The Gay Community

The title of this post is meant to be ironic – since I don’t really believe that there is such a thing as "the gay community", any more than there is a "left-handed community". It’s a convenient label for folks to use – a form of shorthand that immediately conjures up, for good or ill, some aspects of people who belong to a particular group.

 

As an illustration, take the story in today’s Observer: Gays Who Shape Our New Britain. Reading the thumbnail sketches of the 20 individuals named does not give me a sense that they all belong to a "gay community" – they are simply 20 talented individuals who have stamped their mark on UK society in a variety of areas, and who happen to be gay. It’s interesting that even in 2005, the Observer notes that they had to drop three people from the list because the people concerned are unwilling to be known publicly as gay. I bet I know who two of the three are; the "senior government adviser" I have no idea about, because I have no knowledge of political circles.

 

Today’s Observer turns out to be a veritable convoy of gay buses, all turning up at once. As well as the article mentioned above, there’s also a piece from Adam Mars-Jones on Brokeback Mountain and an article from Sir Elton John. 

 

Mars-Jones dissects Hollywood’s uneasy relationship with gays very well (for a wider trawl through Tinsel Town’s history, I can thoroughly recommend Vito Russo’s Celluloid Closet, a book that unfortunately stops at 1980 because of Russo’s untimely death). Mars-Jones is right to be suspicious of Hollywood. If you want to read a full-fledged rant on this topic, then I can heartily recommend Charles Karel Bouley II’s bucketful of bile in The Advocate. He hits the target fair and square.

 

Finally, Sir Elton’s piece surprised me with its considered, and activist, nature. Perhaps I’m guilty of using shorthand labels a bit too readily myself, and pigeon-holing Sir Elton merely as a disgustingly rich drama queen celebrity. He’s more than just a one-dimensional caricature – just like the rest of us humans.