Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas

by Chuck Klosterman

However, when Torres talks about the time he met Morrissey at an in-store record signing, he illustrates the most confusing aspect of neo-Moz culture: just about everybody who’s ever seen or heard Morrissey assumes he is gay—except for these Latino kids. “I kissed Morrissey once,” Torres says. “I kissed his hand. I wish I would have kissed him, but his hand was good enough. But I’m not gay or anything. It’s just that he’s Morrissey, you know? There is sort of a homophobic vibe among some Latinos, and they seem to think, Well, we like him, so he can’t be gay. But that’s stupid.” Torres’s take is pretty liberal; a few Latinos at the convention concede that Morrissey might be bisexual, but none would classify him as gay. “People are always asking me if I’m gay because I have a photo of Morrissey hugging Johnny Marr,” says Alex Diaz, a sixteen-year-old Smiths fanatic who plans on joining the Marines when he’s old enough. “My friends always ask me, ‘Why do you like these queers?’ But, you know, he’s probably just bisexual. His songs aren’t all about guys. Look at ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’—that’s about a girl.2 I think there probably would be some people who’d hate it if Morrissey ever came out and said he was gay, but, personally, I don’t really care. And like I said, he’s probably bisexual.” Though it’s understandable how a culture that invented the term machismo might be uncomfortable lionizing a gay icon, it’s ironic that Morrissey has now been adopted by two diametrically oppo...