FOLLOW US ON:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
CONTACT US
Go directly to Castro Street: ‘Gay Monopoly’ an absolutely fabulous vintage board game from 1983
08.03.2016
08:51 am
Topics:
Tags:


Gay Monopoly, a very gay board game from 1983.
 
Like many people I have a love/hate relationship with the Internet. Which is a problem if you happen to be in the line of work I’m in. Today, however, is a day that I am in LOVE with the Internet and I don’t care who knows it. Check out this absolutely fabulous board game put out in 1983 that took the Parker Brothers staple Monopoly and gave it a drag queen style makeover. I present to you one of the greatest board games ever to be pulled out of a closet—Gay Monopoly.

An idea conceived by the cheekily named company Fire Island Games out of (natch) West Hollywood it’s hard to say what I like most about this whole riff on Monopoly. Like the game pieces that include a leather cap, high-heeled pumps, handcuffs, a hair dryer and a teddy bear. Or the properties up for grabs on the game board of notable gay destinations and landmarks such as Castro Street in San Francisco, Fort Lauderdale, and good old Tremont Street—and of course Provincetown—in Massachusetts. And of course instead of building hotels on your property in Gay Monopoly you build bars and bathhouses. Of course since this is Gay Monopoly that we’re talking about here, the railroads have been replaced with discothèques. Yes. As I was reading through the insert that helps explain the game I came across some tongue-in-cheek text detailing the “rules” for Gay Monopoly:

Remember that nothing in the rules is sacred. They are not carved in Quiche. Rules are for people “living” in Straight City. When you play GAY MONOPOLY be inventive like gay people always are.

So the next time your boss tries to tell you what to do like “make sure you’re not late again tomorrow” or to “not to drink a bottle of wine at lunch” you tell them that unless those rules are carved in quiche then no dice. As you might imagine this game is a difficult one to track down as Parker Brothers came hard for Fire Island Games and sued them for copyright infringement. As it turns out Fire Island donated the vast majority of whatever profits they made for the fifteen-dollar game to AIDS research and support organizations. I did find a few going for multiple hundreds of dollars over on Etsy and Ebay if you’d like to add this fantastic artifact to your board game collection.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Cherrybomb
|
08.03.2016
08:51 am
|