“Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin world go round” is the catchy chorus Freddie Mercury melodiously sang throughout the world with his band Queen. The song is what the title implies: fat bottom girls making the rockin world go round. In the first verse, Mercury claims to have sexual intercourse with his naughty nanny (who had a big fat fanny). He continues the song with lyrics that proclaim his sexual achievements with the women he sees on tour. During the release of this song and the span of Queen’s twenty plus year career, no one realized that Freddy Mercury was actually homosexual. Despite the band’s name having gay connotations, the public was completely oblivious to Mercury being gay. Several of Queen’s songs, in particular this one, sings about the appreciation of the female anatomy. However,due to Freddie Mercury’s homosexuality, this can be seen as an example of Freud’s concept of reaction-formation.
Sigmund Freud’s concept of reaction-formation can be a way to theoretically analyze a person’s inner most desires and emotions. According to Freud, the reaction formation is the blocking of desire by its opposite or the "mechanisms where by the ego reacts to the impulses of the id by creating an antithetical formation that blocks repressed cathexes." Therefore, when Freddie Mercury sang about his sexual adventures with the opposite sex he was covering up his inner most feelings towards the same sex. There were speculations of Freddie’s sexual orientation towards the end of his life, but it was never proven. Until one day, the day before he died, he himself admitted to having AIDS. However, despite his sexual orientation and lifestyle, no one could deny Mercury’s God-given talent to belt out a song in such a harmonious way. Long live Freddie Mercury and the fat bottom girls that make our world go round.