In the 1990s, gay storylines were all the rage in mainstream television; now they are all but non-existent. Campaigners accuse broadcasters of failing to reflect modern Britain.
Remember that lesbian kiss on Brookside? And the first episode of the groundbreaking gay drama Queer as Folk? There was a period, in the 1990s, when television seemed to be ahead of the curve with its brave and humane treatment of homosexuality. A few years later, however, there's barely a gay storyline to be found on all of Britain's major channels. The relationship between broadcasters and gay campaigning organisations is on the rocks, with the BBC standing accused of being the worst offender.
The gay campaigning organisation Stonewall recently monitored prime-time programming on BBC1 and BBC2 over two weeks and found that, during 168 hours of programming, there were just six minutes that portrayed lesbian and gay lives in a positive manner, as opposed to 32 minutes involving negative terms or contexts. More than half of all the gay references were jokes about sexually pre datory or camp and effeminate gay men. "Gay and lesbian licence payers provide the BBC with £200m every year," says Stonewall's chief executive, Ben Summerskill. "For that, we get 'the last gay in the village' on Little Britain and a hint that Captain Jack in Doctor Who might sleep with men as well as women. Even heterosexual respondents in our focus groups who didn't know any gay people said they expected to meet lifestyles they were unfamiliar with on the BBC. It's just not happening."
The relationship between the BBC and gay campaigners was poisoned in 2005 when the Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles used the word "gay" in a derogatory sense during his live breakfast show. Following a complaint, the BBC board of governors ruled that Moyles was "not being homophobic in his use of the word", as it was "often now used to mean 'lame' or 'rubbish'". According to Summerskill, the corporation is in denial about the depth of its institutional homophobia. "If you talk to the corporation about representation of gay and lesbian people they won't even admit there's a problem," he says.
The New Statesman took Summerskill's comments to the BBC and made a formal request for an interview to deal with each criticism in turn. The BBC chose instead to issue the following statement: "We believe there is a great deal of richness and diversity in BBC output across television, radio and online. We are committed to finding ways of reflecting the audience's daily lives in our programmes, but we feel the notion that gay men and lesbians only receive value for money from the licence fee through seeing direct representation of gay life is misconceived. Gay men and lesbians do of course enjoy our output across the board."
For Summerskill, this is not an adequate defence. "We've been talking to the BBC for two years about this and [the response] shows they haven't listened to a word," he says. "It confirms the trite notion that gay people should be grateful that the Ten O'Clock News is on at all - and shouldn't cause a fuss if they're simply never covered by it. I guess it is emblematic of the problems at the heart of the BBC in understanding this diverse and complex nation."
Other mainstream broadcasters are much better at rep resenting the gay community, Stone wall argues. "Coronation Street [on ITV] and Hollyoaks [on Channel 4] both have strong gay characters with storylines that aren't just about coming out," says Ben Summerskill. "Rather counter-intuitively, ITV seems to be doing its best by putting a gay war-hero son and his boyfriend in Victoria Wood's Housewife 49 and updating the Miss Marple mysteries to include lesbian characters.
"Even Channel 5 usually includes a selection of salacious gay references in its usual smut."
There are, indeed, honourable exceptions to the general decline in television coverage of homosexuality. Most notably this year, Channel 4 has programmed a season to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexual acts between consenting gay men. The season's centrepiece, Clapham Junction, is a drama inspired by the murder of Jody Dobrowski, manager of a Camden comedy club, on Clapham Common, south London, in 2005. The season includes three other programmes: A Very British Sex Scandal, a docudrama about the controversial 1954 trial of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu and Peter Wildeblood which prompted the change in legislation; How Gay Sex Changed the World, a documentary about the progress of the gay rights movement over the past 40 years; and Queer As Old Folk, a look at the present-day lives of gay men who came of age when homosexuality was still illegal.
Beautifully shot and tightly scripted, Clapham Junction revolves around five separate stories of gay life in London over a hot summer weekend. Starring Paul Nicholls and Samantha Bond, it is scripted by Kevin Elyot, who is best known for his 1994 play My Night With Reg, one of the first stage productions to address the spread of HIV and Aids in the UK. Elyot explains that one of the aims of Clapham Junction was to show that the past 40 years have not been a time of unadulterated success for the gay rights movement. "While there seems to be a greater acceptance of gays in society - consent equality, civil partnerships, higher media visibility - homophobic violence has not disappeared," he says. "Bigotry is still bubbling just below the surface, and sometimes in the most surprising quarters."
Ironically, it seems that one of these quarters is television. The Channel 4 season is the only programming across all five main channels this year to deal with gay and lesbian issues. The channel scrapped its post of gay and lesbian commissioning editor at the turn of the century, and insists that ghetto programming is not the solution. However, in mainstream dramas, gay characters have been becoming less and less common since the late 1990s. Richard Bevan, TV reviewer for the lesbian and gay website Rainbow Network, argues that positive gay characters on television are especially important for children struggling with their sexuality.
"We've moved on since the Seventies, when the only portrayal of homosexuality was John Inman and the occasional tranny in a Sweeney episode," says Bevan. "There were no role models for gay people, particularly young gay people, living in an era when homosexuality was seen as deviant, seedy, unwholesome or something to pity. No kid at school in those days would ever own up to being queer, because they didn't want to be associated with the kind of creatures that were meant to represent homosexuality on screen."
Bevan acknowledges that most broadcasters are more likely to include gay characters in soap operas today than they were in the past. He points out, however, that many of the strongest gay characters are actually from US imports - which indicates that the religious right does not have as tight a hold on the chief US regulator, the Federal Communications Commission, as we might have feared. Gay characters in American programmes broadcast on British television in the past few years include Will and Jack in Will and Grace, David and Keith in Six Feet Under, Andrew Van de Kamp in Desperate Housewives, Marc in Ugly Betty, Dr Kerry Weaver in ER and, most recently, Kevin in Brothers and Sisters. There are also secondary characters in such shows as The Sopranos and My Name is Earl.
Damon Romine, entertainment media director for the US Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, is pessimistic about the prospects for commissions. "When you look at the American broadcast networks, gay and lesbian char acters represent slightly more than 1 per cent of all the characters on TV," he says. "The networks really have failed to capitalise on the visibility and discussion about our lives that has gone on for the past couple of years. Brokeback Mountain, Capote and Transamerica found audiences anxious to see our stories. Will and Grace showed that a series with gay characters can be popular, yet the networks really have not developed any series to capitalise on this success. The ABC channel, with Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty and Brothers and Sisters, is the only exception."
Thus, as Channel 4 begins its season, an event that should be a reason for celebration is actually a cause for concern. According to government figures, roughly 6 per cent of the UK's population is gay. But gay people are still woefully under-represented across all national TV channels, and most seriously on the BBC, which should be leading the way.
"A Very British Sex Scandal" kicks off Channel 4's gay season on 21 July (9pm). "Clapham Junction" will be broadcast on 22 July (10pm); the drama will be followed by a debate about gay characters on screen. "Queer As Old Folk" goes out on 26 July (11.05pm)
40 years of screen queens
1970s Mr Humphries in the BBC comedy Are You Being Served? became a gay icon, though - as John Inman (left), the actor who played Humphries, observed - his sexuality was never explicitly stated. The character was less popular with some gay rights groups, which objected to his stereotypically mincing walk and high-pitched catchphrase: "I'm free!"
1980s The long-running Australian drama Prisoner: Cell Block H featured several lesbian characters in admirably nuanced roles. It became a cult hit across the world.
1990s The first lesbian kiss on UK prime-time television was between Beth Jordache, played by Anna Friel (below left), and Margaret Clemence, played by Nicola Stephenson, on Brookside in 1993. It caused so much controversy that it was cut from the omnibus edition later in the week.
2000s Little Britain introduced Daffyd, "the only gay in the village", played by Matt Lucas (facing page). Daffyd obsessively accuses bystanders of homophobia, in a role strongly criticised by gay rights campaigners.
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