Gay in the UK video blog (Ep. 9): Fred Phelps wants the UK to know that God hates the cigarettes

Seriously? They're only paying Matt that per year? I mean, I know it's not Hollywood, but this is one of the top franchises in UK, if not the world. He's an unknown, but still, to an American who's used to seeing stars of huge franchises make $600k or more per episode, that just sounds pathetic.

Gonna miss you two for the vacation - you and Daniel are the only vlogs left I follow. Have fun!

First off, I love watching your blog. I don't know if you guys have heard about it, but Kanye West recently said that he thinks being called gay should be a compliment; so maybe the "South Carolina is so gay" ads shouldn't have caused such an uproar (although since it did, you can sort of see how far off we are from having "gay" being used as a compliment).

I did have a sort of question for you guys also. Last summer I went on a Mediterranean Cruise out of Southampton, and so, as you can imagine, a majority of the people onboard were from the UK. While onboard, I met a gay English couple in their late 20s/early 30s that I talked with throughout the cruise. They sort of said that in terms of being gay-friendly, that the US and UK were pretty much the same; it's just that the UK likes to act like it's much more progressive than it really is. My ignorance on the subject made me pretty much silent. In the past couple months I've started visiting sites like AfterElton.com and PinkNews.co.uk, and it seems to me like the UK (or at the very least England) is a much more gay-friendly place than the US. To sort of get another British perspective on the subject, what are your thoughts?

Oh, and I loved the bit about Fred Phelps and God's stance on cigarettes.

I think of the fact that the UK has a much smaller population than the U.S. makes it an unfair comparison in many ways. Perhaps compare the U.K. to a singular State like Utah and you see striking differences, in the number of foreign born immigrants, citizens rights and well, anything that isn't crazy Mormon. The United States was originally conceived of as separate states like countries in Europe. Compare a United Europe to the United States and then Utah might have more in common with Poland.

I've always felt that the U.K. is more like N.Y. with the beautiful countryside and vibrant city where others have said Berlin is the European N.Y, they all have much in common.

What I L.U.V. about you chaps is that I always feel like I am a kid sitting in your room and chatting about boys and things and boys. Charming. Or should I say I am charmed.

 

Tim, I absolutely agree with you in regards to your comment about Gus Van Sant during the Milk review. That is pretty much the exact same response I give when anybody asks me my opinion of Milk. I too love the Phelps commentary - such a ridiculous family. They sent some of their lovely family members over to my area a few years ago during the whole Gwen Arajo murder that coincided with Newark Memorial High putting on a Laramie Project performance as well. Ever watch any of the videos of commentators interviewing Shirley Phelps-Roper? I have a hard time deciding if they're downright hilarious or scary beyond all reason (maybe leaning a bit more toward the latter)...

Thanks for your kind words. Yes, I agree, it's an unfair comparison. And I found London/NY/Berlin to be quite similar (and love them all). I'm quite sheltered in my cosmopolitan existence, and don't get any negative attitudes which might be more of an issue to someone working in a Welsh countryside construction site (off the top of my head - not that I'm badmouthing Wales, I love you too x) I also think that gay content programming reflects that and is mostly set in gay friendly environments - like big cities. See Queer as Folk - Manchester and almost anything set in London will be filled with gays (I think we make up about a sixth of the populous). But sub-urban/country queer life is largely unexplored outside of token characters in soaps. Beautiful People is firmly set in suburbia, but quite fantasy based. Skins is in Bristol (which is not the biggest of cities compared to the rest of the UK, but the biggest in the south west and has a very modern and liberal feel - i went to uni in Devon and love that area). I talk about this with novels a lot, the realistic ones tend to be city based, while the country set stories give way to romanticism, It's especially evident in the dual set realities of Alan Holinghurst (who despite winning awards for The Line of Beauty, I think is trash). OK, I'm rambling now - whenever I start talking about lit it means I've strayed.

GUS VAN SANT - Yes, I didn't get time to say anything about him. I think you either love the room he gives his actors to exist, and read into that, or find his approach excruciatingly dull, creepily voyeuristic and devoid of commentary (guess which one I prescribe to?). I also find his obsession with pretty young boys a bit much. I felt nothing for the duration of Elephant, which in turn only served to make me feel guilty about the fact that I'd watched what seemed like a snuff movie. PSYCHO - the most pointless remake ever??? Last Days - well I wanted to kill myself too, so maybe that was a success?

PHELPS - as far as I know they haven't made it over. We do have laws forbidding entry to the country of anyone suspected of promoting hatred. most recently a Dutch filmmaker was refused entry because he was promoting his anti-Muslim film. In my opinion, it served to give him greater publicity, when his visit would have gone largely ignored (except by the few who already have prejudices) - but the media reaction was so overblown that he got the coverage he wanted anyway. It's a difficult law to enforce, because it's such an ambiguous crime and tends to infringe on free speech. I do think if Phelps made it over here, it's quite likely he'd get lynched, that is, if the press jump on him like they did the Dutch man. But there's a reason why that media reaction won't happen - Islamaphobia vs Homophobia - one sells more papers - guess which. And it's not just the media, the police have been accused of double standards recently, in allowing rappers to perform homophobic lyrics, even though, under the same laws forbidding entry to the Dutch man, they should not have been allowed on the grounds of incitement to hatred. They argue, they're representing their culture. You see why this is a minefield?

DON'T PRESS THIS LINK!!!!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_JiB4N-0Ro

(Too late)

 Dennis Cooper and I are at loggerheads over this one. it drives him to distraction (and I don't mean Distraction Arizona) whereas I love it, and it's my cat Kuro's favorite movie.

 

The camera is an invention created for the primary purpose of glamorizing pretty young boys.

First time I've watched your blog. You are great fun! Fred Phelps actually serves a useful purpose here in the U.S. He has probably done more than anyone to get people who otherwise wouldn't give gay issues a second thought to take a stand for us. Here in my little home town (35 thousand people) he threatened to picket a college production of "The Laramie Project," and hundreds of straight people showed-up to counter-protest. Then he didn't come at all. I can't believe they show "American Idol" over there. I apologize. But then, maybe you should be apologizing for Simon Cowell. There is nothing on earth that would induce me to watch that celebration of bad music and worse singing. Mariah Carey has a lot to answer for. Her marriage of gospel screaming and vacuous power-ballads has infected pop music to such an extent, it is terminal, and should be terminated. Gus Van Sant's work is certainly uneven. He wavers between highly experimental work, and banal mainstream pap, like "Good Will Hunting." From what I have seen, "Milk" leans toward the latter. Personally, I think his best work is "Drugstore Cowboy," the best movie about drug addicts ever made. I don't really get the criticism of him glorifying pretty boys. Is he supposed to cast ugly guys just so he won't seem "too gay?" Are straight directors required to cast ugly women? It's been so long since I've been in England, I can't comment about the differences in attitude toward gay people. It is certainly true that generalizing about the U.S. is much less likely to be valid, given the size and diversity of the population. I can only say that the changes that have occured just in my lifetime have been astounding. So much so that I get annoyed with the impatience of younger gays, who don't have the historical perspective to realize how far we have already come. When I was a boy, a local teacher was murdered because he "touched" a hitchhiker he picked-up. The pervasive attitude was: "Well, he deserved it." From that to civil unions in forty years? That's incredible. So I can't get too worked-up because of a legal set-back or two. On the other hand, it was certainly much more fun to be gay in the seventies and eighties than it is today. The bars have mostly vanished, everyone is sitting at home chatting online, and the overall goal seems to be to become as much like straight people as possible. We don't even lead the trends in popular culture the way we used to. (Look at "American Idol." That's what happens when straight people set the standards. Vulgarity without irony.)