Had you ever defended Fred(or yourself as a fan)towards homophobic remarks?

I know it did happen to me mostly in school years.
Remarks wasn't about AIDS , but about campness or not beeing a real men.
Also as teenagers some thought Queen weren't really rock since the key-figure was gay.

It even focused on me for worshiping the man and the band questioning my sexuallity and stuff.( We talk about Greece here, a very macho oriented culture)

In the end i think it did strengthen my connection with Queen rather than the opposite.
Did you had any similar experiences?

I probably had to in school at some point. It's astonishing how many people think all four of them are gay.

One guy was telling me once how Freddie's using autotune on all his studio vocals, especially Bohemian Rhapsody, in order to get them to sound so perfect. Pretty sure his proof was the fact that artists do it nowadays (never mind that the technology didn't exist in the 70s), and that Freddie didn't sound very good at Wembley's Saturday concert (which he took as indicative of Freddie's 'real' unaltered voice, I guess). Stupidity and ignorance sure are frustrating..

^^^ Your comment reminded me of an outstanding stupid moment when a friend was telling me that he could reach those high notes (talking about Show Must Go On) because of beeing gay, for god's sakes !!!

When I was 13 back in 2000, I had printed a photo of Freddie and stuck it to the front of my school diary. I didn't get any bad reactions, except one or two kids asking why I liked "old music". Most of the others kids understood how great Queen was.

I have occasionally defended Freddie from people calling him a poofter. Usually I let them know that they're fucking idiots and their "music" sucks monkey dick. But most people I meet really like Freddie and Queen, even if they're not actual fans.

I once threw a guy out of my shop for stupid remarks. I was selling a copy of the "Mr. Bad Guy" pirate picture disc, and the guy's wife wanted it. He told her "I wouldn't pay money to buy that poof's music". He then looked at me, nodding with a grin as though looking for me to reinforce his stance. Instead, I threw him out.

It may seem petty to some, but I don't stand for homophobic, racist, or any other form of insulting or derogatory remarks in a public setting. Keep your opinions to yourself, or say them in private - but don't make me look the same by association. I'm not gay, but it so happened that the man trading across from me in the market was, and he could hear the comments. Totally unacceptable.

Oh, yeah - and also having to defend myself because of being a Queen fan at school, college and even at university and work. Everyone automatically assumes that you must be gay if you're a fan of Freddie, or think it's acceptable to make silly comments about him being gay.

Regardless of sexual orientation, he was a human being, and a bloody great entertainer. What difference does it make?

Thistleboy and others in the UK might remember the time when Queen were really regarded as a second-rate band, because of no other reason than Freddie's sexuality. Along with that they had also been viewed by the press as more AOR, Radio 2 (which at that time was an insult).

A kind of magic did well because of the massive tour and live aid, and it was OK to like Queen then, even if they weren't as cool as the new romantics. The Miracle did quite well, with I want it all as the lead single (the other singles didn't really do well, but at that time, most bands only did well with the lead single, not like today with downloads pushing everything up the charts), but the absence of a tour and the rumours about Freddie's illness prompted the 'backs to the wall' remarks, and even things like 'well he brought it on himself'.

Then, Innuendo did well, but there was by this point too much in the press about Freddie for things to be ignored, and the press were not sympathetic, and neither were the general (non Queen fans) public. They were very much sleazing up the fact that Freddie was gay and that his AIDS was a direct result of his sexuality, and that somehow, it was deserved. The press and public stopped short of saying it was deserved.

Then, when Freddie died, the whole world realised that they'd lost a legend, and people were genuinely shaken in the general public. Newsreaders announcing it looked visibly upset in a way that perhaps only happened again with Diana (although Diana's aftermath was much greater, and overhyped sadly), and people, for a moment, started to talk about AIDS in terms of it being an unfortunate illness.

By the time the Freddie tribute concert came round, that gave some impetus to people to be able to talk about AIDS in the UK in a way that they hadn't before. However, in Scotland, where I am from, and in other more provincial areas, Freddie was talked about as if he was a murdering satanist. I often heard him spoken about as a terrible man, a man who got what he deserved, a disgusting example of a human, and it was really ignorant and sad. This lasted probably up until the late 1990s, certainly past the release of Made In Heaven.

Everyone here knows that Freddie's AIDS infection was a direct result of unprotected sex, and nobody knew that better than Freddie I'm sure. We all mess up, we all make mistakes, yet we are all conditioned to point the finger at everyone else's mistake rather than focus on our own. I'm sure Freddie probably thought, in his quieter moments, 'I wish'. He certainly didn't need the press or anyone else to tell him that he had made a mistake. Besides, in these first generation infections, people didn't realise AIDS was there, so it's really not right to judge people in that light for things that weren't known about.

The attitude in the press was complete homophobia. If a man sleeps with a thousand woman, he's a stud. A thousand men, he's gross. If a woman sleeps with a thousand men, she's a slut. It's really terrible that we still - even today - judge people by how they live their private lives rather than how they treat other people. But this was always the case.

I notice that the atmosphere surrounding AIDS has thawed. People talk about it with respect and love, and in terms of compassion for those afflicted -patients, friends and families, and that's wonderful. It's wonderful that people want to help and wipe the disease out. We have come a long way in 25 - 30 years. However, there is still a contingent of people who will still say stupid things about AIDS, from 'I hope you catch AIDS and die' to 'well, junkies deserve it' - and it's the wrong attitude. "Junkies" are sometimes our friends and family, and need our support and compassion the way everyone else in society does.

You see, I'm kind of extrapolating now - the whole thing about being slated for liking Queen, because people didn't accept his sexuality and AIDS diagnosis, well, it's much bigger than the gay and AIDS issue. It's a 'no oddballs allowed' issue. It's a 'nobody who doesn't fit in my view of what society should be is allowed here' issue. It's this very issue extrapolated that causes every conflict.

The problem is not with the oddballs, the gays, the junkies, the transgendered (we still aren't very good at accepting transgendered people, sadly), those of different faiths, races, the disabled, the mentally ill, - the problem is with the people pointing the finger and shouting. Everybody has something, right?

Thanks for taking your time writing good posts! :)

Everybody, indeed, has something. No-one's perfect - but we're all human. Regardless of gender, sexual orientation, colour, race, size, weight...whatever.....we all look same when we're pushing up the daisies.

Regarding the "second rate band" part, I don't actually remember that time. I took to Queen around '95, so a bit of a late starter lol - but I am aware of these stories, and further my education through guys like you.

Oh, and my avatar might just give it away - I'm Scottish too :)

Thought-provoking post there, miraclesteinway....

I never really experienced much of having to defend my liking of Queen......perhaps because when I first started getting into them (in my high school years), Queen was actually somewhat 'cool' for a little while in the US......the early 90s, FM Tribute Concert, Bo Rhap in Wayne's World....yeah, I got a few raised eyebrows and snarky comments from people that would see me carrying around a Queen CD or something, but I didn't really care what those people thought anyway, generally they werent anyone I was hanging around with! My social circle back then was more or less the geeks and/or slackers (if that makes any sense...lol) and Queen was actually quite popular among them :D

Nothing personal but I noticed that most of your threads are about Freddie's sexuality. You seem to be very interested in this aspect of his life :-)

When I was in school my friends just thought it weird that I loved this seventies music. Although most of them knew about Freddie and liked him for being this 'badass party guy'. But there was a definite disapproval among older people. The Parsi community is quite small, and many times I have heard our older people voicing their disgust and dislike of Freddie's lifestyle. To the point that they say they feel sorry for his parents!!!! That's when I get really angry, and tell them off.
And once I had a weird experience at Vancouver airport. I was listening to Queen on my iPod, and this lady sat down next to me, and soon we started talking. When we started talking music and I told her how much I loved Queen, she looked a little uncomfortable and said something to the effect that Freddie was not a very 'decent' person and not a good icon for young people!!! Well, I just changed seats as quickly as possible. I don't know whether this was because he was gay or because of his hedonistic lifestyle. But as miraclesteinway put it, if a man sleeps with a thousand woman, he's a stud. A thousand men, he's gross.
The one thing I noticed is that almost everybody who knew Freddie personally has only good things to say about him, and ultimately that is what counts.

To be quite frank, I seen a lot of homophobic remarks coming from many Queen fans who are adement that he was not attracted to men. If you search this forum for any thread relating to Jim Hutton, the speech ranges from "I don't care la la la la head in the sand" to "Jim just used Freddie, who was OBVIOUSLY confused, I mean, he loved Mary, right??"

He was partnered to a man under whose love and care he passed. The disrespect for Freddie and for all queer men and women that I've seen here and elsewhere is disturbing.

^ Does anyone else see the irony in that last sentence?

7th, I think you should edit that very quickly. "Queer" is not the best term to use ;)

I have killed 14 men, 6 women, 4 dwarves, 2 parrots and a ventriloquist's dummy for making off-colour remarks about Fred's sexuality.