Britain: The bipolar nation

Originally posted on www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

If you haven't already noticed this week has seen a mass of snow descend upon the entire of the UK, and to say it has been met with a mass of mixed and somewhat strange responses would be an understatement.

Throughout the month of December during the build up to Christmas most people for some reason like the famous song says dream of a white Christmas only to be met with grave disappointment when once again all we get is heavy rain, wind and freezing cold temperatures. We then have to endure the disappointment that these people spread through social media about how gutted they are. Lets be honest we haven't actually had a white Christmas in quite some time as we all know here in the UK it won't actually come until January or February just like it has done in recent years, and given how bad it has been recently you wonder why people do get so excited.

Well as usual January has come along and the snow has come out in full force to put a stop to everything that we would usually do on a day to day basis, you have to wonder how people in countries such as Russia or Norway cope with the amount of snow they get throughout the year, I mean you never hear about those countries coming to a complete stand still do you?

Well I must say that I am probably one of the only people who dislikes snow and I've stuck to this for a long time, so much so that when it did fall last week I came close to avoiding my Facebook, Twitter and especially my Instagram account due to the number of tweets, status updates and pointless pictures of snow covered cars there were, as if people think I can't actually look out of my window and see it for myself.

So what does Britain do during this time, apart from updating their entire friend list about every snowy step they take? Well after the initial few hours of excitement as it falls where they throw face destroying lumps of ice at each other in the form of snowballs, build snowmen that never look like the ones in films as they have some type of road attached to them and enjoy the novelty that is snow, they soon turn from happy snow dancing hippies in a cynical moaning bipolar country that hates snow and never wants to see it again.

Yes we all know what happens, two days later when it begins to turn to suspiciously yellow and brown looking slush and ice the country panic buys every loaf of bread and pint of milk that's around because there's the possibility they may get snowed in. This for a start ruins everything for normal people as you can't have a cup of tea or a piece of toast as someone somewhere is sat with a panic room filled with bread and milk that will expire long before the snow has finally left our streets.

Now they're all sat there moaning that the snow won't leave, they can't get to work because it would probably be an 8 hour trek to get there, which in some cases means no pay and are anxiously praying to the Facebook and Twitter gods for it to go away. In other words they are finally realising why I hate snow in the first place and never wanted it to come.

It's not just snow that endures this but summer as well. You've probably seen some of these ex-snow lovers now praying for some warmth and sun, who are now saying they can't wait for summer. Well we all know what will happen in the summer, everyone will be excited about the sun but then moan about it two days later because it's too hot and the heat of their work office is getting too much for them. This is coming from a country where people will pay hundreds and hundreds of pounds to go to Spain for two weeks.

Lets just face it, no one in this country is ever happy, if we could save the economy from our ability to want something and then continue to moan about how much we hate it when we've got it we would never have entered a recession in the first place, in fact we'd probably be the most powerful country there is.

So for now we will just have to suck it up and deal with the snow and wait for it to go so we can be happy, that is until next year when everyone wets themselves with excitement at the first sight of a flake of snow. There's just no winning.

The production code may have come down but we still aren't mainstream

Originally published on www.biggaypictureshow.com

After the production code was brought in during the 1930s it became much harder to show several different things on the Hollywood Screen.

There were restrictions on the length of time a couple could be seen kissing, whether you could show a couple in bed together, even a scene from Disney’s Snow White had to be cut because she was shown in bed with the seven dwarfs, and then there was the restriction of showing homosexuals on screen due to what was know as sex perversion.

However after existing in Hollywood for over thirty years the final part of the code, which just happened to be the section concentrating on sex perversion, came down in 1968, finally allowing homosexual characters to be shown in Hollywood films.

There had been gay characters shown in films prior to 1968, but these films were from countries such as Italy and Great Britain, but with the dominance of the Hollywood film they hadn’t made enough of a global impact.

After the production code had fully come down gay people were finally being shown in some films, but we had a very odd portrayal as throughout the 1970s and 80s we were mainly shown in a negative light, usually as villains or victims.

As the 1990s came around gay people finally began to get a slightly better portrayal, that meaning that we weren’t necessarily tragic or villains, as we were now cast in the role of the ‘gay best friend’ in several Hollywood rom-coms, where we minced about helping our girl friends shop for the perfect shoes. Hello stereotype. But we were far from leading characters.

Over this period of time we were getting more of a leading role in some independent films such as My Own Private Idaho by Gus Van Sant, but these were seen by limited audiences and we were once again just missing out on the mainstream, and we weren’t leads in big blockbuster films.

It wasn’t until the 2000s with the release of Brokeback Mountain that we finally saw a mainstream Hollywood Blockbuster depict two gay men as the lead characters, alas they were very tragic figures but it was a true portrayal of the time. But since this we have still not seen many big Hollywood films featuring gay characters as leads.

Yes there was Milk and The Kids are Alright that both garnered much success, but this is only two where there could have been many more.

Maybe its Hollywood’s fear of not appealing to a big enough audience or maybe it is the fear of the actors to not be seen as gay and alienate a large section of their audiences, that we will never know.

But what we can see is, whilst these fears hover around behind the doors of Hollywood it looks as though we haven’t come tremendously far in the last 40 years, so maybe we will just have to wait another 40 and live with the fact that we do have exposure in many indie films these days. Every little counts after all.

We remember: Milk

Originally posted on www.differentscene.co.uk

This week for Different Scene’s We Remember section I’m going to be looking at a film that was released just a few years ago but has already had a significant impact on the gay community, and that film is Milk.

The 2008 film was directed by Gus Van Sant and written by Dustin Lance Black and was quite a critical and commercial hit. It grossed $54 million at the box office and won two Academy Awards, including best actor for Sean Penn as Harvey Milk.

Released on the cusp of the Californian voter referendum on Proposition 8, that sought to ban gay marriage, the film couldn’t have come at a better time as Milk tells the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected into public office in California, demonstrating how back in the 1970s people were willing to have a gay man in office. It begins on his 40^th birthday and follows him as he settles in San Francisco and begins his journey into city politics were he waged various battles for gay rights and equality in the Castro neighbourhood and throughout San Francisco, it also looks at the political campaigns that sought to limit gay rights during the late 1970s that Milk also battled against.

As the film progresses it explores Milk’s romantic relationship with Scott Smith, which is truly touching in the movie and was played impeccably by both Sean Penn as Milk and James Franco as Smith. The film ultimately ends with the untimely tragic death of Harvey Milk who was murdered by Dan White.

The film itself is shot amazingly and the screenplay and acting is brilliant, as it flips through real life footage from the 1970s back to the present day film acting you can’t help but get engrossed. This film brought the name of a hugely influential, courageous and forward thinking man back into the mainstream, because lets face it Harvey Milk was remembered amongst a lot of people in the gay community, but there were people from a younger generation and people from the straight community who wouldn’t have known who he was, but this film brought him back to life, and for those who haven’t seen footage of the real Harvey Milk go and watch it because you will be stunned at how realistic the film is when compared.

This is why this film is in the We Remember section this week, because not only did it put gay characters back on the big screen and show that films with gay characters can and do perform well at the box office and at award shows, but it also allowed Harvey Milk’s name to live on once again, and show what great things he did for our community.