Wednesday 23 April 2014

Camp: And The Damage Done

In his perceptive [sic] analysis of gay men's attitudes to camp (What Alan Carr taught me about gay men's prejudice, 21 April), Owen Jones suggests that an aversion to it is a form of self-loathing. But for many of us struggling to come out in the 1970s and 80s, it was camp itself which represented self-hatred. Comedians such as John Inman and Larry Grayson personified everything that I did not want to be. They were almost a third sex: grotesque pantomimic creatures, willingly collusive in the mocking laughter of the TV audience. My generation of activists wanted to show people that we weren't all hairdressers or ballet dancers, just ordinary blokes who worked in factories and offices and drove trains and buses...

From an actual letter someone bothered to write to The Guardian.

God, there are some top-flight gaybores out there.

Who wants to be 'ordinary'?

And all the poshgays be like; 'Oh Owen, you're saying what we're all thinking.'

'I also hate the gays cause the gays hate the gays, yeah, that makes sense.'

PS Pink News readers continue to gaybore for England.
Posted by Fagburn at 10:08:00
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16 comments:

  1. BK23 April 2014 at 13:39

    It's bad enough reading a letter by the boring cunts. Can you imagine if any of them went into 'light entertainment' as the moron seems to suggest.
    'Why aren't there more ordinary gay train and bus drivers presenting chat shows on TV???'
    BZZT!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous23 April 2014 at 16:53

    Most teenagers want to be ordinary and fit in with the crowd. They don't want to wear pink wings and be called a fairy. Maybe you should venture out of the gay ghetto and into real life occasionally.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BK23 April 2014 at 17:44

    Teenagers are cunts. I don't think we should be toning ourselves down and pretending to be cookie-cutter dullards just to please them.
    Alan Carr is camp. If people don't like that they can fuck off, can't they? He doesn't represent anyone but himself and he doesn't owe us anything.
    Sing out, Louise!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous24 April 2014 at 12:25

      The biggest cunts are middle class gays surrounded by their fag hags, oh so tolerant friends, families and co-workers who have no idea what life is like for those on the sharp end of homophobia.

      Delete
    2. BK24 April 2014 at 16:27

      I agree. What utter shits!
      I was at Stonewall and am made of coal. I endure vicious bigotry on an hourly basis.
      What do I win?

      Delete
    3. Fagburn24 April 2014 at 20:44

      You should move to Brighton, love.
      Here they queue up to festoon you with lilacs as you mince down the street.
      It's paradise I tells you - paradise!

      Delete
    4. Anonymous25 April 2014 at 07:44

      You win a personality BK. You evidently need one.

      Delete
    5. BK25 April 2014 at 17:22

      Will I have to give up my sense of humour? :(

      Delete
  4. Paul Brownsey23 April 2014 at 19:36

    I wrote such a letter to the Director-General of the BBC in 1977 and am still glad i did so. I got a long and thoughtful reply, too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fagburn23 April 2014 at 21:32

      Tell us more!

      PS Do you know the story of some people from the GLF going backstage to meet Larry Grayson?

      Larry listened to their concerns but covered his little dog's ears.

      Haha.

      x

      Delete
    2. Anonymous24 April 2014 at 12:37

      I'm glad you wrote that letter too, because if we never said anything, nothing would change. Fagburn lives in a world where everyone is gay friendly, so don't provide him with any more information that gives him the opportunity to label you a gaybore.

      Delete
    3. Fagburn24 April 2014 at 13:24

      Eh?
      I've been punched in the face twice in the last two years, but obviously you know more about the reality of my life than I do.
      x

      Delete
  5. Paul Brownsey24 April 2014 at 19:35

    Now I think of it, it may have been the head of the independent TV authority instead, someone called Thompson. But a guy at the top.

    It was around 1977 and I was feeling sore at things going bad with my boyfriend (though he's downstairs doing the washing-up as I type this) and I was at my Mum's for Christmas and Jesus' birth seemed to be being celebrated by a sort of orgy of jeers and shrieks of canned laughter at limp wrists and get-you-duckies, possibly even on Steptoe, and I felt embarrassed in front of my Mum, who Knew, and continued to be sore about my boyfriend and all this seemed just totally to trash what I was going through and felt about him, so when i got back to Glasgow I wrote to this high heid yin of BBC or ITV and instead of a mere, "We were interested to receive your comments but have to tell you we have to plans to alter our programmes, yours faithfully" got a long piece signed by Thompson himself which, inter alia, theorised about the nature of comedy and its relation to stereotypes. I've probably still got it somewhere, in an old folder marked "Gay Lib", though that title shows either naivete or ignorance because I was always on the liberal-reformist side, which campaigned exclusively respectable rich gays to be allowed to become joint dads.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fagburn24 April 2014 at 20:41

      Hahaha! x

      Delete
    2. Anonymous25 April 2014 at 07:47

      Eh. He's a gaybore. Why aren't you condemning him like everyone else who objects to homophobia and isn't the right kind of gay in your view? Hypocrite.

      Delete

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