219: P.J. O’Rourke and John Hughes: How to Tell a Homo

from “National Lampoon” February 1980

Ah, the trends of yesteryear. Side parting in the hair, moustache, plaid shirt, straight leg jean, web belt - no, I don't think we shall ever see that look come back. Of course the jeans really ought to be tight Levis, but this particular illustration makes it look much more like a standard fashion plate and less conspicuously sexual. The joke behind all this is that at the end of the ‘70s male sexual identity is all screwed up. That homosexuals are now appropriating the fashions natural to a rugged manly lifestyle is even more ridiculous when the typical manly men of the 1970s have become more sensitive and therefore almost indistinguishable from “homos”. And yes, again, P.J. O'Rourke and John Hughes are still quite happy to throw around the word "homo".

218: Auberon Waugh on “Private Eye” and homosexuals

from an interview in “Gay News” #187, March 20 1980

The “Eye” makes far more anti-homosexual jokes now because homosexuality is more in the forefront, more able to take care of itself. After all, in the old days, if you said a man was homosexual, you were accusing him of a criminal offense. That’s not so now. The big difference between us and “The News of the World” is that although we spend a lot of time grubbing in the dirt, we do it for laughs saying “Isn’t it funny that so-and-so’s having it away with so-and-so?” whereas “The News of the World” is frightfully moral . . . Anyway you know, I don’t think anyone ever takes up the cudgels against homosexuality as such. I think it’s much more personal than that . . . People who’ve got it in for you will say “bloody catholic” or “bloody queer”.

217: "Gay Life"

from “Private Eye” 18 January 1980

“Gay Life”, broadcast in 1980, was the first British TV series about homosexuality. There had been a number of individual documentaries over the previous 20 years, but this is the first dedicated series. It was produced by London Weekend Television (LWT). Each episode had its particular subject, and in case any one’s interested, I’ll list them.

February 10: Security Vetting and Gays in the Civil Service (post-Anthony Blunt)
February 17: Male Gay Lifestyles – Pubs, Discos, Drag Acts, Leather Scene, etc
February 24: Child Custody and Adoption
March 2: Police Harassment and Entrapment of Gay Men
March 9: Gay Relationships and Gay Weddings
March 16: Gay Teachers
March 23: Gays in Heterosexual Marriages
March 30: Gays and Media Stereotyping
April 20: Young Lesbians
April 27: Gays in the Armed Forces
May 4: Gay Political Organisation

The programme was about overcoming stereotypes and demonstrating the diversity of homosexuals and gay life. “Private Eye” instead makes a news programme about stereotypical gays, about deliberately trivial gay news, gay weather, gay sports, gay parking, a silly separatist world where the “Bible can have a gay angle”. Not a particularly mean-spirited parody, but since “Gay Life” was a programme so determinedly serious, this resolutely refuses to grant gays and their lives any relevance as a minority. You’ll note this was written before an episode had even seen air, so they knew what they already thought.
I’ll concede that the two lesbian football teams are decent puns.
Desmond Wilcox is there simply because “Private Eye” detested him and would insert his name on the most improbable pretext. Mountbatten is there because they liked to suggest he was gay - whether he was or not I’ve never been troubled to find out. Jonah Junor is an odd pun - the journalist John Junor was notoriously bigoted, famous for finishing each of his rants of disgust at the modern world with “Pass the sickbag, Alice”.

At this time Ingrams was TV reviewer for “The Spectator”. He was quite vocal in his column about not reviewing “Gay Life”, saying it was propaganda and would likely provoke him to uncharitable thoughts, since it would almost certainly be "obsessed with Lesbian mothers . . .fat neurotic perverts”. In a later column he pretty much puts his stall on display: "a few years ago homosexuals were rightly regarded as subjects for humour or else sympathy. Now we are expected to treat them as a quasi-political movement with 'rights'" (11 July 1981). Ingrams continues in this conservative vein seeing the blame for gay rights lying with the feminist movement which encouraged lesbians to operate as the extreme wing. It is a conservative argument which can only see gay politics as the ultimate non-procreative, dead-end of left-wing politics.

In the very early years of “Private Eye”, Ingrams had by all accounts been very liberal on the decriminalisation of homosexuality. In the 1960s Ingrams is granting a bemused tolerance. By the 1980s we have Ingram’s response to what he perceives as a ludicrous demand for an unrealistic equality.

216: Quean magazine

from "Private Eye" 27 December 1963

And to confirm how useful the word quean is:
This parody cover of “Queen” magazine, one-time rag of the London smartset. Fashion must mean gay, and so this rather impish little Father Christmas is portrayed by "Private Eye" editor Richard Ingrams.

215: Private Eye and the Krays

from "Private Eye" 21 August 1964

Private Eye’s take on the whole media ho-ha surrounding the Kray brothers revelations of 1964.

During the summer of ’64 the papers had been working themselves into hissy fits about London gangs that were now operating above the law. The papers were too cowardly to actually name who these criminals were – for fear of either being sued for libel, or having their legs removed with a meat cleaver. As it was, “Private Eye” boldly named the Kray Brothers as the guilty parties, and then the various editors of “Private Eye” all suddenly went on holiday out of the country. “The Sunday Mirror” alleged in a story titled "Peer and a Gangster: Yard Probe" that Scotland Yard was investigating a homosexual relationship between a peer and a notorious London gangster. It kept on making its insinuations and it was soon evident to almost everyone that the peer in question was the Tory, Lord Bob Boothby, a rapacious bisexual who would screw anything up to and including the former Prime Minister Macmillan’s wife. Boothby wrote an indignant letter to “The Times” denying all charges, and the proprietor and editor of the “Mirror” folded utterly paying him £40,000 in compensation. In retrospect it was of course true, but that’s neither here nor there. Incidentally, Tom Driberg, the Labour figure whom I covered last year, was also a gay friend of the Krays - so no partisan tendencies there.

So another homosexual-tinged scandal of the time. “Private Eye” focuses on the sensationalism and titillation by insinuation employed by the newspapers then ramps it all up a notch, and ludicrously smearing the journalists involved in the same manner.
“Hugh Cunp” is Hugh Cudlipp, editor of the “Mirror” (face on the right).
“Cecil Harmsworth Quean” is Cecil Harmsworth King, the owner of the Mirror newspaper empire (face on the left). Etymology fans might be interested to note that “quean” used to be the preferred homosexual variant of “queen”. Quean could mean a jezebel, prostitute, or female cat in heat, so with it’s connotations of effeminacy, sexual opportunism, and a feline counterpart to “bitch”, a jolly useful word, but in pronunciation impossible to differentiate from “queen” which it has now become. So a crappy pun is a little less crappy, when you know, eh?
The scribbles in the corner are a satire on the unprofessionalism of the “Mirror”’s behaviour since Cudlipp’s attention was distracted during most of this because he was either preparing the new “Sun” newspaper or off on holiday himself. Well that, and they're just scrawls calling one another poofs.

214: Private Eye and Pooves

from “Private Eye” 2 November 1962


from “Private Eye” 10 January 1964

In its earliest years, “Private Eye” was very fond of throwing the word “poove” around as an all-purpose comic word. Partly, it’s a residue of school-boy humour. Partly, it’s because the daring liberality of the new satire afforded humorists easy access to such comic dynamite as “knickers”, “bum” and “potty” - as Frankie Howerd said at the time, “That’s not filth, that’s satire”. Finally, the decline of Macmillan’s years as Prime Minister was accompanied by a series of scandals in which homosexuality or rumours of it played an ever more important part. So “poove” almost became a catchphrase for the magazine - a word they would use which most magazines couldn’t or wouldn’t. I think you could even buy an “I am a Poove” T-shirt at one point in the mid-60s. In most instances there’s not much thought given to its use. They even go through spates of accusing one another on the editorial masthead of being “pooves”. These two examples are a bit more rigorous. In neither of these two pieces in much done with homosexuality. The idea of a national “poove”-inspired crisis is hilarious in itself (and can even belittle the panic surrounding the Bay of Pigs). It’s enough just to take a news story and replace a recurring key word with “poove”.

213: Christmas 6

from “Punch”, 10 December 1980
by Stan McMurtry

A rather belated follow-up to Michael Heath’s Gay Christmas from 1974. And no more relevant or contemporary a depiction of gay men. These could all have been drawn anytime in the previous 5-8 years: self-proclaimed queens, fairies, would-be transsexuals, and a broad selection of catty types in figure-hugging trousers and flouncy shirts.

212: Christmas 5

from “Punch” 19 Dec 1984
“New Recitations for Your Party” by E.S. Turner

THE WONDER BOY

"'E was young and 'e was tender,
Much inclined to preen and pout,
Not too certain of 'is gender -
There's a lot of it about.

Sorely did 'is father clout 'im,
Saying, "'Op it! On yer bike!"
Telling all who asked about him,
"'E's a bloody pervert, like."

Up to London goes the sinner,
London, stuffed with moral wrecks!
Now 'e knows 'e's on a winner -
'Alf the town is unisex.

Cast your eyes on Master Pretty,
Painted like a circus freak,
Belting out a filthy ditty,
Earning thousands every week.

Fans go mad in every disco!
Leaders in the Daily Mail!
Troops called out in San Francisco!
Even trendy bishops quail.

Every week 'e presses money
On 'is 'ard-up Dad and Mum.
Now their life is beer and 'oney.
Blimey, it's all right for some.

Dad will 'ear no talk of "phoneys",
As 'e spends the ill-earned pelf,
Oft confiding to his cronies,
"Wish I'd tried that lark myself!"

But the girl the boy once fancied
Grieves to let 'er 'ero go,
Weeps to 'ear 'im telling rancid
Stories on the South Bank Show;

Ow she 'ates the late night chatter!
Wogan treats 'im far too nice,
Goggling at 'is Golden Platter
Garnered from the fruits of vice.

'E 'as gone from 'er for ever,
And 'er 'eart is 'ard as frost.
Will she find another? Never
One as rich as she has lost.

See 'er now, 'er nosegay gnawing,
As she weds a lazy git,
Fated to a life of drawing
Supplement'ry Benefit.

She will 'ave a string of kiddies
In a frowzy council flat,
Gossiping with daft old biddies,
And there ain't much joy in that.

It's the same the whole world over,
It's the straights what lose the race
It's the bent what live in clover.
Ain't it all a blind disgrace!

-----------------

Before the days of television, people were forced to make their own Christmas entertainment, so each member of the family would have their party piece. Comic monologues and recitations, usually in rhyming verse and performed in either cockney or Northern working class accents, were a staple from the days of the music hall. “The Lion and Albert” and “The Green Eye of the Yellow God” are classics of their kind. Probably the most famous performer of these kind of pieces was Stanley Holloway.
By 1984 this is deliberately anachronistic, although since E.S Turner had been writing for “Punch” for some 30 years, he was probably entering into his dotage. Gender-bending pop stars had been a staple of the last 10-15 years, so nothing new there, although these is springboards off the popularity of Boy George and co. I suppose you could argue the piece is about the comic incongruity of musical hall meeting modern pop. It starts off just describing the trend, but the conclusion is a little unexpectedly harsh in its moralising, although these recitations usually finished with some sort of moral.

211: Christmas 4

“Harry Enfield and His Christmas Chums”, BBC1, 24 December 1997



Poor old Modern Dad was Richard Preddy and Gary Howe's idea. It appealed to me because I've lots of gay friends who've been through similar experiences. Few parents over sixty understand the 'progressive' comings and goings of their children, but they love them, so they try their best. I based my character on my father, who is from a much more traditional generation, and always tried just-that-little-bit-too-hard with my girlfriends, knowing that, in the modern world, he mustn't voice his old-fashioned disapproval of relationships outside wedlock. If you've ever seen my dad on Watchdog, you'll know how similar Modern Dad is to him. Modern Dad worked so well because Ben, who played my son, and his boyfriend Ewan (Spud from Trainspotting) were so sympathetic. They didn't 'camp it up' - they were just a normal, nice couple. You feel sorry for them, for me and for Mum. The sketch was basically “What if a gay couple had come to stay at Fawlty Towers?”

- afterword from “Harry Enfield and His Humorous Chums”, Penguin Books, 1997

-------------------

Like the previous piece from “Punch”, this exhumes almost every common gay pun imaginable. The “Punch” parody uses theses clichés because for that public that’s largely what people thought homosexuals were. Gays are funny because this is what gays actually are.

By the times of this sketch, they’re acknowledged to be rather worn-out hack clichés. Each of the clichés is expertly deployed to humiliate the well-meaning but horrifically anxious father for his cluelessness.

210: Christmas 3

from "Punch”, 15 December 1976

From a series of Christmas-themed parodies of assorted minority and specialist journals. “Gay Times”, a minority publication if ever there was one to parody, had recently made the mainstream news because of Mary Whitehouse’s case against the “Gay Times” for blasphemy, which would come to trial in 1977. Never having seen a copy of “Gay News”, I still doubt that this is an accurate parody, since most of the many gay magazines I’ve seen from this period are torn between the need for leftish politics and positive representations. The public’s idea of gay frivolity, as exemplified by Mr Humphries, has little to do with the actual gay world of the time. This is a rather detailed piece, which besides obvious gay clichés and puns (queen, mince, faggots, fairy, etc), probably provides some sort of measure as to how much the generally-informed public could recall about homosexuals.

Quentin Crisp was a minor cult personality at this time, conspicuous for his homosexuality and his contrarian nature. John Hurt had performed as Crisp in the ITV drama “The Naked Civil servant” in 1975. About this time, Crisp was writing occasional reviews and essays for “Punch”.
Proust and Wilde (and an allusion to Reading Gaol) are there as homosexuals whom even the most clueless public will identify.
Casement Diary of course refers to the infamous Black diary of Roger Casement which revealed the Irish politician to have been a promiscuous homosexual.
St Sebastian gets several mentions since Derek Jarman’s film “Sebastian” had been released in 1976.
“British Guards” with phone numbers, refers to the fact that Guards used often to be commonly rumoured to be readily available for cash for a little light nocturnal adult pleasuring.
Several references show that the idea of butch has now extended into actual s&m, to contrast against prissy, effeminated style-obsessed gay clichés.
“Noel” probably is to suggest Noel Coward.
“British Home Stores”, a once popular British chain store becomes “Homo Stores”.