Village People to 'Hang Out with All the Boys' at Trump's Inauguration
"You know what gets 'em rockin'? 'Y.M.C.A.,'" Donald Trump said on a podcast in 2022. "'YMCA,' the gay national anthem. Did you ever hear that? 'Y.M.C.A.' gets people up and it gets them moving."
And will likely do so at the Presidential Inauguration next week where the Village People will be performing. No doubt the President-elect will do his goofy "Trump Dance" to the song to the delight of his fans.
But the song itself has remained at the center of debate over it being the "gay national anthem," so much so that even one of its co-creators, Village People lead singer Victor Willis, disagrees with Trump. And it appears the song has gone through its own kind of conversion therapy.
Vanity Fair reports, "In December, Willis claimed on Facebook that calling "Y.M.C.A." a gay anthem is "a false assumption based on the fact that my writing partner [Jacques Morali, who died in 1991] was gay, and some (not all) of Village People were gay, and that the first Village People album was totally about gay life." Apparently you can't do whatever you feel with "Y.M.C.A."—according to Willis, it's regarded as a gay anthem only "to shame the president-elect's use of the song."
"Get your minds out of the gutter," he added.
This has come after a contentious battle over Trump's use of the song (and other Village People titles) over the years. Last May, The group's manager Karen Willis, Victor' wife and very litigious lawyer, sent a cease and desist order to Trump "stating that having Village People impersonators perform "Macho Man" at Mar-a-Lago gave people the false idea that Trump had the group's support," adds Vanity Fair.
But in the ensuing months — and the renewed revenue that has come with it being played at Trump rallies, Willis mellowed. "I said to my wife one day, 'Hey, "Trump" seems to genuinely like "Y.M.C.A." and he's having a lot of fun with it,'" wrote Willis. "As such, I simply didn't have the heart to prevent his continued use of my song in the face of so many artists withdrawing his use of their material.
But don't call it the "gay National anthem," or the "gay" anything unless you want to experience the the couple's wrath: they plan on suing anyone who calls it that. "Come January 2025, my wife will start suing each and every news organisation that falsely refers to YMCA, either in their headlines or alluded to in the base of the story, that YMCA is somehow a gay anthem because such notion is based solely on the song's lyrics alluding to elicit [sic] activity for which it does not," the Telegraph reports.
"Willis claimed there was a "false assumption" that YMCA was a gay anthem because his bandmates were homosexual, as well as the Young Men's Christian Associations being considered somewhat of a gay hangout," the Telegraph adds.
The song shot up the Billboard dance/electronic sales chart as polling day approached on Nov 5, and finally hit number one following Mr Trump's victory the week of Nov 17.
We would not consider it a "gay national anthem," especially in lieu of Willis's contention that it s not. But contextually it would appear the song has a strong connection to the queer world of 1978 when it was released. In the video for the song, Willis and the group perform it in front of the Ramrod, one of NYC's leading queer bars, as well as on the West Side Docks, known to be a cruising locale for gay men at the time. Two years later in the film "Can't Stop the Music," the song is used when its principals (Valerie Perrine, Caitlyn Jenner, Steve Guttenberg, and the Village People) visit a YMCA and "hang out with all the boys." The scene includes some hijinks in the shower, which give the lyric "you can do whatever you feel" new meaning.
Given the film was released as a wholesome family entertainment along the lines of "Grease," its gay context is largely of the "wink wink," subtextual nature. That is, it is there for those who were aware of it. As the website Meathook Cinema (curated by Simon Jones) pointed out in an essay last year: "But, the gayness is there, at first, in subtle sneaky ways like when Sam asks for a hankie to wipe her mouth after eating an ice cream. Randy Jones (the Cowboy) passes her the hankie from his back pocket (red, if you're wondering). . ."
The commentary continues: "And then after these tiny clinks of gayness here and there, the film decides to stage a dance routine for the band's big hit YMCA in, you've guessed it, the YMCA. And oh my! The sequence goes full-on, rainbow-flagged, chaps-wearing gay. And it's wonderful! Samantha is included in this scene because, y'know, it can't be homoerotic if a woman's involved! Either the filmmakers hadn't heard of fag-hags or they were FULLY aware (I'm hoping for the latter). She even changes into a t-shirt that is emblazoned with the slogan 'Macho Woman' on it. Quite. There are scenes of nude men in locker rooms, Samantha gets a massage from a hunk and we even get a scene of her in a hot tub with the band. This scene is also notable as the film sneaks in 'blink and you'll miss it' full-frontal male nudity. The MPAA didn't pick up on this and so the scene went through without a demand for it to be censored. That's punk rock for such a disco-oriented film."