Jamie film

I don’t think the word or concept was current. So it was normal and acceptable to assume everyone was straight. And to look surprised and perhaps be nosy and discuss it if someone wasn’t.

Now I’d say we are still pretty heteronormative but people try harder and generally realise they’ve been unreasonable to make het assumptions.

Obviously that depends where you are and who you’re mixing with.

What do you mean by saying 'heteronormativity was unchallenged'?

@Groveparker01 No not a drama teacher but both my DDs attempted GCSE drama and due to SEN I found myself having to understand what they were and weren't meant to be focusing on.

Justin Fashnu coming out ruined his career. After he came out as gay he never got another full time contract offered and he eventually committed suicide due to allegations he claimed were a result of him being openly gay.

Martina was outed unwillingly and initially denied being gay and claimed instead to be bisexual. The backlash was huge.

Stories like these don’t paint a picture of gay representation to me. They paint a story of shut up or look what happens to you and you should be ashamed.

There are so many comments on here saying “well my workplace/university had an openly gay man so obviously it was fine to be gay in the 80’s”. Like I don’t know where you guys went to school or worked but highschool and the workplace or highschool and university are just so totally different it’s a moot point.

Carol & Susan in Friends were often 'the baddies' in storylines.

Not particularly, Ross’s insecurity was usually the punchline whenever they were involved in an episode. Besides, Susan was the OW in Ross’s marriage, it makes sense he didn’t like her and she was seen as the “baddie”, look at any thread on Mumsnet about being the OW!

Where did the teacher grow up, the dark ages?
I started my previous job in 2000 and my boss was living with the same man he'd been with for 10 years and no more quiet about it than married colleagues.
I was at uni in the 80s in the middle of the AIDS crisis and had openly gay friends. In fact it seems odd to say "openly" like it's a problem.
My Beautiful Launderette?
Brokeback Mountain?
Julian Clary?
Graham Norton?
John Barrowman?
Maybe he was Amish.

• sorry, Gabrielle! a little bit of gerbil sneaked in to my spelling there😄

OK so this is a bit of a stretch because they weren't 'out', but hey any excuse to revisit them: Xena and Garbrielle💞

There's a distinction being made by some posters between role models and positive role models - I think that got better for a while, and has now got worse - flouncing, glitter, and the almost total absence of lesbians do not constitute positive role models.

I can't quote the post but TeenDivided are you a drama teacher?

Bit of a sidetrack but I'm interested in what you say about the discussion not being about the text and whether this is a new development (possibly since new GCSEs?).

I did drama GCSE and theatre studies A Level a LONG time ago and we definitely discussed the text (more in A Level I think) but I know things are v different now. My son is about to start GCSE drama so I'm interested in the changes.

TBH this teacher does actually sound like the "only gay in the (Manchester) village", pretending that he faced discrimination everywhere and not there weren't any other visible gay people around.

You see this a lot today with the TQ+ activism, with the constant desire to see discrimination everywhere, "deny trans existence", "killing trans children" etc.

Society today rewards victimisation, gardening magazines and computer game magazines etc have to feature a TQ+ person during Pride month to talk about how tough life is for them. We need to know about the struggles of men wearing high heels whilst cutting the grass.

@KeirSpoutsTwaddle

In the 2000s gay became an insult meaning lame.

The 2000s? My sweet summer child...

Also, "lame" is derogatory itself against disabled people, probably shouldn't be throwing that one around.

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.

As a teen during s28, which I wasn't aware of there were next to no positive representations of lesbians in popular culture or IRL.

KD Lang was the only out/open lesbian I could name.

The Anna Friel kiss was a big deal but seemed more about straight male voyerism than gay women. (There was no happy ending)

Carol & Susan in Friends were often 'the baddies' in storylines.

In 1996 This Life had positive male gay characters but a storyline involved a lesbian leaving her husband and how it was unfair that wasn't adultery.

It wasn't until Sugar Rush on tv in 2005 that a young lesbian was portrayed positively, even then her crush wasn't reciprocated.

When Ellen came out/was outed she was dropped from her job wasn't she? It took a while for her career to recover.

Other female celebrities we now know are lesbians weren't out and I certainly didn't twig there were in an age of heteronormativity eg Navratilova Balding Tosvig Margoles Foster, Sam Fox, Sara Gilbert, etc

No one in school was out. No pupils no teachers.

I didnt meet a gay person until til uni. Even then it was a rare novelty. A friend came out and it was a BIG DEAL.

Just to reiterate, in drama the focus on the discussion should not be on issues with characterisation etc. It should be on how a production chooses to portray the script through staging, costume etc.

If that's the case, why study "Jamie" rather than a classic vanilla story like "Romeo and Juliet"? How you portray the script of "Jamie" where the costume is the story is a great question, and what happens if you cast a girl as Jamie - that fundamentally messes with the storyline. Imagine a mother giving her daughter a pair of heels as a birthday present so she can go to work as a burlesque dancer.

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with “celebrated”. As you say, their sexuality was just one part of their character: it wasn’t the over-riding (not sure if that’s a sexual pun but unintentional if so) feature.

Perhaps this explains why many of us who grew up with the TV programmes, characters, introductions of laws etc mentioned on this thread are baffled/irritated by the ubiquity of the rainbows and sparkles because they suggest that until recently, anyone represented by the Pride flag was terribly oppressed by all kinds of -phobias and unable to “be themselves”, and why we raise an eyebrow at the insistence on foregrounding someone’s sexuality. We just don’t care about your sexuality - it’s not the most important thing about you.

I seem to remember a gay character on Shine of Harvey Moon - must’ve been 80s?

Of course there were gay - and even shock horror - lesbian role models for young folk in the 80s.

Gay men have had good representation on TV way before 2009. Lesbians on the other hand not so much (even now)

There was a definite regression in the 2000s though.

In the 80s it was unspoken and heteronormativity was the rule.

In the 90s things were opening up in every day life, but heteronormativity was unchallenged.

In the 2000s gay became an insult meaning lame.

Teenagers are savage and will bully anyone and everything. If it's not sexuality it's dress sense or glasses.

Just to nip back to 'the only gay in the village'-

Not only played by a gay man, laughing about someone being so invested in their special identity that no one else cared about- Myffanwy (?) the barmaid was a lesbian. Little Daffyd never noticed because he was so blinded by himself.

Just to reiterate, in drama the focus on the discussion should not be on issues with characterisation etc. It should be on how a production chooses to portray the script through staging, costume etc.

I'm not a teacher but I am a writer (and GC) if that counts for anything!

I like Jamie. My son who is 14 has watched the musical and the film version. It's really good.

I do think there are issues with the female characters that your daughter might want to point. His friend is quite caricatured and like someone else said - just there as a sidekick, the teacher is awful, and Jamie is so horrible to his lovely mum (more so in the film) that I found it quite upsetting.

But it's fun and there is a lot to talk about. I enjoyed both the film and the stage version.

Can I give a mention to Buffy The Vampire Slayer? Willow came out as a lesbian in season 4 which would have been around 2001. And as mentioned above, Carol in Friends would have been in 1994.
Yes the characters weren't "celebrated" (within their own shows) like they would be now, more it was just another part of the character, I wonder if that's the difference?
Back then people kept way more of their private life actually private, that's not the fashion now so I wonder if that's why there's a mismatch between acknowledgement and celebration?

And I agree it's always been hard for teenagers to come out, what teen wants to be different from the crowd?

I worked in a London local authority, 1987 - 2002. There were certainly gay men there. I worked with one who would boast about his antics. 1987 was still very old fashioned compared to now. Managers were addressed by title. All admin posts were female and sexism was rife. My female colleague, 21 at the time when pregnant in 1988 was asked to leave as was advised that a career and babies didn’t mix. There was discrimination and sexism everywhere then and certainly not just at gay men.

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert came out(!) in 1994, and was a stage show long before 2009. Gay and trans.

hmmm 2 cousins moved to miami(more open there)and worked at a drag bar for years the tourist loved the place. this was in1979 so.....gay men had hard time to get a job when out.not campy just out.