Pride: The Daily Mail Sure Does Love It!

Daily Mail.

Also very popular with The Sun!

Is it only right-wing cunts who love this movie?

It's heart-warming, adorable etc etc Zzzz...

'You shall judge a film by its fans as well as by its foes' Joseph Conrad, probably.

PS The wonderfully thick Andrew Scott strikes again!

So it's just a film that happens to be about The Gays, then?

You stupid fuck.

What makes a film 'gay'? Craig Johnson, The Advocate.

PPS Seen the film, buy the t-shirt (that cost £4 to make).

Or you could just give the Orgeave Truth And Justice Campaign £4.

Cut out the middle-man and not buy a shitty, politically vacuous, over-priced t-shirt!

PPPS The Daily Mirror thinks it honks of sentimental, apolitical crap...

Let me say again, the story has all the components for a fantastic film, a tale of unlikely brothers in arms united against an evil enemy in a desperate climate.

But sadly the makers rely on the clichés we see in way too many light-as-a-feather British comedy-dramas – see, in particular, Made In Dagenham, Cemetery Junction and Kinky Boots.

Slap your forehead as the hostile locals are won over by West dancing on the table in their community hall; feel your toes curl as two biddies show their innate lovability by calling their new pals “the gays” or “my lesbians”; and sink even deeper into your seat as the same swap talcum powder tips with a man in a gimp suit.

Bless them! Aren’t they surprisingly tolerant?

And then there’s an overwhelming, cloying, knuckle-chewing score signposting when we’re meant to laugh or cry.

Meanwhile, the grit of the strike – the out-of-control coppers, the vindictiveness of the National Coal Board and the miners’ desperate poverty – are largely glossed over so we can get to another scene of Staunton proving her broadness of mind by dancing in a gay club where (and I’m not making this up) she attempts to talk to a man wearing a ball gag.

The Times.

Yes! It's the feel-good comedy guaranteed not to offend anyone who wanted all miners and queers to be killed at the time!

Mark Ashton.

And finally, from the Morning Star...

Often when a film with LGBT themes is produced there can be difficulties of prejudice along the way and I was curious to know if the prodcuction team had encountered something similar.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the change in attitudes in recent decades, it wasn’t the LGBT but the socialist theme that people had an issue with.

A major US distributor went so far as to abandon the project entirely because it deals with socialism and from an early stage the crew were advised not to use the word “communist” under any circumstances or there’d be stiff opposition to marketing the film in the US.

This presented some difficulty not least because one of the main characters of the film and a founding member of LGSM is Mark Ashton, beautifully played by Ben Schnetzer. At the time he was the youngest-ever general secretary of the Young Communist League...

So in fine - the message of this movie is; the miners' got fucked, but you got gay marriage.

But everything now is alright for ever.

PS Also from the Morning Star, Pits And Perverts: The legacy of communist Mark Ashton.