Gay men became the centrepiece of pop culture in the 1980s. For many reasons, the 1980s was a perfect time for male queerness. The gay liberation movement had been in full swing for ten years. Sylvester, a queer black man, had been at the centre of disco, and the Bowie kids were growing up at the same time that MTV, a new media that prized the high-energy visuals of queer nightclubs, was introduced.
Then the AIDS crisis struck, ushering in three decades of displacement and demonization.
