Jamie film

[dramanodrama]

I've name changed for this due to privacy concerns but HQ would be able to confirm I'm a regular on this board and am above board.
My Dd is watching this film as part of her drama GCSE. I've not personally heard of it. Dd says it's about a boy who is gay, something to do with drag and discrimination and Section 28. We have been discussing the misogyny of drag today and Dd told me they were watching this film. I think they've only recently started it and she doesn't know much about it but deems it boring.
I'm wondering if it's appropriate and thought here was the best place to ask for considered opinions. The teacher is gay and saying he and Jamie had things in common and that when he was in high school 15 years ago (2009) there was no gay people around, not in the media etc and he felt isolated. I left school in 1992 and there were gay lads at school, Freddie Mercury was big news, gay actors, other gay musicians etc. I don't remember many gay women though 🤔 but my point is that I left school in 1992 and there was plenty of gay people around so how was there less 17 years later?

Maybe Dd has misunderstood his explanation. Maybe it's standard drama GCSE material. Maybe I'm just a bit paranoid after two Dd have been through the school and had issues due to being GC.

The school is on the surface fully stonewalled with pride flags flying and printed on the walls but there are teachers who are GC from what I've seen in my contact with them.
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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

@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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

@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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

@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.

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?

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.

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.

@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?

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?