Pride Goers Identify Their Favorite Gay Icons

You might’ve read that the hookup app Jack’d recently polled its users about their favorite gay icons, with celebs-du-jour like Michael Sam and Frank Ocean coming out on top.

Don’t get us wrong, those guys seem nice, but icons? Come on. Absorb a little queer culture, Jack’d users.

We headed out to the Pride festivities in West Hollywood to see if actual LGBTs have any queer cultural markers that go back more than a few years. The responses break down pretty much as you’d expect along generational lines, but there are some surprises in there as well.

 

When pressed to come up with a queer icon who predates recent history, this group agreed that “Cher‘s mom” was their pick.

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Speaking of gay icons, here’s Prop 8 plaintiffs Jeff and Paul, enjoying some fun and sun.

 

Trevor and Robert identified Lindsay Lohan and Lady Gaga as their favorite gay icons. Ho hum.

 

Evan and Jacoby ham it up for the camera. They like Britney and Ricky Martin. But when pressed to come up with more classic figures, they strained themselves to reply with Cher and Madonna. OK, good work, boys.

 

Gio, Ethan, George and Jesse sure are nice to look at, but their picks were all Lana Del Rey and whoever. Jesse redeemed himself somewhat by clarifying that he liked Shania Twain, but Shania Twain from the ’90s.

 

Cozy and Kit couldn’t think of any gay icons. Nope, not a single one. Nice hat, though.

 

Here’s the outstanding Marky Makeup, who gets to draw all over cute boys for a living.

 

Mark, Dudley and the delightful Ben Cuevas won pride by providing the very best responses we heard. The first name off their tongues was Joe Dallesandro, the Andy Warhol hunk, and Russian boundary-breaker Pavel Petel. That was followed by Madeline Kahn, Paul Lynde, and George Sanders (who played Addison DeWitt in All About Eve, and later took his own life, leaving behind one of the great suicide notes that read “I am leaving because I am bored.”). And because things were getting a little heavy, they also threw in George Takei for good measure.

 

Peter and Dave responded “Tom of Finland,” and then wandered off before we had time to ask if we could go home with them.

 

Brock, Kyle and Danica like Wanda Sykes and Milk (the Drag Queen, not Harvey).

 

Kiona, Jennifer, Cyndi and Erika all like Ellen, and so do we.

 

Nick and Phoenix like Cheyenne Jackson and Ellen. Not bad.

 

Megan, Ali and Christian like Ellen, Neil Patrick Harris, and a guy named Ren Gutierrez who spoke at college orientation.

 

 

Here’s the Community Grand Marshals of the parade.

 

Joe and Derek look up to Madonna and Cher. Who can take issue with that?

 

Rachel, Ted, Gabby and Tim cited Boy George and Elton John. Good answer, kids.

 

Matt and Will are visiting from Tennessee. Ricky Martin came to mind, but then Matt revealed that he dated the brother of Danny Roberts from The Real World, and they were both great guys.