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Know why "there's never been a homosexual cowboy movie?" Because for almost as long as the movies have been around, social mood has been in an uptrend. The classically masculine persona of the cowboy is now falling under the influence of an emerging bear market. At such times, it is very nearly a cultural requirement for various forms of social expression to dwell on subjects that were taboo in the old mood. 

The closesst thing to "Brokeback Mountain," "Making Love" came out in 1982, right before the start of the bull market of the 1980s and 1990s. Harry Hamlin took the role and ended up a relatively obscure actor. Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford and Richard Gere turned it down and went on to greater fame. At such momentous moments, timing is everything.

EWFF, August 2003
Sexual Ambiguity Hits Prime Time
Alternate sexual lifestyles is another bear market theme that has advanced to the forefront of popular culture in recent weeks. This connection was first suggested by the 1985 Special Report, “Popular Culture and the Stock Market,” EWT’s initial study on the relationship between mood and its manifestations. One of the relationships EWT noticed right off the bat was that in bull markets, gender idols are sexually distinct and stereotypical (John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s; Arnold Schwarzenegger and Madonna in the 1980s), while their bear-market counterparts are mixed and blurred. Remember the “caring male” of the 1970s? He’s back. A USA Today article cites a “growing trend by men to move into profession long dominated by women. More men are finding careers as librarians, secretaries, nannies, preschool teachers, nurses, paralegals, typists, dressmakers even lactation consultants or midwives. “The Days of Sex Stereotyping are Quickly Crumbling,” a headline reports. The gender-bending even extends to the “macho sport” of professional soccer where David Beckham, the world’s most popular player, conducts himself with a “stylish androgyny” that has pushed the sport past “lines of sports and sexuality that are rarely crossed by elite athletes.”

A new, unrivaled popularity for gay themes was signaled by an early June USA Today headline that declared, “It’s ‘In’ To Be ‘Out’ These Days.” “Mainstream entertainment has fallen head over heels for gays and lesbians.” The buzz actually rose to the level of mild frenzy this week when a cable TV show, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy was such a hit that NBC re-ran a shortened version in prime time. Queer Eye is a show in which five gay men apply their well-developed fashion sense to the make-over of a straight man. The next step is a TV reality show called Boy Meets Boy, which debuts Tuesday. The matchmaking format calls for a gay star to choose a partner from a group of contestants. The twist is that he doesn’t know it but some of the candidates are heterosexuals. The idea “to test the boundaries between gay and straight” is a classic example of the blurring of sexual identities that EWT anticipated with its initial observations in 1985.

The acceptance of open homosexuality appears to be a bear market trait. The initial spark for gay rights came in June 1969, seven months after the speculative peak of Cycle wave III, when gays locked arms against a police raid of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York. According to The Readers Companion To American History, “Almost overnight, a massive grassroots gay liberation movement was born.” By the time stocks bottomed in 1974, anti-gay statutes were being rescinded, the first gay politician had taken office and “the lesbian and gay world was no longer an underground subculture but a well-organized community.” New York’s gay Pride Parade was started in 1970 to commemorate the Stonewall Rebellion. In late June, The New York Times reports that this year’s version, “now known as New York City’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride March,” went off with a heightened sense of progress. “Crowds cheered louder, political groups marched in greater numbers and parade goers seemed more party-prone.” The revelers celebrated two significant “advances in gay rights, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down laws against sodomy and the decision in Canada to allow same-sex marriage.” Newsweek’s July 7 cover shows that it is rapidly becoming a mainstream topic in the U.S. as well. The “celebratory” nature of this year’s parade and the rising cache of gay-themed entertainment illustrate an inclusionistic sentiment within society that reflects the still-dominant bull-market psychology. But a bear market also brings polarization so we can expect that a conflict with opposing forces lies ahead.

EWFF, October 2002
Rosie O’Donnell offers a real-time view of one of LeBon’s “unconscious psychologists” rolling with a change in social mood. In the final years of the bull market, O’Donnell enjoyed a public reputation that was in synch with the rising social mood. In fact, it was so solid that a publishing firm changed the name of McCall’s magazine to Rosie and rebuilt it around her image. Circulation skyrocketed, for a while. By late 2001, it was sinking fast. Unlike Martha Stewart, O’Donnell went with the new trend. In May, she left The Rosie O’Donnell Show and did some off-color nightclub routines. When she went on to terminate her relationship with her own magazine, the publisher called the move “truly shocking” and accused O’Donnell of “abandoning her past. She walked away from her brand, her public personality, her civility.” In recent months, O’Donnell has come out as a lesbian. With a short haircut and male fashions, her mixed gender is the defining characteristic of her new identity. This swing represents a classic bear market makeover. Back in 1988, one of the first distinctions EWT made between bull and bear market heroes was “a preference for symbols of polarized sexual identities” in bull markets. “In bull markets, female symbols sport an extreme feminine image.” For O’Donnell, this meant cooing over the likes of Tom Cruise. “In bear markets, male and female symbols more readily sport mixed or integrated sexual identities.”

Believe it or not, World Wrestling Entertainment offers another clear manifestation of this shift. First, note that the WWE has fulfilled a February 2000 EWFF forecast for a downturn in its fortunes with a 20% reduction in TV ratings and 79% decline in earnings. Next, note the symbolic shift: In response to the slide, the pro wrestling group has added the gay tag team of Billy and Chuck. For five months of 2002, Billy and Chuck were actually the WWE’s tag team champions. They were married on a recent episode. The New York Times reports that “crowds have been responding” to the “ambiguous tag team.” gay wrestling characters are not unheard of in the sport, but historically, they have been “thrown out there for the audience to hate. But Billy and Chuck are different.” One of EWFF’s reasons for saying that WWE was at the height of its popularity in February 2000 was that “mixed heroes accompany a bear market,” and pro wrestling has traditionally put forward well-defined good guys and bad guys. By playing off the traditional stereotype, Billy and Chuck won’t carry the WWE back to it old heights of “wrestle mania,” but their appearance reveals a level of adaptability that may help it survive until the next period of rising social mood.