Banjee
Encyclopedia
Banjee or banjee boy is a term from the 1980s or earlier that describes a certain type of young Latino
, Black
, or multiracial
man who has sex with men
and who dresses in stereotypical
masculine urban fashion for reasons which may include expressing masculinity
, hiding his sexual orientation
and attracting male partners. The term is mostly associated with New York City
and may be Nuyorican
in origin. Attitude
, clothing
, ethnicity, masculinity
, physique and youth
are all elements of what has been called "banjee realness".
An African-American man writes:
The 1990 documentary film
Paris is Burning
featured "banjee realness" as one of the categories in which contestants competed for trophies
. According to the Village Voice "banjee boy categories have been a part of vogue balls
since at least the early '80s."
The word "banjee" never entered mainstream pop culture, but it had currency as gay slang throughout the 1990s. In 1998, a report in the medical journal
AIDS
Patient Care and STDs
regarding safer sex practices among young Black and Latino men was entitled "Banjee Boys Are Down" ("down", in this vernacular
, meaning "supportive of it").
The 1999 play Banjee, written by playwright A.B. Lugo, presented at the Milagro Theater/Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center (and in another NYC venue in 2004), is "the story of Angel (played by Indio Meléndez), a straight
homeboy, and Tony (played by Will Sierra), an admittedly bi
banjee, who've known each other since childhood."
Nuyorican poet Emanuel Xavier
included a poem titled Banjee Realness in his 1997 self-published poetry collection, Pier Queen, and uses the term throughout his novel, Christlike which will be reprinted in 2009.
The term banjee has also been used by several producers of gay pornography
in presenting the type of young man described herein. For example, in 1995 a company called Pleasure Productions produced a DVD
called Banjee Black Boys (and five similarly named sequel
s) and circa 1999-2003 a company called Banjee Boy, Inc. produced films with taglines such as "Wanna see some of the sexiest, thugged out gangsta
s that NY has to offer?" There are other examples from adult films, as well as several pornographic website
s (such as "Banjee Boy Group Slam") that still use the term.
While seeming to have peaked in popularity during the 1990s, the term banjee is still in use. For example, a 2003 web page for a restaurant
in East Harlem describes its clientele as an "eclectic mix of patrons that range from pretty neighborhood Banjee boys to some of the wise guys that once populated the space formerly." In 2008 the band Hercules & Love Affair has performed wearing matching shirts with the word printed on them.
New York clothing label Hood By Air uses the Banjee term as a point of reference for their S/S09 collection.
. In contrast, a banjee might be homosexual but might also be bisexual or only have opportunistic homosexual sex with men when women are unavailable. The latter situation is a theme in many of the pornographic films mentioned above.
Gayngsta, a portmanteau derived from "gay
" and "gangsta", is another recent coinage. It has mostly been used in relation to the underground
LGBT
hip hop
scene as shown in the documentary Pick Up the Mic
and featured in the "Homorevolution Tour 2007" with these artists. While easily discernible in writing, pronunciation is barely discernible from "gangsta".
Banjee girl is heard so rarely that it is difficult to define. In discussing a fashion show in Paris
, one reviewer wrote in 2005:
Several examples of the use of the term "Banjee girl" exist in the blogosphere
but it has rarely, if ever, made it into print or mass media
. An exception is the Billboard charting single "Back to My Roots
" by RuPaul
, which states the phrase in a list of hair fashions.
In the film Paris is Burning
, the term itself is used in comparable frequency with its male counterpart, "banjee boy", which coupled with the film's focus on the inextricably connected transgender and drag culture of 80s NYC, lends itself to a contextual definition of those performers impersonating females and attempting to exhibit the ultimately judged quality of holistic visual verisimilitude—"realness".
Latino
The demonyms Latino and Latina , are defined in English language dictionaries as:* "a person of Latin-American descent."* "A Latin American."* "A person of Hispanic, especially Latin-American, descent, often one living in the United States."...
, Black
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
, or multiracial
Multiracial
The terms multiracial and mixed-race describe people whose ancestries come from multiple races. Unlike the term biracial, which often is only used to refer to having parents or grandparents of two different races, the term multiracial may encompass biracial people but can also include people with...
man who has sex with men
Men who have sex with men
Men who have sex with men are male persons who engage in sexual activity with members of the same sex, regardless of how they identify themselves; many men choose not to accept sexual identities of homosexual or bisexual...
and who dresses in stereotypical
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
masculine urban fashion for reasons which may include expressing masculinity
Masculinity
Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
, hiding his sexual orientation
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
and attracting male partners. The term is mostly associated with New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and may be Nuyorican
Nuyorican
Nuyorican is a portmanteau of the terms "New York" and "Puerto Rican" and refers to the members or culture of the Puerto Rican diaspora located in or around New York State especially the New York City metropolitan area, or of their descendants...
in origin. Attitude
Attitude (psychology)
An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike for something. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event— this is often referred to as the attitude object...
, clothing
Clothing
Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...
, ethnicity, masculinity
Masculinity
Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
, physique and youth
Youth
Youth is the time of life between childhood and adulthood . Definitions of the specific age range that constitutes youth vary. An individual's actual maturity may not correspond to their chronological age, as immature individuals could exist at all ages.-Usage:Around the world, the terms "youth",...
are all elements of what has been called "banjee realness".
An African-American man writes:
Banjee. That was the identity I was given back in the summer of 1991, when I, half out/half inClosetedCloseted and in the closet are metaphors used to describe lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning and intersex people who have not disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity and aspects thereof, including sexual identity and sexual behavior.-Background:In late 20th...
approached the colored museum of the Christopher Street pierChristopher Street PierThe Christopher Street Pier is a group of piers on the Hudson River waterfront of Manhattan, New York City -- Pier 42, 45, 46, and 51. The piers are at the foot of Greenwich Village's Christopher Street....
s. I was new to the life, so I had no reference for what people were talking about, but I soon gathered that "banjee" meant that I wasn't a "queen." Whatever the terms of identification, all I knew was that there was one thing that brought both the banjees and the queens (and whatever lies between) to the pier: we were men who loved men. An anxious 19 year old, I wore my banjee realness designation like a badge of honor. [...] a queen schooled me on how my masculinity was something that carried great weight, not only in the gay world, but the straight world as well."
The 1990 documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
Paris is Burning
Paris is Burning (film)
Paris Is Burning is a 1990 documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, it chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African American, Latino, gay and transgender communities involved in it...
featured "banjee realness" as one of the categories in which contestants competed for trophies
Trophy
A trophy is a reward for a specific achievement, and serves as recognition or evidence of merit. Trophies are most often awarded for sporting events, from youth sports to professional level athletics...
. According to the Village Voice "banjee boy categories have been a part of vogue balls
Ball culture
Ball culture, the house system, the ballroom community and similar terms describe the underground LGBT subculture in the United States in which people "walk" for trophies and prizes at events known as balls. Those who walk often also dance and vogue while others compete in various genres of drag...
since at least the early '80s."
The word "banjee" never entered mainstream pop culture, but it had currency as gay slang throughout the 1990s. In 1998, a report in the medical journal
Medical journal
A public health journal is a scientific journal devoted to the field of public health, including epidemiology, biostatistics, and health care . Public health journals, like most scientific journals, are peer-reviewed...
AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
Patient Care and STDs
Sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted disease , also known as a sexually transmitted infection or venereal disease , is an illness that has a significant probability of transmission between humans by means of human sexual behavior, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and anal sex...
regarding safer sex practices among young Black and Latino men was entitled "Banjee Boys Are Down" ("down", in this vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
, meaning "supportive of it").
The 1999 play Banjee, written by playwright A.B. Lugo, presented at the Milagro Theater/Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center (and in another NYC venue in 2004), is "the story of Angel (played by Indio Meléndez), a straight
Heterosexuality
Heterosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, physical or romantic attractions to persons of the opposite sex";...
homeboy, and Tony (played by Will Sierra), an admittedly bi
Bisexuality
Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
banjee, who've known each other since childhood."
Nuyorican poet Emanuel Xavier
Emanuel Xavier
In 2005, Suspect Thoughts Press published Bullets & Butterflies: queer spoken word poetry, a collection Emanuel Xavier edited. The anthology featured the work of thirteen openly queer spoken word artists and new work by the editor himself including: "Legendary", "Outside" and "A Simple Poem." The...
included a poem titled Banjee Realness in his 1997 self-published poetry collection, Pier Queen, and uses the term throughout his novel, Christlike which will be reprinted in 2009.
The term banjee has also been used by several producers of gay pornography
Gay pornography
Gay pornography is the representation of sexual intercourse between men with the primary goal of sexual arousal in its audience. There is also a tradition, and continuing considerable output, of lesbian pornography....
in presenting the type of young man described herein. For example, in 1995 a company called Pleasure Productions produced a DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
called Banjee Black Boys (and five similarly named sequel
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
s) and circa 1999-2003 a company called Banjee Boy, Inc. produced films with taglines such as "Wanna see some of the sexiest, thugged out gangsta
Gangsta
Gangsta may refer to:* Gangsta , a one time member of The Comrads and Hoo-Bangin' Records* Gangster, slang for a member of a gang*Gangsta rap*Hip hop fashion, a style of dress associated with the aforementioned musical genre...
s that NY has to offer?" There are other examples from adult films, as well as several pornographic website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
s (such as "Banjee Boy Group Slam") that still use the term.
While seeming to have peaked in popularity during the 1990s, the term banjee is still in use. For example, a 2003 web page for a restaurant
Restaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
in East Harlem describes its clientele as an "eclectic mix of patrons that range from pretty neighborhood Banjee boys to some of the wise guys that once populated the space formerly." In 2008 the band Hercules & Love Affair has performed wearing matching shirts with the word printed on them.
New York clothing label Hood By Air uses the Banjee term as a point of reference for their S/S09 collection.
Related terms
Homo thug is a more recent and more popular term which is nearly-synonymous with "banjee". However, homo thug does imply that the man in question is primarily homosexualHomosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
. In contrast, a banjee might be homosexual but might also be bisexual or only have opportunistic homosexual sex with men when women are unavailable. The latter situation is a theme in many of the pornographic films mentioned above.
Gayngsta, a portmanteau derived from "gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
" and "gangsta", is another recent coinage. It has mostly been used in relation to the underground
Underground hip hop
Underground hip hop is an umbrella term for hip hop music outside the general commercial canon. It is typically associated with independent artists, signed toindependent labels or no label at all....
LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
scene as shown in the documentary Pick Up the Mic
Pick Up the Mic
Pick Up the Mic is a documentary film, released in 2006, which profiles the underground LGBT hip hop scene and homohop, which is a subgenre of hip-hop that includes gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rappers, DJ's and hip-hop artists. The film was directed by Alex Hinton.The documentary had...
and featured in the "Homorevolution Tour 2007" with these artists. While easily discernible in writing, pronunciation is barely discernible from "gangsta".
Banjee girl is heard so rarely that it is difficult to define. In discussing a fashion show in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, one reviewer wrote in 2005:
The low-rise skirt in denim is the first of its kind seen on the Paris runwaysRunway (fashion)Runway or catwalk describes a narrow, usually flat platform that runs into an auditorium, used by models to demonstrate clothing and accessories during a fashion show In fashion jargon, "what's on the catwalk" or similar phrasing can refer to whatever is new and popular in fashion.- Exclusive...
. What is now clear to me is that no self-respecting Banjee LatinaLatinaLatina is the feminine form of the term Latino.Latina may also refer to:*Province of Latina, a province in Latium , Italy**Latina, Lazio, the capital of the province of Latina**Latina Nuclear Power Plant*Latina , a district of Madrid...
, or ghetto-fabulous “Shamecka-girl” or high rolling white chick will be ever able to resist its urban appeal.
Several examples of the use of the term "Banjee girl" exist in the blogosphere
Blogosphere
The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community or as a social network in which everyday authors can publish their opinions...
but it has rarely, if ever, made it into print or mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
. An exception is the Billboard charting single "Back to My Roots
Back to My Roots
"Back to My Roots" is a song by RuPaul, released as the fourth single from his album Supermodel of the World, released in 1993. Although the single failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, it reached #1 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart in July of 1993 and helped to further establish RuPaul's...
" by RuPaul
RuPaul
RuPaul Andre Charles , best known as simply RuPaul, is an American actor, drag queen, model, author, and singer-songwriter, who first became widely known in the 1990s when he appeared in a wide variety of television programs, films, and musical albums. Previously, he was a fixture on the Atlanta...
, which states the phrase in a list of hair fashions.
In the film Paris is Burning
Paris is Burning (film)
Paris Is Burning is a 1990 documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, it chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African American, Latino, gay and transgender communities involved in it...
, the term itself is used in comparable frequency with its male counterpart, "banjee boy", which coupled with the film's focus on the inextricably connected transgender and drag culture of 80s NYC, lends itself to a contextual definition of those performers impersonating females and attempting to exhibit the ultimately judged quality of holistic visual verisimilitude—"realness".