Reflections

The mirror is a surface that fascinates almost everyone. From Alice to Vampires, the reflective glass of a mirror has been ingrained into our culture. We love looking in them to admire our bodies or pick our bodies apart piece by piece and talk about what we don't like like Regina George and the Plastics. Mirrors are sources of bad fortune and fortune telling. But a physical mirror has only a slight effect compared to the cultural mirrors we look into every day.

I was listening to Pomplamousse's cover of Single Ladies by Beyonce. It's completely different from the original and I absolutely love the quirkiness of it. Just like Gary Go's cover of Lady Gaga's Just Dance took a catchy "made-for-radio-and-clubs" song and turned it into a beautiful piano ballad, Pomplamousse took a song that had tons of cultural baggage (The video, the dance, Glee, the Kanye scandal, and all the YouTube videos of people doing the dance) and turned it on its head. Thinking about all this in between sets of leg presses, I realized how much of a cultural nightmare gay culture is.

I have many friends who know the Single Ladies dance and many friends who learn Lady Gaga's choreography from her videos. And that's fine. But I find myself aggravated when that becomes the identity of a young gay man. We are always fighting to prove ourselves to the world that we are more than what society wants us to be.

Sexual misfits. Culture Hounds. Weak and overly feminine. Negatively subversive.

But in reality, I think that we are our own people. Just like everyone else is, no matter what subculture or mainstream culture you find yourself participating in. So dance your own dance, sing songs your own way, be your own person.

When you look in your mirror, what do you see? And look not in the mirror, but through to mirror to borrow a phrase. If you look at yourself and see more of other people and things than yourself, I think it's time to stop hiding yourself behind what the world expects of you and start defining yourself beyond it.