2004 Was So Gay is Them’s look back at a pivotal year for queer history and pop culture. Read more from the series here.
Perhaps it’s fitting that aughties fashion and anti-LGBTQ+ politics are back in style at the same time. For a new generation, the sight of someone wearing a terry tracksuit might not bring back memories of being called slurs in your high school hallway, but for those of us who were aware of the world in the 2000s, the whiplash of that era is all too familiar: On one hand, some extremely gay things were happening in popular culture; on the other hand, we lived in a Republican-controlled society where casual homophobia was widely acceptable, same-sex marriage was illegal, and trans people were effectively barred from most aspects of public life. (It wasn’t great, trust me.)
The year 2004 was perhaps the apex of those cascading contradictions. In the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush ran for reelection on a family values platform that positioned gay marriage as a foundational threat to civilization. Also, Mean Girls came out — a movie that queer people have spent the last 20 years quoting ad nauseam. The governor of New Jersey resigned after confirming at a press conference that he was a “gay American” and Showtime aired the first episode of The L Word. That strange tension between politics and entertainment cut both ways: In May of that year, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage (good!) while the war epic Troy featured a totally straight Achilles (laughably bad!). It was truly the gayest of times and the straightest of times.
What all these juxtapositions reveal is that 2004 was a hinge year for queer life in the United States. Some of us were glomming onto the few scraps of overt representation we could find, while others were stuck projecting deeper meaning onto anything that ran even a little counter to the mainstream, from Blink-182 and My Chemical Romance to Saw and Napoleon Dynamite. Politically, activists with the marriage equality movement were contesting court decisions and fighting constitutional amendments; meanwhile, transgender organizing was getting off the ground in earnest, with San Francisco’s first-ever Trans March taking place in June. Amid an ocean of Abercrombie ads and skinny jeans, LGBTQ+ people were beginning to imagine a future for ourselves in public, all while a rising generation of closeted youngsters were imprinting a little too deeply onto Shrek 2.
That’s why Them is dedicating an entire week to all things 2004 with some fun in the days to come: A personal essay about Angelina Jolie’s distractingly hot Shark Tale character. A thoughtful look back on the term “metrosexuality.” A trans requiem for Green Day’s American Idiot era.
2024 is uncannily like 2004, and not just because skinny jeans are sadly back: This is another election year in which aspects of our culture feel remarkably queer while our politics are still mired in homophobia and transphobia. So, as the adage goes, let’s turn to the past to understand the future. Put on your trucker hat, pull on your Uggs, and revisit 2004 with Them. Check back here throughout the week for more stories:
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