Freddie Mercury

A few days ago, it occured the anniversary for the death of one of the most famous pop icons of the last century. It was in fact 18 years ago, that Freddie Mercury passed away, on the 24th November, 1991.

Freddie Mercury was an unlucky protagonist across one of the most controversial themes and debates pertaining the end of the last century, and the Cultural Studies in particular: the gender studies. He lived his homosexuality in full, sometimes hidden, sometimes completely free to be shown, as those years' chronicles tell. We might argue that Freddie Mercury embodied the spirit of those times as concerns homosexuality as a taboo in the public opinion, especially for the fact that he never showed it off, keeping it as a private fact and not a fashion.

Nevertheless, Freddie Mercury's heritage stands firmly still in people's memories, as a 'pop star' who burnt word by word his farewell message through songs such as These Are The Days Of Our Lives, Too Much Love Will Kill You, and especially The Show Must Go On, where in a few words his soul is depicted as 'painted like the wings of butterflies' trying to fly, which indeed is completely aware of the incoming end, knowing that the world he is living in, so frantic and fast, won't have the time to stop. In other words, that 'the show must go on'.

And here we are, the show went on but Freddie, as others, has never really gone. The phenomena of idolatry regarding him, as I talked about in my writings as concerns for instance John Lennon, or Elvis Presley: several examples of practices and acts with profound roots at a social, communicative and psychological level. Or, more 'poetic', the tangibile sign theat his message of universal art and love has not gone unheard.

Alessandro Gandini