History Film / VelvetGoldmine

* ClosetKey: Slade's is Wild; Arthur's is Slade

** The whole movie for David Bowie's career.

* {{Dystopia}}: You can read the current time, from where the frame story takes place, as a super conservative dystopia front-headed by the mysterious President Reynolds. Certainly a great deal of the stranger scenes make sense with the dystopian backdrop.
** The present day ''does'' take place in 1984.

* EverybodySmokes

* EverythingsBetterWithSparkles: The film loves its glitter - which is appropriate as it's about a {{bishonen}} glam rock star.

** The Venus in Furs, while sounding a lot like Bowie's band from his Ziggy days, is actually based on a song by Music/VelvetUnderground (which is in turn based on a novel of the same name).

* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: Brian Slade, when he isn't blonde, has jewel-tone blue Ziggy-cut hair. Or is that Maxwell-cut...

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: What Arthur does after his parents [[ForcedOutOfTheCloset find out he's not straight]]in...[[CaughtWithYourPantsDown no uncertain way]].

-->'''Cecil:'''The doctors said the treatment would "fry the fairy clean out of him". But all it did was make him bonkers — every time he heard an electric guitar.

-->''The doctors said the treatment would "fry the fairy clean out of him". But all it did was make him bonkers — every time he heard an electric guitar...''

* CarefulWithThatAxe: True to his basis Creator/IggyPop's vocal stylings, Curt Wild at the beginning of his performance of "T.V. Eye". Even more so on the soundtrack version, where his screams are simultaneously those of a man being burned alive and having the greatest sex of his life.

* {{Groupie}}: Arthur is a male example. In his youth he's an ardent fan of Venus in Furs and devotes his life to following them on tour for a time. He even ends up sleeping with Kurt Wild, the guitarist.

** In flashbacks, Amanda's accent slips when she's upset; in scenes taking place in the present, she doesn't bother. It's particularly impressive given Creator/ToniCollette is Australian, therefore neither of the accents she veers between are her own. This is actually a positively uncanny imitation of Angela Bowie, who is American but either absorbed or intentionally adopted a faux-British accent during her then-husband's glam rock days. It's especially prominent in the opening to ''Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture'', for example, when she comes backstage to chat with the band.

* PaperThinDisguise: Brian Slade turns up to a concert in a "disguise" consisting of a large hat and coat. Although his ex-wife reveals that she recognised him, and public opinion towards him had already soured somewhat, it seems a bit odd that no one bats an eyelid at his appearance, given that he is still very famous, and very poorly disguised.

* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: Creator/OscarWilde was an orphan from the stars...right.

* CaughtWithYourPantsDown: And it is as [[TearJerker far from funny]] as one of these moments is possible to be.

* CostumePorn
* CureYourGays: Poor Curt Wild, who was sent to electroshock therapy to cure him after being caught being molested by his brother.

* EverythingsBetterWithSparkles

* FakeOutOpening: A [=UFO=]? In a movie about glam rockers? Really? (Though considering the motif of aliens in ''actual'' glam rock, it's really not that surprising.)

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Slade is Bowie, Curt Wild is Iggy Pop (with a dash of [[Music/TheRollingStones Mick Jagger]] and [[Music/VelvetUnderground Lou Reed]]), Jack Fairy is Brian Eno and Music/MarcBolan, and The Venus in Furs are The Spiders From Mars.

** Mandy (Brian's wife) is from New York. She affects a put-on British accent most of the time, but slips into her native New York when angry, and (many years) later when being interviewed by Arthur.
* APartyAlsoKnownAsAnOrgy: Wild and Slade get together at a post-show party that has pretty much every character naked in a room on top of each other.
* PrettyBoy: Brian Slade, who manages to be more delicately pretty that ''his own wife'' (who is not bad-looking or particularly butch) & Curt Wild fit this trope perfectly.

* RomanAClef

* AbusiveParents: The only time anyone's parents get any lines in the movie, it's [[spoiler: Arthur's father yelling at him (for masturbating to a picture of Brian and Curt kissing.)]]. Kurt's parents are the most obviously abusive, [[spoiler: sending him for electric-shock treatment after he had sex with (or was abused by) his older brother]].

* AbusiveParents: The only time anyone's parents get any lines in the movie, it's [[spoiler: Arthur's father yelling at him (for being gay)]]. Kurt's parents are the most obviously abusive, [[spoiler: sending him for electric-shock treatment after he had sex with (or was abused by) his older brother]].

* LongHairedPrettyBoy: Early on in his career, Slade had flowing, shoulder-length hair, and as mentioned elsewhere, was more beautiful than his wife.

* PrettyBoy: Brian Slade, who manages to be more delicately pretty that ''his own wife'' (who is not bad-looking or particularly butch.)

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Slade is Bowie, Curt Wild is Iggy Pop (with a dash of Mick Jagger and [[Music/VelvetUnderground Lou Reed]]), Jack Fairy is Brian Eno and [[Music/TRex Marc Bolan]], and The Venus in Furs are The Spiders From Mars.

* CureYourGays: Poor Curt Wild, who was sent to electroshop therapy to cure him after being caught being molested by his brother.

* {{Expy}}: Slade is Bowie, Curt Wild is Iggy Pop (with a dash of Mick Jagger and [[Music/VelvetUnderground Lou Reed]]), Jack Fairy is Brian Eno and [[Music/TRex Marc Bolan]], and The Venus in Furs are The Spiders From Mars.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Though David Bowie disagrees.

* CureYourGays: Poor Curt Wild.

** In Curt Wild's first appearance, he holds a bottle of glitter in front of his crotch and vigorously shaking it into the audience, as if ejaculating on them.

* EveryoneIsBi: Or possibly gay. The movie's a little fuzzy on that point.

* MrFanservice: Just look at the stars...

* FakingTheDead: What ultimately does Slade in. The amount of backlash he receives for pretending to be murdered on-stage as a publicity stunt ends up destroying his career and forcing him to go into hiding. Additionally, [[spoiler:it's revealed near the end that Arthur was at the concert where this happened and that it was this event that lead to his obsessive search for Slade in the first place, essentially making this trope the driving force of the entire film.]]

* FakingTheDead: What ultimately does Slade in. The amount of backlash he receives for pretending to be murdered on-stage as a publicity stunt ends up destroying his career and forcing him to go into hiding in the first place. Additionally, [[spoiler:it's revealed near the end that Arthur was at the concert where this happened and that it was this event that lead to his obsessive search for Slade in the first place, essentially making this trope the driving force of the entire film.]]