Queen was the first band to have a video banned by MTV in 1982 when their racy “Body Language” clip featured a little too much flesh and sexual innuendo for the channel’s taste. Ironically, their next video to be banned by the network was their promo for “I Want to Break Free” from their 1984 album The Works. It featured no sex. However, the members of Queen were in drag. (Gasp!)
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The John Deacon-penned song “I Want to Break Free” had nothing racy or edgy about it. The lyrics were a simple declaration of needing independence from someone who was repressing them. They wanted to show their true self to the world.
It’s strange but it’s true
Hey, I can’t get over the way you love me like you do
But I have to be sure
When I walk out that door
Oh, how I want to be free, baby
Oh, how I want to be free
Oh, how I want to break free
The video featured the four members of Queen in drag portraying members of the popular BBC soap opera Coronation Street, which began airing in December 1980 and remains on today. These characters included a woman in hair rollers and an elderly woman (played in the clip by guitarist Brian May and bassist John Deacon, respectively), a teen schoolgirl (drummer Roger Taylor), and a vamping, vacuuming lady (vocalist Freddie Mercury in heels, stockings, a miniskirt, and with a pointy bra underneath his blouse). There are other sections of the video, including a shirtless Mercury singing against a couple of different backdrops and also twirling and writhing with male and female dancers. But those seemed to be less of an issue.
MTV thought that the clip was too racy to show; or perhaps, quite frankly, too gay. Was it banned or just quietly shunned? It’s never been completely clear, but the effect was the same. Other music video shows likely followed suit because of what they perceived to be homoerotic themes. Homophobia was a big problem for macho hetero America then, and since Americans had no idea about the show Coronation Street, seeing Queen dressed up as women just confused them. Then again, when Milton Berle dressed in drag for Ratt’s “Round and Round” video, no one said anything.
Unlike in America, men in drag was much more of a tradition on British television. Perhaps the Queen video felt too sexual to many Americans. Maybe some guys were bothered because they thought Taylor looked hot as schoolgirl. (The video concept was purportedly Taylor’s girlfriend’s idea.) But one might also interpret the video’s latent theme as Mercury declaring how he wanted to break free from obscuring his bisexuality to the public. His recent vocal successor Adam Lambert has been openly gay, something which would not have happened in the ’80s.
The Tide Recedes
In 2010, May spoke to NPR about being on the promo tour for “I Want to Break Free” in middle America and radio “people’s faces turning ashen. And they would say, ‘No, we can’t play this. We can’t possibly play this. You know, it looks homosexual.’ I know that it really damaged our sort of whole relationship with certainly radio in this country and probably the public as well.” (Side note: Covers for some singles releases featured a shot of the band in drag from the video.) The single for “I Want to Break Free” stalled at No. 45 in America, but it went No. 1 in five countries, including Holland and Belgium, and Top 10 in nine other countries, including their native UK where it hit No. 3.
May contended that this controversy was one of the reasons why Queen’s relationship with America deteriorated for the remainder of late frontman Mercury’s time with the band. “[It] was really a tragedy because so many of our hits would have fitted very well into the life of the States,” May told NPR. “But we didn’t really get back in there until [1991’s] ‘The Show Must Go On’ and ‘These Are the Days of Our Lives.’ And even those weren’t the hits that they were around the rest of the world.”
The Hot Space tour in 1982 was the last time Queen came to America again with Mercury. He passed away from AIDS-related complications in November 1991. The band’s classic lineup had not toured in five years at that point.
As drummer Taylor once recalled of the “I Want to Break Free” controversy—although a bit erroneously in terms of timeline—a lot of MTV was stacked with videos by bands like Whitesnake. (That British hard rock would not truly break until 1987.) But there is a distinct, double-edged irony in what Taylor was pointing out, since by the late ’80s plenty of Sunset Strip bands featured glam men who sometimes literally dressed in their girlfriend’s clothes as part of their act. Those groups got a lot of MTV airplay, replacing more aggressive metal bands who were banished to late night and weekend airplay.
A Royal Return
Even though Queen’s relationship with America got chilly for a few years, they underwent a major revival when the 1992 movie Wayne’s World featured Wayne, Garth, and friends headbanging to Queen’s epic “Bohemian Rhapsody” while driving their car. (One can thank star Mike Myers for insisting that the song be used.) Capitalizing on buzz generated from the scene, the band’s label released a new promo clip for the song combining the original 1975 video and scenes from the movie. This new hybrid won Queen its sole MTV Video Music Award for Best Video From A Film.
The reissued “Bohemian Rhapsody” hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, its highest position ever on that singles chart. It returned to Top 40 radio airplay. A new anthology called Classic Queen arrived shortly after the movie’s release, hit No. 4 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart, and has since gone triple platinum.
Queen is a band that seems to have nine lives. The Wayne’s World scene spurred renewed interest in the band’s music, also buoyed by that spring’s Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert held at Wembley Stadium. The three surviving members played out sporadically throughout the ’90s, although Deacon never played a full Queen concert after the tribute, and his last live performance with them was in 1997.
In 2002, the We Will Rock You jukebox musical began a 12-year run in London’s West End, and it has toured around the world ever since. From 2005-06 and in 2008, May and Taylor, as Queen, toured with Paul Rodgers and recorded one album, The Cosmos Rocks. Since 2012, the band have toured intermittently with singer Adam Lambert, whose flamboyant personality and stage attire are apropos for the band once fronted by Mercury. In 2018, the Bohemian Rhapsody biopic about Queen became a global sensation, winning two Golden Globe Awards and four Oscars, and grossing $900 million. The band’s music got licensed for commercials, movies, and beyond a lot more after that.
The Clip Has Aged Well
And to think America turned their back on Queen for a time. A clip like “I Want to Break Free” would not face the intense scrutiny today that it did back in the day. Artists have been pushing boundaries in terms of gender representation ever since then, but for 1984, at a time when the rock and especially the heavy rock world was very hetero macho, it made many people uncomfortable. (Today, it has accumulated nearly 550 million views on YouTube.) The original incarnation of Queen would never tour on American soil ever again which is a shame.
The “I Want to Break Free” controversy is also a reminder that while the ’80s were often a lot of fun, there was still a lot of prejudice to overcome. Thankfully, modern times, while still rocky, have changed a lot. Some would argue that in the wake of their biopic, the legacy of Queen is bigger than ever.
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Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns
