"Dissembling was the specialty of Broadway musicals. The storylines were scrupulously heterosexual. What could I have heard in them that made me think they explained me? It was this: The innocent characters were so wonderfully compromised by the actors who played them; by the writers and musicians who created them. The scar tissue on voices. The makeup on faces. Youth! The wicked stage! The jaded legend refreshed the innocence of my youth. Musical comedy songs were more real than my life because they were articulate and because they had ligaments of narrative attached to them. For today’s young queers and lonelys, these songs must seem quaint and campy and not useful. But they were never campy for me—for us?—they only became camp in the attempt to share them without embarrassment."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesJournalists from the United StatesMemoirists from the United StatesPeople from San FranciscoHispanic Americans
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Rodriguez
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Richard Rodriguez
118 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Richard Rodriguez →
Related Quotes
"You know what futurists and online-ists and cut-out-the-middle-man-ists and Davos-ists and deconstructionists of ever…"
"The genius of American culture and its integrity comes from fidelity to the light. Plain as day, we say. Happy as the…"
"Mexico is a nineteenth-century country arranged for gaslight. Once brought into the harsh light of the twentieth-cent…"
"As you see yourself, I once saw myself; as you see me now, you will be seen."
"His name was William Saroyan. He was the first writer I fell in love with, boyishly in love. I was held by his unaffe…"
"Of all the institutions in their lives, only the Catholic Church has seemed aware of the fact that my mother and fath…"
"My parents seem to me possessed of great dignity. An aristocratic reserve. Like the very rich who live behind tall wa…"
"Once upon a time, I was a ‘socially disadvantaged’ child. An enchantedly happy child. Mine was a childhood of intense…"
"I grew up victim to a disabling confusion. As I grew fluent in English, I no longer could speak Spanish with confidence."
"‘Why?’ My mother’s question hangs in the still air of memory. The loneliness I have felt many mornings, however, has …"