Jamie film

I think you're missing the point.

The teacher was almost certainly referring to the - factual and documented - fact that there was very little positive representation of gay people in the media in and around 2009. It was beginning to change, but hadn't yet changed.

Citing a range of representation of gay people that were either deeply negative, or citing gay or bi figures who weren't actually publicly out sort of proves the point this teacher was making.

To illustrate it with statistics - in the US in 2007, 1% of regular characters on mainstream broadcast TV were LGBT+. In 2021 that was 12%.

This does mirror my school experience too in the early 00s.

Section 28 was active, but had little effect, we had PSE lessons on homosexuality and there were openly gay boys about. Those in their 20s today going on about the long lasting effect of Section 28 are not being truthful.

The openly gay boys were excessively camp and were allowed long term sick notes so that they never had to do any PE. There would be bullying, but there would also be bullying of others for being different too.

I do feel that people like Jamie (who I once say on the Tube with his mother and he was excessively overdressed in a bright pink suit with lots of ruffles and Pat Butcher earrings), is that they use their campness as a weapon and rebelliousness, which is why he dragged up for his school prom, which TBF if you're going to take a lot of it at school you might as well give a bit back.

@aodirjjd The “only gay in the village” is a really stupid example to use as gay representation as again this was used as ammo against gays at the time.

Yes, but The Only Gay in the Village was portrayed by an actual gay man. It would be akin to a black man doing black face.

It was a gay man mocking the gay men who saw their sexuality as WHO they are, not WHAT they are, mocking people who make their sexual orientation their entire identity and personality.

It's also ironic that Little Britain's Emily was requested to be the mascot of a few trans charities, David Walliams declined the request.

I grew up in the 1970s and went to university in the 80s. I knew plenty of openly gay people throughout that time.

@aodirjjd I agree re Freddie Mercury, he never came out as gay. George Michael admitted he was gay after he was caught cottaging. Elton John had been around since the 70s and came out in the 90s.

It was rare until relatively recently, for film stars or pop stars to come out. If the drama teacher said there were few people that he felt represented him, then that's obviously his experience. He may come from a homophobic background where he didn't feel able to express himself.

I suspect what's being heard here is the grim frustration of older gay people, as per usual, having their experience and views and lives totally dismissed by the Bright Young Things because life only really started when they did.

Any minute now we'll be reminded that lesbian means absolutely everything except actually homosexual and if we weren't all so stupid, obsolete, past it and irrelevant we'd be gladly embracing straight sex and calling it whatever we were told to.

When I was in school I quite confidently announced I was bisexual to a few close friends when I was 13 and it ruined my life. Homophobia was completely tolerated by teachers who at best would tell kids to hush as they screamed slurs across the classroom. And this was a decent school. I remember a few lads who were gay but only one who was open and again got slurs chucked at him everyday but chose to brazen it out, a few came out practically the day we left. this was 2005.

The “only gay in the village” is a really stupid example to use as gay representation as again this was used as ammo against gays at the time. It’s like using examples of black face to say media had black representation. Freddie mercury as well denied his sexuality for most of his life, that’s not gay representation. I won’t claim there was no gay representation in films or tv back then as i remember will and grace and carol in friends . But if that teacher felt isolated and didn’t have positive representation then that’s his experience. Maybe there’s additional context like he’s not white and he meant no one who looked like him. As I can remeber from above posters examples knowing that “Gandalf was gay” and Graham Norton was big then.

As LM of drama I’d be interested why they’re using a film (ANY film) rather than a filmed live performance. There are so many freely available to schools on national theatre, globe online and so on - that would be a way to open a discussion.

tbh I’d be as concerned about the misogyny and homophobia you describe; these should absolutely be on schools radar to stamp out.

Brokeback Mountain was 2005. So would have been on tv by 2009.

Stephen Fry.
Ian McKellen was Gandalf all through the early 2000s.
Will Young won Pop Idol.
Elton John
George Michael
Alan Carr
Boy George
Julian Clary
Rupert Everett
Graham Norton

All successfully lived in the closet until post-2010 keeping their homosexuality hidden from would-be teachers growing up gay in small town Britain 🙄.

I left school in 89 and don’t recall a single gay pupil, when there must have been! My son’s school is totally different. It’s all boys, but they have a number of openly gay teachers and boys. I’m so pleased things have moved on. My friend’s son is gay and cross dressed and has acted in the Jamie musical.

Yes but they passed so well, you'd never have noticed them...

How is that “clearly”?

It's slick but the storyline about the prom is cliché and misses the more salient question which is why have school proms with their stereotyped outfits become a thing?
I want to see a play about a group of teenagers rejecting the whole commercialised, sexualised, overhyped circus. End of term disco dress up, dress down, dress to party. That would be much more complex and nuanced.

Is this film an issue or a non-issue? I hate drag and its misogynistic woman face and am not sure if it has a place in GCSEs.

I think this depends on whether this teacher would allow any of the girls to say they feel drag is misogynistic and accept a feminist critique of it or whether he would accuse them of bigotry.

In the late '80s one of my work colleagues was a Lesbian. Everyone knew this, but it was rarely mentioned as she was a colleague like everyone else, respected for her work. She may have encountered some unpleasantness but if so I was not aware of it. And I remember Kenneth Williams as a much loved media personality who was accepted as an actor/comedian by people you might have expected to disapprove.

Undoubtedly there was still a lot of prejudice and nastiness, but people were at least starting to realise that that is what it was. That these attitudes continued through the '00s and still exist today is surely no surprise, but I have seen a lot of change to more acceptance during my lifetime, including individual people questioning their old attitudes. Same sex marriage wouldn't have stood a chance politically when I was a child.

Congratulations! You have found Schrödinger's trans!

How dare you exclude Dick Emery???!!!!

I think you have missed the point.

The Matt Lucas skit was about how a gay man was martyring himself whereas nobody cared he was gay,

It’s a great film, previously it was a musical
play and is based on a BBC documentary of when Jamie was a school kid and not allowed to go to Prom in a dress. As a mum of teens I think it’s a great idea for GCSE; modern, relevant and very good. Watch, it’s eye opening.

This was what it was like when I was at school too - I left in 2003. My youngest brother (11 years younger) had a hard time as an out gay teenager later when he was at the same school. He was the only out boy in his year.

I remember being quite shocked that things hadn't improved much in school since I'd left because outside I had been to uni and culture seemed so much further forward.

I hope things have improved now, but it sounds like gender ideology has confused things a lot in terms of redefining same sex attraction as same gender attraction.

So there were no gay people before 2009 but there have literally always been transfolk. Allegedly🙄

This is complete nonsense Civil Partnerships were legalised in 2004. Will & Grace started in about 1998. Brokeback Mountain was about 2008.

Soon people will say that no one ever spoke about gay or trans issues in 2024.

I dont see how "Jamie " can be described as a positive portrayal of a gay teenager. He aspires to being a drag queen, and his new friends include an older man who encourages him and young drag queens whose names eg "Leica Virgin" leave no doubt as to the nature of drag as sex work.

I was going to point out "The Importance of Being Earnest" as an example of a gay character but as that's comedy maybe it doesn't count... and as it was first published in 1899 it can require some explanations.

I was a teenager in the 80s and knew several gay men. Sadly past tense there. But they were ordinary fellows with ordinary jobs, far removed from being drag queens.

Agree with this. I don’t understand the current understanding amongst some younger people that up until very recently nobody in the UK has ever been openly gay 😵‍💫 .

And it’s inappropriate for the teacher to be talking about his sexuality - whatever it may be. Wondering what other boundaries he may have crossed with the class?