Why not have women create culture for female spectators? Because male chauvinist pigs ran the music industry in the early 1980s, so women had very limited opportunities to direct videos. For both Epstein and Mulcahy, there was a physical response involved that guided their presentations of each band. Epstein knew how to package the Beatles effectively because they turned him on as much as their screaming fans. Of course, the sex fantasies of adolescent girls and older gay men aren’t necessarily the same, but they are certainly closer to one another than what straight men imagine turns on a teenage girl. He dressed them, photographed them, and invented publicity about them designed to stimulate sexual fantasy. No doubt Epstein’s “queer eye” was instrumental in creating what became known as “Beatlemania”. Mulcahy can be compared to Brian Epstein and the Beatles in this regard. Mulcahy’s gayness, however, undoubtedly figured heavily into his skill at enhancing Duran Duran’s erotic appeal on camera. Have you ever seen a man and thought he’s gay based on his hair and clothes, and then he talks and you realize he’s just European? It happens to me all the time. I used to think Nick Rhodes was gay, but over the years he’s been mostly interested in women. Yet their cosmopolitan European image helped lay a blue print for what would later become a “metrosexual.” Their interest in fashion and tendency to wear make-up immediately struck many Americans as queer (or at least “faggy”), not to mention Duran Duran’s keyboard-centric music with its roots in disco and glam rock, probably the two most gay-identified 1970s pop music genres. They all regularly date female supermodels. Their videos usually featured hot women, sometimes naked.įor the record, none of Duran Duran are gay as far as I know. It was a tricky balance because everyone knew Duran Duran was basically for girls, but many straight guys liked them and sought to emulate their heterosexual magnetism. They were like pin-ups, their music more “pop” than “rock” even though their songs had just enough “rock” in it to not overly alienate heterosexual male audiences. Duran Duran was marketed heavily towards teenage girls. Mulcahy’s “queer eye” was key to his success as a video director. Later he directed the first episodes of Showtime’s Queer as Folk, the first American television series to graphically depict gay sex. He directed most of Duran Duran’s early 1980s videos (including the epic Wild Boys), most Elton John videos, not to mention the first video ever shown on MTV (“ Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles). The openly gay Australian crafted the basic aesthetics of early MTV as much as any other single person. Leading the pack was director Russell Mulcahy. Rio also confirmed that Brits and Australians were light-years ahead of Americans in making music videos. Rio’s rapid editing, bright colors, and sexual overload had a major influence on other videos throughout the decade. These were big budget videos designed for mass airplay, released just as MTV began reaching major suburban markets in New York and Los Angeles in early 1983. Rio was part of Duran Duran’s popular “Sri Lanka trilogy,” three videos (“Rio,” “ Hungry Like the Wolf,” and “ Save a Prayer”) filmed in Sri Lanka promoting their album Rio. Wham, Spandau Ballet, and ABC had their charms but lacked Duran Duran’s epic grandeur. Duran Duran were the kings of the 1980s British New Wave.
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