Eldergays, Tell me about the Village People

Rumor had it.... These guys were....... GAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!

r1, Haha I know. But I've always been fascinated by this group. I heard the gay personnas went over the heads of most flyover americans. How big of a phenomenon were they? I want the real scoop of people alive during this era.

I hear that the Native American had a really nice piece of long, thick uncut Puerto Rican pinga, and a nice bush to match....

I aked for some fkin responses. WTf is with DL lately. The only threads that get comments are Trump threads, poltitical threads, or some nude twink. Ughhh.

I was born in 73 and can remember the Village People being massive. My parents both loved their music and my mum was quite partial to the Construction man. Neither of my parents thought anyone in the band except maybe the Indian was gay. Many of them are/were gay. Out gay. There were really 2 main singers, the rest mostly danced. The Cop was the one married to Claire Huxtable. There was an ugly court case where he fought for (and won) ownership of the band and name. He claims the band was never meant to be about gayness, their sings weren't gay - just jazzy young men. He claimed they were just characters in costume and only for the band. However I recall reading an interview where the Leatherman was actually found at a bar or club, dressed as a Leather man, and that was how he was recruited for the band. They had a trashily fabulous movie, its a great laugh. I love a lot of their tunes, they are my housework music. And their film clips are hilarious.

They weren't gay, just special.

I read once, the singer was living in a trailer somewhere in CA and weighed like 400 pounds.

Apparently they're Trump's favorite group, so make of that what you will.

Thank you.

I was an adult when they were popular and I had no idea they were gay. Never crossed my mind.

Popmatters did a nice three-part interview with David Hodo (The Construction Worker) about six years ago. He's the one that attracted my attention.

Excerpt:

PM: The clone look was really popular in the gay clubs …

DH: That's how Jacques came up with the concept for Village People. He did his homework. He had produced the Ritchie Family. He would stand in the dark in these clubs and listen to the music. He would see what made people go out on the floor and what made people clear the floor. He was going to the Anvil. I was doing Pal Joey at the time the Anvil was happening and we just thought that it was the most lascivious thing we'd ever heard of. Jacques was there and that's where he saw Felipe dancing on the bar. He'd seen people in the club dressed in cowboy hats and construction hats. I was never into the costume thing. I never understood it. I thought, If you're not a construction worker, why are you going to come home, take your suit off, and go dress up like a construction worker and go dancing? I couldn't figure it out.

I was 5 years old in 1978 and knew they sucked.

You could floss on Glen Hughes's chest. He died in March 2001, at 50, at his Manhattan apartment from lung cancer. Buried wearing his leatherman outfit at Saint Charles Cemetery in Farmingdale, Long Island.

OP and other young'uns, the VP's first album, imaginatively titled "Village People", featured the following tracks:

San Francisco (You've Got Me) In Hollywood (Everybody Is A Star) Fire Island Village People

We didn't need it spelled out. Their bigger hits came later and were still obviously winking at the gay community, but that first album was openly and specifically aimed at (but not limited) the gay disco audience, which was huge. Everybody, including non-rube straight people, knew that Fire Island = gay.

Read their Wiki entry for confirmation:

Damn the DL's stinky formatting (and mine)! The tracks from the VP's first album are:

San Francisco (You've Got Me)

In Hollywood (Everybody Is A Star)

Fire Island

Village People

Lol, Fire Island (don't go in the bushes) I still didn't get it then.

They were always guessed in the gay icon outfits from the very beginning but it all really went over the head of everyone across the country at the time. I didn't figure it all out until later, even though they also have the gayest songs ever. It's impressive that YMCA and Macho Man are still iconic all of these years later even after disco is long gone.

I googled David Hodo and he doesn’t look too good without those glasses.

how many of them were actually gay?

R17, whose heads did it go over? I'm sure there were some people who missed the idea, just as there were little old ladies who believed Liberace was straight, but do you really think worldly, well-informed straight people didn't get references to Fire Island and the YMCA, both of which were notorious well before the Village People came along? This was the 1970s - the late '70s, at that - not the 1910s.

r20, You need to get outside of New York more. The 70s were a different time and place. The country wasn't so interconnected.

Seeing how the VP references went over the heads of a lot of people made me realize that the world is filled with idiots

I lived in the very straight laced suburbs. Everyone knew they were gay.

DL you delivered on this thread!! I was enjoying their music the other day saying to myself "This is obviously for gay people." With that "masc top" approach.

OP's question was answered but I'm still baffled. How could middle America NOT tell this was for gay people? I guess gay culture in the Village was not as well known then as now.

R21, I don't live in New York. I didn't live in NY in the '70s. In the late '70s, I lived in suburban DC - not exactly an Appalachian holler, but not Christopher Street, either.

The people in my office downtown knew the VP were gay, or at least winking at gay audiences. My mother in the suburbs knew it. Maybe it was different in small towns or less cosmopolitan metro areas, but their gay shtick was not "our little secret", as though it was 1950 and we were all friends of Dorothy.

I was a kid I thought they were all hot except for the military guy,