Has Sylvester Been Intentionally Erased?

I don’t know how to vote here, but I miss both Sylvester and Joan Rivers.

And before someone says “oh there was a documentary”.

No.

He has been erased. If the LGBT community and agenda was so genuine, he should be regarded as a Numero Uno.

People under 50 barely know him, especially the LGBT community.

There is a difference between being erased and just being forgotten. Few entertainer, celebrities and figures from 50 years ago are still widely remembered. Moreover, I am not sure how big Sylvester even was back then outside the big city (NY) club scene.

There are plenty of Youtubers posting reactions to his music, but they're generally a bit shocked and surprised.

R3 I’m saying it’s weird a black openly gay man who did drag would have been forgotten in the political climate in the last decade.

Out of all the gay and “trans” icons of the past, Sylvester has been forgotten.

And he absolutely was.

Didn't Sylvester throw the first rock at the cops at Stonewall?

If they're "not queer-they disappear" The B-T-Q's have spoken!

R6, I think I follow you.

Sylvester could be lauded as some sort of Marsha P Johnson 2.0 had he claimed to be a real woman. He didn’t, and as such is of no use to the gender ideologues who’ve dominated discourse, both in academia and popular discourse, for the past decade.

Not intentionally erased: just not an efficacious figure in contemporary propagandizing and thus ignored.

R2 "People under 50 barely know him"

People under 50 barely know anything

I'm 40 and I know of Sylvester. I have a beautiful animation style portrait print of him in the living room. I do agree with the OP that he doesn't fit a particular mould and so is not remembered in the "popular on X" way. But he was truly fabulous and a great artist who embodied his true self and showed it at a time of huge danger. Definitely a numerous uno as another poster said. I know many gays who see Sylvester as a singular kind of artist, who was there when they needed someone like them on the TV.

His erasure isn’t about obscurity, it’s about inconvenience: he complicates the neat historical arc activists and institutions prefer to tell.

Sufferin' succotash, ya better not erase me!

His erasure WOUNDS and is a literal holocaust.

Great minds think alike, r11

What? They removed his statue from the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art?

I don’t think he’s been erased, but, unfortunately, he had a short career, with a horrible death by AIDS in the early 80s.

I love his music, but most disco and Hi-NRG artists have faded into obscurity, regardless of their race, gender, or orientation. It's no great conspiracy.

Nah. He's a legend.

R7 It’s worth noting that Marsha P Johnson never claimed to be a woman. In fact, HE was interviewed on film referring to himself as a gay man and a transvestite/drag queen. The whole “Marsha P Johnson was trans” schtick was invented after he already died.

Sylvester also died of AIDS-related illness. That is it's own thing. It is still painful for us -- those of us who lived through it -- to think about it or remember it. It also casts a shadow over all who succumbed during that dark time.

Forgotten? When you get a tribute concert at Lincoln Center 35 years after you die, you’re hardly forgotten.

That said, there was a time when he was on top (late 70s) that I wished I’d forgotten to buy tickets to his NYE show. He was supposed to be onstage when the ball dropped at midnight. He showed up at 1 am, fucked up, lip-synched for 20 minutes and then left. He did not make the audience at the Paradise feel “Mighty Real” that night.

Sylvester didn't die in the early 80s. He died in 1988 & was releasing new music practically right up to that year. He was a true gender bending pioneer, choosing to express his feminine aesthetic without declaring himself an actual woman. The idea that a biological male preferring to present himself as what is stereotypically associated as female with the full understanding of being a male is a formidable challenge to social norms/expectations. Preferring an opposite visual of what is socially acceptable for a person's biological sex while assuming he/she must in fact be the sex they are presenting as is actually not progressive at all. It's reinforcing the stereotypes that Sylvester boldly, obstreperously & authentially went against. So no, I don't think Sylvester has been cancelled. I just think that perhaps his life & what he stood for may be a bit too literal for the current gender/queer activists to wrap their flimsy, smoky dialog around.

Sylvester was unique but also messy and his chart success was very brief. Also his disco hits didn’t cross over well to pop… “You Make Me Feel Mighty Real” lasted just a couple weeks in the bottom of the Top 40 back in 1979, and “Do You Wanna Funk” didn’t even get onto the Hot 100.

He died in 1988 but we 80s teens and college students had never even heard of him. For us “gay 70s disco” was the Village People, end of story.

OP - you’re trying too hard. You start by asking a question, but then you repeatedly (and emphatically) answer the question with YOUR answer. You didn’t really want to know what others think - you’re just making your one-sided point, over and over.

R22 "we 80s teens and college students had never even heard of him".

But cross-over gay act Jimmy Somerville charted with You Make me Feel in 1989 (US Billboard Dance #34)?

I'm Every Woman is the 70's disco track. Village People? Really?

He died in 1988, but was ill several years prior to his death, which affected his output and touring. His partner died in 1987, and his friend and co-writer Patrick Crowley died in 1982., both of HIV infections.

I agree with R23, no one is going to change OP’s mind.

[quote]For us “gay 70s disco” was the Village People, end of story.

Bless your heart.

I knew Sylvester from the Cockettes. He isn't erased, for those of us who recognize where we come from in our battles....as per usual, young kweens can't see past yesterday's douche and a mirror. Watch Sylvester on Merv Griffin....he was out and fierce and talented. Look it up yourself you lazy Gen Z whatever

Why is every gay icon a drug addicted cross dresser? I mean, there have to be some normal ones somewhere.

R23 I don’t think everyone understands my point.

I’m not talking about the gays that grew up with him forgetting about him, I’m talking about him being erased as a figure for contemporary LGBT history and politics.

It’s for example, exactly why Billy Porter can get on a soapbox and talk about being the first gay black trailblazer and no one under 40 or social media / media questions him.

[quote] You didn’t really want to know what others think - you’re just making your one-sided point, over and over.

♫ ♪ "Over and o-ver / Time and time again / you can't be nobody's love til your somebody's friend" ♪♬

Because they’re young and idiots, R29.

Hahahaha! No. I think I’m articulating it wrong.

They have combed through LGBT history to fit the narrative contemporary politics and their agenda.

Sylvester crushes it. That’s why not only the public but the LGBT media as well.

I googled “LGBT trailblazers”

No Sylvester

No Sylvester

No Sylvester

No Sylvester

So my point is, there’s absolutely a reason WHY.

What are we supposed to do for Sylvester? Swoon over him as DLers do for that guy with the bulge in his crotch in WKRP in Cincinnati? A forgettable sitcom that ended 6 years before Sylvester's death.

George Michael was a big thing in 1988, and had a much wider audience than Sylvester. He died not even a decade ago and, relative his fame in life, is fairly "forgotten" today.

Sylvester died 37 years ago. Almost 2/3 of Americans are less than 55 years old (I calculated as someone 18+ years old in 1988).

When you died you become a footnote, celebrities, too.

Oh, if it isn't in Google....what a maroon....In the 60s and 70s, living your life in the open was a huge political act. One who lived on stage and was a successful musical star was a trailblazer...Seriously, citing Google just shows what a short-sighted sited ignorant style of non-critical thinking you have. Youth of the day has no respect or understanding of what we went through...idiots

Ugh still not getting it, i give up.

I’ll just end it with he debunks contemporary gay and trans politics unlike the people celebrated today from the 60s to 80s during his lifetime and the LGBT and liberal media will keep him forgotten to not disrupt the agenda.

That’s all.

[quote] Ugh still not getting it, i give up. I’ll just end it with he debunks contemporary gay and trans politics unlike the people celebrated today

We get it girl. Thing is though: the music is just bad and not memorable. He was never some big important figure in the culture. He is forgotten as are most middling disco singers. There is not some ultra woke trans cabal out there actively “erasing” him, as if that’s something that could be accomplished through some sort of groupthink.

Was he in Wigstock?

R37 "George Michael was a big thing in 1988, and had a much wider audience than Sylvester".

George Michael was in the closet in '88, only out because of indecency a decade later, was not a 70s disco act, not black and did not die of AIDS. He was a closeted white Brit. Hardly a gay icon in 88.

Erased?

Search him on the internet, OP, you typical "lie to get clicks" arse.

Thousands of hits. Thousands of stories. Articles prominently declaring his history, influence, issues, place.

Why do these stooges post like this? Why aren't THEY the erased ones?

More to the point, Erasure has also been erased. Can you explain that?

I spent the pandemic lockdown catching up on my Drag Race so I first caught Sylvester in Season 8.

When I did the research I was amazed at what he was doing during his time. Mother. A true trailblazer. We STILL clack our fans!

Unfortunately, I agree that it's just that pop culture moves on. So Ru did his part and had these girls lip synch for their life & now I know who Sylvester is.

Adam Lambert did a cover of You Make Me Feel, but I guess nobody pays attention to him....

R20, is why I subscribe to DataLounge.

R29 - you could list 30 other people from the 70s and 80s that today’s young people are oblivious to. Sylvester hasn’t been singled out.

And I agree with your point about Billy Porter.

Thanks, R18. It needed to be said.

R46 Well if you agree with my point about Billy Porter, then you can see what I’m getting at. I’m not talking about whether kids are “into” Sylvester, I’m talking about why he isn’t part of the historic narrative of today’s LGBT progressive culture.

In the last decade of “woke” LGBT media, they’ve dug up figures like Stormé DeLarverie—who was largely obscure and marginal even in her time—and institutionalized them because they fit the mold of the current agenda. Meanwhile, Sylvester, who was a mainstream, openly gay Black star with global hits, gets left out.

He’s like the Claudette Colvin of modern LGBT history. Colvin was the first Black woman arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat, but Rosa Parks fit the chosen narrative better. Sylvester broke ground 40 years ago, but because he doesn’t line up with today’s politics, others get the credit for what he already embodied.

I swear to God, I thought this was about the cat.

R49 See R11 and R12.

12 replies from OP?! Blocked

I had a gummy and a glass of wine, R50. I completely missed those! Thanks!

I stopped reading at “queer politics” - I loathe that the OP and people like her have made this vile term “normalized” again despite how offensive it is to generations of us, just to suit their bullshit need to be edgy and different why still trying to control the LGB narrative.

This somehow doesn’t seem important right now.

Uh, as opposed to what, R54 the really urgent content in other threads on this site?

R55, are you suggesting Reba’s new AI-generated lip and the reason behind all the Dexter iterations isn’t urgent?

Sylvester hasn’t been erased; the entire disco era was basically been erased. He just happened to fall into that

If he'd lived he would have transitioned to 'Sylvia' by now.

….And back again!

A friend of mine once recognized him at a gay bar in the 1980s and went up to say hello. Sylvester broke into a big smile and said, "Kiss my hand, honey... you'll be glad you did!"

Just wait, in 10 years, he will be reimagined as a Trans or Nonbinary Woman of Color who probably threw a brick at something in the Castro. Then she'll be labeled an icon!

R29, I don't think Billy Porter stood on any soapbox and said any such thing.

Billy Porter portrayed Sylvester decades ago in the musical Radiant Baby about Keith Herring.

It was a fantastic energetic musical that never got to Bway—but Porter was stunning in it.

R63 Thanks for weighing in, Billy.

[quote]It’s for example, exactly why Billy Porter can get on a soapbox and talk about being the first gay black trailblazer and no one under 40 or social media / media questions him.

He may not be the first, but Billy is a trailblazer. He's the first black openly gay Emmy and Tony award winning actor, and the first openly gay man to win an Emmy. Sylvester and Rupual broke down doors, but Billy is taking it to another level.

The hate for him on the site is getting tiresome.

Stop bashing millennials or Gen Zers for not knowing who Sylvester was. Some of you expect them (and all gays) to have a well-thumbed edition of a "Who's Who in LGBT Culture" handy for easy reference.

Many Americans would be hard pressed to name other luminaries of the Civil Rights movement beyond Rosa Parks and MLK, jr.

It just is.

And Sylvester was spot on. You can be a man, identify as a men, and still shatter gendered expectations.

Nobody has erased Sylvester. This is shoddy shit stirring.

R65 We heard you the first time, Billy.

It is probably related to the fact that there is very little video footage available of him, and what I've seen on YouTube has been like watching through a shower curtain.

r69 that could be a reason why. When you think of performers from decades ago who are still well-known, it's because there is tons of video of them from their prime. Elvis, the Beatles, etc.

R66 "Some of you expect them (and all gays) to have a well-thumbed edition of a "Who's Who in LGBT Culture" handy for easy reference".

I expect it, and when I was their age I (and all gays) did. It's the laziness of the social media generation; all knowledge at their fingertips but no curiosity.