Carnival, a drag

The lecture, "Gender Benders and Carnival Queens: The Homosexual Subversion of Brazilian Carnival," is the first in a series presented by The Commission on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Concerns.

The lecture will be held Tuesday night from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Faculty Development Center of the University Library.

"This lecture will reveal the way Brazilian gay men have transformed Carnival to gain more social freedom and express their own notions of gender," said Dr. James N. Green, director of history at Cal State Long Beach.

Green's lecture is based on research for a book he is writing called "Beyond Carnival: Homosexuality in 20th-Century Brazil." The book will be published in 1998 by the University of Chicago Press.

Green said he became interested in the subject after attending a Carnival celebration several years ago.

"I was struck by the extremely luxurious and non-traditional costumes that men were wearing," Green said, who also noticed that many of the men were in drag. "They introduced a much more flamboyant style, bigger than Las Vegas kind of stuff."

Green said the cross-dressing Carnival trend compelled him to search for written references on the subject, but to his surprise he found that no studies had ever been done.

"Beyond Carnival" is the first study of Latin American homosexual history in the United States, and it reflects a greater flow of homosexual issues into the mainstream," Green said.

"When most people think about Carnival, they think of luxurious costumes, sparkling parades and barely clad individuals dancing in a pre-Lent celebration."

Underneath the sequins and glitter are a legion of men who otherwise would have no means for self-expression, according to Green, who will speak at a lecture concerning this topic Tuesday night.

Some universities offer a handful of courses with homosexual themes. A few schools, such as UCLA, are developing programs dedicated to gay and lesbian studies.

"There are much more important historical works on homosexuality in recent years," said Green "They tend to be about Western Europe and the United States, however, with [Beyond Carnival] were going beyond borders."

Green said that he hopes his research will open more doors for academic studies of homosexual issues. "People don't want to tackle these issues academically because they are afraid they won't be taken seriously. Homosexuality is still a taboo subject," Green said.

"Here at Cal State Long Beach, I would like to be a model. Hopefully I'll show that one can do gay and lesbian studies and get recognition for their work."