It’s safe to say I would rather saw my own arm off than spend an evening at a One Direction gig. So my sympathy for the ‘hordes’ of teenage girls who not only have to struggle on a daily basis with their crippling lack of musical taste but who were also reportedly denied entry to the performance by said boy ‘band’ at G-A-Y on Saturday night (on the grounds that said girls were, y’know, straight) was always going to be somewhat limited, regardless of the actual rights and wrongs of the issue. But even putting my musical prejudices aside, G-A-Y promoter Jeremy Joseph is in the right on this.

Image: purpaboo/flickr

Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is against the law, of course, as duly reinforced by yesterday’s court judgement against the B&B owners who got all hot and bothered (interpret that as you choose) at the thought of all the sinful things two men who were sharing a bed could get up to. And it has to be admitted that this might put gay clubs in a slightly tricky position, since their whole raison d’être is to be places where LGBT people go to meet one another (and let’s be frank, probably hook up, since that seems to be the point of most clubs).

I’m not really interested in focusing on the law on this as it currently exists; gay clubs seem to have functioned perfectly well thus far without attracting any Equality and Human Rights Commission-sponsored lawsuits, and I doubt that’s going to change any time soon. True, there are vast legions of assorted morons who love to point to the isolated and insignificant instances of discrimination against straight middle-class white men as evidence that they’re victims too (and equality’s all very well but these days it’s all gone too far and did you hear about that terrible Winterval business?), but they’re probably too busy working themselves into a lather over whatever the Express is telling them to hate this week to be a problem. Nor am I getting into the vexed question of precisely how the door staff at gay clubs judge would-be revellers’ sexual orientation – though admittedly it does seem like that can be a pretty unpleasant experience, as Jack Cullen’s Guardian post above makes clear. No, it’s the ethics of the act of discrimination itself that interest me. How is Jeremy Joseph’s decision to exclude non-LGBT One Direction fans from G-A-Y different from Peter and Hazel Bull’s aversion to man-love in their B&B?

I don’t think it’s sufficient just to argue that being barred from a club for being straight is a trivial sort of discrimination. Aside from anything else, not being allowed to share a bed with your partner for a night or two isn’t that terrible an ordeal in itself either. The relevant point, I think, is pretty simple. Straight devotees of One Direction aren’t a particularly marginalised or oppressed group in society, while homophobia, despite the massive improvement in attitudes and legal rights over the past decade and a half or so, is still very much with us. It’s easy to see why cases like the killings of Jody Dobrowski and Ian Baynham could make some LGBT people wary of being open about their sexuality in their day-to-day lives, and gay clubs can to some extent act as safe spaces to allow them to be themselves.

But even if you’re convinced by that, surely (I hear you cry) you couldn’t have anti-discrimination laws which allow some clubs to refuse entrance to straight people, but not B&B owners to refuse a double room to gay people? But why not? It’s already perfectly legal for rape crisis centres and women’s refuges to specify in recruitment ads that their support workers have to be female. Sure, gay clubs aren’t offering quite as vital a service as rape crisis centres do, but the principle’s pretty similar. Society is better off with gay clubs than without them, and without some means of ensuring that their clientele is mainly LGBT, they would cease to function as gay clubs. B&Bs, on the other hand, don’t cease to function as B&Bs if same-sex couples patronise them and choose to share beds, and any Christians who run those B&Bs don’t cease to be Christians if they permit it.

It’s important to emphasise that this categorically isn’t a libertarian argument; I don’t think gay clubs should be allowed to have discriminatory admissions policies just because they’re private businesses, I think they should be allowed to do so because it’s beneficial for society to have safe spaces for LGBT people. And the right to a place where you can associate with like-minded people and be yourself certainly needn’t just apply to the LGBT community; if the Bulls wanted to exclude gay couples from a prayer meeting they were holding, they’d be perfectly entitled to do so. But that’s a very different proposition from running a B&B. If B&Bs ever start to be considered safe spaces for minorities, that would be a different matter.

TTE readers will probably be aware of the ‘It Gets Better’ internet campaign against homophobic bullying. This was started by the brilliant American sex advice columnist Dan Savage, reacting to the suicide of Billy Lucas, a fifteen-year old gay teenager who hanged himself after suffering intense homophobic abuse from his peers. His mission statement: “I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes…I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.” He posted this video on Youtube with his partner and since then the thing has, rather wonderfully, caught on.

The campaign gained real notoriety when Barack Obama submitted his own ‘It Gets Better’ video and David Cameron has followed his example (watch it here.)

Dan Savage, though grateful, offered the following criticism:

David Cameron isn’t the first straight politician who has told bullied LGBT kids to go to their parents for support. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Nancy Pelosi—practically every straight politician who’s made an IGBP [It Gets Better Project] video has said the same thing: go and ask mom and dad for help.

Between twenty and forty percent of homeless teenagers are LGBT kids and most of these homeless LGBT kids were thrown out of their homes when they came out or were outed to their families…Bullied LGBT kids should be encouraged to reach out, to find help, to seek support. But that support, sadly, can’t always be found at home.

I have my own reservations. Firstly, the video very quickly turns into a rather soppy promotional video for modern, tolerant Britain (with opportunities for British viewers to wince when Cameron reminds viewers of his commitment to ‘fairness’). The ‘It Gets Better’ campaign was intended to be of comfort to any gay teenager suffering from abuse - there have been IGBP videos from lots of countries and in several languages; thus a gay fifteen-year old from some American backwater won’t get much from this. Cameron also refers to civil partnerships and recent Equality legislation as examples of how we’ve moved forward – forgetting to mention that these are Labour policies, opposed by his Conservative Party.

And the criticism of Obama’s IGBP message also applies to Cameron – politicians have the power to actually make things better. Just as Obama has yet to fulfill his promises on gay equality (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, DOMA, gay marriage etc) Cameron hasn’t actually proposed any measures to combat homophobia in schools, something well within his power.

But this is still bloody significant, and Cameron should be commended. As Dan Savage pointed out, “this is the leader of the Conservative Party in the UK. Try to picture a Republican politician making an IGBP video—not one that I’m aware of has—much less the leader of the GOP.”

This week’s overturning of Proposition 8 in California is obviously welcome news. Amending California’s state constitution to state that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” is nakedly discriminatory and Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision to strike it down should be applauded.

There is, though, something else that’s important to note about this case; it’s a clear example of a member of the judiciary overriding the democratically expressed will of the people. Proposition 8 was put to a referendum at the same time as the 2008 Presidential election, and 52% voted yes – a slim but clear majority. Judge Walker’s decision was unambiguously anti-democratic. Stopping same-sex couples from marrying is wrong for many reasons, but one area on which it certainly doesn’t impinge is democratic rights. And what this demonstrates, I suggest, is that the revolutionary left vision of a society run as democratically as possible might not be without serious drawbacks.

For a liberal, there are certain universal individual rights and liberties which merit legal protection regardless of what majority opinion might be. The right of two (or more, as I argue here) consenting adults to access all the legal benefits of marriage if they so choose is, in my opinion, worthy of this protection, so as a social (though definitely not an economic) liberal I’m entirely comfortable with Judge Walker’s decision. But for the revolutionary left, one of the many benefits which the overthrow of capitalism will bring is more democracy, and in particular more direct democracy, in as many areas of life as possible. Our present system of representative parliamentary democracy is argued to be little more than a sham; a tool to safeguard the interests of the rich and powerful – and the same (presumably) goes for undemocratic checks on legislative power like the judiciary. But given what’s happened with Prop 8, and with other cases where good reforms were passed in the teeth of popular opposition (Roy Jenkins’ abolition of capital punishment and his decriminalisation of abortion and male homosexual sex in the 1960s are often cited as examples), it seems hard to argue that public opinion always knows best.

I’m aware, of course, that the revolutionary left’s advocacy of more democracy doesn’t entail believing that democratic decisions are always right. A Marxist, might, for example, argue that people can act or vote in ways antithetical to their own interests or those of their class because the true nature of economic relations under capitalism is obscured, which leads to false consciousness, and that in a communist society this wouldn’t happen. But with social issues like tolerance towards sexual minorities it seems a little hard to argue that capitalism must necessarily foment bigotry, not least because it’s hard to see precisely how stirring up homophobia or racism benefits the ruling class in and of itself. Apart from anything else, one of the major arguments used by opponents of Prop 8 was that legalising same-sex marriages would bring money into California’s economy (see this video from 2:03 onwards, for example) – something you’d think the bourgeoisie would generally be in favour of. So, assuming we’re agreed that equal rights for sexual minorities are worth safeguarding regardless of what majority opinion might be on the matter, and assuming that homophobic attitudes can’t just be put down to the distorting effects of capitalism, it seems hard to escape the conclusion that those pesky liberal checks and balances on democracy are pretty important.

I’m aware that there’s a real danger that what I’m arguing here could come off as elitist. Maybe it is. But I’d rather live in an elitist liberal society where unpopular but harmless minorities are undemocratically protected from the tyranny of the majority than in a totally democratic commune with no safeguards against bigotry. Maybe that’s a false dichotomy, but like any other decision-making process, democracy is and will always be fallible. I’m aware that my knowledge of revolutionary socialist and anarchist theory is severely limited, and anyone who can explain why I’m wrong about this is more than welcome to do so. But unless and until that happens I’ll remain firmly of the belief that more democracy isn’t always something to be welcomed.

David Laws shouldn’t resign for being gay or renting a flat. These are perfectly fine, normal things to do and be. People need to rent flats, and people often have lovers. To rent a flat off a lover isn’t that strange either. It’s quite sensible in some ways. Having a lover, of any gender, isn’t particularly interesting either – although it is strange how so many Liberal Democrat politicians aren’t hetero-normative, and yet conceal it, as if it isn’t common knowledge. (There’s an interesting take on this by the Fabian Society).

However, what David Laws should resign for is being a free market economist who once ran JP Morgan and part of Barclays. In no way should this man be in charge of UK economic policy during a mass recession. Of course he’s been made Chief Secretary to the Treasury – he’s the business force behind the rampant free-market liberalism of the Orange Book.

What I think is really going on here is a comic-book style obsession with origin and revelation. The most interesting part in a super-hero storyline is the origination of the super powers: Spiderman being bitten by a radioactive spider, Batman witnessing his parents’ murder, Superman falling from the sky into a Kansas cornfield. Then there’s the making of the costume, and the first big battle. This is all basically the story of the Con Dem coalition which we so enjoyed telling and retelling: the crash-landing of the polls, the witnessing of the electoral defeats, the fashioning of the ‘New Politics.’

And now we get the next best thing: the unraveling of the revelation of the Secret Identity, and the dark past. The public edifice and the private person are in constant conflict with each other: Batman the vigilante is secretly Bruce Wayne the billionaire philanthropist, Superman the demi-God is secretly Clark Kent the mild-mannered reporter. And now we have the good ol’ political revelation: the clean cut man of business and fiscal reliability has been deceiving his family and mismanaging his expenses. Okay, so it’s not exactly the greatest of installments in the comic book universe, but it’ll do for what counts as a media story these days.

Like in all those movies where the on-screen lovers talk softly to each other while airplanes/spaceships/dinosaurs wreak havoc behind them, I sit at the screen shouting: ‘I don’t care about you’re love life! the world is ending!’, here we have a rather low key story of love and loans getting in the way of the far wider plot: cuts, closures and conservatives. In the movies, of course, the destruction of the world is a manifestation of the lovers’ crisis. In real life however, that isn’t the case – these cuts are real, the lovers’ story is a distraction.

This week I want to write about three things: a film I watched (Milk), one protest I did go to (the Party at the Pumps) and another I didn’t (the Big Gay Flash Mob). What ties these things together is the idea of an activist community.

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay elected politician in the States. Having never done anything political before (except vote Republican), at the age of 40 he moved to San Francisco with his new partner, and opened a camera shop. To cut a long story short, the shop became the centre of the gay community in San Francisco, and Harvey became the spokesperson for that community. From boycotts co-organised with the Teamsters, to bringing thousands of gay men onto the streets to demand proper gay rights, the gay community became a movement, and that movement became an electorate.

Harvey was elected, kept fighting, and was eventually assassinated. The excellent film about his life which came out last year is gripping viewing and really should be watched. What got me thinking is the sequence that Harvey and his team made from community, to movement, to electorate. The gay community is a really good example of this: yesterday there was the Big Gay Flash Mob, really quite a good action, highlighting the Tories’ mugwumping over gay rights. While I really wouldn’t want anyone to think it’s okay to vote Tory if they were to have an acceptable gay rights policy, it’s generally a good thing that there’s the ability to call a big, vocal protest at short notice over such an important issue.

The nice pic used for the Big Gay Flashmob fbook group. But who exactly are our masked vigiliantes?

However, on Saturday a friend and I went to the ‘Party at the Pumps’, a very different activist community. In fact, that’s mainly what the community is: one made up of people who believe that activism works. As we got out at Oxford Circus tube station, we looked through the crowds of shoppers, sunglasses on and big square designer bags by their sides, to find the other activists. Pushing through, we looked over everyone’s heads and eventually saw the dreads and beards, the little flags and face paint that says ‘this way for mischief.’

Everyone was gathered at the four different pedestrian corners of Oxford Circus, though there was a fair bit of to-ing and fro-ing across the new diagonal crossing. As reclaiming the streets goes, it’s not exactly fighting the system, but it’s pretty liberating if you’ve always been a Londoner and remember going through this every Summer.

Anyway, at 1.30pm on the dot flag-holders started blowing their whistles and everyone piled down into the underground, away from the hustle of shopping central, dreadlocks, poi, fold-up bikes and all. We swarmed down the tube, filling the escalators, making a racket, stuffing ourselves onto the trains (police in tow, of course). At Shepherd’s Bush, the whistles started going off again, and we all piled out of the tube, skirting round the passageways, following the flag-leaders, until escalators climbed and oyster cards beeping, we got out, turned the corner and all ran towards the BP petrol station in sight.

pic by amelia of ameliasmagazine.com

BP are considering going full throttle into extracting oil from the Canadian tar sands, the most destructive and polluting project on the planet. So, in the run up to the BP shareholders’ AGM on Thursday, various eco-protest groups thought we’d try and send BP a message of what we think about their consistent desire to put profit before workers, indigenous rights groups and impending catastrophic climate change.

We occupied the forecourt, and it seems the convenience store owner decided to close-up for the day – which actually wasn’t necessary; I dare say he could’ve sold a fair few beers to us (although it’s good that smoking was kept to a minimum). There were all the good markers of climate activism: samba bands, banner drops, stickers, subvertising, ceilidhs, rebel clowns (even though Jacob seems to think we don’t have such things). We danced, sang, stickered, leafleted everyone around, whether walking past, lounging in the sun or joining in the dance. But when people came to join in, who were they joining?

It’s a strange thing that for the last decade or so, the loudest ‘activist’ network hasn’t explicitly identified itself, or rather, where it comes from. The alter-globalisation movement, the ‘movement of movements’, doesn’t have a resounding socio-economic or legal status with which it campaigns. The gay community, trade unionists, feminists – all of these, to different extents, work towards a world in which not only their campaigns are unnecessary, but they’re communities themselves become absent as a distinguishable unit.

The activist community protests for others, the so-called ‘ethical politics.’ But what I can’t get out of my head is the fact that Harvey Milk, while him and those around him built a movement, could always know exactly who and what they’re community was. As the climate movement flounders post-Copenhagen, it would be good to really come out of the closet and say who we are.

(For the benefit of any new readers, FJM is explained here. But to be honest, it’s not very complicated. You’ll probably get the idea pretty quickly.)

It’s been a good week, both for the liberal left and for Twitter. First there was the whole Trafigura thing, which finally came to a decisive end yesterday evening, when the injunction on the Minton Report into the toxic waste dumping was lifted. This followed the lifting earlier in the week of the injunction against reporting a Parliamentary question mentioning it, which was what sparked off the whole thing. But before that came to an end, a whole new storm of outrage was brewing over Jan Moir’s egregiously offensive piece in Friday’s Mail, which, thanks once again to a campaign on Twitter, attracted a huge number of complaints and not a few derisory reactions from the rest of Fleet Street and the blogosphere. So a few hours later she decided to try and explain herself, in a manner wholly deserving of being FJM’d:

Some people, particularly in the gay community, have been upset by my article about the sad death of Boyzone member Stephen Gately. This was never my intention. Stephen, as I pointed out in the article was a charming and sweet man who entertained millions.

Um, I really don’t think most people were upset because they thought you saw Gately as charmless or sour. But I suppose you can never be sure about these things.

However, the point of my column-which, I wonder how many of the people complaining have fully read –

Hang on, you’re a columnist for the Daily Mail, and you’re claiming that the criticism you’re on the end of is nothing but an uninformed kneejerk reaction? This is truly special.

…was to suggest that, in my honest opinion, his death raises many unanswered questions. That was all. Yes, anyone can die at anytime of anything. However, it seems unlikely to me that what took place in the hours immediately preceding Gately’s death – out all evening at a nightclub, taking illegal substances, bringing a stranger back to the flat, getting intimate with that stranger – did not have a bearing on his death. At the very least, it could have exacerbated an underlying medical condition.

O…kay. First, you didn’t say that there were ‘unanswered questions’ about Gately’s death, you categorically stated that ‘Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one.’ So now you’re just lying, very clumsily. Second, you’ve already been taken apart by any number of people (see links above) for implying you magically know the circumstances of Gately’s death better than the qualified coroner who examined his body. Doing the same thing again really isn’t helping you.

The entire matter of his sudden death seemed to have been handled with undue haste when lessons could have been learned.

Ooh, what lessons might these be? Please enlighten us.

On this subject, one very important point.  When I wrote that ‘he would want to set an example to any impressionable young men who may want to emulate what they might see as his glamorous routine’, I was referring to the drugs and the casual invitation extended  to a stranger. Not to the fact of his homosexuality.

Got that, kids? Drugs and casual sex might not have had anything to do with Gately’s death, but they’re still bad, mmmkay? I hear he didn’t always get his five fruit and veg a day either. Maybe his death could teach us a lesson about the importance of eating our greens?

In writing that ‘it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships’ I was suggesting that civil partnerships – the introduction of which I am on the record in supporting – have proved just to be as problematic as marriages.

Fair point. Of course, it would help if you could cite a single case of someone arguing that civil partnerships wouldn’t have the same problems that marriages do, since without that all you’ve got there is a pathetic straw man argument, but I suppose I’m quibbling over details here.

In what is clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign I think it is mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones.

So…your grand finale is to insinuate that the protests about this article are some kind of gigantic conspiracy rather than the result of people actually being genuinely offended? Sterling job there. If for some reason you find yourself looking for work in the near future, maybe Carter Ruck’s PR department could hire you?

Image: makelessnoise

As you may or may not have noticed, there’s recently been a series of ads in various places urging us all to give blood. This is because the National Blood Service (NBS) wants us all to donate now so it can boost its stocks before the winter when we’re all going to have swine flu so we won’t be able to donate. However, the well-informed among you will know that my use of “all” in that last sentence was an exaggeration. Among other restrictions, they don’t want you to give blood if you weigh less than 50kg, if you’ve recently travelled to a malarial zone…or if you’re male and you’ve ever had sex with another man. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this last restriction has proved somewhat controversial, and a number of commentators have at various times attacked it as homophobic, most recently this guy on the Guardian website today.

It’s probably best to leave aside the thorny metaphysical issue of precisely which entity Charlie Critchley and his fellow critics are accusing of homophobia (the Chief Executive of the NBS? The organisation itself? Some of its employees?), so let’s focus on two questions. First, is the NBS right to have this ban? Second, is the ban evidence of homophobia? On the first question, I’m prepared to remain agnostic. The NBS has a pretty detailed and, as far as I can tell, sensible explanation of the reasons for its ban, and some of the criticisms of the policy are simply misguided – witness Peter Tatchell’s completely erroneous claim (albeit not repeated in any of his subsequent writings on the subject) that the ban covers “[m]en whose homosexual experience is limited to a few mutual wanks behind the school bike sheds”, when it quite explicitly only applies to oral or anal sex. Equally, though, there seems little reason (for example) to exclude from donating men who haven’t had sex with other men since before the AIDS epidemic, and plenty of other countries have lifted their own blanket bans in the past few years.

But even if the NBS is wrong to have the blanket ban in place, it doesn’t follow that we should conclude that the ban is the product of homophobia. Bear in mind here that the NBS is in constant, urgent need of blood supplies. If you visit their homepage, one of the first things that catches your eye is a gif reading, “WE ARE RUNNING LOW OF BLOOD GROUP O NEG, B NEG AND AB NEG. WE NEED NEW DONORS NOW”. The accusation of homophobia, if correct, would mean that the NBS (or its employees or whoever) is unnecessarily putting the lives of those who need blood at risk simply because of a prejudice against gay men. This could indeed be the case. But how plausible is it? Inferring that the very existence of a ban is evidence of homophobia seems uncharitable to say the least. The NBS also bans from donating anyone who has themselves had a blood transfusion in the past 30 years, on the basis of a single case where vCJD (aka Mad Cow Disease) might have been transmitted via blood transfusion. Given this, it seems far more likely that all the NBS’s restrictions on donation are the result of extreme caution (as suggested by the assertion, from the PDF linked to above, that “any transmission as a result of a change in policy would be one too many”), rather than homophobia.

I can understand that the donation ban might feel unpleasant and stigmatising for gay and bisexual men who want to donate blood. And it’s quite possible that the ban is misguided and should be repealed. But deciding who should and shouldn’t be allowed to give blood requires the very careful weighing up of different risk factors, including the disproportionately high incidence of HIV among men who have sex with men. Angry accusations of homophobia aren’t going to make that decision any simpler.

Icons are not an ideal means to talk about politics. To make someone an icon is to transform a person into a static timeless idea. All that once was political is violently removed. All that is human is removed too. Graduation ceremonies here in Britain hear quotations from Gandhi and Mandela without reference to the history of the oppression they faced. Without reference to their politics. Why is it that everyone wears a T-shirt with Che Guevara on but I’ve never seen one with a picture of Fidel Castro? Perhaps the fact that the struggle is ongoing, that the politics are all too alive, is the issue here. So often icons represent changes in society so radical that the only means by which struggles can be celebrated is if the politics is forgotten and the focus is shifted to a person. It is easier for us to accept someone as good than it is for us to accept someone as important.

k.d. lang's portrait at the exhibition

It was with this in mind that yesterday I went to visit the new Gay Icons exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery with a level of scepticism. The exhibition is made up of a series of photographs selected by ten gay celebrities. Each celebrity was asked to select six people, who may or may not be gay, whom they personally regard as inspirational or an icon. These people were then presented in photographic portraits from a variety of sources, alongside writing by the celebrity who selected them. What became clear, though, was that ‘icon’ was not always the right word. This is still a living struggle, attested to by the presence of photographs of current gay rights leaders. Possibly more interesting, though, is the fact that it was clear how each of the celebrities related to being gay through each of their relationships with gay subjects as icons.

An interesting aspect of the exhibition is its exposure of the problems of homosexuality in public and private life. As the photos go back 150 years, many of the gay icons were closeted, or only discussed their homosexuality obliquely or within their private lives. For example, Sarah Waters’ choice of Denton Welch, who wrote of his homosexuality only in his journals, or Jackie Kay’s selection of Billy Tipton, who passed as a man from the age of 19 until her death. In a strange twist, it is now those who seem to have the least comfortable relationship with their sexuality who chose the most outwardly gay figures. Lord Alli’s selection seems crass to say the least, with his choices included the Village People, Lily Savage, and bisexual porn-star Jeff Stryker. These were gay icons in one particular way: that their gayness was iconic. Gayness, here, is reified, and Lord Alli seems to show his inability to engage with the problematic and personal nature of all sexuality, instead reverting to blasé gay stereotypes.

Probably the most interesting selections and writings are by Sandi Toksvig, Ben Summerskill, Alan Hollinghurst, Sarah Waters and Chris Smith, whose contributions are thoughtful, self-reflective, and informative. All of them address with real concern the difficulties of gay identity and its history, and are sure-footed in how the feel problems should be addressed. They shy away neither from homophobia nor from the reality that homophobia still exists as a major problem in our society.

Apart from all of this waffling about the politics of this exhibition I have failed to mention that many of the pictures are indeed excellent. Whilst those of current popular figures are highly posed, and often less interesting for that reason, many of the photos are of subjects who are not normally photographed, or who have been photographed in action. The photos of Peter Tatchell as a “Queer Terrorist” and Harvey Milk speaking to a crowd were particularly exciting. Some of the photos are very old, further highlighting quite how recent being gay has become acceptable

As the subjects of the photographs did not have to be gay, many of the celebrities chose “icons” from a range of civil rights movement, but there was a particular emphasis on black civil rights. The holocaust was not mentioned once, and I thought to myself that one would never see an exhibition on Jewish, Gypsy, or disabled identity without its presence. This is not so much a lack, but it is surely intriguing that it goes passed over. The word “feminist” was only mentioned twice (and there is a long and often stormy history between male queer campaigners and feminists), and it was only in the hands of Sarah Waters that there was any broader political outlook made explicit. But being politically explicit, and making clear statements is really not what the exhibition is about. If it were then we would again be engaging in a discourse of icons, we would be more interested in the name, and less interested in the photographs.

This collection is an extraordinary exploration of a wide range of interpretations of gay culture from within the community. It is where the subjects of the photos break away from being icons, where they resist reification, that the exhibition is most interesting, and so the title is possibly a misnomer. It is only with an understanding of the depth and complexity of thoughts about homosexuality that reification in any of its forms can be stamped out.

The Gay Icons exhibition runs from 2 July to 18 October at the National Portrait Gallery as part of the Iconic season. Tickets £4-5

Guest post by Jon Small

The latest character from Sacha Baron Cohen’s entourage of grotesques to hit the big screen is Brüno, the gay-as-a-lamp-post presenter of Austria’s number one fashion show, Funkyzeit. Brüno began life as a minor character in Baron Cohen’s television shows for Paramount Comedy and Channel 4’s Da Ali G Show. As with the Borat film in 2006, Brüno’s transition from the small to the big screen has given Baron Cohen and his team of writers (including The Day Today’s Peter Baynham) an opportunity to widen and deepen the character’s satirical reach from the absurd skits and fake interviews which characterise the TV appearances to a sustained assault on good taste and mediocrity wherever they are found.

Borat is a tough act to follow, and some elements of Brüno will seem remarkably familiar. This film’s “plot” also centres on a peculiar foreigner who travels to the USA, engaging on a somewhat pointless quest. The film has the same story arc as Borat, and we even find some of the same scenes repeated almost verbatim, such as when Brüno, abandoned by his only friend, finds himself destitute and alone and has a sudden moment of self revelation: he must become straight! The plot is of course merely incidental, it’s simply an excuse to string together a series of carefully edited encounters with minor celebrities, PR gurus and ordinary people. Brüno’s faux-naivety acts as a tool to expose the prejudices and mediocrity of mainstream America.

The targets for Sacha Baron Cohen’s satire in Brüno are varied. Starting off in Brüno’s native environment of high fashion, the opening of the film reprises the TV series’ attacks on that absurdly shallow and self-important world. But a satire directed entirely against catwalk fashionistas would be thin indeed, and this was one of the limitations of Brüno’s character in Da Ali G Show: the fashion world is self-parodying and is in little need of even more comedic absurdity than can already be seen in haute couture and the journalism industry that surrounds it. Thankfully, then, after a faux pas involving a velcro suit, Brüno is sacked from his role as presenter of Funkyzeit and travels to America to seek global fame. Cue a series of encounters with members of the fame industry in LA: Brüno meets a high-power celebrity agent and two clueless valley-girl PR consultants. These can’t string together a coherent sentence and try to decide which would be the best cause to adopt in order for a newcomer to make a name for himself: “global warming is big these days,” “oh, fantastisch!”

Along with vapid celebrity culture, Brüno also tackles politics. He briefly travels to Israel and attempts to solve the Palestine question, in a parody of empty-headed celebrity meddling in the world of “issues”. Brüno brings together a former Mossad agent and a Palestinian politician, making huge advances towards peace in the Middle East by getting them to agree that hummus is actually a good thing. Sacha Baron Cohen even manages to interview a (genuine) member of the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade terrorist organisation, telling him that “King Osama looks like a dirty wizard,” demonstrating not only his own bravado but the dexterous verbal wit that marks the script’s intelligent humour. Most of the film’s subjects are either unsuspecting or actively hostile, and Brüno’s raison d’etre is to be abused and thrown out, which Baron Cohen pulls off with fearless disregard for his personal safety.

Half the fun is trying to guess which of the situations Brüno finds himself in are set ups and which are genuine unscripted encounters. As with Borat, there is a mix of both: it is part carefully-written and skilfully executed physical comedy and planned improvisation, and part genuinely dangerous and edgy media pranksterism. The interview with ex-Presidential candidate Ron Paul that turns into an attempt to make a celebrity sex tape is the latter, with an obviously shocked and flustered Paul storming out, declaring that the man is “as queer as blazes.” (Brüno apparently thought he was RuPaul, an easy mistake to make.) There is of course an element of cruelty in Sacha Baron Cohen’s pranks, but most of the people he chooses as the butt of his jokes are putting themselves in the public spotlight, or worse, declaring themselves authorities on their chosen subject. As such, puncturing their self-regard is fair game.

Those few subjects who respond with humour and largesse come off well, though Brüno keeps on pushing until he gets a response. One aspect of Borat which made me slightly uneasy was the inclusion of so many ordinary people who, while hilariously stupid, were nonetheless unsuspecting, and revealed nothing more than their own stupidity. The satire in Brüno is more sharply focused, with more minor celebrities and self-declared experts being lampooned. Those ‘ordinary’ members of the public who become the target of Baron Cohen’s penetrating derision in this film often turn out to be genuinely nasty pieces of work rather than simply dim.

The Alabama hunters with whom Brüno spends a night in order to overcome his gayness respond at first with strained good humour and some great comebacks, but when confronted by a fully nude Sacha Baron Cohen in the middle of the night (and Sacha is an impressively large man), they are pushed beyond breaking point. The satire is not consistently focused though, and some elements descend into what appears to be simply baiting for the sake of response. The studio audience of Richard Bey’s chat show may be homophobic and crass, but showing them Brüno’s adopted African baby being photographed with a swarm of bees or present at a gay orgy seems to be an attempt simply to enrage with no purpose other than to provoke an emotive reaction. What impresses about Sacha Baron Cohen’s humour is that it is consistently at the edge of what is acceptable, it is never comfortable, predictable or safe: this kind of comedy has to be dangerous, it has to make you cringe. Sometimes this film misses its target, but more often than not it hits it squarely between the eyes.

Criticisms of Baron Cohen’s approach are levelled quickly and loudly by those on all sides who miss the point he is trying to make. When Borat came out we were earnestly warned about the dangers of stereotyping and belittling the population of Kazakhstan, Borat’s home country. But anyone who regards the surreal representation of Borat’s village with its cast of clinically insane misfits and inbreds, and its annual “Running of the Jew” parade as a belittling stereotype has fallen right into the bear trap set by the satirist. Stereotypes have to be at least partly accurate, and this one is so absurd that to be offended by it demonstrates your own prejudice. The characters of Ali G, Borat and Brüno act as magnifying mirrors to the minds and personalities of those they interview, and of those who watch. Your response to these creations reveals your own assumptions, and we’re all tricked into revealing more about ourselves than we think. That’s where the genius of these characters lies, and it is the mark of successful and incisive satire. Brüno has quickly attracted the criticism that Baron Cohen’s creation presents a harmful gay stereotype: an image of mindless camp tastelessness. But it is precisely this lampoon which acts as possibly the sharpest tool of the film’s satire, revealing unthinking and viscerally prejudiced responses and attitudes towards homosexuality. What some seem happy to take as being broadly representative of homosexuality is in fact simply representative of crass stupidity, regardless of sexual orientation. Sacha Baron Cohen has a knack of pinpointing the small-minded assumptions of those who think they’re being politically correct.

Those who criticise this film for its supposed detraction of homosexuality utterly miss the point. Brüno uses his flamboyant and shameless gayness to reveal what are often aggressively homophobic responses from his interviewees. The deep south Christian “gay converters” and the Westboro Baptist Church’s “God Hates Fags” picket line are prime targets for Sacha Baron Cohen’s attack on prejudice, small mindedness and ignorance. Brüno telling the rather effete gay converter that he has “blow job lips” and becoming physically entangled with the God Hates Fags brigade while in flagrante, dressed in full bondage gear are not only hilarious but important and damning social criticism. At its best this film is true satire: an attempt to puncture and deride stupidity and prejudice. By confronting these bigots with their own worst nightmare Baron Cohen sometimes reveals the intriguing dichotomy at the heart of homophobia: the audience for the cage fight at the end of the film are eager to shout so loudly about their heterosexuality that you wonder exactly what they’re trying to hide. Brüno’s beautifully choreographed fight with his personal assistant turns into a tender scene of homosexual intimacy right before the eyes of the baying crowd, and he is confronted by an aggressive mob of individuals who can’t decide whether to cry or do him physical harm. The best comedy challenges and disrupts expectations, and this film is full of surprises and shocking absurdity; quite an achievement after Borat, which this film matches or betters. This is barbed satire with no tolerance for prejudice and ignorance. It’s a joy to watch because while the satire is pitiless, Baron Cohen’s insightful, intelligent and generous humanism always shines through. It’s funny as hell, too.

Creating a successful spin-off of a popular television series – a precarious balancing act between pleasing fans of the original and building a distinct brand – is a notoriously hit and miss affair. For every Star Trek: The Next Generation there’s a Joey. The anagrammatical Torchwood is Russell T. Davies’s attempt to explore more adult themes in the Doctor Who universe starring one of The Doctor’s most popular companions, Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), and his crack team of alien investigators. The first two series made for enjoyable enough watching – if lacking in plot quality next to the parent programme – but they always left me feeling uncomfortable. For one, the exploration of adult themes through the lens of essentially childish story motifs never really convinced me. Nor, at the end of the day, could I buy into Cardiff as the centre of earth-shattering paranormal events. Perhaps it’s my limitation as a viewer, but if I’m going to accept a demon-spitting rift in time and space, I think it should be somewhere other than Wales.

Thankfully, as Torchwood’s third (mini) series, Children of Earth, kicks into blistering action, the location soon shifts to London for a grand world-encompassing plot to rival the epic scale of Doctor Who. This time around, the writers chose to produce five hour-long serialised episodes and it has clearly paid off. The format of the first two series, thirteen (largely) standalone episodes, was not always conducive to engagement with the heavier themes. By the time I’d started to buy each episode on its own merits and the ideas it was trying to sell me, it was over. The tightly integrated plot arc of Children of Earth, however, is much more effective. It convincingly builds character relationships, sympathy and emotion without losing sight of telling an entertaining story that will keep viewers on the edge of their seats (if not behind the sofa) for most of the five hours.

With creepy children speaking as one (reminiscent of Village of the Damned) warning of an impending threat, a powerful and largely unseen alien menace called The 456 with a suitably evil agenda, a government cover-up, a sinister ministerial plot headed by Peter Capaldi, who looks like he was born to play a civil servant, and a whole heap of morally grey choices mixed in with a bit of black humour, there is plenty to keep audiences engaged, even if the writers are hardly breaking new ground in the genre. Whilst the 456 do not actually appear until the third episode, their arrival is built up subtly and government assassination squads do a good job of filling in as early adversaries. Building convincing threat in science fiction, however, can be as tricky as creating a successful spin-off.

There seem to be three main schools on how to do this. On the one hand, there’s the Star Trek method. Fill an episode with ‘redshirts’ whose only purpose is to die so that when the all-powerful enemy arrives and the disruptors start flying, they’re there to take the fall whilst the main characters miraculously survive. On the other hand, there’s the Star Wars method, what’s known as the Stormtrooper Effect. All the villains are impossibly poor shots and the more enemies the hero is up against, the less likely he or she is to get hit. And then there’s Captain Jack Harkness, an immortal superhero who dies an unconscionable number of times, but always comes back to life. Indeed, in Children of Earth he dies so many times it is almost comical. No one reacts with surprise when he takes a bullet to the head, or has a bomb explode in his stomach, or gets buried in concrete, and lives to tell the tale five minutes later. One character even remarks in episode four, “a man who cannot die has nothing to fear.” Unfortunately, this rather diminishes the sense of fear we as viewers can feel for our hero, which detracts somewhat from the suspense.

Jack’s physical invulnerability, however, is compensated for by his emotional vulnerability. This is satisfactorily portrayed through the introduction of his daughter (Lucy Cohu) who appears older than her ageless father, and through his relationship with his teammates Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) and in particular Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd). I have never been particularly impressed by the character of Ianto. Perhaps it is due to Russell T. Davies’s frustrating lack of creativity when it comes to naming his characters – there are far too many Joneses – but I have always found him to be a bit of a cardboard cut-out. His homosexual relationship with Jack, however, is well developed and emotionally believable without slipping into stereotype. And the occasional challenges to homophobic prejudices are conveyed with an appropriately subtle power without ever being overbearing so that the overall impression left is that the relationship between Jack and Ianto is as natural and everyday and caring as the relationship between Gwen and her husband (Kai Owen). This is not always an easy thing to do in fiction and many writers have failed to do what Russell T. Davies has done so well.

At the end of the day, though, fiction as a vehicle for ideas, no matter how powerful or important, is only as successful as the story it is telling. Does Children of Earth succeed? It’s no Doctor Who. But it is fun, funny, entertaining and engaging and I never felt bored or wished that I had chosen to spend my hour that day doing something else. In that regard, it does everything good television should. Whether Torchwood will survive for a fourth series, given the events of these episodes, remains to be seen. But after watching Children of Earth, I hope it does.