly as possible; who, as time went on, didn\u2019t hide when scandal or downfall or public shame came knocking, but faced all those things not just stoically, but with a mischievous smile and brave to-hell-with-it dismissal of all those who would do him down.<\/p>\n

Part of his personal story is about making us\u2014his fans, the media, and the general public\u2014consider the true gamut of love, sexuality, and intimacy through his music and his life. The challenge of living openly and honestly is something George Michael met head-on, and that honesty was a challenge to many prejudices.<\/p>\n

The most public and brilliantly outrageous apotheosis of this was the single \u201cOutside,\u201d which he released after being arrested and charged for attempting to solicit a policeman in an L.A. men\u2019s room in 1998, for which he was fined $810 and had to serve 80 hours community service. It was after that that Michael came out, after many years of speculation about his sexuality.<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=gwZAYdHcDtU<\/p>\n

But not for him the heartfelt confession, and tears, and venerable words about being true to oneself, and stoic self-regard. Instead, Michael stayed true to pop star form, and served up a deliciously, shockingly brash and unapologetic song and video making a polysexual, multi-gender, raunchy joke of the whole incident, and skewering the historic use of \u201cpretty policeman\u201d to entrap men who have sex with men in public bathrooms.<\/p>\n

Not for him the slinking away from the press after crises befell him. No tail between legs for George Michael. He not only came out, he wrote and talked about sex and having sex, and shamed all those that would try to shame him.<\/p>\n

As he tweeted in 2011:<\/p>\n

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I HAVE NEVER AND WILL NEVER APOLOGISE FOR MY SEX LIFE ! GAY SEX IS NATURAL, GAY SEX IS GOOD! NOT EVERYBODY DOES IT, BUT…..HA HA!<\/p>\n

— George Michael (@GeorgeMichael) May 13, 2011<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n