Friday December 30, 2005 SGN.org |
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Volume 33 Issue 52 |
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Wednesday, Jan 07, 2009
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Past Out by Liz Highleyman |
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| Who were the Cockettes? | |
| The Cockettes - a gender-bending performance troupe described by filmmaker John Waters as "hippie acid freak drag queens" - emerged at the twilight of San Francisco's hippie heyday and at the dawn of the Gay liberation movement. Though their time in the limelight was short, their influence on Queer and mainstream culture has been long-lasting.
In the late 1960s, young people from across the country flocked to San Francisco. Among them was George Harris, the son of a New York theater family, who soon adopted the name Hibiscus. A charismatic figure who often could be found dancing in Golden Gate Park or singing show tunes in trees, Hibiscus attracted kindred spirits, including Scrumbly, Rumi, Sweet Pam, Fayette, and Big Daryl (later known as Kreemah Ritz). The circle grew as the group brought in friends whom they met at places like the Stud dance bar and the Sherwood Forest Gay community center in Berkeley. A favorite counterculture event of the day was the Nocturnal Dream Show, a midnight movie series at the Pagoda Palace Theater on the edge of Chinatown. On New Year's Eve in 1969, Hibiscus and a group of 12 friends - dubbed the Cockettes - crashed the Palace stage during an intermission, performing a ribald can-can to the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Woman." "Onstage, penises and breasts bounced around wantonly," wrote Douglas Cruickshank, who attended some of the early shows. "[E]verybody was loaded on some sort of mind-altering substance," and "unbridled sexual outrageousness" spilled out into the enthusiastic audience. Indeed, many in the audience eventually ended up on stage, often by way of cast members' beds; by one estimate, some 75 people performed as Cockettes over the years. Off stage, many of the Cockettes lived together in communal households, mostly in run-down neighborhoods slated for the redevelopment wrecking ball. Cheap housing allowed some to subsist on part-time odd jobs, while others availed themselves of a welfare program intended for the mentally disabled. Most were Gay men, but the group also consisted of Bisexual and heterosexual men, biological women, and a drag king who wore a dildo. Embracing a communitarian ethos, they "shared drag, bracelets, and even lovers," according to Sweet Pam. Early Cockettes shows were loosely constructed revues, such as Gone with the Showboat to Oklahoma and Tropical Heatwave/Hot Voodoo. With Hibiscus acting as benevolent dictator, the group eschewed scripts, formal rehearsals, and complex sets. But costumes were another matter; members spent countless hours collecting drag and perfecting their look. Unlike the familiar female impersonators, however, the male Cockettes made little attempt to appear as women, performing with full beards and sometimes with genitals in view. The Cockettes began to attract media attention, including a July 1970 Rolling Stone profile and a mention in Herb Caen's popular San Francisco Chronicle column. They began to stage more elaborate post-movie performances at the Palace with plots, scores, and choreography (including Pearls Over Shanghai, complete with authentic costumes pilfered from the Peking Opera touring company). But by the fall, a rift had developed between members who wished to keep making spontaneous free art and those who desired more polished performances. As the most ambitious and talented queens - including John Rothermel, Goldie Glitters, and future disco sensation Sylvester - vied for plum roles, Hibiscus left and formed the Angels of Light, a free performance troupe with a more tribal sensibility. Over the next year, the Cockettes' popularity continued to skyrocket. In June 1971, their film Tricia's Wedding opened to coincide with the actual nuptials of President Nixon's daughter. John Waters' new star, Divine, made her San Francisco debut with the Cockettes. And late that summer, after seeing Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma, nationally syndicated critic Rex Reed hailed the group as "a landmark in the history of new, liberated theater." Added author Truman Capote: "This is the most outrageous thing I have ever seen!" Amid this hype, the Cockettes embarked for New York City in November, where they were feted by celebrities raging from Vogue editor Diana Vreeland to Screw magazine honcho Al Goldstein. But at their widely anticipated opening at the Anderson Theatre, the Cockettes - poorly rehearsed and exhausted from the endless round of parties - gave a sloppier-than-usual performance. "What had been 'Gay, light, and campy' in San Francisco became boring, tedious, tasteless, stupid, and amateurish in New York," one critic complained. Back in San Francisco, the Cockettes created a few new pieces, including Journey to the Center of Uranus and Hot Greeks. Divine stole the show at their swan-song performance, the Miss Demeanor Beauty Pageant, in June 1972. After this, the group drifted apart, though many members remained in show business and continued to work together. Drug overdoses claimed the lives of a few ex-Cockettes in the late 1970s, and many more were lost to AIDS in the ensuing decades. The Cockettes defined an era when "[p]eople were allowed to live at the end of their imagination," in Fayette's words. Though that earlier innocence is gone, the spirit of the Cockettes lives on in glam rock, the Radical Faeries, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the work of fashion designers such as John Galliano and Marc Jacobs, and the growing acceptance of gender transgression in all its forms. Liz Highleyman is a freelance writer and editor who has written widely on health, sexuality, and politics. She can be reached care of this publication or at PastOut@qsyndicate.com. |
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International Readers |
 
It's new!A blog created by the SGN staff so you can be heard |
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"Putting on the Ritz |
The Beauty of Freedom through |
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