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Thoughts on Thor Arnold and Lee Nolan's eleven year friendship with Freddie

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T
Well, hello again Mr Quiet (AKA The First Replier) MattZ.
Thank you for the good wishes. We miss your intellectually
twisted sense of humor here. Did you stop smoking pot?...LOL

Welcome back brother!
B
WOW Thor!!!!
YOU GET TO COLLABORATE ON A SONG HONORING THE LENGEND, THE IMMORTAL, THE KING OF QUEEN???? Holy Hell. Batman....THIS MUST BE YOUR YEAR!!!! .....The Book, and now a song!!?? Congrats!!!! Keep us updated on Both projects!! ....looks like this is the year you get your Hammer back!! Lol
Freddie would just be OVER THE MOON.....With all this love coming his way!!!!!
S
The following excerpted web article from Vox shows why the real side of Freddie needs to be truthfully told by Thor and Lee:

...

Bohemian Rhapsody homophobia:

www.vox.com/2018/11/16/18071460/bohemian-rhapsody-queerphobia-celluloid-closet-aids

"Bohemian Rhapsody loves Freddie Mercury’s voice. It fears his queerness.

...

The most telling moment in Bohemian Rhapsody, the Golden Globe-winning Queen biopic that occasionally stops singing to zoom in on its ostensible subject, Freddie Mercury, is almost certainly an accidental one.

It arrives at the end of the film — July 1985, in the film’s historically inaccurate timeline — when Mercury (Rami Malek) decides to tell the other members of Queen the truth about himself shortly before the biggest concert of their lives.

“I’ve got it,” he says. And they have no idea what “it” is.

Of course they don’t. Though Bohemian Rhapsody spends most of its runtime paying lip service to the idea that Queen is a sort of dysfunctional misfit family, in that moment, the distance between Mercury and his bandmates is undisguisable. “It” has been looming over Mercury’s life for years. “It” has been stalking his community, stealing away people he loves, constantly reminding him of his mortality. Freddie Mercury’s reality, in 1985, was one in which “People just vanished, and everyone was in some kind of panic.” For Mercury, there was only one “it”: AIDS.

But the other members of Queen had no idea what he was talking about. How could they? They were all straight.

...

The result is far more hurtful than your average unconsciously homophobic film. Bohemian Rhapsody is a movie that consciously tries to position a gay man at its center while strategically disengaging with the “gay” part as much as it can, flitting briefly over his emotional and sexual experiences and fixating on his platonic relationship with an ex-girlfriend instead. It strips Mercury of a part of his identity that was as vital to his success as his four-octave vocal range.

...

Bohemian Rhapsody’s toxic depiction of queerness is subtle but pervasive — and completely avoidable

...

The movie reduces queer identity to a series of promiscuous sexual encounters, which it consistently frames as sordid, shameful, illicit, and corrupting. It also builds a whole annoying subplot around the “predatory gay villain” trope, which is a tired, obnoxious cliché that in Bohemian Rhapsody is even more problematic than usual because it’s used to imply that Mercury, a real-life gay man, was somehow corrupted into becoming queer by an opportunistic music industry parasite who doesn’t really care about Freddie at all.

...

Bohemian Rhapsody also refuses to depict gay men having meaningful and deeply emotional relationships. The emotional development of Mercury’s romance with Jim Hutton, his partner of seven years, is relegated to a single conversation. Their entire loving, monogamous relationship is reduced onscreen to a single kiss and a brief hand squeeze.

This minimization makes it an even worse offense that the film does take the time to depict Mercury having a series of promiscuous sexual encounters, which it paints as sordid and shameful. Because Bohemian Rhapsody only equates queerness with sex, and because it frames his queer lifestyle as bad, Mercury’s subsequent AIDS diagnosis is inherently set up and portrayed as a punishment for his queerness.

Not only is all of this negligent, it’s actively harmful. There are numerous real-world examples of how equating queerness to sexually explicit content continues to hurt and marginalize people — such as the many YouTube vloggers and creators who are constantly fighting against algorithms that incorrectly flag their queer content as “explicit” and “not safe for work” solely because it concerns queer people. And the depiction of AIDS as a punishment for gayness, which has found voice in everything from doomsday preachers to Stephen King novels, has historically contributed to the deaths of millions by creating a huge stigma around the disease, making it difficult for researchers to gain public support in the fight for the cure and causing considerable obstacles for many who are diagnosed to receive equitable treatment.

It boggles the mind that this needs to be said at all, but queer people have deep complexity that has nothing to do with sex or dying. Freddie Mercury, a man who wrote a song to his cat and once snuck Princess Diana into a club after disguising her in drag, had so much more personality than Bohemian Rhapsody allows him to have.
Socialism: There's one for you, nineteen for me Should five per cent appear too small Be thankful I don't take it all
S
Continued ...

Bohemian Rhapsody spends more time on Mercury’s wife than any other character, including Mercury himself
To be fair to the film, Bohemian Rhapsody hardly wastes time on characterization at all; there’s almost no onscreen interiority in the film, despite star Rami Malek’s best efforts.

Most of what’s there, however, is devoted to showing us how much Mercury loves his common-law wife, Mary Austin, who’s portrayed as personifying virginal beauty and traditional wholesomeness — everything Mercury could have, the film implies, if only he weren’t tragically queer.

There’s a troubling pattern of movies like this one — for example, the Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game, or the Cole Porter biopic De-Lovely — that diminish the real queer experiences of their subjects in favor of elevating their platonic friendships with the patient, chaste women in their lives.

It’s true that Austin and Mercury had a meaningful and long-lasting friendship in real life. But Bohemian Rhapsody isn’t interested in exploring the positive aspects of their friendship, because it would apparently rather portray Mercury as lost, confused, and fixated on her, just as a straight man might be.

After they break up — because Mercury is gay — Mercury pines for Austin. He longs for her to keep wearing her wedding ring. He’s jealous of her boyfriend. At one point, he begs her to come live with him again, only to be informed that she’s pregnant. This moment is portrayed as a catastrophe that will keep them apart forever — as if it’s unfortunate timing that’s at issue, rather than Mercury’s queer identity.

The only overt sexual moments in the film — which, as it’s rated PG-13, are nearly nonexistent — are between the two of them. In one scene, she’s framed in a diaphanous gown against soft pastel backlighting, while he gazes at her lovingly and then tells her how beautiful she is. It’s a completely straightforward iteration of the (straight) male gaze.

The camera never repeats this framing when Mercury is looking at the men around him, so we’re not allowed to see the queer men around Freddie Mercury as he would have seen them — as beautiful, as lovable, as human. (For the record, there are zero queer women onscreen.) It’s as if Bohemian Rhapsody is afraid of taking us too deeply into Mercury’s mind for any length of time in order to show him actually feeling like a queer man, getting to know other queer people, experiencing the complex personalities of other queer people.

It’s absurd and insulting, and it serves to depict Mercury himself — a legendary creative genius — as infantile and petulant. In the film, he only seems to care about two topics, Mary Austin and his music, because those are the only parts of his life the film seems to feel safe approaching.

...

The film paints Freddie Mercury as somehow choosing his own isolation

The effect of this is that the film strongly implies that Mercury chose to be gay, to surround himself with other queer people, at the risk of losing his “true” friends, his “family.” We’re never actually shown what the other members of Queen really thought about Mercury, or if they even liked him at all, because the film doesn’t care about those relationships either. It nonetheless depicts Queen, as well as Mary Austin, as becoming increasingly exasperated with Mercury’s extravagant lifestyle, his parties, his huge circle of friends — in other words, with all the things that signal his embrace of queer culture and his increased acceptance of his queer identity.

And because Bohemian Rhapsody hasn’t done due diligence in portraying queer identity as something more than shamefaced fashion choices and surreptitious visits to clubs, “it” becomes the only thing the audience is allowed to take away from Mercury’s queerness. Not that it made him beautiful, made him erotic, made him a rock star, but that it left him dead.

...

Instead, the film winds up being the last thing Mercury himself would have wanted it to be, given his own embrace of the queer community: an erasure of that community, and of Mercury’s own uniqueness, as well as a flimsy, demonizing stereotype of queer men. All fans of Freddie Mercury, but especially the queer ones, deserved better.
Socialism: There's one for you, nineteen for me Should five per cent appear too small Be thankful I don't take it all
T
Well Saint Jiub,

Those are some very profound thoughts. Thanks for reiterating the need for our book. As a gay man I can completely relate to all of your points. The problem is that gay men have never been truly understood since the first cave-man clubbed his lover over the head and dragged him into the walk-in stone closet.

Seriously, I must say however, if it weren't for the general appeal of this movie which I call " lightly based on a true story" instead of a biopic, such overwhelming re-ignition of Freddie/Queen mania may not have been possible. Selfishly, this should boost our book publishing.pursuit. Unfortunately, having lived through the worst of AIDS and having so many of my friends from that era affected and dead.
I would certainly have wished for this movie to be more understanding of gay people but perhaps not showing the last three years of his life.
To describe how ours and former generations suffered will require a different, truthful documentary. I was just as active as Freddie was, as Joe Scardilli was, as John Murphy was yet Lee and I were spared.
Some people say the Holocaust was probably fake and just let themselves forget about it because it didn't really affect them. There is a message in carved stone warning future generations to "Never Forget" I saw this in person when visiting the Dachau concentration camp some years back.
Gay men have endured horrible prejudice over the years and then an unexpected and misunderstood killer, AIDS. Many people and many younger gays don't know and cannot understand the feeling you are overcome with by gazing out at the massive AIDS Quilt and what that meant to me who lost three of my best friends (one being Freddie) and so many friends that I worked with and knew. When I accidentally came across some of their quilts with pictures and precious thing of theirs sewn into the fabric that I did not even knowing it existed and was made just for them by loyal, mourning friends, I was deeply moved and silently cried like a baby.
If this 1980's crisis is just swept under the carpet, then a new stone will be carved at some point in the future "We Forgot"

Understood why Saint Jiub is so passionate about this issue. A true movie documentary on Freddie, not looking for awards or massive box office returns, needs to be made. Hopefully, it will be considered by some independent director or producer. Let's hope so.

Freddie handled his AIDS in the most honorable way I can imagine. He never said "poor me" or "why me?" He kept a smile on his face every time we went up to his bedroom even during that final visit in 1991. He still wanted to be uplifting and entertaining for OUR benefit not his. He laughed at the silly slides, coordinated to (non Queen) but whimsical music that he requested Lee to bring to him that visit and show it one more time.

God, I miss you so much, my sweet Freddie! I am again, however, starting to feel your presence every day thanks to these other loving fans of yours on QueenZone. It is very comforting to me my friend. .
T
Sorry for the typos...I should have proofread better- even Grammarly did not catch these, but then again, I only have the free version so I believe they like to print
out some errors to maybe frustrate you just enough to make you buy the better version which they keep badgering you to buy.
F
Loved your words about Peter Freestone. Yes, that is exactly the impression I get from him. That he was the single most important, essential person in Freddie's life for the last 12 years of his life. He was indeed Legion (for we are many !) his role in Freddie's life was so complex and varied and never did his dedication or loyalty waiver. I think we would all love to have a "Phoebe" in our life. I love how warmly Peter always talks of "the master" yet never in a manner that is sycophantic. His balance of loyalty, and fondness and truthfulness is spot on.

That he was deleted from Freddie's life in the film is one of my bones of contention with the film, and I cannot fathom why he was omitted from Freddie's story. The notion of him living all alone in Garden Lodge is laughable. It would be like leaving a helpless puppy or kitten to fend for itself. Freddie, from all I've learned of him , though I adore him to bits, was simply clueless regarding anything domestic.

It's testament to Peter's wonderfully kind, selfless nature that he was willing to assist the film makers in making Garden Lodge look authentic, and yet shows no bitterness or resentment to being erased from Freddie's life in the film. Shame in them!

OK, that's the end of my lecture! :-/

Have a great weekend, folks.
F
I recently bought a facsimile of an Action Man doll from a seller on eBay. I bought him because I thought he looked remarkably like our Freddie (and not just because he had dark hair and a moustache!) His skin tone and facial features were quite like our boy. Apart from the fact that he had blue eyes which I quickly rectified with a touch of deep brown acrylic paint!

He arrived completely stark naked, poor soul, but I had plans! The plan was to make him a Magic Tour '86 yellow battle jacket, white vest, and striped white trousers, and a pair of Addidas trainers if I could manage to do it!

I bought some canary yellow felt and white felt and red ribbon and enlisted my sister to help cut out the jacket, trousers and vest, and set about painstakingly with needle and threads to try to recreate this iconic outfit as accurately as I could manage (given that I can't really sew for nuts!) I managed to come up with a way to give him trainers, and even included Freddie's "secret pocket" on the lower left leg of his trousers! Also I highlighted the "frogging" straps on his jacket with silver thread, including button holes.

I am very pleased, and a little bit proud of the result ! :-)

If anyone is interested to see MY Freddie, below is a link to a short YouTube video I shot of him! It's not the best footage you've ever seen, but you get the gist of the end result from it!

Bye for now, folks.

FreddieDarling



https://youtu.be/18SCBe_dibM
S
Thor,

Thanks for your kind words about Phoebe. I always see such kindness radiating from him and that he truly, truly cared for Freddie.

I do wish I could have my own Phoebe- maybe if I ever hit it big HAHA
M
Hey Thor.
Actually I'm not a smoker. Occasionally take a drag from cigarettes when at gigs or stressed. Super seldom smoke. I get why some people do, it just doesn't suit me and my thinking. I'd still get very nervous and paranoid and i don't enjoy seeing some things for what they really are.

Pot tends to mess me up like that. I think i enjoy the notion of self decision whether it's true or not.

I've been reading more than writing really. Didn't enjoy the close of the year much. Glad your vacation went well. I'm glad 2018 is over.
"Come tonight! Come see the Overbite! Come to Ogre Battle, FIGHT!"
B
Hey Matt....I Feel ya!!!! I am by nature always tired And hungry......I Don't want something that makes me More Tired And More Hungry!!!! However, I do have quite a few patients who have found relief through medical marijuana or CDB oil. And That totally interest me!!! I am All In for whatever Helps my patients and others that suffer!

Freddiedarling....Your Freddie doll...and the Love and shear creativity you have put into it is INSANE!! My hope is that Brian and Roger see what you have created!!!!!
As for Phoebe.....He ABSOLUTELY deserved at least a Cameo in BoRhap, if not an actor portraying his invaluable service and endless love for Freddie! How is it that Lambert rated........But Phoebe didn't??????
Phoebe reminds me of a giant teddy bear I just want to hurl my whole bodyhug into!!!°
B
Or is it CBD oil????.....ahhh I can never remember!!
B
.....maybe smoking pot would help my memory???????? Lmao
T
OMG FreddieDarling,

That doll is AMAZING. The painstaking work you put into it is so obvious.
Have you considered work at the Madame Tussauds company?
Handmade Freddie dolls?....that could be a winning business for you! Lee and I went to one of the Magic tours at Wembley and your doll is a pleasant reminder of that day in 1986.


All I can say is WOW, you go, darling.
K
FreddieDarling, your doll is fantastic! You are very talented!