The Independent: Hello, Pot Meet Kettle

Lesbians and bisexuals have significantly lower representation on television than gay men, who are also under-represented on our screens according to a new report by the BBC.

The report, which included an in-depth consultation of leading lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) expert groups and individuals, found that lesbian women were “relatively invisible compared to the level of coverage of gay men”.
The report did not include information about the representation of transgender individuals on television.
Although gay men were perceived by LGB experts to have greater representation on television, the range of portrayal of gay men is felt to be too narrow and reliant on outdated stereotypes.
“Gay men seem to be so much better represented [than lesbians], although I’d say they get slotted into the camp niche and the diversity of their representation is consequently restricted," said a spokesperson for arts trade union Equity.
“Gay male representation is improving, although camp gay men are still the norm, especially in comedy scenarios.”

The Independent.
Slight irony here, in this being reported in the newspaper with the most woeful gay coverage.
The Telegraph wonderfully mangled this as, BBC told to put more gay people on children's TV.
The horror! The horror!

PS Here's the report linked as a PDF on a BBC News story.
For some reason everyone seems to illustrate this story with a photo of John Barrowman.
Thus perhaps showing the paucity of the representation of The Gays on the tellybox.
Dunno why anyone has a problem with gay men being shown as camp - apart from the fact they are heteronormative boring fuckwits.
But we are Blanche, we are!

PPS How, exactly, does one become a leading gay expert?

Update: As ever this has sent Daily Mail readers delightfully mad.

Torchwood: Sod Off!

"If critics don't like what I do then I don't give a shit. They can sod off.
"All I did was have a little romantic kiss and cuddle with another fella on screen — it's not as if you see us doing anything.
"The funny thing is in the same episode I was also hung up on a meat hook, stabbed hundreds of times with my blood dripping down my body and shot in the head three times, but no one complained about that."

John Barrowman, quoted in The Sun, commenting on last month's "TV gay sex uproar" over an episode of Torchwood.
"Screen hunk John Barrowman" is promoting his appearance in panto in Glasgow with The Krankies.

Richard Littlejohn: Bashing The Bishop BBC Again

Hurrah!
That permanently offended nutball Richard Littlejohn has entered the fray of the Torchwood gaysex scene "storm of controversy" in a "think" piece in the Mail bashing the BBC [Bolsheviks Broadcasting Buggery] once more;
"Take the latest episode of Torchwood, the Doctor Who spin-off. It began with a seven-minute gay sex scene, which outraged many viewers. Why?
[Cause they're the sort of boring prudes who read The Daily Mail? Oh, that's not what you mean. Sorry. Do carry on...]
"The BBC says: ‘We aim to depict relationships, whether heterosexual or homosexual, in an honest and realistic way.’ Fair enough. But what on earth has sex got to do with a science fiction show? Why does the lead character have to be a ‘pansexual’? They’ll be telling us next that the Daleks all wore bondage gear under their tinfoil armour.
"But this is what you get when you hire a proselytising homosexual like Russell T. Davies to write mainstream drama. Gifted writer he may be, but he comes with an agenda.
"There is a place for exploring gay themes on TV, but not at prime time on BBC1 in a programme watched by many children and their parents [It was shown after the watershed]."
"No doubt Davies and his producers will dismiss anyone who objects as a ‘homophobe’. But you don’t have to be a prude or a bigot to disapprove of a gratuitous seven-minute sex scene in a sci-fi series.
It would have been equally unnecessary if it had involved a man and a woman, instead of two men. Of course, there’s always the ‘off’ switch. And it’s not as if there aren’t hundreds of other channels out there. But we’re paying for this through our licence fees.
"BBC drama, like its news output, is always refracted through the prism of the metropolitan prejudices held by the people who work there and take their world view from the pages of the Guardian..."

It's classic Littlejohn, isn't it?
Well, when I say "classic" I mean it reads like a list of illiberal cliches that could have been churned out by the Versificator at The Ministry Of Truth in 1984.
How ironic that Mr Littlejohn accuses the BBC of "churning out some appalling dross".
Why oh why don't we just privatise the BBC and sell it to a fine upstanding gentleman like Richard Desmond?

Torchwood: Ban This Filth!

'It's supposed to be sci-fi, not sex-fi: Hundreds of viewers complain to BBC over 'pointless' gay scenes in Torchwood.'

The Mail On Sunday


Dear The BBC,

I would like to complain in the strongest possible terms about the gay sex scenes in this week's Torchwood.
You couldn't see any cock.
I was watching it with my young grandson and he's mad for cock.
"Show us some cock!" he kept shouting, "COCK!"
He was so angry he hardly touched his Spaghetti Hoops on toast.
I have now cancelled my TV licence fee direct debit and will be making a donation to my favourite charity, the Bel Ami Home For Out Of Work Czech Farmhands.

yours

Edna Welthorpe (Mrs)

I shall let you know the BBC's reply...

500 Complaints - sounds like a co-ordinated campaign by Christian nutters to me.

Torchwood: Unpleasant Bumming

“I’m not gay but I’ll let you feel me up if you go and get me a vodka…” Captain Jack purred to an air steward, ­delivering a line that was neither flirtatious nor dangerous but actually unpleasant.

Why?
Jim Shelley, one-time chum of Morrissey, The Daily Mirror.

Torchwood: Uncut?

There's been much kerfuffle this week over this story;
"JOHN Barrowman has clashed with the BBC by defending Torchwood's axed explicit gay sex scene - saying it was NOT gratuitous."
A word of warning though - THIS IS IN THE SUN!!!
IT MAY NOT BE TRUE!
They love to sensationalise and - quite literally - sex stories up.
You'd hope just two months after that "Pre-watershed gay TV kiss ban" (that never existed and was never proposed), people might be a bit more sceptical.
It was The Sun what broke it last weekend;
Barrowman bonk with a barman is banned by Beeb
"It has already been shown on US cable channel Starz, which co-funded the drama. But shocked Beeb bosses have cut it from the BBC1 version, fearing an avalanche of complaints from viewers..."
The Sun can only quote "an insider" - which means they may have made it up.
Or hacked someone's mobile phone.
Who can say.
Mr Ian Sider told them;
"It wasn't that it was a gay scene that worried people, but just the fact it was such an explicit sex scene, full stop.
"You can get away with scenes like that on American cable channels, but you can't on primetime BBC1."
A BBC spokesperson has said;
“The UK and US versions of Torchwood are slightly different. However these differences do not change the story in any way and the strong storylines are first and foremost to the series.”
Torchwood is shown after the watershed - the episode in question will be shown on BBC 1 next week.

Update: A certain Russell T Davies has emailed GT:
"Now be calm.
“There is a cut in Ep.3 to simultaneous gay AND straight sex scenes. As if I’d let them cut gay sex alone! Dear God. Have faith! They’re cut because the BBC thinks that, unusually, a young audience watches post-watershed Torchwood, because of Captain Jack. And it’s not as if Editorial Policy thinks sex is shocking in that context; they just think sex scenes cause embarrassment between kids and the adults watching, which encourages people to turn over. They want viewers to stay!
“And Ep.7 goes centre-stage with a proper, dark, beautiful, honest love story between two men, and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever had my name on. So there’s been no degaying here! Seriously: as IF I would! Come on!
“Be calm!”
Quoted on Gay Times Online.

Russell T Davies: Queer Resistance To The Cuts

"Don't start me on the Coalition goverment... You know their greatest trick is to appear as buffoons - and make everyone think they're funny. That Clegg and Cameron photo opportunity, at the bed, 'Oh, we’re all laughing'* – they're savage and evil people underneath it all.
"There is a great intelligence behind the Tory party that says 'let’s appear slightly bumbling and slightly buffoonish', while they're lethal as a laser underneath it all.
"I mean how marvellous was is it to launch those cuts on the licence fee on the day of all their austerity measures? So when I always presumed that when massive cuts cames to the BBC we'd all be storming the barricades, except if you do that when everyone's concerned about cuts to children and schools and health and roads it's very easy for people to put the BBC at the bottom of the list.
"[The BBC] can take cuts. There are cuts. But I don’t imagine these are the last of the cuts. This a precedent for cuts. Can you ever imagine it going back up again? No.
"And that is truly something of great cultural value. It's always very easy to say that a school is more important than a play, that a hospital is more important than a drama and that’s because we are talking a totally false language in which these things are comparable and one reduces the other. That's the language of economics, it simply doesn’t fit cultural life."

Russell T Davies, who can do no wrong etc etc, on BBC Radio 4's Front Row.
Russell also says the BBC watershed "is more stringent than ever" after Brandgate.

• The new series of Torchwood begins on BBC1 next month.
John Barrowman says; "I'm naked in one episode - I am full-on naked.
"I am bumping and grinding in this one. I am having man sex. The true die-hard fans know Jack is omnisexual - he likes men and women.
"People who tune into this series will just think Jack is gay, because he just has full-on man sex."
"It was really fun. One day, I get to shoot a helicopter and save the world, and a couple of days later, I get to have sex with a 24-year-old. [It's the most] perfect job in the world."
Good to hear.

* I guess RTD means this one.

Russell T Davies: Touch Wood

"It’s like — you know, I could get on my soapbox and say how important it is to be, but it’s not a soapbox. It’s just simply who I am is a gay man in the world, given opportunities to write on all sorts of networks, which I’m immensely grateful for, and so it’s not like — it’s not like I include gay characters because it’s my duty or anything. It’s just my nature.
"It’s simply second-nature for me to do that. It would be rather odd if I didn’t do that. And I’ve been very lucky. I think you are very lucky when you are the man who created Queer as Folk because not many people ever dare stop you, having done that. I think, if you were a new writer, people could say “Let’s with a gayness.” But, actually, seriously, the world has moved on. That doesn’t happen anymore.
"I mean, this programming Captain Jack as great, big, swaggering bisexual lead character, people don’t blink about that anymore. Certainly, no one at Starz ever even raised an eyebrow. That’s last year, you know. It’s like — it’s just been healthy and progressive. And I think the bigger an audience you can get, you know — we want a brand-new audience on Starz. We want to increase the audience on BBC One. We must sell this to 57 countries, and they can all see that on the screen, and that’s got to be good."

The mighty Russell T Davies during a panel debate at the US Television Critics Association