How Queer Culture Changed Pop Forever
From hidden codes to global icons
Queer influence didn’t begin with Instagram or red carpets. Long before rainbow flags appeared on stage, queer communities were using humor, exaggeration, and performance as a survival code.
In the early 20th century, drag and cabaret flourished in underground clubs during the Pansy Craze, a short-lived period of visibility for queer performers in the United States. Later, the Stonewall uprising in 1969 ignited a new chapter: one where art, politics, and visibility collided.
By the 1970s, glam rock blurred gender lines through figures like David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, paving the way for decades of queer expression in mainstream pop.
Wikipedia: Glam Rock
Camp, cinema, and the art of exaggeration
Queer culture reshaped pop through an aesthetic of irony and excess, what theorist Susan Sontag famously called camp. Films like John Waters’Pink Flamingos and The Rocky Horror Picture Show transformed bad taste into rebellion.
This camp sensibility later exploded in music videos, fashion, and celebrity performance, from Lady Gaga’s theatrical pop to Beyoncé’s visual storytelling, Rihanna’s gender-bending fashion, and Lil Nas X’s unapologetic queerness.
Each uses performance the way queer people always have: as armor and art.
The Big Issue: Pop culture milestones that shaped LGBTQ history
👉 Read more about how camp cinema shaped queer visibility in our article “Camp Cinema: Queer Visibility in Motion.”
Drag as revolution
Few cultural movements embody queer creativity like drag. What was once underground became mainstream with RuPaul’s Drag Race, which brought queer artistry and camp humor to global audiences. The show didn’t just entertain. It redefined beauty, confidence, and resilience.
In Brazil, drag exploded into a form of political and artistic expression. Performers like Pabllo Vittar, Gloria Groove, and Linn da Quebrada turned music and fashion into protest, blending Brazilian pop with queer visibility. Their success proved that authenticity could thrive even in conservative contexts and that Latin queer voices could lead the global conversation.
Drag performers at RuPaul’s DragCon 2023 — a global celebration of queer creativity and visibility. Photo by DVSROSS, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
The pop divas and queer devotion
Pop divas have long been the unofficial saints of queer culture. Madonna, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Cher turned performance into empowerment, creating safe spaces for those who saw themselves in their extravagance and defiance.
Their shows became places of collective freedom, modern sanctuaries where fans could be loud, emotional, and visible. The devotion of queer audiences wasn’t just fandom; it was kinship. Pop divas mirrored the queer journey itself: survival through reinvention.
From street to screen: identity as performance
Queer identity has always existed between costume and truth. The streets, the screens, and the runways all became stages.
Today, queer streetwear, pride clothing, and genderless fashion carry that legacy forward. What was once seen as “too much” is now the essence of cool. Camp has evolved into confidence, and confidence into community.
Pop culture didn’t just absorb queerness. Queerness rebuilt pop culture itself.
📖 Read more from our blog
Is Building a Queer Brand a Political Act?
Explore how queer streetwear and pride clothing transform identity into activism — and why every queer brand is, by nature, political.
Queer Winter: Warmth, Pride and Resistance
Explore how our winter collection turns comfort and visibility into quiet resistance.
Cover image: Pabllo Vittar performing with Emicida in São Paulo. Photo by Ana Clara Marques de Moura Campos, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).
Written by the Miltti Team | October 2025