Has he always been? “Yes. But I didn’t always see myself as that. It’s a much harder thing to accept than being gay. Gay is easy. Being camp is difficult in that it comes with judgment all round. That moment when you realise that you are quite fey and quite camp, it’s a difficult one because these are not qualities that are admired by anybody. As you move forward you can own it and camp it up to the hilt or you can try and tone it down.”
When he started doing stand-up he played up to it. Norton remembers seeing a programme where young gay men in Brighton criticised him for not being a very good role model. “Bless these boys, they were so camp and it broke my heart because I kind of thought, 'I was you’. And in a way it’s about self-loathing, the dislike of campness. Because actually the people who dislike it are normally quite camp. And it’s sad that every gay personal ad is all 'straight-acting’. That’s a weird thing for a sexuality to be based on. Something else.”
Graham Norton profiled in the Telegraph.
Russians love Johnny Weir. He’s their kind of gay: Liberace of the ice. He’s the “fabulous” gay, the mascot, the gay who knows his place and stays in it. (Weir waited until publishing a memoir in 2011 to admit that he was gay at all, which everyone already knew.) The Russians don’t mind token flamers like Weir; what scares them are everyday people who happen to be gay. They’re scared of homosexuality becoming normal, not staying outrageous like Weir.
Oh Michael, who wants to be "normal", if it means being boring and annoying like you?
PS Seriously thinking about starting a new Twitter account, From The Gay Media Message Boards...
Just seen on Queerty; "WTF so many feminine creatures? Gay=/=woman".
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Good comparison. I love Graham Norton. The anti-camp/fem mindset really bugs me because you'd assume gay people would be the first to automatically question any notions of "masculinity" and "femininity" and the whole "straight acting" and "I just happen to be gay" thing seems so un-thought-through.
ReplyDeleteApropos of something, Norton is a massive Pedro Almodovar fan, who I know you hate, but his last film I'm So Excited is full of camp or queeny gay men and the "straight-acting" pilots - one of whom is bisexual and in a relationship with the main steward and the other is basically gay, despite being married to a womans, and doesn't realise it even though he sucked off the other pilot when drunk and has a 69 with one of the other male stewards in the film - the movie kind of revels in that camp attitude or queeny I guess and sort of mocks the straight-acting dudes as being either clueless or a bit screwed up. Anyway, my long and rambling point is that I think it got some criticism for all of that from gay writers/commenters; who I think are appalled by anything in gay culture which isn't conservative or "respectable" in polite society. It's boring...
UND! it seems to be at the basis of most transphobia amongst certain gay people too. Lucas' use of the word "normal" is telling - I see you put it in quote marks too.
ReplyDeleteAgain, it's so unthinking. When anyone talks about "normal" I always think of a scene in the '90s western "Tombstone", when Doc Holliday is a'dyin' and he says to his bum-chum Wyatt Earp, in response to the latter's statement about wanting a "normal life", "There's no normal life, Wyatt. It's just life. Get on with it."
Doc's Death (youtube) :'(
Very interesting, thank you.
DeleteI think if fags want to appear "normal" they should go the whole hog and be straight.
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Great post, hate by gays against camp would be hilarious if it wasn't so annoying. The only problem is I'm pretty (ugh) "masc" "acting" (blame my childhood, I dunno). I mean it's not inherently bad is it!?
ReplyDeleteOf course not!
DeleteAll that's wrong is anyone who's anything saying it magically makes them superior to anyone who isn't...
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Admittedly, you could pick some quite big holes in that last line rather easily.
DeleteEg I think looking down on people who look down on other people is good etc etc
Stupid question really but I'm just tired and words like "sort of mocks the straight-acting dudes as being either clueless or a bit screwed up" was a bit weird. Even if you didn't say that but..... I'm tired
DeleteYou should seriously think on that From the Gay Message Boards account. So much untapped potential.
ReplyDeleteThink I will - SO MANY BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS THAT MUST BE SHARED WITH THE WORLD!!!
Deletex
You might want to start with the nutter on Queerty who automatically calls anyone who he disagrees with a "troll" and then insinuates stuff about them while claiming to have alerted the police. He's currently adopted a photo as his avatar on there which is actually the boy/friend of another poster on there who's in his late sixties and dared to say something non-hysterical/unpalatable about suspected paedophiles and he's apparently "alerted the authorities" (as the friend in question is a foreign national) because such a person shouldn't be allowed near another man, according to the fruitcake mentalist.
DeleteThere's always at least one vain nutcase on that site who harangues anyone he disagrees with in the most tedious way.
Who be this?
DeleteAre they in the UK.
I get bizarro accusations from someone - who clearly has two handles that just repeat each other... he said recently someone in Brighton was compiling a secret dossier on me and I should be expecting a visit from the police soon!
Wunnerful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, that's the same bloke, "2eo". The person he's targeting on there seems like a bit of right-wing religionut, but the point is there's never any attempt to just debate with people on there. It moves instantly to threats, insinuations and accusations of being a troll. It's depressing and sucks all the life out of the comments section; because what's the point in trying to debate with such people?
DeleteYou can read the bit about Dakothingamabob's boyfriend's photo here ("Dako..." is in his late-'60s, apparently):
http://www.queerty.com/pat-robertson-thinks-aids-is-the-result-of-a-failed-polio-experiment-20131011/
The insinuations about you on there are typical. It's really juvenile and shitty and basically amounts to online bullying.
Yes, him.
DeleteAnd "Cam".
I don't like being called a Nazi or a racist or right-wing, and wish he'd stop.
But it's so daft and easy to disprove - eg give me one example, read what I wrote etc - and he comes across as so nutso you can't imagine any regular viewers taking it seriously...