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Bette Midler Misses "Extreme" Gays Of The '70s: "You Just Don't See Them Anymore"

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As someone who became an honorary member of the gay community long before you were even born, Bette Midler knows a thing or two about the good ol' days of being gay in New York City before it was cool.

As you may already know, Midler got her start as a vocalist performing in some of New York City's seediest bathhouses during the '70s. She stood with the gay community during the devastating AIDS epidemic in the early '80s, a decades-long fight for civil rights and most recently, the battle for marriage equality.

Asked what she misses most about those days, the 68-year-old Divine Miss M was pretty specific in her latest interview with the Advocate. "[I miss] the extreme characters you used to see in the Village in the old days," she said. "You just don't see them anymore."

Back in her initial heyday, being "extreme" or opulent in public (read: being very gay) was courageous, brave even.

"I really do miss them because there was a feeling I used to get that people were expressing themselves in the most elaborate of ways," she added. "Now the [gay community] has kind of gone mainstream. It’s sort of ordinary now, and a little bit of the specialness has rubbed away."

But rubbing away that specialness isn't entirely a bad thing, she clarified:

“It used to be the love that dare not speak its name and now it’s the love that won’t shut the fuck up...but seriously, the great thing about the gay revolution is that it has become ordinary and I’m happy to see how far it’s come and to see the community be more at peace with itself and, I want to say, more homogenized. Even being considered a gay icon — which was something that used to be whispered and bandied about — has become sort of mainstream, and that’s a good thing.”

A need for more elaborate gays? A celebration of mainstream gays? Sounds like Bette would be a perfect RuPaul's Drag Race guest judge, no?

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