
Contents
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Reaganism and the New Jim Crow Reaganism and the New Jim Crow
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Interpellating Leroy: Talent and Violence Interpellating Leroy: Talent and Violence
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The Geography of Fame: Classicism’s Ticket The Geography of Fame: Classicism’s Ticket
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From “Gay” to “Queer”: Before, during, and after the AIDS Crisis From “Gay” to “Queer”: Before, during, and after the AIDS Crisis
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1 Fame Nation: Queer Black Masculinities and a US Presidential Scholar in the Arts
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Published:March 2024
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Abstract
This chapter examines how queer and closeted black masculinities are depicted in 1980s American dance and its translations into film and photography. Focused on Richardson’s high school years at LaGuardia, during which time he earned the Presidential Scholar in the Arts award, the chapter takes place against the backdrop of Reaganism, the culture wars, and the New Jim Crow. The year of the award, 1986, was a politically charged time of conservativism that negatively impacted Black Americans. It was the same year that Ronald Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe published his book of photographed Black male nudes, Black Book. Reagan actively defunded many of the programs that Lyndon Johnson had established. 1986 marked six years since Reagan’s 1980 attempt to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and three years before the 1989 NEA scandal involving Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano, among others. Mapplethorpe’s images were implicated in the culture wars, inciting numerous national debates on “obscenity,” fetishism, classicism, sexuality, religion, and blackness. The culture wars and what Michelle Alexander elaborates on as the “New Jim Crow” (including a continuation of Nixon’s War on Drugs through channels such as the school-to-prison pipeline) coalesced against the backdrop of Reagan’s defunding of the arts and calculated disregard for the AIDS crisis. This chapter also discusses Leroy from the movie Fame and how Richardson’s story parallels that of Leroy. It comments on the uncanny meta-narrative of black performance labor taking place as the real-life stories of Richardson and Gene Anthony Ray (who plays Leroy) are layered onto that of Leroy. This chapter analyzes a Mapplethorpe photograph of dancer Derrick Cross to further explore how black dancing masculinities are portrayed in 1980s American culture. Then, cycling back, further demonstrating how intertwined Fame and Richardson’s career have become, the 2009 revival of Fame cites Richardson’s company, Complexions, as the greatest contemporary dance company in the world. This chapter thinks through Richardson’s high school training alongside the Mapplethorpe image and tropes of youthful dance aspiration in Fame, as recounted by Richardson’s high school modern dance teacher, Penny Frank, who also acted in the film.
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