Andrew Pierce: The War Against Queens

Aren't gay men simply awful?
Andrew Pierce certainly thinks so.
And he should know - he is one.
He's also currently the pet homo in the house journal of the petit bourgeoisie, The Daily Mail.
Today he's explaining; "Why I, as a gay man, abhor these TV queens."
If the title sounds familiar, that may be because Pierce has also written for The Mail; 'Why I, as a gay man, support the Pope' (in opposing gay equality legislation).
Andrew Pierce, as a gay man, takes as his dual launching pads that Supreme Court judge's comment about the stereotype of gay men liking "Kylie and cocktails", and Stonewall's survey into TV watched by young people
"Which concluded that gays were mainly portrayed as promiscuous, predatory, or figures of fun..."
"Stonewall has a point," Pierce concedes, "but what they failed to acknowledge is that by far the greatest offenders in all this are our most prominent gay TV presenters and entertainers, who allow themselves to be portrayed as ridiculous camp sterotypes by executives who revel in the same hackneyed rubbish."
Gay men are - but of course - our own worst enemies. Silly us.
"It’s astonishing and offensive that, in a country which has made such remarkable and commendable strides forward in same-sex equality, TV producers still think that if a gay entertainer is not camp, lisping, effeminate and bitchy then they can’t be funny or interesting or popular."
It's certainly something to think about - why oh why are so many successful gay entertainers entertaining?
And why oh why are so many successful gay comedians funny?
Mr Pierce has his own roll call of gay shame.
Graham Norton - "a parody of a homophobe’s view of all gay men — with his mincing, ooh-missus act which he cranks up to an absurd degree of self-mockery... Much of his humour is simply, I’m sorry to say, just vulgar."
Then there's "prancing, preening fashion icon Gok Wan".
Julian Clary, "who has made an entire career out of making Larry Grayson look butch by comparison."
Clary, lest we forget, once made "a vile pre-watershed joke about a sexual act with the then chancellor Norman Lamont at a televised awards ceremony. (The joke, needless to say, made him the darling of The Guardianistas.)"
Hot on his heels came "mincing" Paul O’Grady, "simply by virtue of his alter ego, the crude drag queen Lily Savage, who made Coronation Street’s blowsy barmaid Bet Lynch seem cool and sophisticated."
He quotes Piers Morgan - approvingly - on Alan Carr; "He has quite possibly the most excruciatingly high-pitched, whiny, helium-fuelled, nasal, repugnant voice in the history of mankind."
And did you hear that Louie Spence on The Men's Hour?
"Spence presumably delighted the BBC by declaring in the first episode that he wishes he had slept around more when he was younger and then discussing the size of his penis. Classy stuff."

Poor old Andrew is rather tormented and affronted by all this TV poovery.; "Carr and his queeny TV cohorts merely reinforce outdated prejudices of gay men as simpering, soppy, superficial cissies."
"Not one of my gay friends is effeminate, speaks in high-pitched voices, frets endlessly about what to wear, listens only to songs from musical shows, and has dogs which you can fit into handbags."
And what a boring bunch of stuck-up fuck-ups they sound, Andrew.
"Most of them were just as interested in England’s World Cup campaign (more fool them!) as my straight friends and they worry far more about the state of the economy than over whether Kylie has found true love."
"They are, in other words, ordinary men, from all walks of life, and with all kinds of interests, who just happen to be gay. And like me, they are intensely irritated that the most prominent gay personalities on television are so absurdly atypical of the vast majority of homosexuals in the real world."
Mr Pierce seems blissfully unaware he's now walking through a quagmire of cliches.
These tired arguments have regularly appeared on the letters pages of the gay (and straight) press for the last 40 years.
The self-righteous "straight looking, straight acting" - and often self loathing - brigade; going on about how "We're not all limp-wristed screaming queens who like Judy Garland/Barbra Streisand/Donna Summer/Madonna/Kylie/Lady Gaga [delete to fit decade], you know? Some of us are real men. Men who just happen to be gay."
How very wonderful for you.
"So why are TV stars and the executives who hire them still locked in some sort of timewarp in their portrayal of modern gay men?"
One might also ask why newspaper editors keep publishing articles by gay men who go on and on about how dreadful they think other gay men are.
And why so many gay journalists who are regularly given space in the straight press are gay Uncle Toms who reinforce straight peoples' anti-gay prejudices.
And why so many of them are upper middle class gay men slagging off ordinary gay men who act... gay.
Of course what the likes of Andrew Pierce really can't stand is that he thinks so many of these queens are so common.
They're all so frightfully "vulgar", aren't they Andrew?
If only we could all be as "classy" as him.
But then what did you expect from The Daily Mail?
Even in an article by someone writing "as a gay man".