Missing Coming Out: Production of Queer Identities in the Russian Music Scene of the 1990s and 2000s
Author: Ksenia Roit, independent researcher
Introduction
For many years Roskomnadzor (The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media) has been haunting LGBTQ-related content in Russian mass media. In 2013, such content was banned from being promoted among minors, in 2023 – among any public[1]. Thus, statesmen revised and penalized a lot of musical films, series, musical videos, and songs for “LGBT propaganda”. I am mostly interested in the last ones. For example, a court in Moscow fined a TV company one million rubles for the music video “Gorod” (1999) [City] by the group Tantsy Minus because of a 10-second fragment of a clip showing two girls kissing on the streets of St. Petersburg. A court in St. Petersburg fined a music channel for showing a clip “Tak krasivo” (2017) [So beautiful] by Sergey Lazarev, because in the clip there are “interacting hands” of two women.
At the same time, along with Tantsy Minus and Lazarev, we can indeed name many popular artists in the 1990s and 2000s whose work offered models for rethinking the normative logic of gender/sexuality: sexualized and homoerotic images of Dmitriy Bilan or the band Hi-Fi, drag shows in Shura and Nikita music videos, pansexual fantasies in Na-Na music video by Faina, Verka Serdyuchka as a drag queen, lesbian love in lyrics, performances, music videos by Zemfira, Gosti iz budushchego, Policia Nravov, and t.A.T.u. While hegemonically masculine artists such as Garik Sukachev and the band Auktsyon have openly advocated for LGBTQ rights (Erektrofon, 2004), the “gay icons” discussed in this paper have rarely made political statements about the situation of the LGBTQ community in Russia and, in general, have not included themselves in it.
In the 90s the song “Nas ne dogonyat” (All About Us) by t.A.T.u. was an escapist story about the love of two teenage girls, in 2014 at the opening of the Sochi Olympics it was an anthem of state victories (Konyuhova, 2020). One of the artists, Elena Katina, still occasionally performs in gay clubs; the other, Yulia Volkova, has left her musical career and participated in party elections of Russia United (“Edinaya Rossiya”). This turn towards traditional values and heteronormativity is connected, among other things, to the law banning “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships,” which came into force in 2013. However, even before the law came into force, we can talk about the deterioration of attitudes toward LGBTQ people in Russia: after 2003, the level of homophobia in the country began to rise due to the demand to find an internal enemy (Shental, 2017).
In this paper, I do not intend to consider all the variety and scope of queerness on the Russian scene, but examine (stage) identities of four artists: Boris Moiseev, Verka Serduchka, Shura, and Philip Kirkorov, in accordance with several possible strategies of “queering music.” (Leibetseder, 2012) The object of this study is stage, i.e. produced in the media (Grujić, 2009), queer identities of the Russian music scene in the 1990s and 2000s. The subject of the study is the structure of knowledge about such stage queer identities. The research question is: how is this knowledge about such queer identities produced and structured? The research task is to analyze song lyrics, public statements, music videos, interviews, etc. as texts through which stage identities are constructed.
Queer on the Russian music scene in the 1990s and 2000s has been addressed in both journalistic and academic works (Heller, 2007; Gurova, 2013; Shental, 2017; Konyuhova, 2020; Zhayvoronok 2020). Arguably the most significant work in this field is Stephen Amico's book "Roll Over, Tchaikovsky!: Russian Popular Music and Post-Soviet Homosexuality (New Perspectives on Gender in Music)" (2014), where the author uses a phenomenological approach to analyze homosexuality in the Russian music scene. Despite the enormous contribution of this work to the field, the analysis of homosexuality alone seems insufficient. Addressing queer theory offers a way out of the homogenizing discourse on (homo)sexual difference. Queer does not designate a class of already objectified “pathologies” or “perversions” but describes a horizon of possibilities that are not predetermined (Halperin, 1995).
In the first part of this paper, I analyze the sexual culture of Russia in the late 1990s and early 2000s to demonstrate how the queer identities of the Russian music scene are embedded in the changing sociopolitical and cultural landscape of the post-Soviet era. In the second part, I turn to conceptual descriptions of models of the production of queerness and queer identities in cultural industries to introduce the theoretical and methodological apparatus of the work. By situating my work at the intersection of cultural studies and queer theory, I seek to show how the study can contribute to multiplying knowledge about queer identities and strategies for their production and interpretation. In the third part, I turn to the concepts of masquerade, drag, androgyny, and camp as queer strategies for analyzing the stage identities of four Russian artists: Boris Moiseev, Verka Serduchka, Shura, and Philipp Kirkorov. In the final section, I detail the ways in which queer identities are produced and structured in the context of the Russian music scene of the 1990s and 2000s.
How to Queer Music: Theoretical and Methodological Framework
According to the coding/decoding paradigm of Stuart Hall (1980) and his followers (Fiske, 2011), culture can be read as a text, a system of signs and symbols. Messages as social practices are translated into a message in media and then translated back into social practices by the audience. Messages are not produced in a social, economic, and linguistic vacuum but are translated from social practices within media apparatuses under the rules of the language. There can be no raw event, meaning, or message transmitted by the media. This process of translation to the “meaningful” discourse Hall defines “coding,” similar and reverse to “decoding.” If the first process takes place in the media apparatus, "decoding" is performed by audiences – the discourse is translated into social practices. The degree of (a)symmetry between encoding and decoding is connected to (a)symmetry between the codes of producer-encoder and decoder-receiver, and that defines (mis)understanding of the message. Hall identifies three possible decoding positions. The first one is the dominant-hegemonic position, where a message has been signified in the dominant code, and through that code is decoded. The second position is negotiated where decoding is performed with exceptions to the dominant code. The last position is oppositional – the message is decoded in the alternative framework of knowledge. Thus, Hall entails the audience’s agency and implies an opportunity for semantical resistance – to appropriate and ascribe meanings themselves.
We should not forget that reception and meanings are always situated in actual history and culture, political and social conditions. There is no “true meaning”, as there is no “natural” way to read the text. As Hall (2003, 34) writes: “This opens representation to the constant ‘play' or slippage of meaning, to the constant production of new meanings, new interpretations”. Following Alexander Doty (1993), I refer to queer as the space of all aspects of non- (anti-, counter-) heterosexual (straight) cultural production and reception. Queer is not limited to homosexuality, nor is it confined to identity politics, but implies resistance to sexual, and gender norms. Queer is not an inherent characteristic but a set of oppositional and relational identities, practices, values, and aspirations (Halperin, 1995) which is emphasized by the very verb “to queer.” Some media messages seem to “encourage” a queer reading, but even heteronormative texts can be re-read as queer as any text is “the product of a queer cultural moment in which images have been subject to so much renegotiation (including subcultural renegotiation) that the preferred heterosexual reading has been destabilized” (Evans, Gamman, 1995, 48).
Thus, artists’ stage identities also become a point of dispute of meanings through different structures of knowledge. Judith Butler (1993, 2004) describes a process of discursive and performative production of sexualized, gendered bodies. Identities (gender, race, etc.) are not stable and natural but are constructed through performative acts. Butler's performativity is not only limited to acts of speech, but also extends to bodily actions. Gender rules are constantly reproduced and reasserted through bodily acts. Through repeated performative acts the “naturalness” of gender categories, such as the binary oppositions of feminine and masculine, homosexual and heterosexual, is established. Thus, identity “is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results” (Butler, 2004).
In the study, I refer to “stage identities” (Grujić, 2009, 15) that do not equate to “real” identities of performers but are negotiated by artists themselves, as well as other cultural agents including producers, PR-managers, audience, and fans, etc. Music, clips, and other media messages can become a means of producing identities that resist normalizing, fixed categories, revealing and deconstructing the binarity of hetero- and homosexuality (Giffney, 2009). The connection between audience perceptions, the meanings of musical lyrics and other texts, and the identity of performers is not obvious and direct (Negus, 1996). Thus, the queerness of a cultural product and artists’ stage (queer) identities are created through acts of production and reception – various cultural agents are involved in this process – both the artists themselves and their producers, as well as audiences, fans, journalists, and others.
Sexual Culture in Russia in the 1990s and 2000s: From the Decriminalization of Voluntary Same-Sex Relationships to the Gay Propaganda Law
Production of knowledge about queer identities, corresponding codes, and interpretations are inextricably linked to existing systems of knowledge, socio-political and cultural landscape. The late 1980s and early 1990s in the post-Soviet space were marked by a period of the sexual revolution and the formation of a new sexual culture (Kon, 2010) which became possible due to the weakening of censorship and the emergence of a free market. Sexuality, previously tabooed, entered public discourse. First of all, the change was visible in the media with the large-scale appearance of sexualized and semi-nude bodies on television and, of course, in the music industry. Kon (1998) also notes that homosexuals and lesbians became more visible, even before the direct decriminalization of “voluntary same-sex relationships” in 1993. In 1989, the Association of Sexual Minorities (Lesbian and Gay Union) was established in Moscow. Human rights and LTBT organizations opened in lots of cities. Specialized magazines, newspapers, and erotic publications appeared: in 1989 the first queer media Tema was registered. In 1991, the first gay lesbian film festival and conference was held (Gessen, 2016).
At the same time rising visibility without rising understanding caused a surge in homophobic sentiments: thus, “the prominent writer Fazil Iskander, supported by the pianist Nikolai Petrov, even suggested introducing moral censorship ‘in connection with the invasion of an aggressive layer of sex minorities on television screens’ – ‘all kinds of Penkins and Moiseevs’” (Kon 1998, 78 (cited in Polevaya, 1996, 7)). In 2006, GayRussia activists applied to hold a Gay Pride parade in Moscow, which was denied. And while the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Lushkov, openly stated that “My philosophy: I have a negative attitude towards these phenomena because I think they are unnatural for human nature” (BBC Russian Service, 2006). According to a poll by Kommersant Vlast (2006) 26 of 27 readers when asked “Do gays bother you?” replied “No”. However, only two of them acknowledged the right of homosexuals to hold a parade. In the other cases, the “no” was followed by a “but”: they spoke out against “propaganda of same-sex love” (especially among teenagers), “immoral behavior,” “their associations,” “flaunting their orientation,” “forcibly involving others in it,” and “parading undressed citizens with genital emblems.” The “readers” in this case include well-known politicians (Chairman of the State Duma Commission on Ethics, the Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia), businessmen (Head of Euroset, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sibmashholding), and other well-known figures (People's Artist of Russia, President of the Academy of Hairdressing, Professor of the Moscow Spiritual Academy).
The crucial moment for queer culture happened with the establishment of the federal law for the Purpose of Protecting Children from Information Advocating for a Denial of Traditional Family Values, also known as “gay propaganda law” which came into force in 2013. For not that many Russian LGBT media, writers, filmmakers, and activists producing such content became even harder than before – they were forced to overcome not only homophobia but the bureaucracy that demanded not only rating “18+” for any content created but also predict and eliminate any possibility for minors to see such content. Besides what statesmen say, Russia has not been a ‘traditionally’ homophobic country with different dynamics of attitudes toward LGBTQ persons: ‘... after the collapse of the USSR, the level of homophobia in the country was gradually decreasing, but after 2003, when the political demand for the search for an internal enemy took shape, a reverse dynamic emerged’ (Shental, 2017).
Subversive strategies: queer production
In the search for artists’ queer stage identities, I turn to queer musical strategies, which in turn are based on the theoretical developments of gender and queer theorists. Among the proposed queer strategies in Doris Leibetseder's book Queer Tracks: Subversive Strategies in Rock and Pop Music (2012), I explore several: masquerade and drag as imitations of gender structure; androgyny as overcoming gender binarity; and camp as a form of sensitivity and aestheticism. I also consider how knowledge of such identities has been shaped and structured through different media messages produced by different cultural agents. I analyze the queer stage identities of four artists: Boris Moiseev, Verka Serdyuchka, Shura, and Philip Kirkorov.
Masquerade: Boris Moiseev
Analyzing women who are not definitively heterosexual or homosexual, Joan Riviere (2018) comes to understand femininity not as an “essence” but as a mask: she finds that homosexual women who should have aspired to masculinity actually “put on the mask of femininity” to prevent the anxiety and retribution feared from men. Such an understanding of femininity is built on a particular understanding of the gaze and the woman as the one being looked at and the man as the bearer of the gaze (Doane, 1992). However, masculinity can be similarly conceptualized as a masquerade, where the mask of masculinity exists to suppress homosexuality, bringing it to a heteronormative masculinity.
Compared to the concept of gender performativity discussed earlier, the femininity/masculinity interpretation takes a “step backward” because it assumes that there is “something behind the mask,” whereas for performativity theory it is not only the mask that is socially constructed, but also what is behind it. However, like Butler's optics, this approach assumes that there is no “real” masculinity/femininity, only its imitation. A masquerade is also a performance, that is, a public demonstration of oneself to others in a particular sociocultural context. (de Lauretis, 1994). Efrat Tseëlon (2001) emphasizes the differences between mask, disguise, and masquerade: the mask serves to conceal in the sense of protecting or hiding from view; disguise is meant to hide, conceal, or impersonate someone you are not; masquerade is a statement about the wearer. It is excessive, and subversive: “The mask is partial covering; disguise is full covering; masquerade is deliberate covering. The mask hints; the disguise erases from view; the masquerade overstates” (Tseëlon, 2001, 2.).
Boris Moiseev was originally known more as a choreographer and dancer, but his career as a singer began with the provocative show and music video “Ditya Poroka” [“Child of Vice”] (1996). The music video was filmed mostly in one baroque-styled location with corresponding decorations, and costumes. The artist himself, like the two girls in the dancers, appears neither naked, nor dressed – in leather boots, a cape, a shirt with ruffles, a cross, and a blue wig. The lyrics are based on the opposition of pure/vicious, naivety/seriousness, and pain/pleasure, where Moiseev 's character himself is the child of vice, who will never “love a pure creature.” His other video clip “Egoist” (1994) does not yield in aesthetics and in epatage. As lyrics follow: “A Dzhulettu davno sovratili druzya, / I Romeo teper' lyubit tolko sebya” [“And Juliet had long ago been seduced by friends, / and now Romeo loves only himself.”] Moiseev tries on both images. As Juliet, he appears in a corset and stocking, exposing the bare chest, as Romeo he is dressed in all black, but in both roles remains in the wig and with a strong makeup, from under which you can see the beard. The tragedy unfolds once again in baroque decorations, and the performer is accompanied by two bio queens or drag queens, as well as two young men, dressed only in swimming trunks and gold chains.
Boris Moiseev is mostly known for the song “Golubaya Luna” [“Blue Moon”] released in 1998 as a duet with Nikolai Trubach. This song is a “legend” about two brothers that is “Vrode byl, a vrode skazka. / Mozhet, bratya sredi nas?”[“Maybe a true story, but maybe a fairy tale; / or maybe the brothers are among us”]. According to the narrative of the song, one of the brothers falls in love with a queen and gives her his heart, while the other chooses loneliness and the “blue moon”: “Nu a starshij vybral chudo, odinochestvo nebes / I vse znali, chto on nikogda ne budet pokoritelem nevest” [“The older one chose a miracle, the loneliness of heaven, / and everyone knew that he would never be a bride conqueror”]/ Even more interesting is the costume solution at the artists' performance at the Song of the Year '98 show, where Trubach takes the stage in a classic black suit and Moiseev wears a blue coat with flounces. The adjective "blue" in Russian has previously been used synonymously with "gay" in everyday speech. The hero's decision to choose loneliness hints at parallels with Moiseev’s biography, who never publicly announced any relationship, spoke of it only in the past tense, and never got married (Amiko, 2014). The hero of the song engages in a duel with his brother for his honor, but “Etoj strannoj lyubvi / Tak emu i ne prostili” ["This strange love was never forgiven"].
In the video clips “Tango Cocaine” (1995), “Korolevstvo Lubvi” [“Kingdom of Love”] (1998), “Cherniy Lebed” [“Black Swan”] (2000) Moiseev still tries on masculine/feminine/androgynous and even beyond the “human” masks (e. g. “Ichthyander” (2001)) surrounded by half-naked bodies with make-up, rhinestones and feathers. Together with the band Strelki, he recorded a song with an unambiguous title and content “Seksualnaya revoluciya” [“Sexual revolution”] (2001), where he sings about “free love” while on the screen girls kiss girls, men kiss men.
Nevertheless, experiments with gender boundaries gradually disappeared from the artist’s music. Moiseev repeatedly spoke out against the demonstrativeness of “non-traditional” orientation: “When people paint their lips and change into women's underwear, it's vulgar and disgusting. On stage an actor and an artist can embody their own images, but why mix everything in one pile. You must be able to separate the flies from the cutlets” (Braterskij, 2003). Commenting on Elton John's very legal marriage to his male partner that happened in church, the artist noted that “it is not right to flaunt it in a Catholic or Orthodox church in relation to God, in relation to public opinion and to many believers” (Segodnya, 2006). The artist himself has stated his intentions to marry a woman several times (Amiko, 2014).
The artist never denied his homosexuality/bisexuality nor confirmed it. He evaded questions through vague formulations: “I am not a homosexual but I can love” (V gostyah u Gordona, 2005); “I was the first [in Russia] to declare that every person has his color of love” (Segodnya, 2006), but he admitted that he “had three crazy loves of the strong sex and three crazy female loves” (Ermilin, 2015). Alexei Ostudin says this about a conversation with Moiseev in 2014 in the program “Musical ring”: “[...] I started reading his interview about 'oh-oh-oh, it's just an image.' And I said to him, 'Borya, you were so honest and wonderful when you came out.' He replied, ‘Well, I had to eat.’ I tried, on the contrary, to tell the man that he did such a brave thing in the early 90s” (Bespalov, 2019).
Drag: Verka Serduchka
The basic component of gender performativity is clothing. Cross-dressing in the form of vaudeville, pantomime, burlesque, masquerade, and others has existed in many cultures, as travesty has in Russian. Researcher Olga Horoshilova (2021) describes the Russian Empire as “the center of travesty culture,” where artists who appeared on stage in female guises were as good as European stars.
Drag as we know it appeared in the 1950s and 1960s in Britain and the United States – artists in gay clubs performed in exaggeratedly feminine costumes, with makeup and wigs. Through such drag shows artists engage in comical dialogue, lip-sync, singing, and dancing performances. Homosexuality was still prosecuted and drag shows in bars and clubs were not just part of the culture and entertainment, but also a political gesture. As drag evolved, it acquired more and more features of camp and parody, even pastiche. Many performers redefined drag as not just an “entertainment mimicry,” but saw its potential as a political gesture, an exploration of gender roles and social protest. Drag queens like RuPaul and Lady Bunny were (and still are) central figures in the struggle for the rights of the queer community amid the AIDS epidemic. Drag has become a subversive musical strategy that disrupts the logic of the normative sex/gender/sexuality connection (Taylor, 2012).
What is the difference between masquerade and drag? Marie Ann Doane (1982) writes that masquerade is more complex than drag because it recognizes that femininity itself is constructed as a mask and is only a decorative layer for non-identity. Judith Butler (2004), notes that drag also exposes this seemingly original identity and shows its non-existence. The political potential of drag lies in its ability to show that it is not only drag itself but any gender expression is a masquerade, imitation. Within the heteronormative order, drag is presented as an imitation of gender, but normative heterosexuality itself is an imitation, a constantly reproduced copy of its own ideal. The subversiveness of drag is that it borrows the same strategy of imitation that underlies hegemonic heterosexuality.
Verka Serduchka, the pseudonym of artist Andrey Danilko, became known worldwide after her performance at Eurovision 2007, but long before that, she was popular in the former Soviet Union. In an image of a single and childless train conductress, Danilko mixed Russian and Ukrainian stereotypes, and sang in a mixture of languages, which helped ensure his fame in both countries. Serdyuchka is a heterosexual woman, which is evident in the lyrics as well as in the visuals. Thus, in the video for the song “Chita-Drita” (2003), Serdyuchka in a dress, a fur coat, and on high heels, flirts and dances with a man who also touches her on her breast while in the lyrics she invites someone to come in the evening as she lusts for love.
In the video “Ya popala na lyubov” [I Fell into Love] (2003) one can notice a certain drag aesthetic: Serdyuchka and the backup singers (wearing baroque wigs) are dressed in gold, decorated costumes. The dancers (also in wigs) are stripped rather than dressed in (also) gold leotards and white wings. The scenery, with (also) golden interiors and dangling “crystal” chandeliers reminiscent of a palace. However, all of this takes place in the framework of a “clip in the clip” as Serdyuchka watches TV with her relatives in a familiar rustic setting. At the end of the clip, the family discusses which country Serdyuchka will represent at Eurovision, and in 4 years she will. In the performance on “Lasha Tumbai” (2007) she and backup singers, and dancers perform in silver costumes decorated with rhinestones, and Serdyuchka herself will have a star as a headdress.
While Serdyuchka is often referred to as the main Ukrainian/Russian drag queen (Telekritika, 2017). At the same time, Serdyuchka's image appeared as a comedy that had nothing to do with queer culture, and Danilko distances from such an understanding: “I don't feel very good about men dressing up as women, if it's just masquerading. Another thing is when a man creates an image. My task is to work so that no one ever has the feeling that on stage there is a man dressed up” (Boyko, 2011), and the former seems to be quite sly. Interestingly, at the same time, Danilko often described Serdyuchka as tetka [auntie], which was used to refer to sex workers in the mid-19th century and later to all homosexuals (Amico, 2014). However, whether Danilko wants it or not, he is often perceived as a singer with an audience with a “non-traditional orientation” (Boyko, 2011). As Danilko claims, he has been called several times to perform at gay pride parades, which he commented ambiguously: “Maybe Verka Serdyuchka wants to, but Danilko is against it” (Segodnya, 2019).
Androgyny: Shura
Androgyny is simultaneously very close and opposite to crossdressing and drag, as it takes the feminine and masculine to an extreme and blurs the boundaries between them. It can be seen as a set of practices to overcome the gender binary but it can also be articulated as a transcendental concept; it appears simultaneously as oversexualized and asexualized. On the one hand, androgyny is described as a state of transcendence beyond gender, sexuality, and desire; on the other, it also implies pansexuality, a desire aimed regardless of gender categories (Garber, 1995). In the West, androgyny comes from two traditions: Platonic and Judeo-Christian. According to Plato, the first humans were not divided into women and men, but women, men, and androgens (the third gender). In some (e.g., Kabalistic) interpretations of the Book of Genesis, a man before the fall was considered androgynous, and the original sin is associated with the division into two genders.
The image of Shura (Alexander Medvedev) is difficult to define in clearly defined gender categories. As the correspondent of the program “Zakroma Rodiny” (Tsybin, 2016) describes him, Shura appeared “in outfits that turned the artist into a creature of the middle sex”. Shura became famous in 1997 after the release of a music video for the song “Holodnaya Luna” [Cold Moon] where the artist with white hair, and without two teeth appeared in a tight gold suit, accompanied by two drag queens and a dancing crowd. However, a “party” took place within the delineated confines of the manor, at the beginning of the clip we can see the artist heading into it in his shirt and suit and transforming (maybe taking off/putting on a mask?) as he goes inside.
At the 1998 Song of the Year, Shura performed in a no less eccentric look: a fur coat and short briefs. “I perceive my performances as a play,” he would say later (Fedorenko, 2017). Due to health problems, alcohol, and drugs, the singer disappeared from the Russian scene for several years, and returned in 2006, already after the adoption of the law banning “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” (Sadreeva, 2019). Shura lost his former extravagance and acquired false teeth, but later he fragmentarily restored his image and brought back his heels and dresses. As journalist Alexei Ostunin notes: “The same Shura: people fell in love with him like that – with makeup, with feathers. And if the artist falls in love like that, the love will always be. And when the artist decided that he would just be unshaven and in jeans on stage singing the same songs, then the popularity plummeted. People stopped understanding who he was. They got used to the fact that it’s fun, and funny, you can laugh and dance. And out comes some man with a goatee” (Bespalov, 2019).
Expectedly, there are many rumors about the sexual orientation of the artist. One can find news about revelations of both his homosexuality (Sokolova, 2020) and heterosexuality (Еkspress-gazeta, 2010; Ivona, 2013). In various interviews, Shura has both stated his "normal traditional orientation" and said that “if a person loves him, he doesn't care about his gender” (Amiko, 2014, 236). The artist claims that he perceives “his performances as a performance, where it is quite normal to wear dresses and tights”, he supports Boris Moiseev and Sergei Penkin, who, in his opinion, announced “the first homosexuality on the Russian stage”, but he himself does not proclaim anything, “it is such an image” (Fedorenko, 2017): “On the stage, we are one thing, in life – another” – states the singer (Еkspress-gazeta, 2010).)
Camp: Philipp Kirkorov
“The question isn’t, ‘Why travesty, impersonation, and theatricality?’ The question is, rather, ‘When do travesty, impersonation, and theatricality acquire the special flavor of Camp?’” writes Susan Sontag (1964, 4) in her essay, perhaps the most famous one on camp. Sontag does not provide a specific definition of camp, only an outline of attributes and categories. Camp is not a set of stable codes, but their destruction and expansion. There is no definition of camp, but there is “camp recognition”, asking the question, “What if the right audience for this were exactly me? [...] And what if, furthermore, others who don't know or recognize can see it from the same 'perverse' angle?” (Sedgwick, 1990, 156). Camp becomes a mode of communication. Blurred and dynamic, ambiguous, resisting definitions of camp and queer are simultaneously verbs, nouns, and adjectives.
Camp is a certain way of looking at the world, a kind of aestheticism, a triumph of style over substance, striving for “things-which-is-the-substance-that-isn't”. Like the queer that denies anything set by nature/natural, the camp cannot help but be artificial, it rejects nature. Camp is style, and nothing natural is stylish. Camp carries certain connotations of performativity (identity/gender/role), the awareness of it as a (non)volitional act: “To experience camp – as applied to people or objects – is to be aware of being as a performance of a role” (Sontag, 1964, 151). Camp is also a verb: “to camp”. Camp is not about the essence of a thing or person, but about becoming them.
Philipp Kirkorov is “the king of Russian camp” (Engström, 2019). He is known not only for his songs, but also for his outrageous images, both in music videos and performances and at various public events. In the video “Zajka Moya” [My Bunny] (1995), the artist appears in a leopard robe in the company of two girls in a maid's suit and champagne. In addition, the video is built on irony: while the song talks about the strong romantic feelings of the hero to “his bunny” (Alla Pugacheva, who can also be called a gay icon), in the clip he talks to her on the phone, he touches the girls, imitates penetration with them (and cartoon characters), and they, in turn, try to undress him. “Bunny” similarly talks to his lover while in the company of two young men.
The apotheosis of his style appears in “Roza Chainaya” (2003), where Philipp plays Louis XIV, perhaps another king of the camp. Gilded and oversaturated sets and masses, exaggerated mannerisms and sexuality, an abundance of wine, fruit (artificial), and jewels, a cane, and a dwarf. In another scene, we can note certain homoeroticism: Philipp appears in a half-unbuttoned and semi-transparent shirt. Already in 2010, in the music video for the song "Disco Partizani", an eclectic hit in the Balkan aesthetic and the recurring motif “cyganizacija” [lit. gypsyism], he appears in a red satin coat, gold chains, a cane, and several dwarfs (again). The theatricality is enhanced by the curtain framing what is happening in the clip.
However, Kirkorov’s camp has not gone anywhere: the provocative music video “Romani” (2020) [Romances] depicts Kirkorov as a priest who falls in love with a parishioner. It is presented as “A fashion story, where the best and exclusive pieces from the world of fashion, design, and art are collected: the luxurious Alta Sartoria Dolce&Gabbana collection, unique collage pictures, specially created for this video. This clip is like a canvas of contemporary art.” Gold-embroidered robes, classic art collages, neon church – in the end, the video seems to be more about furniture and fashion than about the romance. In another music video or “psychedelic fashion thriller” titled “Komilfo” (2021) Kirkorov will once again find himself among dwarfs, drag queens with a rhinestoned beard, Siamese twins, and other queers.
Both music videos depict Kirkorov’s romances with women, and, thus, he is presented maybe not hegemonically masculine but Casanova-like (as in “Zajka moia”). Most of the images and aesthetics he creates are filled with eroticism and narcissistic self-love, they are simultaneously extremely feminine/masculine and not belonging to any of those categories. Camp is always a theater, a masquerade, like any gender identity. Camp simultaneously exaggerates, takes the feminine and masculine to an extreme, and blurs the boundaries between them, does not distinguish between gender, and destroys them. Camp eliminates the binary: feminine/masculine, natural/artistic, good/bad (taste), seriousness/frivolity, innocence/sexuality. Nevertheless, certain queer symbolism and the blurring of gender boundaries in the case of Kirkorov lie only at the level of visuals, and are rarely reflected in the lyrics of his songs.
In 2018 Kirkorov and his close friend Nikolay Baskov presented a scandalous video “Ibiza” named after the island which is one of the most famous destinations for gay tourism in Europe. While Kirkorov received only last place in the ParniPlus (2018) rating of the most heterosexual Russian singers Baskov earned the second position. The video is replete not only with sexualized bodies of people of all genders and ages but also with sexualized non-humans such as champagne, dumplings, or a goat. The clip is dedicated to ambiguous hate-love relationships between Kirkorov and Baskov and depicts a mock fight between them. Indeed, queerness can be read into any “bromance”, but this video takes it further depicting Baskov nearly and clearly kissing Kirkorov when the latter is singing the line from his other song: “I didn't know love could be cruel”. However, expectations are dashed and Baskov just bites Kirkorov’s nose. As Daniil Zhaivoronok (2018) puts it:
“The clip is interrupted now and then by the speeches of other stars trying to describe the relationship between Kirkorov and Baskov as at least a (socially acceptable) friendship, but even this proves impossible. As a result, the displaced, unimaginable sexuality between the characters of Kirkorov and Baskov is replaced by demonstrative violence. Erotic desire turns into a desire for death, which occurs at the end of the clip: both heroes die at the hands of a woman who had no place in their relationship. But they die according to the romantic canon: together and at the same hour”.
Famous journalist Dmitry Kiselev, in turn, also conducted an analysis of the music video and concluded that the “coming out of Kirkorov and Baskov looks pathetic and ridiculous” (2018).
Nevertheless, let us not forget: the camp is depoliticized (Sontag, 1964). In an interview with Ksenia Sobchak (2019), the artist himself noted that he “promotes a gay culture in a certain way, because he wears feathers and rhinestones,” but “does not go out with a banner”. In the same interview, he criticized Brunei’s law, which provides for the death penalty for homosexual relations, but called Russia a “gay-friendly” country. On the one hand, Phillip appeared in public with the inscription “Queers still here” (Guys+, 2018), on the other hand, he spoke out against gay pride parades (Sobchak Live, 2012).
However, the singer urged not to fight “queers” (Super, 2013) on the eve of the adoption of the law banning “propaganda of homosexuality” and signed a petition to Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev to deprive Vitaly Milonov, whose initiative was this law, of his mandate (Argumenty i Fakty, 2012). In 2021 Kirkorov himself almost became a victim of this law: he and rapper Dava were amongst the reasons for Roskomnadzor to check Muz-TV awards for gay propaganda. They drove down the carpet in a convertible posing as newlyweds and surrounded by half-naked men (RBC, 2021).
Conclusion
The period of the 1990s and early 2000s in Russia was marked by the increased visibility of non-heterosexual people and the formation of such identities. Whereas previously sexuality as a certain practice produced subjectivity, at this time homo-bi and other sexual identities began to form for those who were previously comfortable talking about themselves as “v teme” (“theme,” gay slang to identify queerness) rather than “lesbian” (Essig, 1999). Their formation, like the formation of identities in the West, was constructed through a series of binarities: homosexual/heterosexual, private/public, feminine/masculine, innocent/white, secret/obvious, etc. (Sedgwick, 1990). Lori Essig, who researched the Russian queer community in the 1990s, noted the tendency not to identify themselves through sexual practices. Russian queers just did not fit into the Western binary model of homo/heterosexuality and resisted strict identity frameworks, which is why Essig used the term “queer” instead of “homosexuality” in her study (1999).
The stage identities of Boris Moiseev, Shura, Verka Serdyuchka, and Philip Kirkorov in the late 1990s and early 2000s could hardly be called heteronormative or even strictly homosexual. Shura's stage identity is not strictly defined as feminine or masculine, but rather presents itself as androgynous. Verka Serdyuchka is the “joke” image of the heterosexual post-Soviet conductor, played out over the years by Andrey Danilko. Moiseev, who alternately applies feminine/masculine masks to himself, maybe the only one who has ventured beyond the heteronormative not only in visual images, but also in song lyrics. Philip Kirkorov seems to align his performances, music videos, and clothes with Susan Sontag's notes on camp.
A large part of the audience reads the stage identities of the artists as non-heterosexual, which provokes various levels of media discussion of the singers’ sexual orientation and corresponding questions to them, repeated from interview to interview. However, artists’ descriptions of their own sexual-romantic relationships not only avoid definitions in the categories of homosexuality/bisexuality, but also any connotations with corporeality: “...artists like Boris Moiseev can relatively legitimately exist in discourse as long as their homosexuality remains spiritual, manifested only in art, but not physically, not in actual sex” (Zhayvorok, 2020). Silver Age philosopher Vasily Rozanov (2018) describes the “spiritual homosexuality” characteristic of Russian culture. An aversion to the corporeal and carnal, the “sublimity” of an attraction not realized physically legitimizes “spiritual homosexuality”. However, art, music, and performance are not exclusively ideal phenomena, and queer stage identities are constructed corporeally, performatively, rather than discursively – the homosexual remains in music as a “phantom limb” (Amiko, 2014).
The production of queer stage identities in the 1990s and 2000s made the impression of a “coming out of Russia” (Zinatulinn, 2015) but the visibility of non-heterosexual people, was in fact limited to the cultural industry. None of the artists were condemning LGBT people, but neither were they going to “take to the streets with a banner”. All of the artists' experiments with blurring/destroying gender categories did not go beyond the stage, largely following the structure of the “open secret”' through binary categories. According to Eve Sedgwick Kosofsky (2002) the homo/heterosexual opposition is also related to other binaries: not only masculine/feminine but also majority/minority, innocence/initiation, natural/artificial, old/new, secrecy/disclosure, knowledge/non-knowledge, private/public, etc.
The existence of non-heterosexual people is concentrated in the notion of coming out of the closet. Sexuality must remain in this isolated, private space of the closet, the bedroom, or as former deputy chairman of the United Russia faction, Franz Klintsevich put it: “Personally, I don't care who's with whom or on whom. But it should not be shown publicly" (BBC Russian, 2006). However, complete secrecy of homosexuality is also punishable because of "homosexual panic”, a condition (of a man) most likely caused by unwanted sexual attention (from a man). Homosexuality is thus capable of spreading from person to person, propagandized as a threat to heterosexuality. As noted by Gennady Raikov, chairman of the State Duma Ethics Commission in 2006, who had previously proposed a law criminalizing sodomy and its compulsory treatment: “If this goes on, the sex minority will become the majority” (BBC Russian Service, 2006). Protecting against this threat in turn requires greater visibility of non-heterosexual bodies, which comes into conflict with the injunction to “not come out of the closet” and thus creates a vicious circle (Baer, 2009).
At this particular cultural moment, the scene (what could be even more public!) has become a distorted mirror of reality, where queerness could manifest itself openly, simultaneously in no way related to the private and to sexual practices. The stage marked a certain boundary within which queer identities were allowed to exist as “images,” “the spectacle,” but the same “masquerading” offstage was no longer socially acceptable.
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List of musical video clips:
· Kirkorov F. Disco Partisans (2011)
· Kirkorov F. Romani (2020)
· Kirkorov F. Sneg (2011)
· Kirkorov F. Zajka Moya (1996)
· Kirkorov F., Baskov N. Ibiza (2018)
· Kirkorov F., MARUV. KOMILFO (2021)
· Kirkorov F., Rasputina M. Roza Chainaia (2003)
· Laxarev S. Tak krasivo (2017)
· Moiseev B. Black Swan (2000)
· Moiseev B. Ditya Poroka (1994)
· Moiseev B. Egoist (1996)
· Moiseev B. Ichthyander (2001)
· Moiseev B. Tango Cocaine (1995)
· Moiseev B., "Strelki". Sexualnaya Revolucia (2001)
Moiseev B., Trubach N. Golubaya Luna (1998)
· Shura. Holodnaya Luna (1997)
· Shura. Ty Ne Ver Sleam (Song of the Year, 1998)
· Tantsy Minus. Gorod (1999)
· Verka Serduchka. Chita Drita (2003)
· Verka Serduchka. Ya popala na lubov e (2003)
[1] Moreover, at the end of 2023 the Russian court banned “The LGBT movement,” labeling it as extremist and prosecuted under criminal law.