Temporary Tatu: are the hot young Russian singers a step forward for lesbian visibility, or is their sexuality just a gimmick? (Music).

It's easy to liken the queer-charged notoriety buzzing around the Russian female duo Tatu to the hubbub that surrounded Frankie Goes to Hollywood in the '80s. Both laced cheeky homocentric imagery into otherwise harmless, if wildly infectious, pop music masterminded by fiber-producer Trevor Horn. Both enjoyed massive worldwide success, and both were censored by Britain's BBC.

There's just one glaring difference: Frankie Goes to Hollywood featured two members who were openly gay long before the band's formation. Julia Volkova and Lena Katina, the teenage women of Tatu, have been playing a game of "maybe we are, maybe we aren't" with the media.

And therein lies the problem--a big one. The rhetoric cranked out by the act's marketing machine tells us that the lesbian imagery that underscores the hit single "All the Things She Said" is a warm embrace of homosexuality and an acknowledgement of our collective. Allegedly, it's all designed to foster empathy and open-minded acceptance.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Indeed, "All the Things She Said" is an audacious pop anthem, rife with aggressive, up-yours attitude. There's just one thing missing--authenticity. The history of Tam leaves plenty of room for doubt.

The act was born in 1999, coining from the mind of Ivan Shapovalov, a Russian filmmaker and former psychologist and advertising executive. Volkova and Katina, then both 14 years of age, were chosen from an audition pool of approximately 500 young hopefuls. From there, Volkova and Katina were rushed into a studio to record the controversial single "Ya Soshla S Urea" ("I've Lost My Mind"). The song told of a young girl's excitement and emotional turmoil at being in love with another girl. The track was complemented by a video clip of the singers in schoolgirl outfits kissing in the rain. After garnering tons of media coverage and successful sales in Russia, the song was rewritten into the English-language "All the Things She Said" and featured on the album 200 km/h in the Wrong Lane.

An entree into the European music scene followed in 2002, with "All the Things She Said" hitting number 1 on the U.K. singles chart after two weeks while also topping several other international charts and peaking in the U.S. top 20. A mostly English-language version of 200 km/h went out to U.S. record stores in late 2002.

With Tatu's existence being the source of such careful calculation, it's difficult not to second-guess the duo's queer integrity. Volkova and Katina themselves have often given vague, even contradictory answers on the topic of their sexuality. Their official Web site calls their relationship "something more than just friendship towards each other." Last year the singers were photographed in a Moscow nightclub with men who, as they first admitted to the U.K. press, were their boyfriends. They later said the men were bodyguards.

Even Shapovalov has been less than committal about the act's sexual orientation. When quizzed directly in Billboard last year, he said, "It's all about the maximalistic relationships of youth when the boundaries between friendship and love get blurred, driven by protest and the conflict of generations."

In the end, the truth of Volkova and Katina's sexuality is secondary to the marketing manipulation that accompanies them. If we're to believe that they're lesbians, then why such vagueness? And why must Tatu be served to the public as underage, porn-quality Lolitas? What are they really selling? With no clear answers, it all feels like a big, mechanical game. And it's a game that leaves queer listeners--particularly kids starving for empathetic music and artists--on the losing end.

Flick covers pop music for The Advocate.