Independent on Sunday Pink List identifies the “101 most influential gay and lesbian” (NB: not bisexual, not transgender, not queer) “people in Britain today.” Stephen Lovely Fry comes in third on the list.
One can’t deny Mr Fry makes gay people look good. Hell, he makes people look good. Aliens from another planet, witnessing Mr Fry as an example of our species, would get a vastly better impression of us than we deserve.
The list also includes a “Rogues Gallery” of people the Independent doesn’t like. Mr Fry blogs about the list and the Gallery, particularly the Roguifying of Louie Spence:
(I’d like to take this opportunity to note that Mr Spence appears to be a spirited adult, high energy, high intensity, high persistence, high sensitivity. He’s also an extrovert. The classic entertainer temperament.)
So what’s the problem? He “perpetuates a stereotype.” Here is not Mr Fry but rather Mr Fry quoting his friend Mr Kim Harris:
[H]ow quickly these cowardly, self-oppressed, social-climbing McCarthyites forget where they come from. If I remember rightly, the whole Gay Lib thing wasn’t engineered by “real” men at all. It wasn’t sponsored by marines or scaffolders or rugby players. It was ignited by…ah, yes: drag queens[...] They should remember Diversity. They should remember Tolerance. They should remember that in evincing a distaste for effeminacy they’re simply making an exhibition of their own misogyny.
Mr Fry himself says:
By singling out Louie Spence for lofty disapproval, by sneering at his “mincing” they are turning their back on, dissociating themselves from, insulting and demeaning a fine man and whole way of being. An authentic, strong, charming and loveable person, every bit as “courageous” as the others on the list, certainly more courageous than me, Louie deserves respect and support, not insult and derision. Do they want people like him not to count, do they see him as being guilty of a choice in his manner and his demeanour, just as homophobes everywhere accuse all gay people of choosing their sexuality and preferences? How dare they of all people dismiss a gay man in a few contemptuous, bigoted phrases because he doesn’t fit the “type” that they think a gay man should exemplify?
And (my favorite part):
The IoS panel who chose to scorn Louie owe him an apology, and they owe an apology to all like him. There was a time when polari and Julian and Sandy and limp-wristed mincing and winking innuendo were all that came between a certain kind of gay man and his pride, his self-respect and his ability to hold his head high in a hostile world. Read Quentin Crisp’s The Naked Civil Servant or watch John Hurt’s glorious portrayal. It is not the only way for a gay man to be, no one is saying it should be, but it is a wholly proper and acceptable manner (not to mention an often loveable and witty one) and to see it traduced with superiority by the very people who should be supporting and endorsing it sickens me.
Did I mention that Mr Fry makes us all look good?
Finally, for your edificiation, a scene from “Naked Civil Servant” that moves me to tears every time. “I learnt many years ago the golden rule of my life…”
(Keep watching after the courtroom scene to see an instance of the very same queen-bashing perpetrated by the IoS.)
There is no right or wrong way to be gay or straight or bi or fluid or queer. There is no right or wrong way to live in your sexual self. I share Mr Fry and Mr Harris’s sentiments: until our celebration of sexual “diversity” genuinely celebrates diversity, rather than perpetuating patriarchal limits of social acceptability, we haven’t really accepted sexual minorities into the mainstream. Equal rights are not fully realized without equal respect.
so much Yes! It is a very firm belief of mine that you cannot separate sexism from homophobia, that they are both about policing gender roles.
If you haven’t read the Naked Civil Servant, really, really do it.
I shall forever love him as Jeeves. His podcasts and twitters are great too. And he narrates Pocoyo (English version) and some of our children’s books on cd.
Obviously he is 100% correct about people being free to be who they are whether they perpetuate stereotypes or not (so long as it hurts no one…)
I think the thing that makes the Louie Spence clip a bit hard to understand is that it so completely conforms to the stereotype that it seems to be contrived rather than providing any sort of real insight into the person.
What makes people interesting to me is their inconsistancies rather than their consistencies. Of course it is a 90 second look at a person and there is a film maker or at least an editor between that person and the viewer. I would hope that Mr.Spence is more complex than this view of him and what I would be tempted to take him to task for, is allowing a one dimensional interpretation of him to be broadcast to the world.
The clip from the ‘Naked Civil Servant’ at least allows me into the thought process of the person. Perhaps Mr. Spence has come to a similar conclusion, that conforming to the stereotype is a sort of armor against the rest of the world. That would make him much more interesting to me than the clip you chose.
Somehow this video makes me appreciate Mr. Spence a bit more. I think it is because I would not have expected the athleticism. It seems less a parody of himself.
I’ll name you my multimedia editor, get you to select clips for me before I post. I’m inclined to pick based on length.
bad gay! no biscuit!
“I’m inclined to pick based on length.”
Doesn’t technique count for something…?
There is no right or wrong way to be gay or straight or bi or fluid or queer.
Or indeed hetero!
Personally I can’t abide Stephen Fry — no, not because he’s gay, I disliked him before I knew about that. I find him pompous and condescending. But then each to their own!
Sometimes I think it’s impossible for a lot of people to relate to someone else without first labeling them and thereby finding a nice, snug place for them in their mind. And then when we find ourselves given a label that we don’t want to conform to, we lash out against those we perceive as fitting that stereotype, angry that the world sees us as something we are not. Maybe someday we’ll all just live happily with the label “human being,” and that will be enough. But somehow I don’t think we’re really built that way, and the stereotype will always be the most convenient shorthand for relating to one another.
Fry *IS* pompous and condescending. It’s part of his schtick. I still enjoy listening to him.
I think he is neither pompous nor condescending; I think he’s just unashamed of being knowledgeable, and values knowledge. If he’s pompous and condescending, I am more so.
he’s also unashamed of his privilege – the Cambridge education, and almost ludicrous connections to the rich and very famous. That’s probably where the idea of ‘pompous’ comes in. I don’t think he’s pompous, but I definitely see how people might.
I never said it was bad to be pompous; you inferred such.
Honestly, I am shocked at the blatant pompophobia rampant in this thread.
Who said it was bad?
Didn’t you?
My lonely, stalwart vigil against the bane of pompophobia sometimes makes me jump the gun.
Also, it’s my birthday and I am, therefore, a tad more unhinged than usual.
Don’t think you’re off the hook though, Nagoski. I’m watching you. Pompophobia is insidious, pervasive and tenacious. Grandiosity may be our last hope. Well, that and quoting Wilde at every opportunity. Cravats and walking sticks don’t hurt, either.
Btw, saw this and thought of you:
Pingback: In Defense of Lisping, Nelly Screamers | Alas, a blog
Quite right, Mr Fry et al.
There is a spectrum of behaviors and these are totally irrelevant to the sexuality of person concerned. The “mincing, lisping gay” was, and often is, a braver man than the pipe smoking, tweed clad, male, university professor because they dare to be identifiable as the outsider. The flamboyant queer and the pipe smoking, tweed clad dyke were (and depending on location, are) both subject to threats, violence, prejudice and intimidation.
I remember listening to Jules and Sandy on “Round the Horne” at the tender age of 12 and being entranced by “Polari”. Later it was explained to me that these were men who liked men, but there was no implication of any threat to my person or to my own sexual identity. Indeed it would be hard to regard Jules or Sandy or any of their imitators as a threat to anything and, given their popularity, perhaps this assisted the comparatively easy passage of the “Sexual Offenses Act 1967″.
Later on in life I did meet “Lisping, Nelly Screamers”, and indeed both leather and tweed clad dykes, and thought of them as neither more than, nor less than, “people”.