VILLAGE PEOPLE: GAY? NOT US
THE Village People need a "straight guy for the queer group" makeover to change its carefully wardrobed image, which its handlers now think is too gay.
Despite their famous campy get-ups, such as a "leather man," policeman, construction worker, cowboy and an American Indian - and their odes to masculine joys in "Macho Man," "Hot Cop," "I'm a Cruiser" and "In the Navy" - the suits behind the group want the Village People to be thought of as "mainstream."
At least this is what their humorless lawyer, Stephen Kopitko, told filmmaker Joe Lovett when Lovett asked for permission to use the gay anthems "YMCA" and "Fire Island" in his new documentary, "Gay Sex in the '70s."
John Murphy, a rep for Lovett, said Kopitko told him the Village People didn't want to be thought of as just gay and wanted to be "mainstream." Therefore, he refused to let Lovett use the songs in his documentary, which focuses on the gay sexual revolution that swept New York and the country following the Stonewall Riots in 1969.
According to Murphy, Lovett felt "the songs were gay anthems and the Village People themselves are truly symbolic to the gay community since they got their start there decades ago and are a part of queer history."
Lovett, shocked by Kopitko's rejection, said to him: "Have you read the lyrics to those songs? They are pretty gay to me!"
Murphy added that perhaps "the sight of young Republicans vogue-ing to 'YMCA' at the Republican National Convention and Republican poster boy Colin Powell performing the same song recently" went to Kopitko's head.
Lovett even tried to get in touch with Randy Jones, the group's original cowboy, for support, but did not get a reply.
Reached by PAGE SIX, Kopitko went off on a tangential rant about The Post, his distaste for gossip and his unwillingness to comment.
"Gay Sex in the '70s" premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival next month.