Jamie film

It's such a bizarre message to kids as well - the only way to avoid inappropriate sexualised comments or questions is to have absolutely zero mention of your personal life.

As someone else mentioned, what about a visibly pregnant teacher. Is she inviting questions or comments about the events that led her to become pregnant?

I remember a huge number of my teachers making some references to their lives outside the classroom - that could have been hobbies they had, references to husbands, wives or partners, references to kids etc. I don't remember any sexualised or inappropriate questions or comments (and I didn't go to an especially genteel school) - if they had arisen, I think the teacher would have dealt with them the same way as they did with any other sexualised or inappropriate comments in the classroom.

Clearly the scriptwriters for Grange Hill went to my secondary school.

Grange Hill had a gay teacher, Mr Brisley, from 1992-99.

There's nothing wrong with a teacher saying that he identifies with a character in a film. These comments about his sex life and keeping his sexuality to himself, are reminiscent of stereotypes of gay men as deviants and predators.

Did you used to be a scriptwriter for Grange Hill??

Yes, i worked in one for 10 years.

edit- over 10 years.

@ApocalipstickNow Primary is rather different. And, having a child who has been in a PRU, that is also rather different.

Secondary age pupils will take any and every opportunity to bring something the teacher says round to their sex life.
Of course, you can just not answer it but it's disruptive anyway.
And teachers are well advised not to set themselves up for it.
"Any questions class?"
Yes sir, have you got a girlfriend and is she a 10?

"I had a great time in that park at the weekend with my girlfriend"
Oooh sir give us details, is she hot?*
"This is very interesting to me because I'm gay and it was harder when I was young"
Oooh sir give us details, have you got a boyfriend? Is he hot?
"I will come back from half term with a tan because I'm going on my honeymoon"
Ooh miss give us details, does your boyfriend have a big dick?

*Apologies that I have no idea about the current slang. This is all from what my schoolmates would have said. I am willing to believe much worse.

But teachers and school staff DO talk about their lives to their kids. Especially in Primary, kids are interested. I know a teacher who has said that she is supporting a certain country in the football because her partner is from there although she isn’t, and he’s the football fan. Because the kids asked who she supported. My daughter also knows her teacher is a lesbian because her wife was having a baby, just like she knew a past male teacher was married to a woman because she was having a baby. The children like their teachers and want to sign congratulations cards for them. It’s ok for kids to know adults have their own lives, professional people usually know what’s acceptable (eg I have talked about going to the pictures with my daughter, I’ve also explained to kids not all families have a mum and dad living together because I was asked where my (non existent) husband was.) I would expect any school staff who crossed those lines to be dealt with by SLT.

I’ve also worked in alternative provision with some very dysfunctional teens alongside a teacher who was a lesbian, she spoke about that with the children as a direct challenge to their ideas about gay people. She was a very experienced teacher and knew how to keep things appropriate.

Er, yes they have - the post before mine references him talking about his sex life. Which he hasn't done. His boundaries are absolutely fine.

Nobody has made any comments about this teacher discussing the ins and outs of his sex life; a couple of us have simply commented that it’s not appropriate for a teacher to tell his pupils about his sexuality. That’s all. It’s about keeping the boundaries between professional and private life.

@LovelyBitOfHam Agree with what Aston said. In addition, to borrow the word used upthread, it’s very heteronormative of you to assume the sexuality of pregnant teachers or teachers wearing wedding rings.

So your worry is not that he's said something inappropriate, but that he might do so in future? Do you have this worry about all teachers, or just about gay teachers?

He's opening himself up to questions about it though, which is dangerous and daft as a teacher.
Just the same as a straight teacher talking about the dates they've been on or their honeymoon.

He's not discussing his sex life.

I don't have a problem with anyone's sexuality, not sure how you've drawn this conclusion.

I was wondering whether it is appropriate for a teacher to be discussing their relationship/sex life with their class. I think it's a fucking red flag for overstepping boundaries. Just like it's not appropriate for a teacher to discuss their own beliefs in RE, or their own politics in a politics class, or their heterosexual marriage/ relationship.

I can't think of a reason a female teacher should be mentioning her husband, it's just not relevant.

Teachers should maintain a professional distance and not treat kids like their friends. Using personal experiences like this is not professional.

Not sure why you've made that ridiculous comment about pregnant teachers, or whys that's got to do with anything. Apart from being a massive straw man of course.

@FrancescaContini maybe you can answer too.

Would you say the same about female teacher mentioning her husband? Or a male teacher mentioning a wife and kids?

Did you expect teachers to remove wedding rings before gay marriage? Do you think female teachers shouldn’t be seen if pregnant? What about female teachers changing their name and title after marriage?

Or is there only one kind of sexuality you have a problem with?

@PlanetJanette So how does "Jamie" show gay men positively, or a supportive community?
This is literally a story about a gay boy coming out, as if it was newsworthy.
The real Jamie (or his mum) was so attention seeking, his story featured on BBC3 "Extraordinary Stories". His ambition was to "be a drag queen".
The script sneers at the careers teacher who thought that was not a positive aspiration. The mum is held up as a role model for buying her son a drag outfit, and pretending it came from the dad.
The dad is portrayed as homophobic, but maybe he just didn't want his teenage son perfoming in a sleazy venue dressed in sexualised womanface.
(Who would want their 16yo daughter performing in that venue?)
In the real world, with BBC TV cameras there, the Catholic school permitted the outfit and the kids at the prom (apparently) cheered and smiled for one evening. That's not a supportive community, it's one that's being coerced against its moral code.
edited due to cross-post with lovelybitofham: for some reason i though the school had allowed the outfit but read lovely's post.
And now school kids are being asked to clap and cheer the stage play and the film, without any critical thinking.
Are there really no better scripts around for GCSE drama?

I actually went to school with Jamie.

Nobody was out at school. There were a handful of very, very camp boys (like Jamie) who would be assumed to be gay, as it was obvious. There were also boys who weren’t the sporty types and didn’t really get on with the lads. They were all bullied more than any other type of student and it was largely seen as acceptable to target these kids at any and every opportunity. As others have said, there would be slurs shouted publicly in front of everyone, and some real vitriol directed at these kids (who couldn’t / wouldn’t defend themselves). It would mostly be boys doing the bullying but there were plenty of girls involved too.

Jamie was allowed to attend the prom - but the school found out he intended to bring the cameras for the documentary and wear a dress, which they knew he would only be doing for the cameras. They told him he couldn’t bring the cameras (understandably) and the prom was a day for the whole year group and not for one person to steal the limelight. He lied to the school about his intentions and turned up anyway, so they didn’t let him in.

In the mid-2000s Coronation Street had an episode where the pub went silent because a character who’d been in it for years walked in after coming out as gay. Will Young was outed and the headlines were printed in pink. Gay contestants would be put into Big Brother to be laughed at.

A lot of the posters on this thread are frankly very privileged women and this thread has shown it. I’m as gender critical as they come but it’s never been lost on me that this board has a lot of homophobia behind it, and it’s a shame because it just feeds into the narrative that those who are gender critical are also anti-LGB.

The last English and Welsh census showed that 5% of the population were gay, so 95% of the population are straight, but apparently it's bigoted and heteronormative to assume that someone is straight when you have a 95% chance of being correct.

Gay representation in media is only 12%, so again they are overly represented.

Being generous perhaps the teacher’s claim makes sense if you go really specific? ie when he was a gay teenaged boy in high school there weren’t any plays/films featuring gay teenaged boys in high school that were rated PG13 or lower? Ie, actually aimed at an audience of that age group?

@PlanetJanette I agree with you. In the 90s and early 2000s "being gay" was a story in itself in the media, usually a negative one at that. Gay people were not "out" in a regular, everyday way. In the 90s in particular, acceptance often consisted of "don't ask don't tell" . That was considered enlightened and tolerant. Ie just not being openly hostile to gay people was viewed as a very liberal attitude. Most people had no idea who was gay and who wasn't.

This thread continues to be a perfect example of why the teacher's fundamental point is correct.

I doubt the teacher is actually claiming there was no knowledge of gay people in 2009, or no depictions whatsoever of gay people.

I suspect that rather he is reflecting the very factual position that, until very recently - more recently than 2009 - the depictions of gay people in the media did not lend itself to positive views of gay people. Statistically, depictions of gay characters was undeniably rarer (1% in 2007 compared to 12% last year, for example).

But beyond that, the public depiction of gay people was usually frought with negativity or heteronormativity. Those depictions tended to include:

• the one-dimensional gay character who had nothing to offer but camp innuendo (almost all of Kenneth Williams' characters, for example);
• the gay (or bi) villain - think Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct or the gay footman in Downton Abbey.
• the punchline - can't believe that Friends is cited as positive representation, when an entire trope in the early years was about how Ross 'turned' his wife, was emasculated by his wife's lesbian partner, was insufficiently masculine to stop his son from wanting to play with a barbie etc. The 'only gay in the village' character in Little Britain (also cited on this thread) is another example - the trope of gay people desperately seeking attention.

If you're citing these examples of why this teacher is wrong, you are proving his point.

Can't work out if you are agreeing or disagreeing with me! However I agree a casting discussion would come under scope. Eg would the film have felt different if someone the build of a rugby player had been cast as Jamie?
My DD did blood brothers.
"Blood brothers" is darkness and complexity. I had a few students felt it was too dark, too painful, for learning the basics of stage production.
"Jamie" by contrast is presented as a heartwarming bubbly feelgood story, but I just dont see it like that. How is it a positive portrayal of gay men? It's been heavily marketed to schools, but to study it without interrogating the underlying values and assumptions is indoctrination.

Until about five minutes ago, no one would have recognised the word heteronormativity.

This feels rather like scolding Rosa Parks for not having used the terms and behaviours and knowledge of 2024 in her day. These freedoms and the progress is built slowly and gradually brick by brick over time, and you cannot hold people at earlier stages of the movement to the standards and demands that you would if they were acting today. Those standards and demands would not exist but for the steps they took, at much much greater risk than being shouted at on Twitter or by some nutcase in a balaclava. I find it really unpleasant to feel an implication that those people's efforts and courage at their time means nothing because they're not doing in the modern expected way. Surely it's important to respect the people and the actions that got us to the point where there is a word like heteronormativity and people actually know what it means.