YMCA

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Aug 26, 2004, at 4:32 PM, Jim Landau is puzzled:

> The latest in the McGreevy soap opera concerns the Surf, which is the
> local
> minor-league baseball team here in Atlantic City.

> "announcer Greg Maiuro [was fired] after he dedicated a between-innings
> rendition of the song "YMCA" to McGreevey during a game on Aug. 17. The
> 1970s hit song by the Village People is widely considered a gay
> anthem."
>
> Is it true that "YMCA" is a "gay anthem"?

absolutely.  it was intended as such by the VP (who were a flagrantly
coded set of gay male icons), and instantly caught on as such.  a call
to the "young man!" to go the YMCA (scene of gay male sexual liaisons
for at least half a century).  then, things took a strange turn, and
the athletic image of the Y, plus the wild enthusiasm of the song,
allowed it to become a sports anthem; some naive person or persons must
have provided the cross-over.

i'm sure that sports fans are as baffled by the idea that this is a gay
anthem as gay people are by the idea that this is a macho sports
anthem.  (not that gay and macho are distant from each other in the
real world -- quite the contrary, in some circles -- but they are
distant from each other in the gender ideology of our culture.)

there's a lot of randomness to history.

arnold