One very early influence on me was the movie Police Academy. One particular scene became burned into my childhood brain when I watched it on HBO with my dad: The Blue Oyster Bar. In Police Academy, the Blue Oyster Bar is a gay leather and uniform fetish bar down a dark alley with no sign out front. Just the idea of a secret place where men wore uniforms and danced together was so amazing to me. In a very brief scene in a very silly movie, I saw a little glimpse of my future home. At the Blue Oyster Bar, machismo was all about desire and attraction. At the time, the only macho I had seen in the real world was exclusively about anger and violence. The Blue Oyster Bar scene did not seem homophobic to me, but more of an alternate reality where straight cops fall into an unknown culture and suddenly the meaning of their uniforms is transformed. It plays on the old fashioned idea that entering a queer space will force you into a queer encounter, because queer sexuality is so expansive and powerful that it draws in all who come near with the force of a planet’s gravity. What a romantic idea, you mean all I need to do is show up and I will be pulled onto the dance floor by a guy with a big moustache and leather cap? How amazing, what a magical world! I have my own reading of that homophobic fear and my reading makes it a sexy secret underworld, not a scary place where your heterosexuality will be ruined, although that sounds kind of romantic too.
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