Uses of Nostalgia in Musical Politicization of Homo/Phobic Myths in Were the World Mine, The Big Gay Musical, and Zero Patience

For many gay men, the admiration of classic musicals in cinema and theater is queer nostalgia. Classical Broadway, West End, and Hollywood musicals, e.g. The Wizard of Oz, The Gang’s All Here (including Carmen Miranda’s unforgettable song ‘The Lady with the Tuti-Fruti Hat’ accompanied by female dancers holding giant phallic bananas), Meet Me in St. Louis, American in Paris, Oklahoma!, The Sound of Music, and more recent musical films like Cabaret about the promiscuous and highly queer atmosphere in a sassy Berlin cabaret during the Weimar Republic, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (a cult film adapted into a stage musical in London in 2009), the ABBA musical Mamma Mia (premiered as a stage musical in London in 2009 and adapted to cinema in 2008), Billy Elliot (a 2000 British drama film about a working-class boy who becomes a ballet dancer; adapted for the theater in London in 2005), and We Will Rock You (a West End musical since 2002 based on Queen’s hit songs and the life of the late gay megastar Freddie Mercury) have all been appropriated and queered by vast gay audiences, celebrated and worshipped as essential part of modern gay counterculture.