The Surging News reporter Qian Lianshui
One night in June 1965, at Grosse Pointe, a pure white community in northeastern Detroit, the Wilsons threw a lavish coming-of-age party for their 18-year-old daughter Christie. The feast cost them $85,000 (equivalent to nearly $700,000 today). Guests drank 20 cases of French champagne, hundreds of blue irises, thousands of Italian lamps and tens of thousands of yellow plastic flowers were thrown at the Lakeside Country Club, turning it into a French garden. All the walls disappear behind the Austrian-made golden wall panels and gleaming mirrors.
This night occupies a unique place in Detroit and the entire history of the United States. Among the white guests gathered, three young women with dark skin appeared. Because 18-year-old Christie liked them and her parents were unable to refuse their daughter's request, the rare sight of The Supremes, a black girl trio led by 21-year-old Diana Ross, was invited to help entertain the coming-of-age party. For the first time, a major newspaper, The New York Times, reported on the presence of white industrial giants and the black culture represented by Motown in the same physical space.
The Supremes
Before this summer, The Supremes was already the most well-known group in the United States. Members Diana Rose, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard come from the Brewster-Douglass community ten miles from Grosse Pointe. It was originally a low-cost home designed by the Detroit government for the poor working class, requiring at least one of the spouses to have a job to apply for a move-in. In the 1960s and 1970s, the community's crime rate rose due to the relaxation of occupancy conditions, and soon became a crime haven. One day, three boys visit Diana Rose and invite Diana, Mary, and Florence as the boy band The Primes to be their "sister group." They introduced the girls to Motown Records, and the trio received a precious contract from Motown after singing for the big names in the only recording studio in the city for several years. In the early 1960s, when the first hit singles favored them, they were still the age of high school students. Between August 1964 and June 1965, The Supremes had five national first singles in its hands, becoming popular as a pop and fashion superstar.
The 1960s were an era when old ships were rifted, loosened and changed. In the American South, black singers still often need to walk through the kitchen door to enter club performances and "enjoy" quarantine in restaurants and hotels. In the wealthy northern industrial cities, not only blacks, but even upper-class whites embraced The Supremes' music and imagery. The New York Times took the mainstream view and called them "rock bands." From the perspective of the community from which they come from, the music of the three choir girls is undoubtedly closer to "soul music". Today, we classify the group as popular, seeing them as the first black super-pop group.
Of the three, Diana Rose, who flew alone to the stars, was the most successful. She started in her hometown of Mocheng, was crowned "Disco Queen" at the 54 Club (one of the representatives of New York club culture in the 1970s), sold 100 million records (broke the Guinness Book of Records for the most successful female musician in history in 1993), influenced countless people, and was regarded as an eternal idol by the LGBTQ community.
In May 1981, Interview magazine published a cover interview with Diana Rose
In May 1981, Interview magazine published her cover interview with Andy Warhol. Warhol was interested in everything about her, from her history, costumes and stage design, the secrets of staying in shape and appearance, her views on film and singing careers, and her relationships with children.
In 2020, Glasstonbury was cancelled due to the epidemic, and Diana Rose, who was scheduled to appear on stage, turned her energy to the production of a new album. "Thank You" will be her first original studio album in 22 years. The complete work is not yet out on the street, and the cover shows Diana full of black curly hair, smoky makeup, red lips, and a strong cheek shadow. She has lived long enough and has strong endurance, and she will live to see the resurgence of the popularity she has led several times in 2021, and she is still on the cusp of the wave.
In 1970, The Supremes' last number-one song, "Someday We'll Be Together," announced Diana Rose's departure. After flying solo, she appeared with higher sideburns and more exaggerated and gorgeous clothes. Warhol asked her, "Are your clothes all of your own design?" "Yes, and it's all hand-sewn. I spent too much money on clothing. ”
The Supremes is already a dressing example for all-beauty. In the 1960s, when various affirmative action movements were in full swing, they won endless praise with their keen intuition for beauty and musical talent, with their imaginative appearances.
FX's TV series "Gesture" dives into the LGBTQ culture of New York in the 1980s, shaking open the night wrapped in a brilliant ball at three o'clock in the morning, and activating the gestures of fashion pioneer Diana Rose and her fans frozen in photos into the new fashion of the twenty-first century.
It was Andy Warhol's intellectual lesbian friends who recommended Diana Ross to him. They adored her, and in fact the entire LBGTQ community adored her. This pure admiration is not only because her famous 1980 song "I'm Coming Out" became the number one theme song of all pride day parades.
Diana Ross has traits that minorities, marginalized people, and all those who don't want to be "on the trend" desperately need. She has the courage and absolute self-confidence to swim against the current. In 1999, she told the Advocate newspaper: "Love is love, no legal approval is required." Women, men, anyone, should be able to live together without a legal contract. ”
On July 12, 1979, at Chicago's Komiski Park, tons of disco records were wiped out by explosions. That night was called "Disco Night of Destruction." Combined with homophobia (deep ties between disco and gay culture), antipathy to black music, and rock fans' dissatisfaction with disco infiltration, two influential Chicago rock fans called for a ticket to a Game between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers for 95 cents if they brought a disco record to the park. That night, more than 50,000 fans poured into the stadium, and disco records were stuffed into a 1.8*1.2*1.5-meter box and blown up in front of the slogan "Disco Sucks". On July 21 of that year, the top six on the U.S. music chart were all disco. On July 22, after that night, disco songs disappeared from the top ten charts. The all-popular disco disappeared from the mainstream music arena, was considered "uncool", and moved into a club in the dark. The singers no longer pleased fans with disco elements, only Diana Rose released a disco album of the same name the following year, which included two famous songs, "I'm Coming Out" and "Upside Down".
Anyone who has seen "Gesture" will identify with the glorious values of this group. No matter how they struggle in the mud of food and clothing, bills, unemployment, AIDS, no matter what kind of grievances there are between individuals, the show is the temple where they leave the problem behind. Imagination and beauty are the secret weapons of this group of people who only shine in the dark at night, killing the suffering of life in all directions.
Although Diana M. Rose is a natural woman and heterosexual, and the proud group still regards her as the best among them, giving her the nickname "The Boss." Diana Rose's slender, sturdy body resembles Elektra (Dominic Jackson), one of the heroines of Pose, the most beautiful "queen". Look closely at Rose's face, there is a peculiar minimalism. Her eyes and mouth are pointed, slightly bulging shapes, swaying eyebrow contours and nasolabial lines - chin, nose shape, all of which are reproductions of this shape. Although this face has enough black features, the minimalist repetition dilutes the racial characteristics. She can be any race, from any race on Earth. Symbols of pedigree are easily overlooked, and her never-identical looks and posture attract all attention.
Diana Ross knows that audiences love to listen to old songs and look at new looks. Of all her work, she invested the most in the mystery of life that those people in "Pose" were obsessed with— dressing herself as dazzling as possible, incorporating the world into the dance steps, and fixing on the most glorious moment - Pose~~~~~~.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There's an episode in "Gesture" where people get together at their apartments for a party and the theme is to watch a live television broadcast of the hunt for O.J. Simpson. A crowd of people shouted in front of the TV set to worry about Simpson's fate. The camera captures the perimeter of his mansion, and some say that looking at the driveway and the neat bushes, O.J. is not black at all, he is already a white man. The development of the case later confirmed their view, and Simpson had long learned the white set of rules. He played better than them, and knew the way the law was governed by wealth and fame.
So in the eyes of this group of hard-working people, is Diana Ross black or white? She has a huge team, there are twenty or thirty touring musicians alone, as well as staff, a large number of people who sign artists, and she is responsible. She was self-disciplined, ate very little, worked out, danced, designed costumes and stages, seemed to have no addiction troubles, and had an evergreen career that outnumbered the vast majority of her dark-skinned and white-skinned counterparts. That may make her look more like a white person. On the other hand, like Elektra, the "mother queen", she has a strong sense of family, cares for the team members like a "family", is loyal to the queers and does not be related by blood, and creates a family, culture, and legendary spirit in a difficult world.
Does it matter if she is black or white?
Editor-in-Charge: Chen Shihuai
Proofreader: Ding Xiao