People are protesting that we must boycott the film Bohemian Rhapsody because, and I quote, “the trailer erases Mercury’s homosexuality by having him flirt with a woman and whitewashes him!” Which is funny, because these people are basically erasing Freddie Mercury’s bisexuality and his relationship with Mary Austin and whitewashing Rami Malek at the same time in order to back their shitty excuse of an argument.
Now, repeat with me:
Freddie Mercury wasn’t gay, he was bisexual. Rami Malek is Egyptian.
Freddie Mercury wasn’t gay, he was
bisexual. Rami Malek is Egyptian.
Freddie Mercury wasn’t gay, he was
bisexual. Rami Malek is Egyptian.
Freddie Mercury wasn’t gay, he was
bisexual. Rami Malek is Egyptian.
This has been a PSA.
And to all y’all in the notes calling for a boycott because this movie ‘erases his death by AIDS’: this is not an I Walk The Line type biopic that spans decades. It specifically deals with the era of one particular song (guess which one). Do some research before you start with this nonsense.
Where the fuck is this coming from? Is it the outrage lifestyle community seizing an opportunity to be angry and wrong? Is it the stan community going so hard for him they’ve come full circle?
Freddie Mercury, like many people in the sexual alphabet soup, had relationships with people of different genders during the course of his life. He hooked up with female and male groupies. He had male and female long-term partners. He called Mary Austin the “love of [his] life” and left her almost everything when he died; by then, he’d been in a committed relationship with a man for years. (He was also named in the will, so it wasn’t an accident.) According to his bandmates, he didn’t like to talk about his sexuality, but he didn’t try to hide it from them. He enjoyed leaning into the campy ambiguity that was in style at the time.
The ambiguity ended when he contracted HIV and very publicly succumbed to AIDS. He suffered the consequences of actually being queer, unlike the straight musicians who appropriated its trappings to sell records. (I’m looking at you, Prince and David Bowie! Yeah, I fucking said it! Show me your ragey think pieces about that actual representation issue, you hypocrites.)
One thing’s for damn sure: NO ONE IS LABORING UNDER THE IMPRESSION FREDDIE MERCURY WAS STRAIGHT. When people think of him, they think of A) Bohemian Rhapsody, and B) AIDS. The ghoulish fascination with his illness and death, and the steady stream of biographical works that sensationalized those things, became so rampant in the 90s that it threatened to permanently eclipse everything else about his life, achievements, and cultural impact.
So, yeah, it’s okay that the TRAILER for this movie didn’t put a spotlight on him being into dudes. Don’t @ me.
this is what plays when you’re dying and your life is flashing before your eyes
*puts this on my End Of The World playlist*
Ok @peachcrushedvelvet is 100% accurate but here are several other situations I feel this beautiful creation could apply to
1. End of the world type of experience as noted above by @nero-neptune i.e. meteors falling and people running, things exploding and desperately trying to survive
2. Desperately running through your house avoiding attackers (guns, projectiles, of some type)
3. You’re in a library and you accidentally knock something over which knocks over all of the shaves domino style and you’re running down the hallway with them falling in the background.
Everybody please contribute
4. You finally experience love at first sight, but they’re in the middle of a bank heist and you’re getting caught in the cross fire
5. You’re getting arrested in roller skates at the laundromat
6. Intergalactic space travel in the form of a gay cruise
someone: repeating things that reinforce a negative self view and world outlook such as the oh so popular tumblr niche of nihilistic ‘i want to die and everything is awful’ “jokes” me, in recovery, trying not to get dragged into that with them:
fivepercent 