Is Billy Porter the Gay Savior?

What is the state of the black man’s masculinity in America? Who determines the guidelines, rules, and parameters for the men of color of direct African descent? The actor and celebutante Billy Porter, a gay black man, maybe redefining the role of the African American male in the United States and even the world. But let’s stick to America. Are we at a time period where black men can show up to award shows with evening tuxedo-gowns with their white husbands? While this may be a display of might for the LGBTQ community, what does it say about the black man in America who should be teaching the male youths about how centuries of demasculinization has prompted other cultures to malign and disregard the black man?

Actor Billy Porter’s upstaging of Oscar winner Regina King and Grammy winner Pharrell Williams sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry. While it is his prerogative in a semi-free nation like the United States of America to don whatever wear he may choose, it is still a difficult understanding of the black man’s struggle in America.

At various times throughout history in the United States, black men have been castrated, raped, set ablaze, shot, and hanged. So, when someone like Porter comes onto the scene wearing an evening gown tuxedo hybrid, it is not wrong, but difficult to digest the real meaning behind it. Admittedly, Porter’s stylist Sam Retelle said that he learned from the Internet that legendary ball culture proponent, the late Hector Xtravaganza wore a similar fashion item. While this may be questionable or just pure coincidence, the respect for the houses in the ballroom dance scene in New York came off as fitting and as a serendipitous tribute. But the question remains... is this where the country and culture are headed? Must black men kowtow to the dictates of the LGBTQ community and express themselves as feminine exponents?

What Billy Porter did on that red carpet remains a precedent for all cultures, especially outside of the black experience. If his husband had worn the dress, it would’ve just been looked at as an anomaly but not much fanfare would have surrounded it. A white man in a dress has long been the standard for theater and the arts for centuries. This has been the sticking point in the African American household. Questions over the most famous artists of the stage and screen including Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Stephan James, Mahershala Ali, Laurence Fishburne, Will Smith, Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Chris Milk, Idris Elba, and others should arise. These are some of the most prominent black actors in America and their influence has reached around the globe. Should we expect to see them don feminine evening wear matched with the traditional masculine attire that Porter adorned himself in on Oscars day? Will we see them on screens large and small fitting into roles that go against their heterosexuality?

What is great about Porter is that he is living within his truth, as the cliche would go. But that’s the best way to put it. To say that it’s a lifestyle, or a choice, or the product of social influences would tarnish and diminish his role as strong, gay black man assured in his homosexuality. What needs to be discussed is whether the strong, straight, black man will have an example within the hierarchy of American life to emulate, model, and project. Young boys wearing dresses is a different case as they should be experimenting at a young age with what they will become while still a child. Will they grow up to wear high heels and a clutch and a cummerbund and bowtie all at the same time? Or will they go the traditional route and wear trousers and a blazer or complete tuxedo? The answers lie the in psychology of the individual. There is no God but thank God that homosexuality is no longer considered a mental impairment. For decades, the psychology professors once proclaimed that being gay or lesbian was a mental condition that could be wiped out with a few rounds of “deprogramming.”

Porter shows that he is a man of color rooted in his convictions. Like other gay men of color in America, the other factors of being just a few shades darker than the white man have crept into his psyche. He has had to weigh the idea of being a gay black man and reconcile that consideration with the fact that he has a white husband. This union of black man and white man illustrates the connection that a straight man of color might denounce. To engage in relations with a white man is beyond the realm of thought to some black men. Because he is exuberant and confident and flamboyant, Porter portrays a man who is grounded in his continuance of conveying his truth.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the land of America’s foremost voice in the theater in the late twentieth and early to mid twenty first centuries, the late August Wilson, Billy Porter has lived his truth as a gay man. Nowhere in Wilson’s oeuvre is there a gay man, black or white. Porter challenges the archetypes that remain in Wilson’s plays. Porter represents the outsider who must tussle with the world to claim his own understanding about what is happening around him. For donning that tuxedo gown, he has both drawn praise and derision. But the root of all of the hoopla should be further examined. The role of the black man in the household as provider, caretaker, disciplinarian, and affectionate consoler ought to be explored. These same traits can carry over to the gay black and or white households. Children raised by gay parents may still have the ability to be life-loving, rational, and happy individuals. Is there a cost though? Does the sight of two moms or two dads strike a bit of resentment in a child? The homosexual household could profess the same system of values, virtues, and morals as a heterosexual one. For Porter and his husband Adam Smith, they could be able to forge a lasting relationship complete with the levels of love fit for gay men. The issue is not whether gay is wrong (it’s not) it’s whether the projection of feminized African American men can distort the history of oppression that black men and women faced through the centuries in the United States.

Is the fact that Porter put on a tuxedo-gown an affront to black women in American society? The fact that Regina King could not contend with Porter even after winning an Academy Award is telling. The focus and attention swarmed around Porter post the ceremony. At after parties, the tuxedo-gown found its way on the tongues of the fashionistas and the memory of paparazzi cameras. Do black women in America feel threatened by the gay black man in anyway? Sure, a black women might have a gay friend of any race or ethnicity or nationality but is there a competition between them? Porter’s show that he currently stars in, Pose (2018) covers men, women, and transgenders of color in outlandish costumes similar to his getup at the Oscars. Does this upset the fabric of the African American heterosexual woman? For centuries, the Black woman has been defiled and assaulted in body and mind. Does she now revel in the fact that the black man is being looked at as feminine or even more feminine than her? Porter is a departure from the norm, for sure. He has legions of female followers and supporters, many of them are black women in America. His whole style of performance is to be able to show that the black man and the black woman can coexist without being at each other’s throats.

The entire gay culture has seen more power and acceptance socially in the wake of gay and lesbian marriage being legalized. People often fuss over whether the “gay agenda” is taking over the issues of people of color, namely blacks. But what about the LGBTQ members who happen to be black? Are they not fighting on multiple fronts, now? Porter’s apparel should be able to cast a light on the disparity of straight people unwilling to fight for the cause of human beings who happen to be of another persuasion.

From slave ships to Oscars night, the black American man has come quite a long way. From being lashed to awarded with mostly praise for style choices, the black man in America can look to his own soul, his mind, as the support system for the numerous amounts of injustice that he has faced over the hundreds of years. In the mid twentieth century, Black men literally held up signs that read, “I Am A Man.” This simple yet profound gesture illustrated the amount of hostility towards the manhood and sexuality of black men, their relation to the white man’s gaze, and their ability to finally show that they are not scared little boys running from the overpowering influence of white Americans. He now had the power to broadcast to the world something that should’ve been self-evident but fell hard on the masters, the overseers, the policemen, or any white man walking down the street hurling the insult that could be dramatized, heard on radio and television, and film: “Boy.”

What Bill Porter has done is relinquish all of that nonsense and display in his wear the fact that he is a gay man. He has the power of the microphone, stage, and screen. He is able to chart his own destiny without having to worry about offending anyone. His choices point to the fact that he is not a gay boy who is unsure of himself. He has proclaimed, as straight men ought to, that he is a man that can conduct himself as such. He is empowered to do what he wants on his own schedule. There is no stopping the man because like most gay men, they have switched the negative of being gay into a positive. Their stereotypical liberal movements, their ladylike speech patterns, and their strong adherence to the gay code including "bears" who exude manliness, all befit a section of the American populace that has arisen from the ashes of HIV/AIDS scares to tearing up runways.

What Porter and his ilk have done is fashion an identity for the gay community to understand, interpret, and exercise in their daily lives. All of the swishing and swaying and tongue popping and and head jerking normally reserved for women has been propagated by gay men for years. Gay people have been able to be looked at as human beings with a proclivity for engaging in sexual congress with the same sex. That’s it. There’s no moral condemnation from on high from some mystical figure and the societal censure has greatly been diminished. LGBTQ advocates have seen great strides since the days of Harvey Milk and other heroes that have shaped the culture for the better. The houses within the ballroom culture in New York City spawned RuPaul’s Drag Race, to some extent. But it’s still curious how you can have a gay woman but not a lesbian man. That’s something that the gay community may need to work on a bit. Maybe it’s still the strong masculinity (even within gay circles) that overpowers the feminine idealism. It’s been said that Ellen Degeneres came out as gay, but Billy Porter never claimed to come out as “lesbian.”

The whole gown-tuxedo blow up was timely and a good sign for gays who feel powerless in their own skin. It ought to serve as a means for young gay men and even lesbian women to find enrichment in what Porter did on that red carpet. His whole mission seems to have been to highlight the power that the LGBTQ community has upon the nation of America and world as a whole. All heterosexual people have to do is support gays and their efforts when those actions are righteous. If straight men and women could just coexist and find joy and happiness within their respective homes and relationships, the world might seem a bit brighter.