The Dictionary of Homophobia (138 page)

The Millstone Around the Neck
The unbridled spirit that flourished during the 1920s and 1930s did not survive the outbreak of World War II. Despite the threat of repression, homosexuality was tolerated in France during the German occupation (provided it was out of sight), although the young “swing kids” of the
zazou
movement, associated with the fashionable swing music of the period, were subjected to homophobic treatment. Suggestions of this can be found in some little-known songs, such as Georges Milton’s “Zazou et zouza,” which advocated the internment of gay
zazous
.

During the repressive climate in France inherited from the Vichy administration after liberation (for example, the discriminatory Vichy law of 1942 that forbade homosexual relations with a minor under the age of twenty-one was reaffirmed in 1945), allusions to homosexuality in song became quite rare. A popular waltz by Ouvrard in 1946, entitled “Julot … prout … prout,” (Julot, fart, fart) told the story of a bad boy sentenced to hard labor who returns completely homosexual. Two years later, Lily Fayol recorded a song (written by André Hornez) entitled “Entre ses bras” (In his arms), whose second verse is without equal:

When he took me in his arms / I asked myself: What is it about him? / He puts on airs / And makes pouty faces / When he moves there’s a little too much tra-la-la! / He would sigh and say: “Be careful / You’re messing my perm!” / How his habits / Exasperate me / So I dropped him right then and there!

(Across the Atlantic, Broadway stage productions occasionally featured characters who were gay or effeminate: caricatures, more or less, or at least masculine actors in drag. The more significant examples can be found in shows such as 1938’s
Hellzapoppin,
1941’s
Lady in the Dark
, 1944’s
Mexican Hayride
, 1948’s
As the Girls Go
, and 1948’s
Where’s Charley?
)

In Paris in 1950, the Empire revue featured a sketch entitled
Les Scandales parallèles
(Parallel scandals), full of less-than-charitable allusions to the habits of gay French cabaret singer Charles Trenet (which resulted in a few encounters with the law). In 1953, singer Robert Rocca performed “Ils en sont tous” (They’re all like that) at the Caveau de la Huchette, a surrealistic song which vividly described an imaginary village where everyone was homosexual. In 1957, Guy Béart took a moralistic approach with his song “Qu’on est bien” (We’ll be all right): “
Certains jouent quand même / les atouts de même couleur / Libre à eux, moi j’aime / Les valets pour les dam’s / les trèfles pour les coeurs
” (Some people like to play / Trumps of all the same suit / Unlike them, I prefer / Jacks to go with queens / And clubs to go with hearts). However, these are only a few isolated examples; for the most part, homophobia among French songwriters in the 1950s took the form of self-censorship. This attitude corresponded with the intent of the gay magazine
Arcadie
, started by André Baudry in 1954, which advocated homosexuality provided it was discreet and respectful.

However, despite Hélène Martin’s courageous musical adaptation of Jean Genet’s
Condamné à mort
(Sentenced to death), the music of the early 1960s echoed the style of the early 1930s, denouncing the “fashion” of homosexuality. In 1962, the very macho Georges Brassens included a couplet on the subject in his song “Les Trompettes de la renommée” (The trumpets of fame): “
Sonneraient-elles plus fort ces divines trompettes / si, comme tout un chacun, j’étais un peu tapette? / Si je me déhanchais comme une demoiselle / et prenais tout à coup des allures de gazelle
” (Would those divine trumpets sound even louder / If, like each of them, I was just a little bit gay? / If I swayed my hips like a lady / Or looked doe-eyed at the drop of a hat?). The following year, Guy Béart riffed on the subject of sexual ambiguity with “Le Monsieur et le jeune homme” (The gentleman and the young man). Then in 1965, Henri Tachan launched a salvo against “Les PD” (Fags) on his first album, with rather caustic lyrics: “
Moi qui suis, Dieu soit loué, fierté congénitale / Le chevalier servant des amours dites normales / Du haut de mon donjon, je rêve de chasser / Jusqu’au dernier impie cette secte infernale
” (I am, God be praised, congenitally proud / A knight in the service of the normal kind of love / From the walls of my castle, I dream of vanquishing / To the very last sinner, this infernal sect). In 1967, Jacques Brel took his turn at cultivating homophobia with a rewritten version of his hit “Les Bonbons,” in which the hero intends to give candy to his girlfriend but, after being seduced by her younger brother, he offers them to him instead. The subject would be simply amusing if not for the fact that Brel was using it to quash accusations of being effeminate.

Around the same time, Fernandel was amusing audiences with “Il en est” (He’s one), which was full of suggestive innuendo and poor taste: “
Ta ta ta ta ta ta
…
Prout! Prout!
” (La la la la la la … Fart! Fart!”). The lyrics were written by Michel Rivgauche in 1966; when recently asked about the material, he declared that he never intended to be spiteful. He did admit that the song would never be considered acceptable today; as far as he was concerned, back then homosexuality was simply one of many subjects for jokes. Thus, the “popular” tendency of music of the period remained close to the spirit of the 1930s, when “aunties” were mocked and lesbians were ignored. Playing on the audience’s assumed homophobia, dramatist Jean Poiret explored this tendency in 1972 with his play
La Cage aux folles
, which went on to become a hit French film in 1978.

Figureheads
Following the events of May 1968 in France, which included the involvement of a newly radical homosexual movement, French society became more open-minded. Over-the-counter sales of the birth control pill (legal since December 19, 1967) and a new sexual freedom largely championed by young people were accompanied by an increased
tolerance
toward homosexuals. Singer-songwriter Michel Polnareff, sensitive to the subject of masculinity, played on this ambiguity in “Je suis un homme” (I am a man), written in 1970 in reaction to the homophobia of which he found himself victim: “
Les gens qui me voient / Passer dans la rue / Me traitent de pédé / Mais les femmes qui le croient / N’ont qu’à m’essayer
” (People who see me / Pass by on the street / Treat me like a queer / But the women who think so / Need but to give me a try). Following Frédéric Botton’s sly take on the subject of homosexuality with the metaphorical “Les Pingouins” (The penguins), composed for Juliette Gréco in 1970, Charles Aznavour decided to tackle the subject in 1972 with “Comme ils disent” (Like they say). Its quietly familiar references, such as “J’habite seul avec Maman …” (I live alone with Mother), contrasted sharply with the militant image of the Front homosexual d’action révolutionnaire (Homosexual Front for Revolutionary Action) in the streets of Paris around the same time. Thus, popular song’s treatment of homosexuality changed from simple mockery to a sort of pathos, in keeping with the more sympathetic image of homosexuality as presented in the
media
. Nevertheless, thanks to its good intentions, the impact of Aznavour’s song was like a tidal wave, coming as it did from such a famous singer. Aznavour himself said the song was meant to advocate tolerance: “It’s a love song, like any other … except maybe even more important.” In the few gays bars and nightclubs of the era (such as Le Nuage in St-Germain-des-Prés or Le Sept on rue Ste-Anne), “Comme ils disent” was undeniably the most successful song in France in 1972. The same maudlin quality appeared later in a song by the singer known as Dalida: “
Pour ne pas vivre seul / des filles aiment des filles / et l’on voit des garçons / épouser des garçons
” (So as not to live alone / Girls will love girls / And boys can be seen / Marrying boys). Here, homosexuality was presented as a solution of substitution.

The last singer of this period who dared to attack homosexuality aggressively was Michel Sardou, who in 1970 lashed out against homosexuals in the
army
(“
Le rire du sergent / La folle du régiment / La préférée du capitaine des dragons / Le rire du sergent / Un matin de printemps / M’a fait comprendre comment gagner du gallon
” [The sergeant’s laughter / The regiment’s dandy / The dragon captain’s favorite girl / The sergeant’s laughter / One spring morning / Taught me how one can earn ones stripes]), then touched on the subject of pedophilia at boarding school in “Le Surveillant général” (The dean of boys). He added a sort of coda to his homophobic repertoire in 1976 with “J’accuse” (I blame), written by Pierre Delanoë: “
J’accuse les hommes de croire des hypocrites / Moitié pédés, moitié hermaphrodites / Qui jouent les durs pour enfoncer du beurre / Et s’agenouillent aussitôt qu’ils ont peur
” (I blame people for believing those hypocrites / Half queer, half hermaphrodite / Who pretend to be hard just to cut through the butter / Yet drop to their knees as soon as they’re scared). But this would be the last of this genre, although in 1978, Serge Gainsbourg wrote a rather enigmatic song for the singer known as Régine, which included the lyrics “
Les femmes, ça fait pédé / C’est très efféminé / tellement efféminé / qu’ça fait pédé
” (Women, they look like fags/ It’s so effeminate / So very effeminate / That they look like fags), while Serge Lama attempted an awkwardly compassionate song: “Les amitiés particulières, c’est quand les filles nous font peur” (Special relationships, because we’re scared of girls).

Reversing the Trend
With homosexuality more visible in the 1970s, the 1976 French rock opera
Starmania,
written by Michel Berger and Luc Plamondon, featured an androgynous character named Ziggy (a reference to the androgynous character of Ziggy Stardust, created a few years earlier by David Bowie); an English-language version of the show, entitled
Tycoon
, appeared in 1992, with new lyrics by Tim Rice. Throughout the show, Ziggy is accompanied by Marie-Jeanne, a typical “fag hag”; together, they sing “La Chanson de Ziggy” (“Ziggy’s Song”) and “Un garçon pas comme les autres” (A boy unlike all the others; renamed “Ziggy” in
Tycoon
); the latter song became the hymn of the new gay generation in France: “
Oui, je sais, il aime les garçons / Je devrais me faire une raison
” (Yes, I know, he likes boys / I should find myself a reason).This extremely positive depiction of homosexuality, the first large-scale popular work to do so, was due to the efforts of lyricist Plamondon, a Quebecer, who adopted an American-style openness on the subject. The authors of Broadway musicals, many of whom were gay themselves, were now regularly casting homosexuality in a favorable light, and took every opportunity to denounce homophobia in their work. Examples included
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
(1962),
Coco
(1969),
Applause
(1970),
Sugar
(a 1972 adaptation of the film
Some Like It Hot
), and later, an English-language adaptation of
La Cage aux Folles
(1983).

The production of
Starmania
at the Palais des Congrès in April 1979 coincided with the success of Alain Marcel’s play
Essayez donc nos pédalos
(Take our pedalos for a ride), one of the first stage productions in France to depict homosexuals as neither caricatures nor objects of pity. These shows set the stage for Francis Lalanne’s shocking 1980 song “La plus belle fois qu’on m’a dit je t’aime, c’est un mec qui me l’a dit” (“The Most beautiful time I heard I love you was when a guy said it to me). It was one of the first songs to attempt to erase the lines between straight and gay attraction: “
A chacun son amour/ C’est pas l’mien voilà tout / Aimer les filles ou les garçons / C’est aimer de toute façon
” (To each their own love / It’s just not mine, that’s all / Loving girls or loving boys / Is loving, no matter what). Even more shocking were songs recorded by Jean Guidoni, all written by Pierre Philippe, which went along the same lines: “Je marche dans les villes” (I walk the city), “Viril” (Virile), and “Sirocco (Est-ce que c’est bon l’amour avec les militaires?)” (Sirocco [Is it good to love a soldier?]). From that point on, it became increasingly unacceptable in France to write a song that was blatantly homophobic. This evolution in thinking was taken to the legislative level in 1982 when the
discriminatory
law regarding sexual consent was abolished. Meanwhile, the French songs of the 1980s often handled the subject of homosexuality with ambiguity; these included Dalida’s “Depuis qu’il vient chez nous” (Since he came home), Taxi Girl’s “Cherchez le garçon” (Finding the boy), Indochine’s “Le Troisième sexe” (The third sex), Barbara’s “Qui est qui?” (Who is who?), and Mylène Farmer’s “Maman a tort” (Mama was wrong) and “Sans contrefaçon” (No imitation).

In 1990, Pierre Grosz adapted the Spanish group Mecano’s hit song into French, “Une femme avec une femme” (A woman with a woman), containing a hitherto unheard-of tone: “
Deux femmes qui se tiennent la main / Ça n’a rien qui peut gêner la morale / Là où le doute s’installe / C’est que ce geste se fasse sous la table
” (Two women holding hands / Is nothing to be ashamed of / But what is hard to understand / Is when it has to happen under the table). Michel Sardou, too, has a radical change of heart in 1991 with “Le Privilège,” inviting more understanding and tolerance: “
Ça va faire drôle à la maison / Un garçon qui aime un garcon
” (It’ll be kind of funny having at home / A boy who loves a boy).

The
AIDS
crisis marked a turning point in the history of gay culture, and it is within this context that a new trend in songwriting emerged. Like many of the AIDS prevention campaigns at the time, songs written on the subject avoided mentioning homosexuals, despite the fact that they were the group most affected by it. Only around 1995, more than ten years after the introduction of AIDS, did French songs start to lament its gay victims; these included Zaniboni’s “Sid’habitude,” Julos Beaucarne’s “Carnet d’adresse” (Address book), and Jean Guidoni’s “N’oublie jamais qui tu es” (Never forget who you are). Over the years, the visibility of homosexuals (especially men) was heightened as a result of the AIDS crisis; in particular, this visibility was marked by an impassioned activism. Meanwhile, a new homophile undercurrent in French pop music started around the mid-1990s; Juliette, Mouron, Etienne Daho, Lara Fabian, Zazie, and Renaud all released songs that were perfectly in sync with the advent of the PaCS (Pacte civil de solidarité; Civil solidarity pact: French legislation advocating domestic partnerships, including homosexual unions) debates.