This year, the topic was seemingly avoided.
Last year the Schitt’s Creek star Dan Levy wore a Loewe outfit featuring an illustration by artist and Aids activist David Wojnarowicz of two men kissing as a statement for queer love, while footballer Megan Rapinoe carried a placard that read “In Gay We Trust”. In 2018, Lena Waithe wore a Carolina Herrera rainbow cape to signal support for LGBTQ+ rights. Phones were banned at the event so attendees may not have received the supreme court news, but it was more surprising that Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill and the widespread rollback of trans rights in states across America didn’t provoke any response. As celebrities lined up to be photographed, a leaked decision from the supreme court suggested that Roe v Wade would be overturned within weeks, the justices who overturned the landmark abortion ruling more effective in taking America back to a bygone era than anyone showing up in haute couture. Yet the greatest tribute to the age seemed to be a relative silence from those at the top of New York society as living costs spiral and hard-fought-for human rights are taken away. Just met at the Met Gala after party !! ? He’s having a great first Monday of May but really hated hearing about my thoughts on his destruction of New York city’s homeless encampments… but at least I wished him well on ending gun violence now! ?- Aquaria ?? May 3, 2022 The outfit sparked widespread criticism online given the mayor’s emphasis on increasing policing in the city: according to the NYPD, in March 2022 New York City reported 115 shootings in comparison to 99 shootings reported in March 2021. Meanwhile New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, wore a black tuxedo designed by the Brooklyn-based artist Laolu Senbanjo and embroidered with “end gun violence”. A relatively pared-down look when compared with Congresswoman Carolyn B Maloney’s bold “equal rights for women” dress in 2021. Hillary Clinton made her first appearance at the Met Gala in two decades, wearing a Joseph Altuzarra gown with the names of 60 historic women sewn subtly into the fabric, including Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks. There were a few other nods to inequality, mostly from politicians themselves. It’s a dress so expensive, none of the previous owners could wear it and even Kardashian had to remove it once she got to the top of the stairs and get into a replica, one might even say gilded, version.īut that was sort of it. Kim Kardashian paid a sort of fitting tribute, wearing the dress Marilyn Monroe wore when she sang “happy birthday Mr President” to John F Kennedy Jr, which was auctioned in 2016 for $4.8m. Riz Ahmed was the one attendee to notably acknowledge the wealth disparities of the Gilded Age era, telling the press that his outfit was “a love letter to those blue-collar workers, those immigrant workers” who kept the country running during the period. The Met Gala theme presented an opportunity for guests to emulate Twain’s commentary, or bring it up to date for today, yet the opportunity was almost unanimously bypassed. The title was a nod to the thin gilding that Twain said made the era seem more golden than it was. Twain’s novel was a satire of the greed and corruption that pervaded a time when some Americans successfully pursued the American dream to become very rich very quickly, while others lived in poverty.
Some recommendations will come from the listed authors themselves, calling into the space other writers who inspire and move them through their work.It was Mark Twain who coined the term The Gilded Age in his 1873 work The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. As such, this list, much like its authors, is a living one, and will be updated periodically with new entries and recommendations. I could go on and on tenfold-and I’m sure the folks mentioned here could, too. They are presented in no particular order.
These books cover a range of literary forms, and their authors a breadth of genders and queer identities. To celebrate the brilliance and diversity of contemporary queer literature, here’s a very small sampling of must-read queer books by living queer authors at various stages of their careers. But what of the living legends who walk among us, or the legends-in-the-making we’re keen to lift up? Give them their due respect, of course they have paved the literary road for so many of us queer writers working today. That is to say, such lists regularly name the late giants, the great and gone.
Forster, Audre Lorde, Christopher Isherwood. Whenever I see a list of “best” LGBTQ books, I always find the usual suspects: James Baldwin, Patricia Highsmith, E.