A Bohemian Rhapsody

A Bohemian Rhapsody
by Antonio Sousa

In November 24th will be 19 years since Freddy Mercury has left the stage. Another one among so many victims of AIDS. I was 4 years old when he died and I am pretty sure that when it happened it didn't really meant anything to me. But what Freddie means to me nowadays is way beyond a rock singer.

He is a symbol, a standard, a martyr, if you wish, in the fight against prejudice.

Althought he was the only rock singer ever to have an audience of 72.000 people (Live Aid, 1985) to sing, clap and swing in unison, Mercury still shows at the 18th position as the most influent rock singer in a list of 100 created by the Rolling Stones Magazine.

His voice would go from an E2 to a F5, do you know of any other rock singer who can do the same?

Freddie Mercury is a symbol in the fight against prejudice, having his life always under speculation about his sexual “preferences”. One time, a reporter asked him "So how about being bent? " by NME in December 1974, Mercury replied "You're a crafty cow. Let's put it this way, there were times when I was young and green. It's a thing schoolboys go through. I've had my share of schoolboy pranks. I'm not going to elaborate further." A writer for a gay online newspaper felt that audiences may have been overly naive about the matter: " with shows that he used to be bullyed when a kid.

Even his band, when he suggested the name Queen, were no so cooperative in the beginning.

Some months ago I was watching TV and zapping through the channels when I stopped for some seconds at an interview with Adam Lambert saying how he was a “singer and not A gay, that is why I don't get involved into the gay community. Here I am an artist, without gender” and I got SO pissed off.

The only reason why you can wear eye mascara, black nails and be openly gay for the world, mr. Lambert, is because the gay community even before you start thinking about existing was fighting for YOUR right to be what you want to be. It is because of Freddie Mercury was in the stage dressed in the way he wanted, expressing his style, the same one you find so modern but he was already showing 30 years ago.

I begun to listen to Queen because my mother used to buy the Cds, she always loved Freddie Mercury. I don't think that she understands what he means to me, the power he has and how the attitude he had decades ago change the world and started a mental revolution for that generation. But makes me happy that she likes Queen and I never heard a word of prejudice from her.

Alas, when I was search for a Freddie picture to put as my profile at facebook, there was a picture of him saying “Freddie Mercury: gayer than a bag of dicks”. In other words, prejudice is alive and burning.

Maybe it is not even the fact that Fraddie Mercury was gay that bothers so many people, but the fact he was free, the fact he said, did and wore what he wanted. A free mind.

I love you, Freddie Mercury, for everything you represents.

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Pros brasileiros, aqui tá a versão original em português: http://revistaladoa.com.br/website/artigo.asp?id=17125&cod=1592&idi=1&xmoe=84&moe=84