Screaming Queens at 10 O'Clock

[andrewducker]

I went to see The Producers a few days ago, and came out of it feeling remarkably unsure of my feelings.

Not about the movie itself (it's a competent filming of a fun musical stage-show.  Worth seeing, with some wonderful moments.) but about its portrayal of gay people.

The director of the musical within the musical is gay.  And screamingly camp.  As is his "live-in" entourage.  All of whom delight in dressing up as members of the Village People and prancing around.  Except for the lesbian, obviously, who wears a shirt and is dumpy.

In other words, they're remarkably obvious caricatures.  Who are then used to make jokes about gay sex and campness.

Should I be offended by this?

I mean, I'm not gay.  And I know there _are_ remarkably camp people out there.  And also butch lesbians in shirts.

But if the caricatures had been similarly broad takes on, say, black people - we'd have been watching blacked-up white people doing a modern Black and White Minstrel Show, and a huge fuss would have been made.

So I feel like I should have been offended, but I'm not entirely sure.  Anyone else got a take on it?

Comments

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I can't remember where I read this, it was something recent. But you can do a simple test.

Anything with stereotypes, or jokes about a particular subculture/racial group/religious group.. whatever...

List a few different groups in your head, and ask yourself if you'd be comfortable with those jokes being made about -them-.

So if you wouldn't be comfortable with that kind of stereotyping of, to continue your example, black people, then it's pretty damn clear how repulsive it must have been.

[andrewducker]

Exactly.

I think I feel surprised that other people aren't being repulsed by it.

But then - take Are You Being Served - that's just as bad. Should I be outraged that the BBC are re-releasing it on DVD?

Or Julian Clary - he's a caricature of a gay person. Only he's gay himself.

Is it like black people being allowed to use the word "nigger"? Are gay people allowed to be caricatures of gay people, but straight people aren't?

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

It depends on your point of view.

Some would say julian clary is okay to do it, because he's gay

Others might say the fact that people find it funny at all speaks of a deeper malaise in those finding him funny, and he's as bad for playing up to that.

Look at the still widely-held beliefs that gay people are more predatory than heterosexuals, that they're very likely to be pedophiles too, that they do X, Y and Z.

It all comes down to drawing a line between what you do and don't tolerate, and at some level, it's going to be personal. I find Will & Grace offensive (as well as just being not very good), but I can quite see that many people wouldn't, and I'm hardly going to complain.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

There are also broad caricatures of Nazis, and of rich little old ladies, and of female office assistants, and of accountants. None of which warranted mention.

[andrewducker]

Caricatures of belief systems and jobs seem different to me than caricatures of groups that people are born into.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

You may have hit on the problem right there. It could be, and is argued that screaming queers choose to behave and dress in that way.

Instead of making the comparison with offensive charicatures of black people, what about making it with AliG-esque apeing of obnoxious hand waving bling wearing ganstas? Is it still offensive?

Or is it only offensive because people don't know that all queers aren't like that, whereas they're assumed to know that not all black people are like that? And do they? And is that the fault of the comedians? Is it our duty as joke-tellers to stop telling Scotsman/Englishman/Irishman jokes because some people think Irish people are thick?

I should add that I'm just picking a random side here. I have no opinion, strangely enough. I tend to go with a gut "Does it make me uncomfortable?", and I haven't seen the film yet.

[themongkey.livejournal.com]

My take is that it's pointless getting wound up about stereotyping - of any kind - in a film like The Producers.

[imaget.livejournal.com]

I felt the same way about Memoirs of a Geisha, which isn't as obvious in it's perpetuation of stereotypes, but I think it's just as bad.
I guess I've come to terms with the fact that I should just follow my conscience. My conscience says no to Memoirs, but yes to Will & Grace.
I wonder sometimes if it's the thousand such little hypocrisies and betrayals of self that make us human.

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

I think the concept of "[feeling] like I should have been offended" is somewhere between "ludicrous" and "encapsulating all that is wrong with the world". It's one thing to be sensitive to the feelings of members of groups to which you do not belong, and another to pretend to a feeling of outrage because you feel you should.

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

crap, empathy for others who are either suffering or abused or just chronically mistreated (think how gypsies for instance have become the group of people its ok to villify) doesn't come naturally (naturally our impulse is generally to turn on the downtrodden, particularly if they are not "family") and needs to be mediated by our higher faculties such as reason and ethics. It aint about pretending, its about making an imaginative effort. Ethics dont come fitted as standard.

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

I saw the play of it, and utterly loathed it, for largely the same reason.

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

well i didn't get that far, walked out after 20 minutes because it was just the worst (20 minutes of) film i had seen in a long time, i wasnt alone, half the cinema left too. Maybe we all had the original in our head, maybe we couldnt stand the ACTING the MUGGING and the completely pointless and dull added musical numbers, ther one I whinced through taking ten minutes of my life and several nearly naked women to say one sentence: "i want to be a producer". I will never get thiose minutes back. Me, i had the genuinely funny original in my head and felt like someone had dug up a dear relative and fucked him with a meat grinder. Lampooning the queens comes as no surprise.

Oh and dont get me started on Will and Fucking Grace. Name me one mainstream show that doesnt portray its gay charcters as GAY. Name me one show that has moved us on from "are you being served" because i must have missed it.

[andrewducker]

I'm somewhat surprised by your instant hatred of the film. You were aware that you were going to see a film based on a Broadway musical, yes? Seems like complaining that you went to see the Disney version of The Little Mermaid and it had singing animals and a happy ending.

filmshowfilm

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

dont get me wrong heart face, i love to vada a bona musical with all the other omi palones, but this was a very very bad musical very very badly adapted. You know that Art-thing that won the turner prize - Shedboatshed?, where the guy had turned a shed into a boat, sailed it across a lake and re-assembled it as a boat? Well here we had filmshowfilm where they took a very good Film turned it into a Show and then...well they forgot the last step, they just filmed the show, and that always makes for really OTT and wooden cinema because the actors were still mugging and grimacing for the back row; the Numbers that would have looked spectacular on stage looked tacky and cheap on film and sorry but have you seen the original before this chinese whispers, this entropic degredation set in?

The little mermaid rocked.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

Hmm. "I feel like I should have been offended" ... actually sounds to me like you were mildly offended but you're wondering whether you should have been. Which would make more sense ... because I think it's hard to feel offence due to reasoned argument that one should - isn't it a bit like humour in that respect?

[coffeeinhell.livejournal.com]

I didn't have that reaction to The Producers mainly, I think because I've been close to so very many over-the-top gay men in my life that, frankly, the caricature was broad but not necessarily out of the realm of possibility. It tickled me, because the two actors are so good and, well, I've KNOWN men like that -- the movie just dialed it up to 11. They were my favorite part of a not-so-hot film.

I've had a similar reaction as you describe, though, to watching the animated version of "The Boondocks." I love the comic strip and the TV cartoon is quite funny -- but, as I said to a black friend recently, I find myself wondering how I'd respond to it if I was, oh, black. Because unlike the strip, the TV version is very heavily into the whole "niggers is crazy" thing, to the point of being positively insulting ... in the name of satire.

His response? That yeah, it's too much nigga-this and nigga-that and he finds it obnoxious.

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Urgh. I'll be avoiding that then. Thanks for the warning. Yeah, I'd find it pretty offensive. I found 'In & Out' appalling and don't watch 'Will & Grace'.

That said, regarding 'Are you Being Served?'. The humour with that character is that, according to the actor at least, he's not actually gay and it's playing around with peoples assumptions. I actually quite like that. Whether that's just hypocrisy I dunno. :)

Someone else asked about gay characters in shows who aren't just GAY, and I think the only show that comes to mind is 'Six Feet Under'. It's preachy at times, but at least characters are allowed a degree of humanity and depth.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

It's written by a gay writer natch.

And Buffy of course :-)

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

That's true. :-) I wasn't fond of how Buffy:tvs treated gay male characters but I really liked that whole part of the 4th year where Tara and Willow get together. Nice writing.

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

buffy had gay male characters? oh yeah, the fat guy that gets eaten by the worm-mayor. six feet under, good call actually, though not exactly mainstream. And give me "are you being served" over Graham Norton any day.

[andrewducker]

I just checked, for amusement value, and both Buffy and Six Feet Under are equally mainstream - three and a half million viewers each in the US.

Probably not all the same people - although I do wonder how big the crossover was.

Re - Gay males on Buffy

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that and it was always at the end of a joke. How many times did they wheel out the 'he might fancy Xander' gag? I thought the stuff with Andrew presumably being in love with Warren (and plotting with his 'ghost' in the final year) was potentially interesting, but it was -never- treated seriously in say the way that Willow trying to avenge Tara and destroy the world was.

With you about Graham Norton. Thankfully he doesn't seem to be around anymore. Either that or I'm just getting good at avoiding him.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

And The Archers.