of gross excesses are simply this: a way for this man to escape the stress of his necessary opposites.

We can, as outsiders, descry this behaviour - we can attack him on it, point out that it shows that he is 'morally degraded' or whatever other term we use. We can say the same thing about other cultures and societies: but only if we apply our own social mores and prejudices on these people. Very few people indeed, perhaps none, can really know what Freddie went through in his life: his upbringing was probably unique, as is his particular talent and unswerving belief in himself. He is a product of five separate cultures: 1950's Zanzibaris, Zoroastrian/Pharsee, Indian, English Private School and London during the 60's. Each of these cultures is incredibly different from most societies today, and each would play a part in the creation of Freddie. For a person living in the United Statesian dominated trash culture of the late 20th and early 21st centuries to attack a person with such an unusual and diverse mix of backgrounds is not only morally wrong, it is intellectually absurd.

Let us then add to this his lifestyle - that of frenzied public performances and private intimate times, add, if you must, his sexual preferences and passions (large whether with females or males) and his stage adoption of the cultural symbols of each time period he passes through. This 'stage adoption' doesn't pass through to his personal life and tastes (at least, after the early 70's).

What we find with Freddie Mercury is an individual with an incredible mix of cultural and social identities more then enough to create a sense of not truly belonging in anyone, let alone in a public figure; of being divorced from much of these influences as most of them no longer existed from the 70's on. Freddie is an eccentric genius, divorced in time and space from the culture that most of us wear as a blanket or suit of armour and left naked in a society that does not and cannot even comprehend, let alone understand, who or what he truly is.