458: Gay Television Producers

And so to add to the gay actors, gay choreographers, gay dancers, gay hair dressers, gay interior decorators, gay fashion designers, gay shop assistants, gay antique shop-owners, gay teachers, gay writers, gay civil servants, gay spies, and gay guardsmen, may I may present:

Gay TV producers

I suppose it’s just a further new modern arena in which gay men can be theatrical and temperamental. There was an early example in Victor Spinetti’s character in “A Hard Days Night” (1964).

“Private Eye” 3 January 1967

A couple of years on is this character by Barry Humphries in “The Adventures of Barry McKenzie”. Admittedly, in this instalment the presentation he’s introduced first as a gay man, and then is a TV producer later, so it’s not a smooth integration.

In most cases this appearance of a gay TV producer is not a matter of being a fully rounded character or even much of a joke. It’s really just a matter of throwing a brief of moment of comic colour into the environs of television production.

“Dawson and Friends”, 1977
Starts: 0.55 – 2.20

This Subsonic sketch is a parody of the ITV music programme, “Supersonic” and its presenter Mike Mansfield, here spoofed by Julian Orchard in a very floppy pink bow, with a very limp wrist and some “sweety”s and “dear”s. Manfield isn’t gay that I’m aware of, so this very broad camp portrayal is just an added extra. There’s a Lot of It About, 1982
20.58 – 21.20

“There’s a Lot of It About” was one of the later of Spike Milligan’s rather free-form sketch programmes. Some of the sketches in this series were also written by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, but I don’t think this is one of them. Spike Milligan rarely bothers with gay jokes, so for all that this just a very brief cameo it therefore stands out (although some of the characters portrayed by Peter Sellers in “The Goon Show” have a possible gay interpretation). In this sketch, a very broad camp caricature appears for a few seconds when a parody of the TV programme “Panorama” goes off the rail and comes to a technical halt. The part is played by Keith Smith who flounces on, addresses the crew in an enormously camp voice and with tremendously fluttering hands, then flounces off again. The picture quality is a little fuzzy, but it looks as though Smith is also distinguished by wearing a pair conspicuous purple shiny earrings.

“Punch”, 18 October 1978

Off the immediate topic of TV producers, but Smith’s ludicrous caricature me reminds a lot of this equally spurious, unrealistic and related-only-to-other-comic-stereotypes throwaway illustration according a humorous piece about “The A.A. Book of Minorities”.

405: Gay Bar 6: The Adventures of Barry McKenzie

The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972)

Unembeddable:
http://youtu.be/f5CZJGY3kQo
starts: 1.00
ends: 5.40

Directed by Bruce Beresford
Written by Barry Humphries and Bruce Beresford

Another film adaptation of a modern day Candide. In this case it’s the transfer to film of the Private Eye comic strip written by Barry Humphries and drawn by Nicholas Garland. The strip had two satirical targets: the drunken, boorish yet simultaneously priggish Australia left behind encapsulated in the character of Australian tourist Barry McKenzie and the venal, shabby, trendy, exploitative Britain he was visiting. Aside from actual satire, the strip was Humphries’s opportunity to introduce as many slang terms for sex, drinking, and vomiting. Because of this, and because it was perceived to denigrate Australians in the eyes of the world, the strip was banned by Australian censors and the notorious Australian customs board. As it had been running since the mid-1960s there’s an argument that the strip preempts many of the achievements of the American underground comix, but since it's unknown in America it falls beneath critics’ radar.

Most of the film is a fairly direct dramatisation of events, dialogue and characters in the strip. At one point Barry visits a former girlfriend only to discover that since moving to England she has become a butch lesbian with a similarly older butch girlfriend. Lesbians fall outside my remit, but in the film you’ll notice she’s a perfectly normal seeming young lady though the girlfriend is still an escapee from Radcliffe Hall. Barry and his ex then then go to visit a pub for further conversation. In the film version, more is made of it as being gay pub, and so it is that everyone in this pub is a drag queen.

Unlike the drag queens of four years earlier in “Candy” who were in modern dress and seemed relatively free and easy, these drag queens look more like doubles for Danny La Rue in some incredibly ostentatious evening gowns. Nothing else is made of them, although there is a brief appearance of a bitchy trollish bartender. They’re just a sight gag – a herd of men in frocks, to whose nature Barry is of course oblivious.

The second half of the scene in the toilet with the policeman is a direct dramatisation of the corresponding strip in “Private Eye” from November 1966, possibly one of the earliest instances of jokes about police entrapment of homosexuals in lavatories. However, his inevitable farcical transvestite turn makes more sense in the contexts of all these drag queens.

Two drag queens appeared singing the title sequence of “staircase” in 1969, a failure of a film with Richard Burton and Rex Harrison.

329: Peter Tatchell

Peter Tatchell has been doing things in the Uk for about the last four decades, and is famous/notorious as the nation’s leading gay rights campaigner. At times this has brought him great opprobrium, although as the principles of gay rights have been legally instituted, he no longer seems such a strident figure. Also his attempt to perform a citizen’s arrest on Robert Mugabe probably did a lot to endear him to many.

Tatchell first came to national attention when he stood as the Labour candidate in the 1983 Bermondsey byelection. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bermondsey_by-election,_1983 should probably give you all the context for what follows.
It was infighting in the Labour Party at the highest levels about the appropriateness of Tatchell’s selection which made for such good copy in the newspapers. And therefore made him and his homosexuality a matter of national discussion.

Here we have cartoons and gags about an out gay figure (although it was confused at the time by Tatchell’s attempts to “in” himself somewhat for electability). There were an awful lot of snide gags made about him at the time. But we shall discounting all the obvious homophobic abuse, (presumably thought to be killingly witty at the time by its perpetrators), and instead focus on how humorists and cartoonists portrayed Tatchell.

How is Tatchell as a gay man portrayed, and what use is made of his homosexuality as a club to beat the Labour party.


from “Private Eye”, 18 December 1981

On 7 November 1981, Bermondsey Labour Party selected Peter Tatchell. Labour Party leader Michael Foot declared "the individual concerned is not an endorsed member of the Labour Party and as far as I'm concerned never will be". Foot’s outburst was prompted by suspicions that Tatchell was of the hard Left, a part of the Trotskyist Militant Tendency, But then the Labour party’s objections all got confused in the public consciousness with revelations about Tatchell’s homosexuality.
So this column from Adrian Spart – an ad hoc adaptation of “Private Eye”’s usual left-wing activist Dave Spart. Spart’s typical contradictory and illogical ranting are employed to present a touchy homosexual who will take anything as opportunity for offense, rejoicing in his victimisation.

The controversy over Tatchell’s candidacy was largely played out in the press as a conflict between Michael Foot and Tatchell, so as to undermine Foot’s leadership
Such was the obvious conflict between the two that gags about gay coupledom were pretty much impossible.
This cartoon by MAC is the only I can find that makes an attempt. MAC presents Foot and Tactchell as a couple. Not only are they holding hands but the caption refers to Deidre and Ken from the soap opera “Coronation Street”, two characters then going through a tempestuous romantic reconciliation, a storyline making national headlines.


by MAC in “Daily Mail” 21 February 1983

The following three cartoons are all about the difficulties between Foot and Tachell. Whatever the point of each cartoon, the cartoonist employs certain elements from gay stereotypes to depict Peter Tatchell. Overly detailed eyebrows and eyes with large, pursed lips, and often stood in a fey stance. It contributes nothing to the gag but it lets you know that Tatchell is a gay man


by Keith Waite in “Daily Mirror”, 16 February 1983


by Nicholas Garland in “The Spectator”, 19 February 1983


by Michael Cummings in “The Sunday Express”, 20 February 1983


from “Private Eye” 25 February 1983
Another of the editorials by “Private Eye”’s fictional proprietor Lord Gnome is fairly accurate summation of the hypocritical conflation of politics with homophobia enjoyed by Tatchell’s opponents that marked the Bermondsey by-election.


Cover to “Private Eye” 25 February 1983
This however is just a cheap gibe. The tendency Foot referring to being The Militant Tendency. Hmmm, “Ducky”, is not advanced.


by Marc Boxer in “Private Eye” 25 February 1983
The embarrassed father's slightly posh son looks as though he’s an extra from “Brideshead Revisited” but as per usual, note the prominent almost rouged lips.


by Michael Heath in “The Spectator” 3 April 1983


from "Private Eye", 16 December 1983
And this refers to Tatchell’s book “The Battle for Bermondsey” at the end of 1983

So as you can see, in most of the above, outright homophobic jokes are usually outside the discourse of political comedy, but even caricaturists find it tempting to include some allusion or other to Tatchell’s homosexuality no matter how irrelevant. Although this si somewhat understandable since homosexuality was then unknown in public politics.
It would be profitable to compare this approach to Peter Mandelson’s treatment by the press. Coded phrases, double entendres, fussy descriptions of his clothes and manner, and allusions to Larry Grayson and “Are You being served” are all employed by cartoonists, impressionists and humorous political journalists. Mandelson’s homosexuality makes for a vulnerable point. Is it expressly homophobic? Well, the fact that Mandelson’s outing was handled so badly made him seem embarrassed and so a characteristic for mockery like boggle-eyes, corpulence, speech impediments or any other mockable trait.

85: Pitman and Wonderboy Robin Vass

in “Private Eye” 15 April 1966

This was a strip that ran for a few issues in “Private Eye” while Barry Humphries “The Adventures of Barry MacKenzie” was on hiatus. I think the illustrations are actually by Nicholas Garland who was also the illustrator for “Barry MacKenzie”


Originally “Selwyn and his Batman” (a batman is a personal servant for an officer in the army), it became “Pitman and Robin Vass”. Pitman is incredibly familiar but I can’t squeeze my brain cells to recall who he actually is. Robin Vass is old etonian Robin Douglas-Home (hence the top hat), since Alec Douglas-Home was known in the pages of “Private Eye” as Baillie Vass. In each episode, the two conservative superheroes would defend biogotry, privilege and prejudice from the vile forces of socialism, liberalism and social equality.

This comic predates any of the debate about homosexual reform. This is some 40 years old and almost none of these jokes would be out of place on any sketch show. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, I leave for your judgement. The characters are very camp, but this is an example of the sissy predator (Dragula was also a good example of this). While gay men are of course less manly, still straight men become instantly vulnerable to their assaults.

The fashion assistant = gay is a longstanding social equation. The most famous example of this probably Mr Humphries from the 1970s sitcom “Are You Being Served”.

Also, in all this is all that Frederick Wertham “Seduction of Innocents” gay-batman vibe. Particularly in the last scene, where having beaten off the perverts, Pitman is a little too intimate with Wonderboy Robin