Stephen Fry uses his blog to condemn The Independent On Sunday's inclusion of Louie Spence on its Pink 100 List 'Rogue's Gallery' of Bad Gays.
"By singling out Louie Spence for lofty disapproval, by sneering at his “mincing” they are turning their back on, dissociating themselves from, insulting and demeaning a fine man and whole way of being... Do they want people like him not to count, do they see him as being guilty of a choice in his manner and his demeanour, just as homophobes everywhere accuse all gay people of choosing their sexuality and preferences? How dare they of all people dismiss a gay man in a few contemptuous, bigoted phrases because he doesn’t fit the “type” that they think a gay man should exemplify? ...The IoS panel who chose to scorn Louie owe him an apology, and they owe an apology to all like him. There was a time when polari and Julian and Sandy and limp-wristed mincing and winking innuendo were all that came between a certain kind of gay man and his pride, his self-respect and his ability to hold his head high in a hostile world. Read Quentin Crisp’s The Naked Civil Servant or watch John Hurt’s glorious portrayal. It is not the only way for a gay man to be, no one is saying it should be, but it is a wholly proper and acceptable manner (not to mention an often loveable and witty one) and to see it traduced with superiority by the very people who should be supporting and endorsing it sickens me. I have stood up and spoken for Stonewall and its campaigns to stop playground bullying and taunting: it is of course the effeminate and overtly camp boys (or butch girls) at school who first come in for that sort of attention, the kind of attention that alcohol and a gang mentality can turn all too readily into gay-bashing and severe violence. Is it now official Stonewall policy that only “straight-acting” gays are acceptable, that today’s Quentin Crisps and Kenneth Williams’s can count themselves as outcast from “the community”? Bah. They should read a bit of Judith Butler and think a bit harder about gender and identity."
"I give up my No 3 position in the Pink List and award it to Louie Spence. Until the next time…. pip pip."
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Fagburn would like to humbly withdraw anything mildly mocking he has ever said about Stephen Fry.
Thank you.
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Stephen later amended his blog - adding that in the full version of his original post he had wrongly assumed that the judges - including Stonewall's Ben Summerskill - had selected the Rogue's Gallery and written the little critiques of those included...
ReplyDelete"It is axiomatic that panels and judges of prizes or compilers of lists always sit in conditions of absolute secrecy, but I have had private word of an element of the deliberations which tells me that maybe the deliberators weren't to blame, but some Sindie journalist who took it upon him or her self to write the Rogues' Gallery section without the deliberators knowledge or consent. Well if I have done Ben Summerskill and Clare Balding and the others who helped to put the list together then I am really sorry."