The Celluloid Closet<\/a>. <\/p>\n\u201cHe was just an excellent writer who pioneered a gay perspective on film,\u201d Walters says. \u201cSo, as a cinema studies student, that was fascinating to me. And it gave me the perspective that I could see the world through this lens. And it was just when I was coming out.\u201d<\/p>\n
LOS ANGELES – 1973: Musician David Bowie performs onstage during his “Ziggy Stardust” era in 1973 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
getty<\/p>\n
Walters says that he thought about his mortality after experiencing some health issues. \u201cLike, what do I want to leave behind? I have a stepson and a stepdaughter, and I want to leave something behind for them and also for younger people who grew up with the internet and with AIDS drugs, and all sorts of things that we take for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to show them that music was the way my generation \u2014 and really those ahead and behind \u2014 first learned about ourselves,\u201d he adds. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t just go online and find other gay people. We had to put on a record. David Bowie captured something about the alienation I felt growing up in a suburb where I was misgendered. To me, I looked like a boy, but to some others, I didn’t. I felt a kinship with him that I didn’t feel with the people around me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the important musicians highlighted in the book is the late 1970s and early 1980s disco singer Sylvester, whose signature song \u201cYou Make Me Feel Mighty Real\u201d inspired the work\u2019s title. Walters also interviewed Sylvester shortly before the singer\u2019s AIDS-related death in 1988. \u201cI took a train into New York City for my freshman orientation [in college],\u201d Walters recalls. \u201cAnd I got lost on the subway, and I missed the orientation. But I did get to Times Square. And the first record I bought was a 12-inch single of \u201cYou Make Me Feel Mighty Real\u201d and \u201cDance (Disco Heat)\u201d on the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI tell the story in the book where I heard that Sylvester was in the PWA \u2014 the person with AIDS contingent of the San Francisco Pride Parade,\u201d he later says. \u201cThat was the first time that a celebrity of any sort \u2014 not just music, but anything \u2014 had said, \u2018I have AIDS, and I want to do what I can do while I\u2019m still alive to raise awareness.\u2019 He was in a wheelchair. So I thought, \u2018Well, let’s pay tribute to him while he’s still alive.\u2019 Nothing prepared me for this man who represented so much because we didn’t have words like \u2018pansexual.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The chapter about Madonna, one of the longest in Mighty Real, details how her music occupies a space in LGBTQ identity and expression. Walters followed Madonna from the very beginning of her career when she was an emerging artist in New York City\u2019s early 1980s club scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just understood that she represented a lot of downtown club life because she just had the look,\u201d he says. \u201cShe had the attitude. She had the sound. She had clearly absorbed a lot of the same things I loved. So seeing her at Radio City Music Hall on her first tour [in 1985] \u2014 that was like taking downtown New York and putting it on the stage, not just Radio City. That tour was a huge success all over America.<\/p>\n
Blonde Ambition Tour, Madonna, Feyenoord Stadion, De Kuip, Rotterdam, Holland, 24\/07\/1990. She is wearing a Jean Paul Gaultier conical bra corset. (Photo by Gie Knaeps\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Blonde Ambition Tour [in 1990] was really unlike anything I had ever seen,\u201d he continues. \u201cWith the choreography and the staging, it was in the between-song dialogue. It was all of a piece in a way that set the template for what we understand now as mainstream pop. Then it was selling in huge amounts, but it really pissed people off. A lot of rock critics really loathed Madonna. A lot of women were uncomfortable with Madonna. They felt as though she was pandering. And I could tell it was coming from a really smart, personal place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the heartbreaking moments in the book are the chapters discussing the late Whitney Houston and Luther Vandross, both of whom Walters had interviewed. The two musical titans were rumored to be gay, but they never publicly came out during their lifetimes because such an admission would threaten their careers, which Walter understands. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was sort of painful to watch the latest documentary about [Vandross] because I felt it really sort of said, \u2018Oh, that stuff isn’t important,\u2019\u201d Walters says. \u201cBut you know what, it is important because he did not take care of himself. He did not have the self-esteem to address his diabetes and his weight issues in a healthy way. Instead, he compulsively ate and dieted, and you can only do that so much until it takes a toll\u2026 He didn’t have AIDS, but he survived the AIDS crisis only to die from diabetes. I think that the fact that he couldn’t come out had a lot to do with why he died so prematurely.<\/p>\n
FRANCE – MAY 18: Whitney Houston Performs In Paris Bercy On May 18th, 1988 In Paris,France (Photo by Frederic REGLAIN\/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I must say, the same thing for Whitney: a vessel that channeled that power \u2014 how could it fall apart? How could the people around her let that happen? They let it happen because they were making money from her secrecy. They were making money from her unhappiness. That is a really horrible thing. It’s only in retrospect thinking about how she introduced me to her partner [Robyn Crawford] after the tape recorder was turned off [from our 2000 interview for Out<\/a>]. After we had this battle, she was like, \u2018I want you to meet the love of my life.\u2019 But she didn’t put a label on that\u2026People who are not white have a harder time saying, \u2018I’m gay,\u2019 and having their community accept them, because they’re already thought of as second-class citizens because of their race.\u201d<\/p>\nToday, the visibility of LGBTQ and LGBTQ-adjacent artists is greater than it ever was\u2014among them Brandi Carlile, Lil Nas X, Orville Peck, Lucy Dacus. Julien Baker, Troye Sivan, and Chappell Roan. Although they are not mentioned in his book, as it covers up to the 2000s, Walters says he\u2019s open to writing about them and others as their careers progress.<\/p>\n
Barry Walters.<\/p>\n
credit: Kelly Lawrence<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople had been asking me that years ago when I realized, \u2018Oh, I can\u2019t make this book to the current day.\u2019 It just isn\u2019t really possible because the current day keeps getting farther and farther away, right? I would love to do a book about what happened to the gay participation in popular culture once the internet really kicked in, once we got a reality-show president and the big shifts back and forth between Obama and Trump \u2014 how did that affect popular music? So I would love to. I haven\u2019t thought about what my next book will be like yet, but that is a possibility.”<\/p>\n
If there is one important thing that Mighty Real can do, it is to enlighten and inspire readers to go seek out the music of those artists and gain a new perspective about their place in LGBTQ history. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was explaining to my editors that I wanted the book to be so gay that it becomes accessible to everyone in the same way that the rap acts,\u201d Walters says, \u201csomeone like Kendrick Lamar, [who] makes his music so much about Black culture that white people want to know about it, that it allows everyone access into that culture.<\/p>\n
\u2018So that’s what I wanted the book to do. It’s thrilling to me that I did that with the rebellious elements of the book still intact because I wanted it to feel like rock and roll. I wanted it to feel punk rock at times because that’s part of our culture. But I also wanted at other times the writing to reflect those kinds of vocal runs that Luther Vandross does, which, to me, are so ennobling. They are elevating because gay culture is that, too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES – NOVEMBER 4: Disco singer Sylvester aka Sylvester James poses for a portrait on November 4,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[209435,18,117,5489,19,17,1678,193265,7250,337,969,981,92823],"class_list":{"0":"post-478208","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-barry-walters","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-history","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-lgbtq","15":"tag-luther-vandross","16":"tag-madonna","17":"tag-music","18":"tag-new-york-city","19":"tag-pop-music","20":"tag-whitney-houston"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116552113104652156","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Sylvester](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778444002_970_0x0.jpg\")
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