too gay

The Daily Show Pits “New Gay” Versus “Old Gay” — are Gays Abandoning their Own Culture?

You will, no doubt, recall the OUTRAGE two months ago when The Advocate named Minneapolis as the gayest city in America. Oh no she didn’t.

Now The Daily Show has sat up and taken notice, dispatching a hangdog Jason Jones to compare “old gay” San Francisco and “new gay” Minneapolis.

What’s the difference? Well, “old gay” is San Francisco and rainbow boas and dildos and parades. Lots of parades! If we’re not having a parade of our own, we’re trying to bust our way into someone else’s.

“New gay” is Minneapolis and riding your bike and running some errands and eating bread. In other words, “the new gay” is the same as “straight.”

So, sure, these Minneapolans may be gay — in that they are two dudes in love with each other — but take away our centuries of LGBT culture, from Sappho to Walt Whitman to Billie Jean King to Ru Paul, and what are you left with? How gay can you possibly be without all that stuff?

“New gay” is also, according to The Daily Show segment, shopping at Target — which as luck would have it is headquartered in Minneapolis. You know, Target, the retailer that funneled money to Republican Representatives Doug Magnus and Kurt Zellers? Who are both likely to support a double-ban on gay Minnesotans getting married?

Apparently “new gay” is giving your money to anti-gay politicians. Or at least, not being familiar enough with your own community to know any better.

So, which gay lifestyle do you prefer? Queerty’s Daniel Villareal weighs in:

I hate to sound all boring and hipstery but going entirely by The Daily Show‘s coverage, I’d much prefer the banana-bread gayness of Minneapolis (sans Target) to the non-stop leather fist-fest that is San Francisco. Of course, I’ve only been in each city for about ten minutes. So while we may disagree over which city best represents modern gay culture, we can all agree that a gay chorale director fucking Jason Jones would have made good television.

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