george michael i don t want your freedom

#George michael i don t want your freedom full#

For a while in the colorful ‘80s, we watched George Michael attempt to and succeed at having it all. You are tuning your masculinity down to an audience, figuring out how much of yourself to give without arousing suspicion. In the closet, you are preternaturally aware of your mannerisms as they are broadcasted to and received by those around you.

This constant flux was both marketing genius and thoughtful subterfuge, the artist showing us that we could be any kind of man we wanted at a time when he couldn’t. The butch leather gear of the “Wham! Rap” and “Bad Boys” videos gave way to skimpy cowboy cosplay in “Club Tropicana” and pastel pum-pum shorts in “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” “Freedom ‘90” is supermodel karaoke, while “Too Funky” is a drag show. Michael’s catalogue of music videos would play out just the same. “Wham! Rap (Enjoy What You Do),” the requisite early stab at hip-hop, finds Michael singing “I’ve got street credibility” and “I choose to cruise” just a few lines apart, easing into machismo and taking it for a walk before altering it to his liking.

#George michael i don t want your freedom full#

Michael’s ‘80s hit streak is full of unforgettable music - “Careless Whisper,” “Last Christmas,” “Everything She Wants” - but also carefully managed and deliberately slippery image control. Here is a man who sang about freedom but wasn’t truly free, who sang about faith but didn’t get much in return. How can we have a dialogue about Prince, Bowie, and George Michael ratifying a new masculinity at the end of the century without enumerating the costs, without mourning the gay men left to fend for themselves by a public slowly warming to the idea of the culture but still blind to its struggles?Īs we remember George Michael for the golden voice and impeccable style that made him a wonder to watch in and out of Wham!, it’s also important to evaluate how complicated all of this was to him personally. Around the country it’s as though an entire generation was deleted. Lately, when I think back on the ‘80s, they’re a little less San Junipero and a little more San Francisco, whose blooming gay community was blighted by an AIDS crisis the Reagan administration ignored for years. The actual ‘80s were a fight against prejudice and economic and political uncertainty that, yes, provided impetus for creators to pursue new forms of expression, but also did its damnedest to stifle and kill ‘em all. Photo: 1996-98 AccuSoft Inc./Getty ImagesĪfter a year of shocking departures and fond remembrances of legendary ‘80s stars, it’s beginning to feel as if our memories of the decade lean heavier on the neon and Day-Glo colors of TV, music videos, and movies than the real-world tumult that was swirling underfoot.