Shirtlifters of the World Unite
First off, who in the world thought I would ever be sharing press pages with the supremely fabulous Donatella Versace? Well, I am, and here’s why…
Taken from the October 2009 issue of Out magazine (with love to Michael and Lawrence) as written by Mark Simpson:
Adam May is not attending Comic-Con this year. “I’ve only been to Comic-Con once,” he tells me on the line from his home in Atlanta. “I have a panic attack just looking at photos! It’s sensory overload for me.”
Adam May who describes himself as “Atlanta’s answer to the wrong question” has the distinction of being the first openly gay Star Wars action figure. Many are called; few are chosen.
Adam’s plastic obsession began the first time he saw Princess Leia. “Carrie Fisher with those buns on her head – she really was my first gay experience.” Star Wars helped Adam grow up, in a manner of speaking: he had a speech impediment as a child, and by repeating Luke Skywalker’s lines over and over he helped himself “talk it out.”
[Redacted overlaying segment of copy directly unrelated to subject, see OUT Magazine, October 2009 — Featuring the Fabulous Donatella Versace Cover. Page 51 is the best place to start.]
Other gays mostly recoil in horror though when they discover Adam’s plastic habit. “They typically assume I’m some strange man-child. I joke that the ’80s jingle—‘I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid!’—wasn’t just a jingle. It was an oath!.”
“I’ve reached the point where I don’t care what anyone thinks about my toy [obsession]. That said, I do try to keep my gay friends away from the Three Story Toy Box. I have a collection of about 10,000 action figures* — with all of the accoutrements that go with them (space ships, play sets, lightsabres). The stairwell in my house has a wall that is 2 1/2 stories of shelving, acrylic risers and every Star Wars figure that Hasbro has made.”
Including the one they made of Adam himself after he won a competition to have a Star Wars action figure based on him. He chose the name Stormy Sevenspire–an anagram for Steven P Morrissey. “I had hired a make-up artist to paint me up as I wanted to be in action figure likeness. I made sure the hair was just the right kind of quiff.”
*The 10,000 number is a rough number, and it does include myriad toy lines, but hundreds of Stormtroopers can’t be wrong. I’m a toy junkie.
September 17th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Quiff is my new word of the day.
Cheers!
And congrats for winding up in print! Quite the accomplishments…your own action figure and a writeup in Out!
Whatever could be next?
September 17th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Gracias! It’s not so much an accomplishment appearing in print, it’s actually being that extra 100% out with the "character" of me. Mark Simpson has a way of saying things that no other writer quite grasps. It’s easy to be "out", it’s another thing to be "out" and out as a character. There are plenty of quietly, privately ‘gay’ actors in Star Wars, but none have come out. By bringing a character out, I’m opening myself and myself-as-the-character to the positive and negative aspects of this world.
I’ve heard from people in the business who say it’s not necessary, but who else is going to do it? It’s 2009, and why the hell not? Lucas noted the concept of "Space Eroticism" (as referenced in The Making of Star Wars book) so let’s take it a step further. I think there are plenty of examples of uncommon sexuality in the Star Wars canon. I just happened to be asked.
Quiff is the best word ever, by-the-by. It is the forelock that one styles in the classic "rockabilly" style (erm… Morrissey).
Next? "They can kill me, but they can’t stop me… and so forth."