In the pink

Much copied (thanks, Madonna), rarely bettered (yep, Madonna again), gay men and women have always been in the vanguard of the entertainment industry. As Gay Pride approaches, Brian Finnegan, editor of Gay Community Newsin Dublin, celebrates lesbian and gay culture and tells you why gay is the new . . . well, gay

I was once accused on a radio show of choosing to be gay because it was trendy. Anyone who knew me during my childhood (much of which I spent pretending to be Sabrina from Charlie's Angels) might say different, but I did have to agree with one part of the pundit's statement. Gay is trendy. No. Strike that. Gay sets trends, and it always has.

From the days when Oscar Wilde was leading the cool set a merry dance around theatrical London, to the years when Andy Warhol was glibly doing the same in New York, to Elton John and David Furnish's same-sex, super-set wedding, gay has long had the ultimate cultural cachet, the highest-performing currency in the world of entertainment. Proof of this pudding is in the sampling of Madonna, the world's largest cultural icon, who has made a career out of delving into what the gays are loving, then simply making herself over in that image. Her most recent incarnation was inspired by a wave of electro-synth pop in New York's gay clubs circa 2004, married to the abiding queer love of Abba, a band that has had more comebacks via the gay subculture circuit than Madonna's had hot dinners.

It's salient, then, if you want to be in the cultural know, or if you want to reinvent yourself before everyone else catches on to what's coming next, to set your eyes squarely on what's about to break into the gay big time.

If, like me, you are a happy homosexual who cares about this kind of thing, you've got the automatic inside track. If not . . . well, with Gay Pride in the air and thousands of ostentatious gay men and lesbians about to bring Dublin's streets to colourful life for what we call queer Christmas, what's the harm in a little sharing?

MUSIC

Leading the current pink pack in the music industry is the revolutionary form of Beth Ditto, lead singer of rock-pop trio The Gossip. Ditto has dubbed herself a fat lesbian in interviews and happily chats about the sexual intricacies of her relationship with her male-to-female pre-operative transsexual partner. In December last year she topped the NMEcool list and this month she's made the music bible's cover - naked.

Beth isn't the only lesbian currently making waves. Take note of Tegan and Sara, a pair of Canadian twins who marry a 1980s image with a retro-grunge style and have toured with the diverse likes of The Killers, Rufus Wainwright and Neil Young. They have just completed their own sell-out tour of the US and are set to do the same all over Europe.

Echoing the excesses of early-1980s New Romance, a new wave of tranny artistes is taking the world by storm. Leading the femmed-up fray is Jefferee Starr, an electropop vision in pink who calls himself Jesus Christ with false eyelashes and has garnered 13 million music listens on MySpace in the last 11 months alone. In Ireland, the pop drag movement is led in fine style by Ladyface, a wigged-up, glam duo who, with the help of dance producers Neosupervital, churn out pop ditties with killer hooks and can pack a gay venue out just by clicking their perfectly manicured fingers.

Another Irish act to keep a keen eye on are Cuckoo Savante, a Galway band of mixed sexual orientations who peddle a brand of music they call Hurdy-Gurdy Gotique Electra Loungeporn and boast a queer lead singer, one Jaime Nanci, who comes on like Marc Almond channelling the ghost of Nina Simone. He's got star written all over him.

THEATRE & PERFORMANCE

Ireland's own Miss Panti has been doing her drag thing for a few years now. Recently, however, she's taken drag to a new level with a critically acclaimed stage show, In These Shoes, which premiered at this year's International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival and will be returning this autumn for the Fringe Festival.

The other Irish drag act to watch out for is an odd proposition. Licky Rake is a sub-persona of Ireland's best-loved drag king, Gringo O'Hara. In other words, Licky is a woman dressed up as a man, dressed up as a woman presenting a gut-wrenchingly funny daytime talk show on stage, complete with guests who advocate losing weight by ditching body parts or have fallen in love with their girlfriend's brother's boyfriend.

In July, Dublin's Project Theatre will be graced with the presence of Taylor Mac, at the moment the world's most-talked-about drag act. Mac uses a kind of political drag clearly inspired by 1980s avant garde performance artist Leigh Bowery. "The revolution will not be masculinised," he declares, blaming most global ills on penis-wielding heterosexuals.

Bowery also comes to mind with the work of Bulgarian drag artist Ivo Dimchev, who is bringing his strange and beautiful show Lili Handel to the Balkan Have U-Met-Nosti? Festival in Dublin this July. Shaven, naked and large-framed, there is no feminine artifice involved in Dimchev's act, which is getting international attention for it's strangely compelling subversion of the drag idiom.

FILM & TV

The two gay names to watch in Irish film right now are Martina Niland and Mark O'Halloran. The latter has transmuted a successful acting vocation into an award-winning screenwriting career in just three short years. 2005's Adam and Paulput him on on the map, but this year's Garage, which just picked up the prestigious Prix Art et Essai at Cannes should see him go stellar.

Niland is the producing powerhouse behind Once, which won the Sundance Audience Award this year, and she also brought the Irish Film and Television Award-winning Pavee Lackeento the screen. She's currently one of the many Irish gay film names behind the newly christened Gaze, the Dublin International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, which kicks off on August 2nd.

2000 Glenn Dimplex award-winner Paul Rowley is causing a stir with his forthcoming documentary on the lives of asylum seekers annexed in the former Mosney holiday camp. With his installation artist's hat on, he's also just been commissioned to make a video installation for LAX airport in Los Angeles.

The gay TV star everyone should be looking at right now is TR Knight, who plays the very heterosexual Dr George O'Malley on Grey's Anatomy.

He garnered a level of queer kudos in Hollywood previously unseen after being forced out of the closet following anti-gay verbal abuse from his Grey'sco-star Isaiah Washington. The story, which was all over the papers last February, was a kind of American version of the Jade Goody/Shilpa Shetty scandal, and, just as Shetty is attempting to turn her subsequent notoriety into a Hollywood film career, Knight is doing the same. He's about to release a comedy called The Last Requestin which he plays an only son trying to fulfil his father's dying wish and continue the family name.

His refusal to back down over the Grey's Anatomyscandal and the media's sympathy with him, not to mention the very public shaming of Washington, points towards a new acceptance of gay men in the Hollywood system. Knight plays a straight man in The Last Request, so it looks like his sexual orientation won't have him stereotype cast.

Rupert Everett must be fuming.

Hot gossip: Movers and shakers to watch out for

MUSIC

Beth Ditto(The Gossip)

Cuckoo Savante(Galway based demi-gay avant garde jazz band)

Ladyface(Dublin drag queens turned electro Eighties act)

Tegan and Sara(Lesbian grunge/pop twins from Canada, currently on sell-out world tour)

Jeffree Star(Day-glo pink version of Marilyn Manson, singing about lipstick and fashion for 13 million MySpace fans)

PERFORMANCE

Panti(Panti took drag one step further with her show in the Dublin Gay Theatre Festival)

Taylor Mac(Avant garde drag performer currently on a world tour and appearing in Ireland in July)

Licky Rake(Lesbian dressed up as right-wing, trailer-trash TV presenter)

ART

The Gay Male Art Movement NYC(The Male Gaze is current exhibition featuring what's been identified as a new movement, featuring artists mainly born in the 1980s)

Ross Watson(Realist painter who juxtaposes homoerotic images against classic paintings)

DANCE

Ivo Dimchev(Queer dancer appearing in Balkan festival in Dublin next month)

Suddenly Dance(Canadian partners dancer, David Ferguson and painter/filmmaker Miles Lowry, who make dance films, some set in Ireland)

FILM AND TV

Mark O'HalloranFrom actor to winning screenwriter in just three short years; 2005's Adam and Paul put him on on the map, but this year's Garage should see him go stellar.

Martina Niland(Producer of Once and Pavee Lackeen)

Tom Maguire(Producer of Emerald Warriors documentary for TG4 and a raft of films)

Paul Rowley(Glenn Dimplex award-winner turned documentary maker with the soon-to-be-released Mosney)

10 Dublin Pride Tickets

PARTY IN THE PARK

Wood Quay Ampitheatre, June 23, 3pm

If you haven't experienced the Pride euphoria at Dublin's Wood Quay amphitheatre, you haven't seen the capital at it's most extravagantly exciting.

THE BIG PRIDE PARTY

Temple Bar Music Centre, June 23, 9pm

The most-awaited gay event of the year faces some stiff competition from the likes of the George and the Front Lounge, but it's still the pink ticket everyone wants.

JOCELYN BROWN

The George, June 23, 10pm

Gay icon and disco diva takes to the stage of Ireland's best-loved gay venue.

GLORIA

National Concert Hall, June 16, 8pm

Ireland's lesbian and gay choir present their annual showstopper celebrating the love that once dared not speak its name.

PRIDE CASTING COUCH

The Front Lounge, June 19, 10pm

Don't expect an easy ride from Dublin's favourite drag queen as Panti hosts a camp karaoke night to remember.

THE DYKE NIGHT

Temple Bar Music Centre, June 22, 9pm

Girls, girls and more girls get down to the groove at this veritable women-only tradition.

FURRY GLEN

McGruders, 17 Thomas St, June 23, 10pm

Lions and tigers and bears - oh my! It's a night for the larger, more hirsute man and his admirers.

MY NAME IS MARY

Cube@The Project, June 18 to 24, 8.15pm

Suzanne Lakes has become an annual Pride fixture with her plays about the redemptive power of friendship and unconditional love.

WHO THE HELL DOES SHE THINK SHE IS!

The Front Lounge, June 17, 4.30pm

This is a first. One of Dublin's favourite gay pubs stages a transsexual musical.

GLITZ

Break for the Border, June 19, 10pm

Dance anthems and cute disco bunnies are the order of the night at this specially themed event for the long-running Dublin club.