Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Women We Love: Judy Garland

"What's more boring than a queen doing a Judy Garland imitation?"

As you can see by that quote from the seminal play The Boys in the Band, even by 1968 the gay icon status of Judy Garland had become clichéd.

What it is about Garland that makes her so appealing to gays of every generation has been discussed and dissected almost as long as she has been deified. Quite simply, her tragically public - or publicly tragic - life, so beautifully conveyed - or unconsciously betrayed - in every nuance of her film and song performances, is so intrinsically, immediately relatable to not just gays, but anyone who has felt they were given a raw deal in life.

At some point, we have all wanted to be Dorothy, wishing for a better world "over the rainbow". We have all pined away for "the boy next door" and then mourned when he grew up to become "the man that got away". And who amongst us doesn't want to just "forget your troubles" and "get happy"?

While watching Judy sparkle and yearn her way through her many movies, it sure is easy to do just that.

Link via Imdb.com.

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