We were musing to ourselves the other day that conservatives shouldn't be complaining about Adam Lambert's controversial performance at the American Music Awards last week, during which he simulated male-on-male fellatio and kissed another man during an event which aired in a network time slot typically reserved for family-style programming (although the whole "family-style programming" is not quite the tradition it used to be). The reason conservatives should be grateful is because, in that one performance, he embodied almost every wrong-headed, hateful stereotype that the extreme right has ever had about gays.
He was arrogant, preening, mincing, dancing and, yes, overtly sexual in a way that sets the skin of Larry the Cable Guy's chief demographic a-crawlin'. Lambert pretty much got up on stage and did a four-minute interpretive dance called "The Right is Right to Fear Us."Now, of course, Lambert is free to do what he wants, and personally, Rocks Off finds ultra-conservative consternation at what they perceive to be scary homosexuals hilarious. But the chatter among those ultra-conservatives was largely of the "See? We told you so" variety, and it seems to us like it was Lambert's intention to cause such a reaction.And please don't argue with us that he was "just being himself." Adam Lambert was an American Idol finalist. He does not have a "self." He and/or his handlers consciously chose to have him go out there and embody a certain stereotype, and now there's a whole legion of scared hillbillies nodding smugly while posting twitter updates along the lines of "We told you they was recruitin'."We couldn't help but think to ourselves that other pop and rock artists have embodied a ton of hackneyed stereotypes which, if they were characters in a novel or movie, people would blast for being unrealistic clichés. Here are just a few of the most egregious offenders.