Periphery Demographic: The novel is highly popular among LGBT groups who see the novel's portrayal of constant surveillance, thoughtcrime, and enforcement of ideology as a metaphor for how heteronormative social values forced LGBT peoples to remain in the closet, and find love in secret and in hiding, with Winston and Julia's admittedly straight but forbidden romance, a reflection of how they had to find love and their brutal "reeducation" disturbingly similar to the attempts at
Cure Your Gays by heterosexual peoples. Indeed,
David Bowie planned a musical adaptation of the novel (which eventually got worked into
Diamond Dogs) that would have focused on this aspect of the book. With that in mind, it can be quite a shock to learn that Orwell was himself a lifelong and dedicated
Heteronormative Crusader and that at Eton he, as a Prefect, would rat out students he suspected of being gay.