In the end, I wonder if we are not so much embarrassed for Caldwell as we are embarrassed that people like Caldwell may see so little of value in current gay culture that denying themselves in order to find acceptance where they can is an appealing option. But considering his effeminacy, his faith, even his blackness, would the mainstream gay community be any more welcoming? Given what we know about the historical treatment of those issues “over here,” I am not at all sure of that. Nor, it should be said, can he find shelter in the church queen archetype the success of the gay rights movement has had the consequence of making those kinds of previously tolerated roles increasingly untenable. The church community appears to be important to this man, and it is clear that he cannot be openly gay and remain a part of this particular one.
But Caldwell’s case reminds us that many people feel they cannot follow that model for a range of legitimate reasons. However, it has tended to require that queers model their self-expression and negotiate their relationships in very specific ways in order to be included in the progress. Sanders captured the entire bizarre exchange on his cell phone. The man claimed that he had been beaten, drugged and left in the middle of nowhere. With no other bookings in the diary, this trip to Puglia, in the heat of the Italian summer, could be his last. Casey Sanders was out hunting when he noticed a naked man in the woods. Now older than the rest of the troupe, he struggles to face up to the impending demise of his career. The formula of “visibility equals political progress” has been wildly successful for the LGBTQ movement. His whole adult life, Sebastién, a gay acrobat, has lived for the thrill of the circus and wanted for little else. (That’s as far as I’ll get into processing the racial politics of this video’s popularity, but suffice it to say they play a part here.) Remix parodies of the testimony arrived right on schedule, and the standard response has converged on an “oh lord, look at this queen” head shake. Caldwell’s specific example is all the more potent, given his sartorial boldness and the effervescent worship style common to many predominately African American churches.
His open-secret, self-sacrificial lifestyle choice reads as pathetic from the (secular) out point-of-view, and so giggling at him is easy. And why not? The “church queen”-the closeted gay man who sublimates his sexuality in service of the church, often in an artistic capacity like choir director-is a familiar and oft-derided figure. When the gay blogs initially covered the video’s viral breakout, most posted it with little commentary other than a general suggestion that this object was patently risible. Tellingly, most seem to have gone with their guts, and the laughing option seems to have been the most popular.