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So now I know why I'm all purple and got a triangle on my head!!! We all have purple triangles on our heads, haven't we...but I wonder, doesn't the American religious right got any real work to do? Is blabbermouthing about nonsense the only job they have???
I wondered what was the name of the actor who played the gay character in "Soap" - of course it was Billy Crystal! Thanks for the info! And I remembered the name of the character was Jodie something - of course Jodie Dallas!!!
On British TV in the 1970's all 'gay' characters were camp comedy stereotypes, like Dick Emery, and 'Are you being served', John Inman, also Larry Grayson as well. Mostly they existed as cyphers with a 'catch phrase' repeated ad nauseum. the irony being that frankie howerd in 'up pompeii' was very popular and gay, but in the closet still.
the 1990's and beyond were revolutionary by comparison, 'Queer as F**k', 'The buddha of suburbia' and Julian Clary.
well it had to start somewhere....
On British TV in the 1980's gay characters appeared in drama series, such as 'Brideshead revisited', based on a novel with the gay character already a part of the story. Unhinged obviously, but at least not just an add on, Sebastian Flyte. however there is a class bias here, upper class /rich people were supposed to be effete. Sebastian becomes an alcoholic and flees to morocco, thereby fulfilling two stereotypical expectations at he same time, 'drunk and unreliable in a foreign country with loose morals'.
by the mid-1980's and the advent of new long term soap operas and Channel Four;(publicly funded with a remit to cater for minority audiences), 'Brookside' had a gay character who was subjected to homophobic bullying.
'EastEnders' a BBC soap opera had so may stereotypes anyway that a gay one was hardly noticed. Although Colin (Michael Cashman, gay), had relationships and a 'normal' soap life, he was a middle-class outsider who had moved to the working class east end of London. Cashman went on to have a real political life as an activist and MEP, so used his known status to good effect.
Interesting footnote: British TV had a children's TV series, 'Byker Grove', which had a gay teen character called Noddy (1989-95). Age of consent in the UK was still 21 years at that time and not changed to 18 years until 1994. So a gay teen in a childrens programme was a real advance.
Most gay characters have to live screwed up lives not normative ones, of course, to be 'accepted' by the mainstream, but also reflects the outsider nature of their status. better in the mainstream consciousness as screwed up as the heterosexual characters than not existing at all.
Also should not forget, 'Oranges are not the only fruit' (1990), based on Jeanette Winterson's great novel, about life in an evangelist christian environment. Main character Jess, a lesbian is supported by a gay teacher. In small ways these early dramas created an environment that enabled later programmes to exist.
There are lots of people in Sweden thinking that the 1981 version of "Brideshead Revisited" with Anthony Andrewes and Jeremy Irons is the best drama serial ever - and I'm one of them!!!
There was a British serial called "This Life" starting in 1996 (I think) and bought by Swedish TV (Swedish title: "Livet kan börja") which I followed faithfully & thought it was lovely to watch. It was about a group of professional twenty-somethings living in a house in London, and the homo boy was a dark black-haired Welsh guy who was in many ways the nicest guy in the gang. I mean the kind of guy always there to help the others when they are in need. But he was also - in the later episodes - "allowed" to get a sexy boyfriend, a ginger scot!
Hrmm...mikk do you have any idea what I'm talking about, "This Life"?
Thx haiducii and gorgik9 for your comments on my paltry efforts.
However,
'This Life' was a good series on the BBC, as a response to all the good drama on Ch4. The gay character Warren, was a rounded one who played a strong role. The series focused on each of the friends and their lives.
'As If' was also a Channel4 series that was ground breaking in many ways with a strong gay male character, Alex. It had six main characters and each episode focused on one of them.
Brideshead was a good series, but its class based nature was a flaw for me, but it was quality TV series.
'The Buddha of Suburbia' (1993) mini-series with music by david bowie. this featured a central anglo-indian youth, who faces racism, parents and sexual discovery as a bi-sexual man. So not strictly gay, but a great comic coming-of-age story from Hanif Kureshi's novel. Kureshi also wrote 'Beautiful laundrette'(1985), which was a great feelgood TVmovie that overcomes discrimination, anglo-indian upbringing, and a multi-racial gay relationship. Its also funny.
Both of these are worth the effort of finding and watching, and the books are good too.
So apologies for taking over the thread, back to the experts.
Thx haiducii and gorgik9 for your comments on my paltry efforts.
However,
'This Life' was a good series on the BBC, as a response to all the good drama on Ch4. The gay character Warren, was a rounded one who played a strong role. The series focused on each of the friends and their lives.
'As If' was also a Channel4 series that was ground breaking in many ways with a strong gay male character, Alex. It had six main characters and each episode focused on one of them.
Brideshead was a good series, but its class based nature was a flaw for me, but it was quality TV series.
Yes of course - his name was Warren! I liked "This Life" very much, but Alex from "As If" was totally a new aquaintance to me.
I had thought to ask you if "The Bhudda of suburbia" was a kind of TV serial version of Hanif Kureishi's novel, which of course it was/is, and I think I got the Swedish translation in one of my book shelves.
I also fully agree with you about Stephen Frears' wonderful movie "My beautiful laundrette", written by Kureishi and with Daniel Day Lewis and Gordon Warneke in the leading roles.
One of the scenes I remeber especially is a scene on the pavement outside the launderette, when DDL sticks out his tounge and licks Warneke's neck. It's so sexy, and this was 1986 (or was it 85 ?), in the middle of the worst AIDS crisis. DDL got balls!!!
And please mikk! You don't do anything wrong when you make some posts in this thread; your posts are so relevant and interesting:thumbs up:
Not to hijack this great thread but the question I have are the extras from each of Da Silva's films worth tracking down? It seems almost every film has them.
Not to hijack this great thread but the question I have are the extras from each of Da Silva's films worth tracking down? It seems almost every film has them.
That is not what I see on ADS site. This is listed for quite a few of them.
BANKERS EXTRAS, additional footage from the film BANKERS
SOLOS EXTRAS, including 50 min of extra footage from the film SOLOS
BEACH 19 EXTRAS, including 15 min of extra footage from the film BEACH 19
LIMANAKIA EXTRAS, including 39 min of extra footage from the film LIMANAKIA
CARIOCAS EXTRAS, including 6 min of extra footage from the film CARIOCAS
GINGERS EXTRAS, including 40 min of extra footage from the film GINGERS
DANCERS EXTRAS, including 20 min of extra footage from the film DANCERS
(1984)... Joe Waters is an ex-place kicker for the Philadelphia Eagles. Now retired, he's opened up a restaurant. Lou is his older brother, a gruff construction worker. Both Joe and Lou receive the shock of their lives when their kid brother Cliff reveals that he's gay. Humorous situations follow as Joe and Lou alternately try to accept Cliff's homosexuality or cure him of it.
I've posted episodes in the past and others have as well. The show followed the typical 80s sitcom formula, but with several gay characters. A lot of it would be considered offensive stereo-typing, but in terms of 30s years ago, it looks pretty radical.
No, I didn't know about "Brothers" and I can say that serials, soaps and sitcoms originally aired in the 1980's is my big black hole in TV history...
The reason is that the 1980s to large part was my time as a university student, with the kind of economy uni students usually have, so I couldn't afford buying my own TV set and paying the TV licence (Swedish TV is licence financed).
But an even more important reason was the kind of very active social life a had with my good friends from uni; let's say watching tellie wasn't among our favourite pastime...
And then of course there was all the sweet cocksucking to do...
This will be my last regular post before Christmas and New Year, but haiducii will make a regular post next weekend, and in January 2016 this thread has been going on for precisely one year !!!
I came to think of one of the true giants of modern gat popular culture, and I thought to myself I should be ashamed if I didn't make a single particular post about this spectacular man. Before 1970s gay porn there was the movies of Peter de Rome, and before Peter there was Bob - to be fully accurate: Robert Henry "Bob" Mizer (1922-1992).
Bob was born in 1922 but didn't come to live in Los Angeles til his mother Delia Mizer took him and his older brother Joseph there, became LA residents and bought an estate with a rooming house where people could rent a room for the night or longer periods of time. I really don't know if there ever was a named father in Bob's life, or if the father just was a guy who gave Delia some sperms. But there's no question who was the boss of the Mizer household: Delia.
Bob started as an apprentice in Fred Kovert's photo shop and studio in 1942, so he begun early on as a professional photographer in general and a physique photographer in particular; Fred Kovert's commercial pseudomym was "Kovert of Hollywood", just like there had been a "Lon of New York" (Alonzo Hanagan) before him and a "Bruce of Los Angeles" after him.
In 1945 Delia Mizer allowed her son to set up his own photo studio called Athletic Model Guild in a room in the big rooming house, but in a couple of years (1947) Bob got very unlucky with the US Post Office in a way very typical of the times; he was accused for sending "obscene material" by mail and got 6 months in jail.
Let's talk a bit in more general terms: What was Physique photography, how had it emerged and in what way did the owners of physique studios make money, what was the kernel of their business?
A short history of Physique Photography.
As a genre of photography, physique photo was a child of the late Victorian era, but as a commercial speciality (meaning: photo studios making their money only or at least mostly on physique photo) it emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, and the basic reasons were two: first bodybuilding had started becoming a popular new sport and gyms were popping up like mushrooms in most American cities.
Second :to enhance and popularize the new sport even more, many bodybuilding magazines were founded and put out on the market in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, having typical titles like Muscle Builder, Strength & Health,(to become the biggest and most influential of them all and published by Bob Hoffman from 1932 on), Your Physique and Physical Culture to name just a few.
I don't think it's hard to understand that the new physique magazines needed to get in touch with classy physique photographers, and in particular for the magazine covers, but to be honest the magazines and the studios had diverging interests in a way that from the late 1940s would get them into a sore conflict.
I'll do my best to explain what it was all about: the magazines wanted high class photos for their covers, but the photographers didn't get many dollars pay. The real pay off was that the studios got free advertising space in the back pages of the magazine, where the studio was free to advertise their catalogue of physique photos. And - lo and behold! - it just so happened that the fully nude physiques were the most popular.
But the US Post Office clamped down fiercly on the physique magasines from the late 1940s on, telling them in no uncertain terms that if they didn't stop carrying advertisements for physique studios, the Post Office wouldn't accept carrying the magazines by mail, so the Post Master General was about to make war on two thriving businesses, the physique magazines and the physique photographers.
The magazines had it easier than the photographers to comply with the Post Office demands, but the studios felt their throats being cut and some physique photographers put up a fierce fight. When Bob Mizer started publishing his own magazine Physique Pictorial in November 1951, he didn't just construct a new channel to get in touch with his customers and not be fully dependant on the traditional physique magazines; he showed many other photographers how to do the same and thereby founding a new genre: the photographer owned physique magazine.
Bob Mizer as movie maker.
While photography and publishing Physique Pictorial must always be the basis for any serious discussion of Bob Mizer and his work, this post will concentrate on a part of his production probably still - in my opinion - too little known: Bob Mizer as a movie maker.
When Mizer started making 8mm and 16mm short physique films in 1953, he actually wasn't the first. Richard Fontaine (b. 1923) had started making physique shorts as early as 1949 and he had several production companies in the 1950s and 60s, and in the early 1960s there were several physique studios getting into production of 8mm shorts.
However it's important to not pretend that the production of physique films was of the same magnitude as the magnitude of physique photography. While there were more than 200 physique studios in the 1960s just in the US - to add up with all studios in Canada, Latin America, Great Britain, France, Scandinavia and other countries - there never were more than adout a dozen physique film producers, and most of them with a much smaller production than AMG.
Bob Mizer made about a million - 1000.000 - photos and about 3000 films, and on top of that many dozens of hours of video master tapes. Former F4lc0n Stud1o photographer Dennis Bell aquired the Mizer estate with its gigantic archive, containing also lots of letters to-and-fro Bob Mizer and many decades of private diaries.
Let's end this post with a Merry Christmas from me to all of you, and a direct link to a movie abput the moviemaking on AMG. This little movie was made in 1990, so its from a time when Bob himself was still alive, though he doesn't show up.
I had a long thread on Physique Photography and the photographers in autumn 2011, and I still think it's quality reading, so if you wanna know a bit more about Bob Mizer, Lon of New York, Bruce of Los Angeles, Dave Martin, Don Whitman, Chuck Renslow, Walter Kundzicz, Pat Milo and many others I can recommend my Vintage Physique-thread : http://www.gayheaven.org/showthread.php?t=220738
