It was a performance that likely would’ve made Whitney Houston proud.
In the Season 9 finale of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” in 2017, Sasha Velour faced off against Shea Couleé. As the two queens approached the end of their lip-sync battle, Velour left the audience stunned when she lifted her wavy red wig from her bald head and, to everyone’s surprise, unleashed a swirl of rose petals.
It was one of the most eye-popping wigs revealed in the show’s history, and Velour, who’s gender-fluid and uses “she” in drag, eventually won the crown. But something else also made that moment special: the music, in particular Whitney Houston’s 1987 chart-topper “So Emotional.” As Velour began to hoist her wig, you could hear Houston’s voice thunder, “I get so emotional, baby. Every tiiiiime I think of you.”
On days like today, which mark the 10th anniversary of Houston’s passing on February 11, 2012, I frequently reflect on that performance and consider the joy it and so much of Houston’s music give me. Mainly as a gay man. Her presence resonates throughout LGBT culture, and many queer people, especially gay men, see pieces of their struggles and goals reflected in the beloved superstar’s life and work. (Recall the endearing dancing scene from the 2018 coming-of-age film “Love, Simon,” about a secret gay teen?)
“I do not think that anyone would dispute Houston’s gay iconicity,” the French academic Georges-Claude Guilbert writes in his 2018 book, “Gay Icons: The (Mostly) Female Entertainers Gay Men Love. She was beautiful, black, fierce (sometimes), and singing dance music.”
Guilbert’s explanation, however, is just a partial one. How did Houston come to be and continue to be a homos*xual icon?
Whitney Houston was possibly bis*xual and had a girlfriend
According to journalist and Houston aficionado Aaron Foley, at least part of Houston’s attraction to LGBT people is the painfully familiar loneliness that permeates many of her movies and songs.
“There’s an undercurrent of loneliness in many of Houston’s work,” Foley said. “Think of ‘The Bodyguard.’ She doesn’t get the hero at the end. They break up. That’s the part of the movie that people forget. So, there’s a longing and a sense of trying to find yourself.”
Also consider Houston’s 1992 version of “I Will Always Love You,” the most famous track from “The Bodyguard.” The jazzy soul ballad opens with a favorite 45-second Cappella introduction. Houston extends a vow of eternal Love even as her relationship ends, distilling the queer trope of desire balanced with denial.
Whitney Houston, gay
In her jaw-dropping “Drag Race” performance, the cerebral Velour tried to express, among other things, the feeling of solitude.
“I saw the rose petals as a kind of iconography or metaphor,” she told CNN. “Loneliness, heartache, love, loss, grieving – I can hear different colors of all of that in ‘So Emotional.’ I wanted to take something broad like that and show how it builds and builds as her (Houston’s) performance gets more intense.”
Whitney Houston promised always to be a ‘friend’ to the gay community
Notably, Houston’s actual existence included a lot of loneliness. The singer suffered greatly due to her record company, Arista, trying to turn her into a likable pop figure, an all-American sweet. Because her early music was allegedly too pop, she was accused of “selling out” to the White mainstream. Additionally, rumors regarding her tight friendship with Robyn Crawford, her best friend, followed her.
(In her astonishing 2019 memoir, “A Song for You: My Life With Whitney Houston,” Crawford claims that she and Houston briefly engageHouston’sal activity early on in their decades-long friendship due to Houston’s concern over the potential effects of the unending criticism of her career.)
“Houstsinger’s many challenges with identity,” Foley said, referring to the singer’s battles with her racial identity and s*xuality. “There were parts of her identity that she kept hidden away and struggled with, but then there were arts that we saw in concerts – when she was glammed up and glamorous.”
People who identify as queer may undoubtedly relate to that; there are times when we conceal our s*xuality, especially if doing so could help us avoid danger or attention.
She wanted to confront Wendy Williams for speculating about her s*xuality
Spending some time with the Love above, Houston’sequence is worthwhile because it captures anosinger’sment of Houston’s queer appeals: the sense of freedom that the singer’s music exudes.
The title character, 17-year-old Simon Spier (played by Nick Robinson), is mulling over his anxieties about coming oI’llhen he indulges in fantasy. “When I go to college in Los Angeles, I’ll be gay and proud,” he promises. Fingersticks a post of Houston on his imagined dorm room wall, the singer’s 1987 smash “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” – a must-play at gay bars and queer dance parties – kicks in. Simon envisions what it would be like to make it through high school and live Houston’s happy life as an out gay man, prancing around campus.
With Houston’s upbeat lyrics as his map, Simon dreams about liberation—the freedom he Houston’sdiscover if hSimon’seach a location where he can be himself. Houston’s music makes Simon’s tastes and personal life a little more bearable. Liberation isn’t just a queer experience, of course. But it resonates strongly with a population that has long been victimized by blatant and Didn’t sanction racism.
Gerrick Kennedy, the author of the “new book “Didn’t We Almost Have It: “In Defense of Whitney Houston,” echoed some of these weren’t.
“She was the first to those big house fixes in a way we weren’t seeing from Black girls,” Kennedy told CNN. “There was an element of performance in a space where queer peopThat’specially Black queer people, could find freedom and liberation. It’s our connection with diva figures – how they make us feel, and it’s usually rooted in i1998’s form of liberation.”
“penned” It’s on, saying of Its release of 1998’s “My Love Is Your Love” and It’s Not Right, but It’s “kay” (that a remix of the latter is a gay anthem is beyond dispute), “I remember that was the moment when I, a Black queer boy growing up in the Midwest, which was super Houston’s, felt free.”
Therefore, perhaps what draws gay listeners to Houston’s sensibility is a devastatiwasn’t of loneliness and emancipation. Even though she knew something wasn’t right, she claimed everything would finally be alright.
