AUGUST 1, 1997

Gay People's ChronICLE 11

SPEAK OUT

Some reporting on Cunanan was as bananas as he was

by Kevin Isom

We should have seen it coming. Everything was going so well. First, there was lesbian chic. Then there was "Ellen-The Episode." Then Mickey Mouse and Goofy stood up to the cartoonish Southern Baptist boycott.

But then along came Andrew Cunanan,

jump right on the case. And if Hard Copy is on the beat, you know it's gotta be big.

Subsequently, there were alerts on nightly news in every podunk town with even a smidgen of openly gay culture, in part because the FBI neglected to get out information to gay communities across the country

an alleged gay spree killer who swept into Straight folks have produced

South Beach leaving a trail of victims behind him, and casually murdered Gianni Versace, the talented, rich, and influential gay fashion designer.

A gasp of horror went up from fashionable gay and straight folk all around the world. Celebrities as diverse as Princess Di, Naomi Campbell, Elton John, and Sylvester Stallone were grief-stricken. And with good reason. Versace was an openly gay role model of successful and caring living, whose senseless death narrows the world a little for gays and straights alike.

Without Versace, where will we now find homoerotic images of male beauty in straight magazines? Even for people who don't buy into the whole designer cachet, Versace made a difference and an improvement-in body-conscious style, not to mention the buffed-up types of bodies he promoted. I, for one, am all for eye candy. Will we now be left with only Calvin Klein?

The mainstream news media was, of course, all over the story like Bruno Magli shoes on O.J. Simpson. Here was an alleged spree killer who, in his mother's words, was a "high class gay prostitute." What copy this made for the nightly news!

Forget Ellen, forget Disney. Lesbian chic? What was that? Here was an alleged queer Heidi Fleiss with murder on the mind! Hard Copy even came out of summer hiatus to

years and years of serial killers. Remember Ted Bundy? Now we have our very own spree killer.

when they first knew of the very real threat. Headlines from places like "Bucksnort, Tennessee: Is the Killer Here?" were commonplace.

But we should have seen it coming. After all, we'll never be truly equal to straight folks until we're equal in every way. And that means bad as well as good. Strange as well as stylish. Straight folks have produced years and years of serial killers. Remember Ted Bundy? Now we have our very own spree killer.

Curiously, though, instead of just accepting a spree killer for what he wasbananas-the mainstream media seemed obsessed with finding a reason, an explanation, for his killings. They suggested, without any evidence to back up the assertion, that he discovered he had AIDS and just snapped. Sort of like Mike Tyson when he made a snack out of Evander Holyfield's

ears.

But doesn't it seem the least bit strange

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that thousands upon thousands of gay men have been diagnosed with AIDS, and not one has gone on a cross-country killing spree? Isn't it worth noting that most gay men instead have thrown their efforts into a brave and largely, successful community response to AIDS?

Doesn't it also seem strange that the mainstream media tends to lump Versace and his alleged killer into the same "lifestyle❞—you know, the gay one? While both the victim and his alleged killer might both have been gay, their lifestyles were hardly identical. But the media doesn't seem to think so.

The saddest part of all this hoopla is that Versace's longtime companion, Antonio

D'Amico, was rarely mentioned, if at all. Instead, the focus was on “Poughkeepsie, New York: Is the Killer Here?"

On the twisted road to equality, we seem to have taken an unexpected step. A step which will, with FBI, police, and gay community cooperation, soon be forgotten.

I for one am looking forward to getting back to Disney, those zany Southern Baptists, and lesbian chic.

Kevin Isom is a syndicated travel writer and humor columnist living in Atlanta. His short story "The Brothers Mangrum" appears in the Spring 1997 issue of Paris Transcontinental.

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