andrewducker | Screaming Queens at 10 O'Clock

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?

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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.