Sharing this excerpt from a post on Instagram. What are your thoughts on Freddie’s ideology, Rosemary Pearson, etc. Anyone read the book?
From the book "Life, Art And Freddie Mercury: 1968-70" by Rose Rose (2015)
Freddie Mercury QUEEN band Freddie Mercury QUEEN band (@fredbulsara18)
2019-09-21 12:45:38
"I HATE COMMUNISM"
*Rosemary was furtively waiting to tell Freddie about a holiday abroad that she was starting to save up for, although she wasn't going until July 1970. After a long silent interlude ... she said casually: "I'm thinking of going to Moscow and Leningrad next year for the Lenin centenary. Do you want to come? We could see Russian Ballet for real."
*Somehow Rosemary knew even before she'd said it that Freddie wasn't remotely interested in Left Wing ideology or going to Moscow even with the Russian Ballet connection. In fact, everyone she mentioned it to thought she must be mad to want to go anywhere near "that country" at all.
*"I just can't do with all that political stuff you've taken up with - I am too busy with rehearsals anyway," Freddie had returned dispassionately. He was in no mood to consider departing from his music to the world of performance.
*There had been an even longer pause from Freddie before he added, "Anyway, I hate Communism: isn't that about imposing boundaries... It's not about LIBERTY at all... and I hate Revolutions, even more," he had sneered.
*She thought it best not to mention Russia ever again. But a moment later... he was in a better mood: " The world needs more Nijinskys," he cooed as he mimed a pirouette and danced out into the street.
*For Rosemary the planned Russian trip was of major importance - with or without Freddie. "At least there I'll see a different social order from our crazy bourgeois decadence." Where would Freddie fit into all that ideology? He could never fit into her personal jigsaw. It really meant to leave him.
*She hoped they could remain friends. But then she acknowledged that would necessarily involve hearing about his new lovers, that she wouldn't be able to tolerate. In Moscow she got a decision for a final separation from Freddie." We are just incompatible". link
Nice to see a fan account putting in some extra value rather than just posting a picture and saying 'JON IZ SO CUTE!!! <3 <3 <3 and tagging pretty much every word that exists.
Thanks, @PrimeJiveUSA. I read that too from an old QZ thread. Do you happen to have the quote from the book? I can see Freddie being conservative by what he says in interviews and comments and by his actions. Freddie was such an interesting person.
Freddie only had a few years where he had to live normally, He had money as a child and money as an adult.
Freddie was out of touch with normal people and he knew it.
But he didn't pretend anything else.
Considering that Freddie wasn't known for his interest in politics or general intellectual curiosity outside the arts, can it possibly surprise anyone that he held literally the *most conventional opinion in the UK*, namely "I don't like communism", in the '70s?
Freddie was neither a conservative nor a progressive, not a radical or a reactionary, he was politically uninterested.
thomasquinn 32989 wrote:
Freddie was neither a conservative nor a progressive, not a radical or a reactionary, he was politically uninterested.
You can't possibly know he wasn't a conservative.
Yeah, I agree. To me, he seemed to lean more conservative, which isn’t a bad thing. And I understand that he didn’t vote or wasn’t interested in politics but he was well informed about things happening around him. Just my opinion and observations.
thomasquinn 32989 wrote:
Freddie was neither a conservative nor a progressive, not a radical or a reactionary, he was politically uninterested.
You can't possibly know he wasn't a conservative.
I can know for a fact that he didn't know much about politics and didn't care - which you would see is the point I made, if you'd bother to read the punchline and not just the lead-up.
I can also know for a fact that, in an age when homosexuality was still treated as a shameful abomination that many felt ought to be a criminal offense, publicly affecting conservative sympathies was a common approach taken by many more-or-less-secretely homosexual celebrities to help in plausible deniability (the Conservative party was *very much* anti-gay).
There is nothing in Freddie Mercury's public statements, behaviour, reliable documentation about his (private) life that in any way suggests he ever held seriously considered political views of any kind, and there is good reason to consider statements he made in the vein of "I'm a conservative" in exactly the same light as such remarks as "I'm just a musical prostitute" and calling his own songs "disposable pop" - as purely ornamental statements that did not in any way reflect his real views, but sounded good at the time.