That’s so gay!

Thu, 14 Sep 2000 19:00:00 +0000

If you live in a decent-sized city and you are gay (or straight with a lot of gay friends), you or someone you know has declared something gay in the last week. Not gay as in homosexual, but gay in that grade-school "That is so gay!" way, i.e. lame, wrongheaded, queer in the original sense.

This is happening all around you. That woman's hairdo? Gay. That book jacket? Gay. The fact that Dick and Lynne Cheney won't talk about their lesbian daughter? Gay gay gay.

"I use it so much I don't even think about it. It's like coughing," says Jose Muqoz, associate professor at New York University and author of "Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics."

"Everyone loves it," says Cris Beam, a 28-year-old writer in Los Angeles. "I remember saying it at the Gay Pride Parade this year and it was hilarious -- everyone was so thrilled to have it come back, because we'd all forgotten about it. We wanted to say it again and again and again."

And it's not just gay people who are saying it. Those gay-acting straight men are saying it, as are straight women who either have a critical mass of gay friends or have slept with enough women that they feel they can say whatever the hell they want.

Salon.com > Nancy Updike

That’s so gay!