Why is there not yet such a thing as a lesbian icon? I’m not just talking about lesbians who have become famous — spare me your Melissa Etheridges, your Tracy Chapmans. Nor do I consider any of the zillion indie female vocalists who are beloved within the lesbian community to be candidates for iconic status—we all went through our Ani DiFranco phases, and the less said on that score the better. No, I’m talking about big, loud, fabulous mainstream performers who embody a lesbian aesthetic in the same way that Judy Garland or Madonna do for so many of our gay male brethren. Shouldn’t we have that? We deserve to have that! So, in the interest of getting the ball rolling, I hereby nominate Michael Lee Aday, aka Meat Loaf, to the position of number one (butch) lesbian icon.
Butchness, in women and in men, is an oft-misunderstood and maligned quality. This is particularly pronounced when the distinction is drawn between butchness and its prettier cousin, androgyny. A butch is cruder, more prone to grunts and eruptions than an androgyne, and wears less eye makeup. But a butch is not simply, uncomplicatedly masculine. Butches draw on a wider emotional palette than your standard-issue manly man does. They feel things deeply, and cannot conceal those feelings even if they try.
Although country music is rife with the male variety, butch women have never really found a solid place in popular culture the way their male counterparts have (although, like feminine men, when they do appear they tend to be objects of mockery).
More so even than country music’s male butch stars, Meat Loaf exemplifies everything that’s grand about butchness and lesbianosity in both his music and his public persona. He’s portly and tender, macho and heartfelt. When he comes in as Eddie in the Rocky Horror Picture Show he seems more alien than Dr. Frankenfurter—the only diesel dyke in a production full of fairies. Unfashionable and earnest, no costume has ever succeeded in hiding him or making him a cipher in the manner of a Lady Gaga or a Madonna. Meat Loaf is not enigmatic, and no matter how much dry ice he uses in a live show, he will never, ever wisp.
Like all butches do, Meat Loaf bends gender along an unexpected angle (he’s not masculine, but also beautiful — he’s, uh, the other thing). His physical presence is one of solidity, even lunkishness, which mean that his emotional depths are unexpected and can sink you like an iceberg. “This is my anger/this is my shame/these are my insecurities/that I can’t explain” he belts and growls in All of Me, (a Ben E. King cover, which is also a top contender for the most lesbionic song ever written). Or, in the song that introduced me to him as an artist, he promises that he “Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” Big Boo-like, Meat Loaf invites the audience’s laughter in many of his lyrics and then tries, gamely, to laugh along — but in the end he wears his heart too close to his sleeve to be comfortable as a subject of mockery. His struggle for validation, his yearning to be taken seriously even as he plays the jester, all speaks to a part of the human experience that most other icons seem to spend their lives avoiding. When you listen to Meat Loaf vocally pouring his heart and soul into hits like “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” despite the fact that it is basically a novelty song, it’s right out in the open. That’s butch.
Okay, so what little evidence there is about Mr. Aday’s political convictions indicates that he may, just possibly, be a Republican. The lesbian community takes our politics pretty seriously, and so there’s no denying that a guy whose single foray into political expression was an endorsement of Mitt Romney in 2012 might be a bit of a hard sell. But just imagine a world in which, decades ago, Meat Loaf had gained the sort of committed, die-hard lesbian fandom he so richly deserved. Not only could he have served as a role model for young lesbians and provided a fashion template more creative than that already provided by the nation’s lumberjacks. He could have injected some much needed fun into a lesbian culture which has, let’s face it, tended slightly towards the emo and humorless at times. [Ed. note: HOW DARE YOU] And, in return, a lesbian fanbase could have prevented his downward spiral, diverting him off the path that ultimately ended in Republicanism. Seriously, the man was in Hair and the Picture Show — this needn’t have happened. I’m going to go ahead and say that he only supported Mitt Romney in 2012 because the poor guy felt hurt that the lesbians of the world had failed to recognize him as the exemplar of the butch lesbian aesthetic that he was born to be.
So, why didn’t lesbians embrace Meat Loaf ages ago, when he was in his prime? I blame internalized homophobia—because it makes a good stock excuse, for everything. But seriously, unlike the wild and wooly excesses of gay male culture, lesbians have always seemed to me to be a little bit reluctant to proclaim our identities too loudly when those identities diverge from what the dominant culture respects and validates. How else can we explain the lesbian tendency to hide ourselves away at folk festivals or sparsely attended poetry slams [Ed. note: WHAT ABOUT DINAH SHORE, WE DO FUN S–OKAY POINT TAKEN]? Rather than claiming pieces of the dominant culture and making them our own we take the quiet, retiring route, at times to the point of abandoning our heroes once they “sell out” or get too popular.
Everything that lesbians value, and everything we can’t escape about ourselves, can be found in the career of Michael Lee Aday. We are solid physically and volatile emotionally. We are not cool. We do not wisp. We have spectacularly bad taste in haircuts. We get laughed at. We are heartfelt. We are Meat Loaf.
Tags: heroes, i was not expecting to be so moved by a piece about meat loaf but here we are, lesbians, let’s do it, meat loaf
Dinah Shore? Are you An Old like me, Objecting Editor?
Interestingly coincidence: last night I hosted a queer-lady themed storytelling event called “Tales OF The L Word” and in prep for it I watched the 1st season of The L Word, since I am fickly in my commitment to our culture and had not seen it before. So I only just learned, from the show, that that Dinah Shore event existed.
I WENT TO DINAH SHORE WITH MY COLLEGE GIRLFRIEND IN 2009
SRSLY WERE YOU BORN 60?
No offense to Mr Aday but what’s wrong with actual gay rights activist and hot butch k.d. lang?
this was my immediate thought, as well.
I loved this piece, but yes, this. k.d. forever.
okay my first _non-mix tape_ was KD Lang but Paradise By The Dashboard Light is at least as convincing as Constant Craving.
A whole bunch of Meat Loaf was on the first mix-tape any human ever made for me, right alongside The Offspring and Green Day and a chunk of the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, and I have never let it leave rotation. This essay is A+
this was so convincing I had to google “Meat Loaf gender,” which will hopefully never happen again
I am not a lesbian but identify as a non-wispy person with short hair, a flamboyant wardrobe, and a lot of feelings so I am happy that you all have found someone to embody that for you.
When I was a freshman in college, a friend and I performed a drag version of the music video for “Paradise By The Dashboard Light,” and the beauty and light and absolute lesbian-ness of Meat Loaf has never left me. He even inspired part of my drag name (Marvin Zazz).
Even though I am no longer a lesbian (and now a dude), I still look to Meat Loaf in times of aesthetic crisis, and he hasn’t failed me yet.
My college roommate and I performed “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” at our 21st birthday party
My brother and his wife had it at their wedding reception. Which isn’t in keeping with this piece, but it was adorable.
My mother’s family sings it with gusto (and with the aid of pool cue microphones) late on the first night of our family reunion every two years. Same pub, same jukebox, same pool table, same shots-induced poor decisions every time.
That is beautiful.
Has anyone listened to “California Isn’t Big Enough,” co-written with the indefatigable Justin Hawkins of the Darkness? Go listen to it. With headphones, though. Not really safe for work.
Although I should probably know better, I really like it. Even though it refers to specific sexual anatomy in the lyrics, I feel like the sheer confidence and feeling projected in the song cross boundaries. Like, I feel really good singing along to it.
This article is perfect in every way.
Not a lesbian, but I listen to Meatloaf. Unironically. But if you’re looking for a non-emo icon, you’ve got the wrong guy. Lord but his lyrics are some of the most fucking emo lyrics ever and that is 99% of why I love listening to him.
I thought we all agreed Bruce Springsteen was the ideal non-lesbian lesbian icon? We’re worth it!
I agree completely.
Pictured: me, in an intensely unflattering picture, wearing a pleather jacket, minutes after performing “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” at my 21st birthday party, in a sea of queer women.
I could build a life inside this photo.
As a die-hard Meat Loaf fan* and bisexual lover of all creatures butch, I am ALL IN for this.
(*I don’t even know how many people I’ve talked into performing Paradise at karaoke with me. One time in college my friend Tara said that I should call my autobiography “Paradise Lost and Found by the Dashboard Light” and I don’t have a very interesting life or the motivation to write a book, but it is still my title if I ever do.)
john goodman in roseanne
YES. I have had a lifelong crush on John Goodman because of Roseanne.
When they’re cleaning up in the cafe where my boyfriend works, they play Bat Out of Hell. Their boss hates it but he’s given up trying to prevent them putting it on. I sit on a stool drinking the last coffee while the men clean up around me and we all sing along. It is great.
My mother bought a motorcycle about ten years ago as part of a midlife crisis (that also included law school). I told her I was cool with it but if she died in a motorcycle crash I was going to play all nine minutes of Bat Out Of Hell at her funeral and no one would be able to stop me. I still stand by that.
My lesbian icon is Miss Rebecca Hubbard from Postman Pat.
As a dyke and someone who knows every lyric, every riff, from Bat Out Of Hell, thank you for this.
I saw Lea Delaria play Eddie in the Broadway revival of Rocky Horror Picture Show. She came down into the audience and kissed my friend on the nose. I have not yet gotten over the utter devastation from having been ignored.
Grace Jones never gets her due from anybody smdh
SRSLY WERE YOU BORN 60?
This is great, GREAT. Big fandork. One minor correction — “All of Me” isn’t a Ben. E. King cover; it was written by a couple of his collaborators. (As way of credentials — and I use the term loosely– I wrote this about the album: http://musicfeeds.com.au/album/meat-loaf-hell-in-…
http://musicfeeds.com.au/album/meat-loaf-hell-in-…
aren’t Moms Mably, k.d. lang, Fran Liebowitz, Rosie O’Donnell, Camille Paglia, Ellen deG, Rachel Maddow lesbian icons?
I’m gonna go ahead and copy-paste from the article here: “No, I’m talking about big, loud, fabulous mainstream performers who embody a lesbian aesthetic in the same way that Judy Garland or Madonna do for so many of our gay male brethren. Shouldn’t we have that? We deserve to have that!”
Brilliant article, am totally feeling Meatloaf as the new non-lesbian lesbian icon!
‘For Crying Out Loud’ could definitely fit the bill for a lesbian song, even ‘Modern Girl’, ‘Bat out of Hell’ is very Dykes on Bikes also!
The Boss is a good choice too but isn’t he already, like, EVERYBODY’s icon?! ML = tick, tick, tick!!!
I recently saw Rocky horror for the first time in a decade, and the first time since being out. My pop culture knowledge is woefully patchy, so I didn’t know who meatloaf was… I was SO SURE he was a butch woman. SO SURE. And then very sad when my girlfriend told me he wasn’t.
And isn’t his name Dennis Aday? He become my hero and lesbian icon the second he put petal to right-handed metal in Spice World.