Olivia Newton-John: Grease star, four-time Grammy winner, environmental activist, and… accidental gay beard?
Redditor @ladiloera revealed in a post that that Newton-John’s visage on a Xanadu poster fooled his mom nearly four decades ago.
Related: Olivia Newton-John is still the one we want
“I was outed to my parents in 1981,” @ladiloera wrote. “My mother screamed at me, ‘You can’t be gay, you have an Olivia Newton-John poster.”
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Xanadu, of course, is the 1980 musical film about a struggling painter falling in love with a roller-skating Olympian Muse, played by Newton-John, who inspires him to open a roller disco with a former jazz musician, played by Gene Kelly in his final film role.
Despite its commercial and critical failure, Xanadu developed a queer following that has only intensified in the last 40 years. It’s the fourth film featured on the Movies That Made Us Gay podcast. “From the Holly Hobbie costumes, to new wave dance numbers and animated musical sequences, Xanadu is like a gay pre-teen fever dream,” the podcasters rave.
The LGBTQ+ film festival Outfest hosted a sold-out Xanadu Sing-Along event in 2002. ”It’s a mess of a movie,” Outfest programmer Shannon Kelley said at the time. ”But it’s our mess.”
Related: ‘The Real O’Neals’ re-enacts Olivia Newton-John’s iconic “Physical” vid
And Anne Dorsen, director of the stage parody Xanadu Live!, called it ”the queerest movie that’s not actually about being gay.”
Anyway, a lot of Redditors could relate to @ladiloera’s post, including the commenter who wrote that his Britney Spears poster had the same effect!
Anthonyshine
LOVE this!!! When my mother found out I was gay she said literally said the same thing! “How can you be gay? You had posters of Charlie’s Angels and Wonder Woman all over you wall?” LMAO
ScottOnEarth
That’s too funny! An inadvertent decoy.
ThinkPlease
With all due respect to Olivia Newton-John, who I rather like, that Xanadu poster is one of the gayest things I have ever seen.
EdWoody
I had a school friend who was obsessed with Top Gun. When he caught me staring at the poster on his wall, he said “You’re staring at Kelly McGillis, aren’t you?” “Mmm-hmm” I mumbled, while my head was filled with visions of Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer and their beach volleyball match…
ScottOnEarth
Hilarious! I had the same issue with Madonna posters. I’ve never watched “Xanadu” but with a description of, ”the queerest movie that’s not actually about being gay,” I just have to watch it!
FlickaNash
Apart from the title number this movie is just stupendously boring. It took the Broadway musical to work it into something actually campy and enjoyable. We watched the movie before seeing the show and were shocked at how it wasn’t anywhere near the coke-fueled train wreck we were expecting.
KJ
In 2016, at the age of just less than 60, I got to meet and hug Olivia, telling her that she was my diva before I knew I was supposed to have one, which made her laugh. Bucket list!