![]() ![]() Gladys Bentley died of influenza in 1960. She was the eldest of 4 children born to a Trinidad born mother, Mary Mote (Bentley) and an American born father, George L. Though primarily remembered as a musician, Bentley’s iconic self-presentation influenced fashion history and transgressions to this day. Gladys Bentley was born on August 12, 1907. ![]() For the – literal and figurative – “fashion police,” these acts of race and gender cross-dressing constituted criminal acts.Īccording to Bentley, writing about their alleged conversion to heterosexuality in the 1950s, they “inhabited that half-shadow no-man’s land which exists between the boundaries of the two sexes.” However, this “in-between” Bentley occupied, in the light, was a space denied to Black queer entertainers historically. The McCarthy Era tactics of targeting Black entertainers as communist sympathizers also heightened the level of institutional racism Bentley faced. The “lavender scare” of the mid-20th century, societal moral panic, and the institutionalization of homophobia normalized the legal persecution of queer people. As a Black queer female-bodied person, Bentley, once considered a popular spectacle of the Harlem jazz scene, was now perceived as a homosexual menace due to the very visibility that gained them notoriety and success. House Committee on Un-American Activities during the height of the Jim Crow era. Bentley was targeted for investigation by the U.S. Bentley moved to California in 1937 and was forced back into the closet due to legal scrutiny for wearing men’s clothes and the out and open nature of their sexuality. This 1958 You Bet Your Life interview with Gladys Bentley shows her later, more traditionally feminine style, and includes the performance which we played in our podcast. The Great Depression and Prohibition era brought on years of hardship.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |