Is there a link between homosexuality and creativity? This intriguing subject is recognised and debated in the west. Heightened gay creativity, it is reasoned, comes from coping exceptionally to become super inventive as gays traverse tremendous societal pressures. Initially when gay feelings emerge, young people experience confusion about their sexuality. Getting isolated even from the family, they become adept at creative expressions.
Gay creativity is spontaneous, vibrant, deep, intelligent, soaked in sentiment with a soft corner for human society. Let me illustrate. I often go to Italy?s Accademia di Belle Arti Gallery in Florence to see a 5.17 metre (17ft) piece of marble weighing over six tons. The emotion of the man who sculpted this colossal single marble with an extraordinary expression of a Biblical man never fails to amaze me. You can still see its original uneven marble left as the pedestal. Most people would evenly cut Italian marble of this size as slabs of flooring for luxurious homes, but Michelangelo crafted incredible David, a standing male nude. When studying in Kolkata?s Government College of Art before leaving India, I?d become familiar with David, imagining it to be 5- 6 ft high. The first time I stood in front of this Renaissance masterpiece created 1501-1504, I was shell-shocked not just from its size, but perfect whole body anatomy. This was the master stroke of a homosexual genius. Such unparalleled artistic skill I find only in another gay artist, Leonardo da Vinci.
In 1980s, I was among those millions who worshipped that rare, 4-octave-spanning, Western opera-type voice of my rock-star hero. I?d follow him from London to Buenos Aires to New York just to hear him belt out super-hit songs. Thousands of crazed spectators would swoon and screech with excruciating joy at his powerful, pulsating stage presence. Even his vulgar gestures looked like visual art. This was Freddie Mercury, a pseudonym for Farrokh Bulsara, a Zanzibar-born Parsi Indian. He?s Asia?s and India?s first mega rock-star, songwriter-composer voted in polls by several western magazines, radio and TV channels to be the world?s all-time greatest singer or second-greatest entertainer after Michael Jackson.
Freddie Mercury?s is a story of another homosexual who died with severe AIDs. His band, Queen, sold over 300 million records; sales continue unabated even after his 1991 death at age 45. His tremendous talent combined all musical genres, revolutionising music for millions of fans worldwide. Huge Freddie Mercury sculptures stand erect in Montreux Switzerland and London. In 1999, British Royal Mail issued a postage stamp of him in performance. The way Charles Chaplain is considered British although he gained fame in USA and spent his last years in Switzerland, Freddie is a Gujarati who studied in India. What?s regrettable is that India never did recognise Freddie Mercury. Bollywood songs, many copied from Western tunes and genres, have made celebrities of playback singers known through cinema actors. Apart from Oscar or Nobel winners, globally reputed winners created by the masses like Freddie Mercury, also deserve our acknowledgment. He?s an inspiration for young Indians who want to excel in performing arts beyond Bollywood boundaries.
When a city brims with love and sexuality, creativity may reign. Since 16th century, beautiful Paris has recorded several gays in writers Th?ophile de Viau, Marcel Proust, Jean Cocteau to composer Jean Baptiste Lully, poet Paul Verlaine to fashion designers Jean Paul Gaultier, Karl Lagerfeld among others. In Montparnasse, I?d often frequent Lutetia Hotel for a cup of coffee. On weekend afternoons two men, one tall, the other short, would come in with a small dog. Their elegance was a pleasure to watch. This was Yves Saint Laurent and his companion, brilliant intellectual Pierre Berger, who together created luxury fashion brand YSL. The creativity bubble St Laurent is no more with us, but I can still visualise this gay couple?s artistic rapport.
In 1991 I?d made a drastic change in Danone?s brand Taillefine, internationally called Vitalinea. Bringing the idea of 0% fat and Cosmetique qui se mange (cosmetics you can eat) concept, I introduced violet colour in yoghurt branding. That shocked France. I?d explained to Danone that L?Oreal products are for surface beauty, but bacteria-based Danone yoghurt acts inside the body to keep real beauty intact. Pierre Berger read my revolutionary idea in the newspaper. Before launching YSL skin care products, he called me. We spent some time on cosmetique qui se mange. He wanted to hear me talk about the latent trend among women. Most spectacularly, he surprised me with his eloquence on Bengali culture, including writer Sarat Chatterjee.
The universal intellectual brilliance of homosexual writers shaped timeless ideas in millions of readers. Among gay authors are Oscar Wilde, Christopher Marlowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Walt Whitman, WH Auden, Gertrude Stein, Andre Gide, Arthur Rimbaud, EM Forster, Hans Christian Andersen, Virginia Woolf. Performing gay entertainers who?ve dented our imagination include George Michael, Elton John, Lady Gaga, Rudolf Nureyez and composers Tchaikovsky, Leonard Bernstein among many more.
San Francisco?s Castro Street with multi-coloured flags manifests hardcore gay culture. I saw gay customers making eyes at one another in the large mirrors of a 1930s-style art deco barber shop. What startled me was Body Shop, seller of ?ethical? cosmetics completely customising to gays. The shop?s entry picture had a man?s nude buttock with words conveying it?s the best cream for sexual pleasure.
Existence of homosexuality has been recorded since ancient Egypt 2,300 BC, but its public acceptance took several centuries. Did you know that Greek philosophers from Zeno in 500 BC to Socrates, Aristotle, even Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great were all gays, also Roman emperor Julius Caesar? There?s a contemporary LGBT culture for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender community although not everyone subscribes to this reference term. Without having differentiation among human beings won?t the world become boring?
Shombit Sengupta is an international creative business strategy consultant to top management. Reach him at http://www.shiningconsulting.com