My Queer Faves with Dyllón Burnside

The Pose alum lists his five favourite queer cultural points as part of GAY TIMES’ brand new series.

WORDS BY SAM DAMSHENAS

7th July 2021

In 2021 alone, Dyllón Burnside has concluded his run on FX’s beloved LGBTQ+ drama Pose, released a stunning new single with British singer-songwriter Daley and bagged his next role on Ryan Murphy’s upcoming American Horror Story spin-off (aptly titled American Horror Stories). Of course, we had an in-depth chat about all of the exciting aforementioned projects with Dyllón in our full-length interview – which you can read here (bar the latter, he remained tight-lipped!) – and, while we had him on the phone, his favourite queer cultural points.

Following on from our chats with British artist L Devine and Drag Race UK superstar Tayce, we asked Dyllón to name five of his queer favourites, from the musical stylings of Sylvester’s classic disco anthem You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) to Logo’s groundbreaking queer drama Noah’s Arc, as well as Steven Spielberg’s 80s adaption of The Colour Purple.

Your fave queer artist is…

Whitney Houston is the first person I ever saw that made me think, ‘I wanna do that. I want to perform. I want to sing. I want to act. I want to be an international pop star and a movie star.’ We now sort of understand her to having been queer, which makes her even more special to me.

Your fave queer anthem is…

Mighty Real by Sylvester is just quintessentially gay. It’s a must. When I think about queer icons, particularly at that time, there was no one doing what Sylvester was doing. The song is so infectious and it transcends genre, and it’s almost like Aretha Franklin is singing! It gives me that gospel, but it’s also dance and queer. It’s everything.

Your fave queer show is…

Noah’s Arc is the first time I saw depictions of Black, gay and queer men thriving and going for their dreams; being in loving relationships and friendships with one another. I thought, ‘I want that,’ you know? It did for me what Sex and the City did for so many women.

Your fave queer film is…

The Colour Purple is an iconic film that so many people don’t realise is a queer film. In the film, some of the queerness is sucked out of the story, particularly between Shug Avery and Miss Celie. It’s definitely there, but I think it’s not as explicit as it actually deserves. What I love about it is the imagery is so beautiful and the performances are phenomenal. It exists as this beautiful portrait of Black life, exploring the life of this Black queer woman, and it’s a mainstream film without apologising for this intimate portrayal of a Black woman. And, we hadn’t seen a lot of that. One of my favourite scenes in that is when Shug Avery is walking to the church and she just starts singing, she hears the music and it carries us to the end of the movie.

Your fave queer writer is…

James Baldwin is the first person who ever spoke to me from the lens of being Black and queer. While his work doesn’t always explicitly deal with issues of being Black and queer, I feel, as he’s talking about his experience as a Black American, all of him in the words. I relate to all of it because he also wasn’t shy about his identities.

Dyllón Burnside’s new single Heaven (featuring Daley) is available to stream and download now.