I Love a Piano

How a Philadelphia Piano Bar Maintains Its Gay Reputation Through Interaction Rituals

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2144129
AutoresTyler Baldor (independent scholar, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen66
Número4
Páginas1-21
Fecha de publicación2025-10-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSociological Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0038-0253 • E-ISSN: 1533-8525
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00380253.2025.2487139
OpenAlexW4410001190
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas21

How can queer nightlife spaces straighten in clientele while retaining their queer reputations? Scholars have observed how a heterosexual presence in gay bars can alter the vibe of these spaces and diminish their queer reputations over time. Drawing on ethnography of a gay piano bar in Philadelphia’s Gayborhood, however, I find that queer and straight patrons alike help foster the bar’s campy atmosphere each night. Through the collective consumption of showtunes, standards from the Great American Songbook, and pop music sung by divas, patrons and staff routinely accomplish Tavern’s gay reputation in ways that do not preclude the presence or participation of straight patrons by (1) crafting engaging live performances that shift patrons’ embodied attention toward the same object, (2) invoking “culture talk” about the music being performed, and (3) deploying camp as a subcultural strategy in interaction. This micro-sociological approach to queer nightlife studies contributes to the growing literature on the persistence of queer nightlife in the face of gay bar closures by locating opportunities for persistence within the gay bar rather than beyond its borders

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Bar (unit) · Geography · Piano · Reputation · Social science · Sociology · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Music History and Culture · Psychology · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Social Psychology