The problem, I think, is when 'gayness' is used in a lazy manner, when the writer lacks the life experience/imagination to think of anything else, and assumes that 'gayness' is somehow implicitly funny.
Recent example, the camp reporter character in Horne and Corden. Pointless.
Quote: Tim Walker @ March 29 2009, 10:20 PM BSTCan anyone remember a sitcom or comedy sketch where a character who is gay is not played for laughs - and at that rather seedy laughs or just camp innuendo?
Jason in Gavin and Stacey?
Quote: Lee Henman @ March 30 2009, 2:57 PM BSTFair enough. But the truth is, audiences do laugh at screamingly-camp characters.
Mr Humphries
Will And Grace's Jack
Constable Goody
Sean Tully
DafyddWhether it's morally right or not to laugh is another question. But laugh they do.
Yes but they're camp and not all gay. Certainly a case could be made that Dafydd isn't and poor Goody is in deep lust with the redoubtable Habeeb.
Mr Humphries was never 'outed' either. He was just happy.
Grass - mentioned in the NGO thread - had a pretty grown up view on gayness, didn't it? Or am I wrong?
There's also the two gay guys from Armstrong & Miller. Not camp and the laughs don't really derive from them being gay.
Quote: Maurice Minor @ March 30 2009, 3:49 PM BSTMr Humphries was never 'outed' either. He was just happy.
Yes. Happy to suck cock.
Quote: Tim Walker @ March 29 2009, 10:20 PM BSTCan anyone remember a sitcom or comedy sketch where a character who is gay is not played for laughs - and at that rather seedy laughs or just camp innuendo?
Loads. The show that first comes to mind is Brothers - a mid-80s American sitcom, in which one of three brother was gay, not camp. Other shows include:
The Brittas Empire had a gay couple, Gavin and Tim, who weren't outrageously camp.
Friends had Ross's lesbian (ex)wife and her girlfriend.
Ellen.
Agony Again - Maureen Lipman's son was non-camp gay.
Queer As Folk (was it a comedy? F**k knows, it was incredibly dull).
Dr Who (ok, not a comedy) with Captain Jack.
Dream On - early 90s US sitcom with non-camp, non-funny elderly gay male couple.
F-Troop had Edward Everett Horton (narrator of Fractured Fairy Tales in Rocky & Bullwinkle) as not-too-camp Indian Roaring Chicken.
Will & Grace (I could never tell the difference between this show, Dharma & Greg and Mad About You) had a very boring gay lead character.
Also, though not a sitcom, the alleged comedy film Four Weddings and a Funeral had an extremely non-camp gay male couple.
Quote: Tim Walker @ March 29 2009, 10:20 PM BSTShouldn't this change?
Certainly not. Julian Clary, Mr Humphries, Kenny Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Daffyd, Bunny from Extras, etc are hilarious. Sure they're way over-the-top, but so what, we're talking comedy, not grim reality. There's a good special feature on one of the Are You Being Served DVDs where John Inman defends camp comedy.
To ineptly paraphrase Oscar Wilde: Sitcoms are either well written or badly written; whether they have camp characters is irrelevant.
But isn't there a diference between camp and gay? Kenneth Williams was nevewr really "gay" in the carry on films and neither was charles hawtrey. Well ok changed towards the later movies.
I think we need to think through why some of our favored comedy characters are such heavy stereotypes (whilst still being funny).
N.B. who are we to say the modern chick flick representation of gay man as the; none threatening, best friend, who's fascinated by neurotic women and dies of aids at some dramatically convenient point is any better.
Personally I think one of the flat out funniest stories was when the Punisher took on some evil drug smugglers, with the help of a gay sherrif and the head of the gang was a monster lesbian.
It was quite literally political correctness gone mad. Especially Frank Castle's tales of gay heros who killed the Kong in the Nam.
Maybe we need to deal with the fact that gay people have only had human rights in this country since the 60s and even then have had to wait decades for rights that we take for granted (fair of age of consent, right to marry, protection under the law).
This ,may well have contributed to their low standing in the media and maybe we should be a bit more selective in our comedic tastes.
We also see gay sitcoms, but thinly disguised. Sex in the City is famous for it (I don't care that the makers of it have denied this), and also the pretty camp Two and a Half Men.
Quote: sootyj @ March 31 2009, 7:52 AM BSTBut isn't there a diference between camp and gay? Kenneth Williams was nevewr really "gay" in the carry on films and neither was charles hawtrey. Well ok changed towards the later movies.
Well this is true actually. Neither Williams nor Hawtrey played a gay character. Williams was always cast as a prude, and Hawtrey often an unlikely lothario. Thats where the humour lay; they took these two performers' mannerisms and personas and transplanted them into different situations- like the camp-as-a-row-of-tents director in Extras being married with a family.
Quote: Maurice Minor @ March 31 2009, 9:41 AM BSTWell this is true actually. Neither Williams nor Hawtrey played a gay character.
I suspect that Williams was playing a gay character in "Julian and Sandy".
Quote: NoggetFred @ March 31 2009, 10:03 AM BSTI suspect that Williams was playing a gay character in "Julian and Sandy".
Well that was never explicitly stated either!
But I was only referring to the Carry Ons where most people associate them.
Has anyone mentioned the great Gil Chesterton from Frasier? In a later episode, they were dumbfounded to learn he was married.
Quote: Tim Walker @ March 29 2009, 10:20 PM BSTCan anyone remember a sitcom or comedy sketch where a character who is gay is not played for laughs - and at that rather seedy laughs or just camp innuendo?
Robin in The Smoking Room, played by Robert Webb, was probably the best writing of a gay character that I've seen. He was not camp or anything like that.