'Coming out by selling his sexuality to the
Sun was one way to
meet some of the debts he accrued in trying to fix the horrific knee
injury that ended his time in the First Division. It did not, as Justin
later claimed, end his career, but actually revived it: he was out of
League football at the time. Wanting a high-profile yet affordable
player to drive up their crowds, Torquay United newly promoted to Division Three,
gambled on Justin (paying him three times more than their previous
highest earner) despite doubts about how his sexuality would be received
and, his fitness. He performed brilliantly – ten goals in his first
season despite his club being relegated – but his realisation that he
could make easy money by selling stories about his private life,
whatever their veracity, ended disastrously..."
Juliet Jacques - co-founder of
The Justin Campaign - writing
on the New Statesman blog.
She argues that; "The narrative that homophobia in football was primarily responsible for his death forms a dauntingly negative precedent."
It's a brilliant piece of bull fighting on the mythologising of Justin Fashanu and his Faustian pact with the tabloids.
I'd go further and argue his death meant he has become fetishised - a gay footballer,
imagine!
I don't want to sound cruel, his was clearly a tragic life and his last years sound absolutely wretched, and yes, homophobia clearly played a part in his demise, but it's silly to overhype Justin Fashanu as some kind of great gay saint or gay martyr.
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Didn't Justin say he was offered more money to stay in the closet than the Sun offered him to come out?
ReplyDeleteAnd does anyone believe he came out without some kind of coercion from The Sun?
It's not as if they don't have form, particularly around that time.
The idea that coming out helped his career is laughable - a football team wouldn't hire someone because they were either gay or had turned up in the tabloids for being gay - they hired him because he was good: as evidenced by his success at Torquay she mentions.
The final bit of the quote "but his realisation that he could make easy money by selling stories about his private life, whatever their veracity, ended disastrously..." is equally crap - it doesn't disprove that "homophobia killed him" - does anyone seriously believe the endless revelations about him in the tabloids (indeed about gay celebrity in the tabloids) isn't primarily driven by prurient homophobia???
I think homophobia played a huge, central part in his downfall.
Also, I'm not that aware of him ever being put forward as some kind of saint or martyr.
The bit about him saying coming out ended his career is also true if you take the comment to mean it signalled the end of his career in top flight football.
His homophobic treatment by managers, players and fans is also a matter of record, I think.
"The narrative that homophobia in football was primarily responsible for his death forms a dauntingly negative precedent."
Err, the obvious widespread and undisputed level of homophobia in football has set a dauntingly negative precedent, I think.
Jesus fucking Christ, those silly gays "fetishising" a gay dead footballer who in fact lied and lied, came out as he was greedy for cash and anyway coming out actually improved his career you silly things!
It's not the overwhelming homophobia in the world of football over the last few decades that's the problem here it's those silly gays setting a negative precedent by highlighting it and acknowledging it existed and probably drove someone to suicide.
What balls.
Most of the endless stories in the tabloids were stories he sold, and often invented; eg sex with Tory MPs in the House of Commons, his love for Julie Goodyear...
ReplyDeleteI didn't say so in the above, but I really think he was mentally ill (Read the NS article) - and that deserves our sympathy more.
And his suicide seems linked to him being accused of sexually abusing a minor.
"Most of the endless stories in the tabloids were stories he sold, and often invented; eg sex with Tory MPs in the House of Commons, his love for Julie Goodyear..."
ReplyDeleteAnd? Most of the shit that appears in the tabloids about celebs are reported with their complicity.
He made money out of the tabloids' homophobia - it doesn't negate that homophobia.
"I didn't say so in the above, but I really think he was mentally ill (Read the NS article) - and that deserves our sympathy more."
Sorry, you're basing the assumption he was mentally ill on the fact that he was religious???
"And his suicide seems linked to him being accused of sexually abusing a minor"
As far as I know, he wasn't a minor - but given the widespread view of gay people I'm not surprised it was reported as such and not surprised it drove him over the edge.
Also, if Juliet's rosy picture of football is true and she thinks homophobia wasn't the primary reason for his suicide, why the fuck did she found The Justin Campaign to fight homophobia in football??
ReplyDeleteThe first paragraph on their site:
The Justin Campaign was founded to demonstrate that ten years after Justin Fashanu’s tragic suicide in 1998, homophobia is still hugely prevalent in both grassroots and professional football.
They make the sole connection between his suicide and homophobia in football in the very first paragraph.
For Fagburn 21.8.12
ReplyDeleteI’ve read the original blog and comments with great interest, having invested a lot of time in researching Justin Fashanu’s life for a biography and trying to find answers to the questions raised here. Here is some factual information and my thoughts.
Was the young man who accused Fashanu of sexual assault a minor? No. In Maryland, laws which discriminated against gay sex were on their way out. The age of consent was 16 for all and the young man who accused Fashanu of sexual assault was 17.
Was Justin Fashanu mentally ill? I worked in mental health in my day job and never accepted the medicalisation of distress. But putting that aside, I can’t see there was anything about his emotional state or behaviour which would have given a psychiatrist a reason to diagnose him as mentally ill. Justin was often conflicted, confused and contradictory but that wasn’t grounds for a diagnosis.
Did coming out help or hinder his career? Justin was played football in the USA and Canada throughout the period when he came out. But his attempts to make a come back from injury in England had faltered. When he came out Justin hadn’t played in England for 18 months and had only managed a handful of games since in the previous four years. Just over a year after coming out he got his contract with Torquay, having turned out for Southall FC, Newcastle United (one match) and Leatherhead. It is difficult to argue that it did his career any harm. That is not the same as saying he didn’t experience homophobia from opposing fans and players.
Did homophobia in football contribute to his death? I suppose when anyone decides to kill themselves it is brought on my immediate events but is also the result of everything they have experienced in their lives. So indirectly, maybe. But before taking his life Fashanu had been thrown into a crisis of conflict between his strict Christian beliefs and his sexuality by the accusation of sexual assault which, although you will read differently elsewhere, was being taken seriously by the police.
To me, Justin Fashanu was heroic in playing professional football after he had come out as gay. It took a lot of guts. He also showed courage in speaking up about homophobia in Britain’s black community. Other times he was foolish, notably when he made money out of falsely claiming he knew Stephen Milligan, the MP who died of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Whether Fashanu was guilty of sexual assault we will never know but he comes out of the incident badly and lied to the police.
So there you have it. I see Justin Fashanu as man who overcame a terribly difficult start in life and who, at times, found more courage than most of us will ever do. He was far from perfect but was heroic.
Jim Read, author Justin Fashanu: The Biography