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Orville Peck and The Wiggles are 'Friends of Dorothy' in new song
Orville Peck, the Dinosaur, and The Wiggles singing 'Friends of Dorothy.'
The popular children's musical group is showing support for the LGBTQ+ community in a new song.
Orville Peck and The Wiggles have a friend in Dorothy.
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Peck, the masked gay country singer, and The Wiggles, the Australian children's music group with international renown, have teamed up for a new country song that celebrates the queer community and nods to viewers who are in the know.
The new song, titled "Friends of Dorothy," comes from The Wiggles' new country album Wiggle Up, Giddy Up! and features Peck singing along as they celebrate their friendship with Dorothy.
The song is in celebration of Dorothy the Dinosaur, but is also a nod to the group's support for the LGBTQ+ community.
"We're friends of Dorothy / We're friends of Dot's / If you're a friend of Dorothy's / You're friends of mine," they sing together in the song.
The phrase "friends of Dorothy" has been used for decades to indicate that a person is gay and to find out if others around them are also gay.
It should be noted that there's nothing explicitly gay in the song other than use of some slang like "what's the tea" and "you are fierce." But the song does come across as a message of support for those who are in the know.
As reported by The Los Angeles Times, the phrase could be related to writer Dorothy Parker, a member of the Algonquin Round Table who had many gay friends. However, most believe it is related to Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz.
In Daniel Harris' book The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture, Garland is called a "lodestone" of gay culture. The "answer to the proverbial question, 'Why did gay men like Judy Garland so much?' is that they liked, not her, so much as her audience," it is noted. "The hordes of other gay men who gathered in her name to hear her poignant renditions of old torch songs that reduced sniffling queens to floods of self-pitying tears. The hysterical ovations her audiences gave her were in some sense applause for themselves."
"Friends of Dorothy" is a track on The Wiggles' new country album Wiggle Up, Giddy Up! — which also has collaborations with Dolly Parton, Lainey Wilson, Dasha, Morgan Evans, and others.
Mey Rude is a journalist and cultural critic who has been covering queer news for a decade. The transgender, Latina lesbian lives in Los Angeles with her fiancée.
Mey Rude is a journalist and cultural critic who has been covering queer news for a decade. The transgender, Latina lesbian lives in Los Angeles with her fiancée.
