Gay Jokes/Characters In Comedy

Tim Teenam, in his role as a TV critic for The Times, recently wrote an impassioned critique over the use of gay stereotypes as easy fodder for comedy writers/comedians.
This was prompted by Horne and Corden and Al Murray's sketch shows, but also included reference (also critical) of Little Britain.

Now as I scour my pilots and sketches I hope that any gay jokes I have ever written are not homophobic at all, nor (not enjoying camp humour bi-and-large (!) is it an area I use much.

I am a heterosexual male with gay/bi friends.

I am just interested whether other writers think that Little Britain has somehow backfired British Comedy in making it acceptable again to laugh at homosexuals rather than treat them as an accepted fact. And a population who are not all camp, cock-hungry butts(!) of the comedy writer's pen.

Can 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?

Shouldn't this change?

As far as Little Britain goes, I think the whole "only gay in the village" thing served a very different purpose to the (in my opinion) crude and pointless gay jokes in Horne & Corden's newest endeavour.

Daffyd wasn't funny because he was gay - he was funny because he was trying so hard to be the stereotype, when everyone else around him ignored it. Ok, there were gags about spandex, latex and many other questionable outfits, but I don't think it was gay-based.

The real laughs were when Daffyd put himself out on a limb, only to find himself joined by half a dozen unfazed others. Quite clever really. We probably wouldn't laugh at an overweight young Welshman, but show us a middle aged welshwoman saying "I know who likes a bit of c*ck..."

It's all about the people around him, not HIM.

God, that was longer than I expected

I can't stand Little Britain but isn't the whole joke that everyone but Dafydd does treat homosexuals as an accepted fact?

Anyway, an interesting example is My Name Is Earl. where Kenny is a little effete, but the laughs for the most part come from the ignorance of the Camdenites' reactions to him.

Come to think of it Marigold in In Sickness in Health was not at all camp, and the laughs also came from others, well Alf's, reactions.

Well I sort-of agree with that and actually found that LB sketch initially funny. But for endless series? I once drunkenly persuaded Matt Lucas to write a letter of commendation for my stand-up abilities when he appeared at a gig I was compereing and he was lovely enough to do so. Had no idea he was gay. His Sir Bernard Chumbley routine was ignored by the audience - pearls before swine. I like to an extent Jonathan Harvey's work as well. I am just unsure about straight guys writing and performing gay jokes.

Its an interesting question. Speaking as an homosexualist of many years standing...

In the 80's the whole Kenneth Williams-style of camp went away as being deemed unfashionable, and programmes like Are You Being Served? were seen as very negative for their portrayals. For a long time it was NOT ok to laugh at a gay character- and when you see some episodes of 70's sitcoms they are cringeworthy. I remember the episode of Some Mothers.. set in a hotel with a gay man in a room across the hall, and the occasional gay character in Rising Damp etc. It was a period where the gay character would be high-camp, wearing a blouse and a silk scarf..
Those type of interpretations were just the heavy-handed conclusion of the 'Jule & Sand' sort of thing, but any subtleties were lost. J&S were witty, the characters had depth and humour and were never really laughed at. 70's sitcom token gays were wheeled on for the audience to shriek at.

Fast forward to more recent times and I think elements of camp have come back into the mainstream because people realised it can actually be funny and doesn't have to denigrate the subject of the humour. Little Britain realised this and really went to town with it. I'm not a fan of Little Britain because for me they did it all in Series 1- it got boring quickly. But its influence has spread- maybe they got away with it because of the sexuality of the people behind it (fnarr).. I think the way its filtering out into other programmes is similar to Carry On.., Round The Horne etc evolving into the rubbish from the 70's. Anything that copies what went before tends to exaggerate and lose nuances. Al Murray dressed in pink rubber as a gay Nazi speaking with weak wrists and a lisp is a prime example of taking elements of someone elses idea and utterly mangling it by missing the point. Horne & Corden is just astonishing- that they just use a stereotypical 'poof' voice to signify a gay character just smacks of the worst excesses of 1970's ITV drivel.

Quote: Tim Walker @ March 29 2009, 10:20 PM BST

Tim Teenam, in his role as a TV critic for The Times, recently wrote an impassioned critique over the use of gay stereotypes as easy fodder for comedy writers/comedians.
This was prompted by Horne and Corden and Al Murray's sketch shows, but also included reference (also critical) of Little Britain.

Now as I scour my pilots and sketches I hope that any gay jokes I have ever written are not homophobic at all, nor (not enjoying camp humour bi-and-large (!) is it an area I use much.

I am a heterosexual male with gay/bi friends.

I am just interested whether other writers think that Little Britain has somehow backfired British Comedy in making it acceptable again to laugh at homosexuals rather than treat them as an accepted fact. And a population who are not all camp, cock-hungry butts(!) of the comedy writer's pen.

Can 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?

Shouldn't this change?

View original

I often find it interesting when somebody makes a worthwhile point about homosexuality in comedy, but then feels the need to tell everyone they are not gay themself. To me, it comes across as a bit - "I'm making a really worthwhile point about homosexuals in comedy here but, God forbid, I actually get mistaken for one myself."

I'm gay* and I hate the assumption that camp = instant comedy. It doesn't. Camp + actual jokes = comedy, anything else is laziness, and generally an excuse to trot out lame double entendres and pander to the stereotype that "teh gays" are thinking about pushing things into their or other men's bumholes ALL THE TIME.

*I'm not.**

**Not today, anyway.

To be fair, why would they bring up the character's sexual orientation if it wasn't going to be used in something as short as a sketch? If you've introduced the gun, you've got to shoot someone with it.

Camp gay characters are just inherently funny, in exactly the same way that uber-butch lesbians are.(For the record I too have gay, lesbian and bi friends and not one of them is hung-up on the overuse of stereotypes in the media or comedy. In fact if I ever get a "bummer" or "queer" joke texted to me it's usually from my gay pal. Most camp guys I know supplement their sexual persona with humour. And why not? It's funny.)

I don't see why quietly-gay people should be offended by characters like the ridiculous Al Murray Gay Nazi creation or Horne and Corden's camp reporter, because those creations bear absolutely no resemblance to them. And the overly-camp gays (and yes, they do exist) who don't like being lampooned in comedy should perhaps rethink the image they project. Seriously. If you're not comfortable with standing out from the crowd, don't stand out from the crowd.

For me, stereotypes are just part and parcel of comedy, and the reason why they're used is because audiences find them so funny. All the most successful comedy character creations have been - at their hearts - stereotypes.

Victor Meldrew: Miserable old bastard.
Del Boy: Cockney Wideboy.
Homer Simpson: Ignorant boorish greedy Yank.
Eddie Monsoon: Fad-obsessed, druggy Londoner.
Jim Royle: Workshy Northern lazy twat.

All stereotypes at their heart. But they all have layers, which is what makes the difference. Al Murray's Gay Nazi character has no layers at all. So what you get is a very thin gag about a predatory Nazi gay with not much to redeem it. As writers we look at that and wonder about its merit. But the truth is that the stereotype is enough to sustain it. That character is the most successful in the series I believe. The audience loves it.

So go figure. The bottom line to me is that stereotype is fine as long as you qualify it with something else. Throw something else into the mix that makes the humour come from somewhere else within that character, and then - to me anyway - using stereotype is justified.

To answer your question about gays being fairly represented in comedy, I suppose Will in Will and Grace would be a good example. He's fairly tame and not at all flamboyant. Whereas Jack is a self-confessed cock-hungry homo-slut. But doesn't that represent the gay community quite succinctly? Also Ellen Degeneres came out as a lesbian in her show but I believe that was handled quite tastefully too.

It's an interesting point, certainly, and I think raises a lot of questions about stereotype in comedy in general, not just the gay issue.

Quote: don rushmore @ March 29 2009, 11:08 PM BST

I often find it interesting when somebody makes a worthwhile point about homosexuality in comedy, but then feels the need to tell everyone they are not gay themself. To me, it comes across as a bit - "I'm making a really worthwhile point about homosexuals in comedy here but, God forbid, I actually get mistaken for one myself."

View original

The forum is aware that Tim Walker is not gay. So noted.

Often minorities make jokes about them selves as a way of taking ownership of how they're seen and to a certain extent to give the wider audience what they want. Check out Lenny Henry's early stuff. This is then taken on by the wider community as "I guess those jokes are ok."

The line between offensive and funny is a thin one. But the only real guide is respect and affection. Round the Horn, Little Britain etc clearly had a deep love and affection for the people they mocked.
The gay nazi figure is a lazy, stereotype and staggeringly offensive to any one with subGCSE knowledge of history. Chris Moyle should be fed through a sausage mincer feet first.

The number of gay people tormented (especially at school) or driven to suicidal urges by bullying is horrific. And frankly Chris Moyles legtimises it with his stupid songs and witless gags. I'd like to see him have the balls to make similar gags about Muslims or blacks.

Didn't The Thin Blue Line include a gay character without gay jokes? Or maybe he was sexually confused - I don't really remember.

If you replaced your gay character with a character from any other minority group, wouldn't you have a similar dilemma?

Yes the Thin Blue Line had a camp character who was madly in love with constable Habib (who was a girl).
It all depends on how you represent them. I was watching Minder the other day (porper old version). And it was full of Jews, gays and blacks. Thing is in Minder world every one's a bit dodgy and also a real character, whcih kinda made it ok. That and it's one of the funniest best bits of TV ever made.

I agree with Lee's points here: stereotypes are funny and usually deliberately chosen because they have some characteristics which are at odds to the usual stereotype, generating some/the humour of the situation. I think The Thin Blue Line's camp character is a case in point: everyone expected him to be typically, stereotypically gay when actually he is obsessed and completely head-over-heels in love with Maggie Habib. That's already a (potentially) funny set-up before an actual situation has even been created.

Stereotypes usually come about because of the 'it's funny cos it's true' kind of humour. I don't think they should necessarily be seen as a bad thing. We laugh we familiarity. The subtle differences in these characters give us a bit of a surprise and hence we laugh more.

Little Britain mocked the attitudes of Britian very, very well in the beginning, whilst it was a niche programme. Then, when it got *really* popular, the very people it was mocking started liking it, not getting the jokes at all, and began to think it was funny to be homophobic/racist. It was probably approaching a dangerous line at that stage and maybe they should have thought a little more responsibly when it got really huge.

Dan

It's a matter of judgement. The Gay nazi is not at all familiar and is a massive exaggeration, but Jack from Will and Grace is also camp but still human.

Certainly funny cos it's true is a dman good way of putting it.

Chris Moyles endlessly saying gay and being rude about Gareth Gates is proof that civilisation and prehaps evoloution haven't reached the deepest recess of radio.