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Wipeout Homophobia on Facebook
Not even the widely watched, anti-gay Fox News Channel could escape its powerful grasp. A few days after California Judge Vaughn Walker overturned Proposition 8, California’s now infamous gay marriage ban, Fox News posted a poll on its website. By a wide margin, the channel’s viewers disagreed with this decision. That changed when Kevin Patrick O’Neil posted a link to the poll at his wildly popular Facebook page. Almost immediately, thousands and thousands of O’Neil’s closest friends participated in the poll.
As of August 9th, 2010, 72% of poll voters supported Judge Walker’s decision. Rupert Murdoch is undoubtedly a very unhappy camper.
O’Neil, a resident of Durham, England, has much to be proud of. In the three months since he launched Wipeout Homophobia on Facebook, the Facebook page has been given the thumbs up by an impressive 45,000 friends! The page has quickly become one a worldwide gathering place for LGBT people. WHOF is a page that gets things done.
A few days after the Fox poll victory, O’Neil posted a link to a petition with a most important goal: saving the life of a gay man in Iran who was sentenced to death for the “crime” of being gay. Again, page members jumped in and helped.
The origins of WHOF are simple. O’Neil got tired of all the anti-gay, racist and sexist FB pages that were being posted by various hate groups and individuals. He found that by reporting these pages to the FB powers that be, they were deleted. Going on the United We Stand theory, O’Neil created WHOF for the express purpose of turning his efforts into a community activity.
The response was stunning. Hundreds of people from around the world signed on every day. And it continues.
One week ago, the membership stood at 40,000. Five thousand more joined just in time for the site’s 3-month anniversary this week.
In order to handle the staggering number of posts, WHOF now operates with a staff of five.
While often serious, there’s also fun to be had. A few days ago, WHOF members were asked what they’d do if they could be invisible for a day–keep it clean, O’Neil requested with a chuckle.
Some posts are quite moving, as when members were asked their hopes and dreams for the future. Equality, tolerance and community were the answers.
There have been a few bumps on the road, O’Neil reports. Abusive taunts from homophobes are to be expected, but O’Neil was quite disheartened when he received hate mail from within the gay community.
“They don’t like religious posts, but then they don’t like anti-religious posts, or they don’t like straight people being members,” wrote O’Neil in an email to Polari. “We had to stop posting all together one weekend because the hate speech from the very people we were defending got so bad. We all just love to hate. Don’t you hate that?”
O’Neill successfully combated the problem by setting down very strict posting guidelines which can be viewed in WHOF’s Notes section. No hate speech or abuse of any kind will be tolerated. Says O’Neil: “A tiny minority just want to get a reaction or some attention from the others, but it won’t be happening here.”
And the page continues to grow. There are now more posts each day than any one person can keep track of. It’s not unusual to see one, two or even three hundred comments at any one post. People are now using WHOF to alert each other as to the activities of anti-gay religious leaders and politicians, submitting artwork, videos, sharing personal stories, or just offering a kind word.
“We actually achieve what we set out to do”, says a justifiably proud O’Neil. “We’ve gotten 1,300 homophobic pages removed from Facebook and we have a real sense of community building in this group. I think we got the balance just right. Know how we did it? We listened to the members, we got rid of the bigots and the self servers and the haters. We kept the genuine, nice normal, average, wonderful people that we have today, and we all worked together to make our voices heard.”
Here here!
You can make your opinions known to Fox News by taking part in their poll here: Fox News Prop 8 Overturned Poll
Tagged: fox news, kevin patrick o'neil, proposition 8, rupert murdoch, vaughn walker, wipeout homophobia on facebook
The striking down of Prop 8 & what that means to the rest of us
On August 4, 2010, Vaughn R. Walker, Chief Judge of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, overturned a regressive article of legislation known as Proposition 8. In a landmark ruling he deemed it unconstitutional. Proposition 8 reinforced the definition of marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman as outlined in the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. It countered the legalisation of same-sex marriages in California in 2008. Why? Apparently marriage needed defending because, say, if same-sex couples were given equal rights under the law, what would stop dog lovers from marrying their dogs? This of course would lead to social anarchy and institutionalised perversion in much the same way that marijuana, as Richard Nixon liked to say, was a halfway house to something worse. As usual the Christian Right ignored the separation of Church and State, the bedrock of the US Constitution, and invoked the law of Leviticus, that Old Testament tract which states that a man who lies with a man should be stoned to death. With actual stones, that is, not marijuana. Now that Prop 8 is dead, what does this ruling mean to the United States and what, in turn, are its geopolitical ramifications?
What the ruling means to the US is that its law and its rhetoric are, in this instance, in accord. As the final ruling states, “Plaintiffs have demonstrated by overwhelming evidence that Proposition 8 violates their due process and equal protection rights and that they will continue to suffer these constitutional violations until state officials cease enforcement of Proposition 8.” The protection of minorities is enshrined in the principle of democracy but the fact that Proposition 8 went to the ballot box makes a sham of this. This is exactly why John Adams wrote that, to protect against such circumstances, America should be a nation of laws and not men. That said, the upshot is that the case for a federal law legalising same-sex marriage is now set to go to the Supreme Court. And this is where the rest of the world is concerned; or, at the very least, Western democracies.
As a result of how the wrangles between disparate social and political pressure groups played out over Proposition 8, the sense that there is a chasm between what the US body politic claims to believe, and what it does, widens. The inalienable rights that Jefferson trumpeted, the pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, have once again proved to be subject to strict qualification. This rift is what so frustrates observers of the US. This is significant in geopolitical terms because, as Mark Hertsgaard notes in his book, The Eagle’s Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World, “America receives a disproportionate amount of coverage from news media around the world, reinforcing foreigners’ sense of living always in the Eagle’s shadow.” This is why the debate over Proposition 8 matters, not just to California and the United States, but also on the global stage of human rights.
The greater question is simple: you either believe in equality or you don’t. You either believe in freedom or you don’t. The problem with such grand words is that they need to be defined before they can mean anything at all. Freedom from what, and to do what? Equality with what, and for whom? There has to be a baseline against which these words are measured before they can become workable ideas.
And this is where the Christian Right and the Mormons enter the field of engagement. They hark back not to the secular democracy enshrined in the US Constitution but to that notoriously contradictory of rulebooks, the Bible. This is the baseline they want to enforce. When the language of faith enters into political debate the protections guaranteed by secular law are undermined because fact is no longer the cornerstone. As Gore Vidal once observed, “to ignore the absence of evidence is the basis of true faith.” In the aftermath of the decision, the Christian Right is claiming that Walker should have recused himself from the case because of his sexuality. His sexuality is not on public record, no matter what the blowhards at the American Family Association claim, and at best, as Steven Petrow notes in the Advocate, is “an open secret”. That Walker’s decision follows the letter of the law, and that his sexuality is beside the point, is irrelevant to their quest to take away the rights of anyone who does not subscribe to their prescriptive beliefs.
And what exactly are those beliefs? Leviticus is a key text in the fight against ‘permissiveness’. It is perhaps the most ludicrous book of the Old Testament. It is essentially a rulebook over which both sides of the debate argue like schoolchildren. Of course it is fun to challenge those who quote Leviticus on homosexuality by reciting its prescriptions against, say, wearing mixed fibres, or the penalty of being stoned to death for those who criticise their parents. But in the end this is playground politics. Neither side understands the subject at hand. The Christian Right hurls quotes from the Old Testament at anything they don’t like but fail to understand that, as Karen Armstrong observes in her remarkable book The Bible: A Biography, that the law of Jesus reinterprets the Mosaic law that preceded it.
When Paul quotes biblical stories to instruct his converts, he interpreted them in a wholly novel way. Adam now prefigured Christ, but where Adam brought sin into the world, Jesus had put humanity into a correct relationship with God.
In other words, the law of the Old Testament, the Mosaic covenant, “was only a temporary, interim measure”. Leviticus is an historically specific document that was designed to make sure the Jews in Babylon did not turn away from their jealous patriarchal god toward the more fun-loving sexually liberated goddesses that were available. There are few texts without contexts but the Christian crusaders like to quote Leviticus when it suits and are not about to be interrupted by the obvious, much preferring the convenient.
The Christian Right does not even understand its own subject, and this is a fundamental failing. But then this vocal minority is not interested in ideas that fail to reinforce their prejudices. They are more like hacks than Christians. All that being said, Paul is positively unhinged on the question of sexuality. Why they don’t head to his outpourings on the subject is curious. Nevertheless, the very fact of the Constitution, and the separation of Church and State, should separate this noise from serious political debate. Yet it does not.
It was the Church of Latter Day Saints, the Mormons, who lead the fight to enshrine Proposition 8 into law. Mormons are Christians of sorts. Their central text, the Book of Mormon, was essentially written to Americanise the Christian message. It goes something like this: an angel called Moroni took a weekender to the New World and told a chap called Joseph Smith the location of a set of golden plates on which were recorded chats that the angel had with … no, wait for it … yes folks, Jesus, the saviour himself! And there was a nifty tinge of American exceptionalism to Moroni’s enterprise: in a new found and unique land, it was said, a chosen people would fulfil the mission of Christ – that old chestnut – as well as enjoy the delights of bigamy.
How this bizarre cult had a decisive effect on the secular law of one of the largest states in the US is scandalous. And this is what frustrates observers of the US political machine. It demonstrates a chasm between the rhetoric and the execution of that rhetoric. And how does the world see the US? This is what Mark Hertsgaard discovered when researching his book The Eagle’s Shadow: “It feels no obligation to obey international law, it often pushes other countries around, forcing on them policies and sometimes tyrannical leaders that serve only American interests, and then, if they resist too much, it may bomb obedience into them with cruise missiles.” And this, significantly, was before 9/11, and the bullish foreign policy of the Bush administration.
The United States is far too diverse a country to make generalisations. Nevertheless, generalisations are made, and this is because of the image of the US exported through its media and its foreign policy. Freedom does not mean the freedom to do as one pleases, or to say, “you’re wither with us or against it”, and for all debate to end there. This is posturing and not politics. But as anyone who has visited the US knows, the exported image and the reality of the country do not mesh.
So what now? The defeat of Prop 8 is a great step forward for gay rights as well as for human rights because it reinforces the understanding of equality before the law. This should be embraced and celebrated. At the same time it is important for Americans to understand why the rest of the world continues to be resentful toward it. The election of Obama, which was received with a sigh of relief by so many in Britain, cannot dispel this. The prevailing view is still that, as the Washington correspondent for the Independent once observed, “no-one wraps self interest in moral superiority quite like the Americans do”. With the Christian Right praying and Fox News braying there is much to be watchful against. Their hate is an engine that knows no rest.
Tagged: christian right, gore vidal, leviticus, mark hertsgaard, moroni, proposition 8, vaughan walker
An interview with Adrian + Shane
Adrian + Shane are two Irish artists who have been working as one since 1997. They have had their work displayed from their hometown of Drogheda in County Louth, to the better-known viewing spots of London, New York and Sydney. Their pop-art style has received attention from Dublin to New York and from London to Sydney. While their work deals with a range of topics, from gay marriage and religion to pop culture, they regularly showcase their material on the Dublin gay scene. I caught up with the cute couple to find out the story behind the stencils.
Individually, did you have a background in art in the family? Or maybe at school/college?
Adrian: According to my mother, my granddad used to sketch a lot. I think that’s where I get it from. Unfortunately, none of his work was kept after he died. I never did my homework in primary school, so I wasn’t allowed to do art. On Fridays, when all the other kids got to do art, I had to sit in the corner and do the homework I hadn’t done during the week.
Shane: My Dad was always sketching and made some sculptures from wood and making furniture. So it had an influence, I’m sure, on my sister who works in film as a production designer, and me in art and design; I also went to the Glasgow School of Art to study architecture.
When did you first meet?
A: We grew up in the same town and went to the same schools. We knew each other’s faces, but never properly met until we were introduced by mutual friends on a dance floor at Christmas 1997.
What are the differences in style between the two of you, and how do you compromise?
A: We’ve had over twelve years to learn how to compromise. It’s not really a problem.
S: We have the same taste in art and graphics but different ways in expressing ourselves, I’m more graphic and Adrian can be more about a subject or images but its that combination that makes an Adrian + Shane piece.
What was the first exhibition you put on?
A: Our first exhibition was titled ‘Sensation By Deprivation’. It ran for a month during the summer of 1999 at the Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda, County Louth.
S: … The art had nothing to do with the title! We had so much in the show; maybe about 50 pieces from sculpture and paintings and projection, and we still didn’t think we had enough! We actually had enough for two shows.
How has your style of art changed or evolved since you first started working together?
A: Our style changes constantly, because we like to work with different mediums. Our early work was very rough, mostly made up of collage and acrylics on paper. In recent years, however, we’ve become more known for our brightly coloured stencil work on canvas. We have also used photography and video in our more recent work.
S: We have experimented with different mediums, different techniques, ranging from projections, stencil art, painting, photography to prints on cushions that were exhibited in shop windows, anything that interests us.
Have you gained international attention at all?
A: Yes – our work has been bought by art collectors in New York, London, Tokyo, Sydney to name a few. And we recently heard that one of our artworks is hanging in a posh bar in Ibiza! We also just did an interview with a fashion/art magazine from South Korea. [As well as the fabulous Polari! – Scott]
As a couple, is it hard to work together as well as doing everything else by each other’s side?
A: No. We love each other. Enjoy each other’s company. And we know when to give each other space.
S: No, I like it…
Do you think there’s a particular style of Irish modern art, or are Irish artists just part of a British/European/World movement?
A: No. Not that I’m aware of. I don’t think there is. I don’t think our art has much to do with Ireland. We’re inspired by films, music and other artists.
S: I think Irish art can be very serious and issue based, which isn’t a bad thing… We are very serious about the art that we make, although our pieces aren’t always serious.
Future events? Exhibitions? Projects?
A: We’re hoping to exhibit around Ireland before the year is out. Two exhibitions in Dublin for 2011 have just been confirmed, but we’re not releasing anymore details till we get closer to the time. It’d be great to exhibit outside Ireland next year too, possibly London or New York. We’ll see what happens.
S: Yeah, we have shows for next year and a few things that we are planning that are happening soon but haven’t been finalised… so watch this space.. well www.adrianandshane.com for details.
Tagged: Adrian + Shane, Scott De Buitléir
In This Shirt, The Irrepressibles
In This Shirt
The Irrepressibles
V2 Coop • August 29, 2010
Dir: Roy Raz
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If Antony & the Johnsons and Patrick Wolf had a lovechild with Vanessa Mae, The Irrepressibles’ ‘In This Shirt’ would no doubt be the result. A friend of mine posted a link to the video on facebook yesterday and it quickly spread through the facebookverse.
The Irrepressibles is a ten-piece orchestral ensemble. ‘In This Shirt’ is a haunting song and the video reflects that. The peanut crunching crowd on YouTube may ask, ‘what does it mean?’, and get rattled by the homosexuality in the song as well as the video, but that is just graffiti. There is a tension between the images, which trade on the sexualized commercialism of mainstream gay culture as well as MTV pop, and the emotion of the song. The meaning is in that.
Tagged: antony and the johnsons, facebook, in this shirt, irrepressibles, patrick wolf, roy raz
The Loving Quilt: Honoring LGBT Love
[B]logophiles
David Alex Nahmod
December 18, 2010
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In the aftermath of Proposition 8, California’s now infamous gay marriage ban, many in the LGBT community were heartsick. Some felt hopeless – it seemed that our relationships, and our love, would never be accepted by society. Leave it to the good people of Marriage Equality USA to make lemonade out of lemons.
When one hears of Marriage Equality USA, Molly Mc Kay is the face the world usually sees. This energetic, decidedly upbeat woman has been seen around the world in photographs and on network news shows campaigning for Marriage Equality in a traditional wedding dress. She and wife Davina were married during that brief window when gay marriage was legal in California. After Prop 8 passed, their marriage was upheld by the court. Molly and Davina’s dream came true, yet Mc Kay continues to campaign for others. On the day that Prop 8 passed, Molly and a male friend stationed themselves at the busy corner of Powell and Market in downtown San Francisco. Their mood was celebratory: California may have been (temporarily) lost, but Sweden had just passed Marriage Equality on a national level. Mc Kay was overjoyed by the news from Scandinavia. Not waiting for other activists to join them, Mc Kay and her friend greeted passerbys, sharing the news about Sweden. They shook people’s hands, sang songs of love, and changed people’s minds.
Molly’s infectious, positive attitude has been the driving force behind Marriage Equality USA. It rubs off on everyone who crosses her path, including Maya Scott-Chung, the Creative Director behind Marriage Equality USA’s Loving Quilt Project. Patterned slightly after the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt of two decades past, the Loving Quilt will be an equally massive, international project. People from around the world are designing quilt panels to commemorate loving, committed, LGBT relationships. It’s a project that’s near & dear to Scott-Chung’s heart.
“Like many LGBT couples, we have many anniversaries,” Scott-Chung said of her marriage to wife Mei Beck. “In August 1999, we registered as Domestic Partners in San Francisco.
“Mei Beck proposed marriage on Oct 31st 2003. One Feb 13th, 2004, we became one of the 4,038 couples who were married during the Winter of Love. Our marriage was annulled in August 2004 by the CA State Supreme Court. We became Domestic Partners again on on August 20th, 2004 to protect our daughter Luna, who was born on Oct. 4th, 2004. We were married once more a few days before Prop 8 passed on Nov 4th, 2008. We were hurt and angry when the Proposition passed, but our marriage was upheld in the Spring of 2009. Yet like many LGBT couples, we remain in legal limbo.” This mind numbing seesaw is a song that many LGBT couples have been forced to sing.
In spite of the far right’s best efforts, most Americans have entered into a quiet, casual acceptance of LGBT people. Marriage, considered by many to be a holy sacrament, remains the one sticking point from which many straight people say they will not budge. As Molly McKay and Maya Scott-Chung so aptly put it, opening people’s hearts and minds is the key. And so, with Scott-Chung, in the driver’s seat, Marriage Equality USA began soliciting and presenting it’s first Loving Quilt panels.
The first showing occurred in February 2007, during National Freedom to Marry Week, at San Francisco City Hall, which was also the third anniversary of the now legendary Freedom to Love, the initial same sex weddings marathon of 2004. Scott-Chung reports that the unveiling was also intentionally scheduled to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Loving VS Virginia. This landmark Supreme Court decision of June 12th, 1967 lifted the bans on interracial marriage that were, amazingly, still in place up to that time.
“Many of the quilt stories feature the voices and visions of interracial families and mixed heritage people,” says Scott-Chung. “Those first thirty panels included photos and text that reflect the diversity of our families and communities as well as the urgency of this issue.”
Ironically, that first showing, and subsequent showings of additional Loving Quilt panels occurred only one block from the CA State Supreme Court building where Justices upheld Proposition 8, and where the Federal Prop 8 lawsuit is now being heard. The outcome of that trial should be known shortly. Whatever the Judge decides is bound to be appealed by the losing side, and the case is most likely going to work its way to the Federal Supreme Court. Meanwhile, efforts by Marriage Equality USA to get Prop 8 overturned at the ballot box, and to implement marriage equality worldwide, will continue.
Since it’s premiere, the Quilt has had showings outside of San Francisco – Scott-Chung encourages people from around the world to contribute panels.
Scott-Chung, who is a co-founder of Baby Buds, a support & peer education group for LGBT parents & extended families, is now creating a website and blog that will document the entire history of The Loving Quilt. She is also creating an online manual for organizers to be able to create their own quilts and to use the quilt as a grassroots public education, art and organization tool. No less than Laura Bush has expressed her support for Marriage Equality. The former First Lady, certainly an unexpected ally, believes that the day will come when marriage equality is a reality.
To help expedite that great day by creating your own quilt, or to offer support to the project, please contact Maya Scott-Chung at
To support other works by Scott Chung or Molly Mc Kay, please visit:
Tagged: loving quilt
Jane Hilton’s Dead Eagle Trail on the road
Dead Eagle Trail: America’s Twenty-First Century Cowboys
Jane Hilton
Exhibition • Crane Kalman Gallery, 38 Kensington Gardens
North Laine, Brighton, BN1 4AL
14 July – 29 August 2010
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In April I interviewed photographer Jane Hilton about her book Dead Eagle Trail: America’s Twenty-First Century Cowboys. An exhibition of this remarkable work is running for six weeks from the 14th of July at the Crane Kalman Gallery in Brighton. It is superb opportunity to see an original and first-rate exhibition.
Tagged: brighton, crane kalman gallery, dead eagle trail, jane hilton
What homosexuality means to football
Agent of German captain Michael Ballack talks of a “bunch of gays” in the national teamEuropean News • Der Speigel, Guardian, The Local, Vanity Fair
July 14, 2010
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I am not exactly sure what effect homosexuality has on a man’s ability to play football. Perhaps it makes him lean a little too far to the left. Back in 2008, former Juventus boss Luciano Moggi tried to make sense of it. “A homosexual cannot do the job of a footballer. The football world is not designed for them, it’s a special atmosphere, one in which you stand naked under the showers.” I’m none the wiser. I didn’t realise the showering was so pivotal, even after five seasons of Footballers’ Wives. Schalke boss Rudi Assauer tried another tack a few months ago, “Perhaps they are OK in other sports but not in football. If a player came to me and said he was gay I would say to him: ‘You have shown courage.’ But then I would tell him to find something else to do.” No activist Assauer, who qualified that he would do so, “because those who out themselves always end up busted by it, ridiculed by their fellow players and by people in the stands. We should spare them these witch-hunts.” He has a point, of course, but that should be their choice. All that said, it is apparently worse than these men suspected according to the agent of Germany’s injured captain, Michael Ballack.
The latest controversy over homosexuality in the world of football started with an interview given by Ballack’s agent Michael Becker a few months before the World Cup. It was reported in an essay by Alexander Osang published in Der Spiegel yesterday. Becker’s problem, and by inference Ballack’s problem, is as much about what it means to be a man as it means to be a footballer. The style of the new German national team is less aggressive, lighter on its feet, as it were. Becker is not thrilled by this. And as Osang points out, this was before the injury for which Ballack was benched, and a time when Ballack was flying high. He had even just been photographed in his underwear for Vanity Fair with four other captains. It is not bitterness speaking.
“He talked a lot about people who were envious of his client, because they were supposedly mediocre, ugly, untalented, bureaucratic, provincial, unmanly or gay,” Osang writes. And Becker said that half the German team were gay, or “half-gay”, whatever that means. “It seemed that every sports journalist was already familiar with the alleged homosexual conspiracy swirling around German coach Joachim Löw’s team,” Osang reports of the lacklustre reaction to these revelations. Conspiracy? What were they planning to do, rewrite the sacred rules of shower time?
Osang deflates Becker’s standing and turns him into a buffoon. “I realized that all of this was somehow synonymous with something Becker could no longer understand. It was something that was light, non-ideological, dance-like, beautiful, joyful, and easily confusing for someone whose life had revolved around pecking orders and hierarchies until then.” Ouch.
So what do the British press make of this? It is always fun to take a look at how the Daily Mail reports on stories that unsettle the assumed prejudices of its readers. (I need to put on sunglasses before heading to its homepage. It’s the Primark of web design.) But there is nothing as of this morning. Time to head to the Sun, the home of much ado about nothing that is equally uneasy on the eye. Thighly Minogue? No. Su Bo’s new hairdo? No. Buried in there is a link to the football index, which is a rogue’s gallery of men who look like they’re sat on the toilet. “Who does number two work for?” The only exception is the lovely Jack Rodwell. So, into the search engine goes the name Michael Ballack. Nothing. Ok then, on to the Daily Mirror. There’s a funny picture of Raoul Moat, the man with a name worthy of an Arthur Conan Doyle villain. He’s wearing make-up and a mini skirt (at least I think that’s what it is) flexing his biceps. There is so much unsaid in the Mirror’s overuse of this image. Yet when I get to the sport index still there is nothing. I’m clearly going to have to come back later to read the great British reaction and, better still, the public graffiti on the comment walls.
It is no great revelation to state that football creates a bond between heterosexual men that is somewhat tribal. Introduce anything else into the arena of how football is portrayed in the media, it would seem, and it starts to raise questions about what it means to be a man. That is what homosexuality has to do with football. And that is why it is so important when a footballer player comes out. The sooner it is visible enough to become a non-issue then the closer we all are to some sort of equality.
Further Reading:
Tagged: alexander osang, football, homosexuality, michael ballack, michael becker, vanity fair
To vote for the Conservative Party is to vote your rights away
What is the Polari stand on the 2010 Parliamentary elections?
To vote for the Conservative party is to vote for bigotry, racism, sexism and homophobia. Vote tactically, vote to keep the Conservative party out of government.
Tagged: bigotry, conservative party, homophobia, parliamentary elections, racism, sexism
An interview with the cast of Dirty White Boy
Dirty White Boy • Clayton Littlewood
Dir: Phil Wilmott • Assistant Director: Katherine Hare
Trafalgar Studios, London • April 26 – May 22, 2010
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As I press the button for the fourth floor in the lift at Jerwood Space I hear the voice of Patrick Stewart or, rather, Captain Picard of the Starship Enterprise: “Doors closing. Make it so.” That is weird, I think to myself, and hope there is not a camera in there to capture the stupefied look on my face. “Fourth floor: holodeck,” Picard then announces. But he is not finished. As I step out I hear, “Phasers on stun”. This idiosyncratic start is all rather fitting as I am on my way to meet Clayton Littlewood to talk about the play Dirty White Boy. There is something about Clayton that draws out the weird and the wonderful. It is what makes Dirty White Boy so compelling.
It is the eve of the month-long run of Dirty White Boy at Trafalgar Studios and the third time I have interviewed Clayton. The play started out as a blog on MySpace, which then, because of its popularity, was published as a book. The book is about Clayton’s offbeat day-to-day life in the Soho shop Dirty White Boy. The first version of the play ran to packed houses for three nights in July 2009. The 2010 version has been expanded. As before, Clayton plays himself and David Benson the many characters that walk the Soho stage. The addition to the cast is twenty-year old Alexis Gerred, who was a runner-up in the 2010 ‘Eurovision: Your Country Needs You’.
It is typical that, now I am in Clayton World, I hear that the original director, Phil Wilmott, could not make it to rehearsals because he was stuck in New York due to the plume of volcanic ash that had disrupted transatlantic flights. In his place is Katherine Hare. It is with Kat, Clayton, David, and Jorge, Clayton’s partner (as well as the play’s stylist), that I head down to have lunch and talk about the production.
After the icebreakers, and when Alexis has joined us for our picnic under the April sun, I ask how Dirty White Boy 2010 is different. “What has been interesting is that last time when we worked with Phil,” Clayton begins, “he was really good when it came to going through the script structurally and telling me to change this, do that, and as soon as he said it I thought, ‘why didn’t I see that?’ It was so spot on. This is my first time working with another director and you realise how every director has their different take. In Kat’s approach she picks up on every nuance of where you’ve gone wrong. All these human emotions that Phil didn’t go into in as much detail.”
On the words “where you’ve gone wrong”, Kat begins to chuckle.
“The other thing is that we’ve added more scenes,” Clayton continues, and, looking at Alexis, adds in a slight whisper, “And obviously we’ve got someone very young and pretty.” Here he turns his to David and adds, “Because apparently we’re not.”
David raises his chin, and responds, “I still get … offers.” Alexis sits back watching, relaxed, and very much the embodiment of Clayton’s description.
“The producer pumped a lot of money into the play, and so instead of the three try-out nights we’re on for a month. I think there was a view that, because it’s Dirty White Boy, instead of just referencing Dirty White Boy the shop it would be good to reference dirty white boy as a character. By introducing this character it meshes the stories together, invoking the spirit of not just the shop but also that of Soho. And we’re introducing iconic songs that match the action.”
“There are also a few things that happened in the last year,” he continues, “quite emotional stories that I didn’t get to put in the first play. I thought that if I only get one more chance to do this play I wanted to include, say, Chico’s full story, because it was such a crucial thing that happened to us while we were there.” Clayton turns to David, and finishes, “I think it’s more complete now, wouldn’t you say David?”
“I think it’s more fully realised than before,” David begins, leaning in toward the voice-recorder on the table to ensure that his words are clearly heard. “Last year it was more what you could call a work-in-progress. It has far more in terms of …”Here he pauses, takes a deep breath, and on the out says, “layers, and …” Another deep breath is then followed by the word “nuance.” Then it is business as usual as he concludes, “And all the stuff you want that keeps an audience hooked and captivated.” The timing is magnificent.
David is very much an actor’s actor, I cannot help but think to myself as he is speaking. He is marvellously aware of how a phrase can communicate his meaning and the same time sound rather ‘luvvie’ to the average Joe. He plays up to this by lifting his chin and pronouncing these phrases in a knowing manner. I have seen David on stage twice before, once in his one-man play Think No Evil of Us: My Life With Kenneth Williams, and again as Noel Coward in David Benson sings Noel Coward. He is a joy to watch and just right for the range of characters in Dirty White Boy.
“In the last few days with Kat what we’ve been really enjoying has been a new pair of eyes,” he continues. “It’s allowed us to see it in a new way that we are really going to be able to explore in performance with an audience. That’s of course where it really takes off. That’s when the really important character comes in, which is the audience, and you find out what you’re working with. There are new emotions that are being tapped. We were astonished at the audience’s reaction last year. They even stood up at the end. And not just to leave.”
“Alex is a fantastic addition to the cast. I thought he was just going to come on and sing songs and go off again but what Kat has been really working is weaving him into the texture of the piece.” The knowing air returns and David leans forward to talk to the voice-recorder, his conduit to the audience. “He’s never far from the stage, you’ll be glad to know readers.”
“He’s become more of an everyman character,” Kat adds. “He could be any man walking down Old Compton Street, and he is also has becomes Clayton’s muse. Hopefully he mirrors what the audience is. I only came in two days ago, but ninety-nine percent of it was already there. One element that has changed radically is that we have Alex, who is now very much part of the piece. My job has been integrating him.”
“I think this time round there is a pool of good talent,” Clayton adds. “David’s acting, Kat’s directing, Jorge’s styling, Alexis’s singing, and my writing.”
“And your performance,” David emphasises to Clay. “It’s charming and wonderful.”
At this point, Clayton turns to Alexis and asks, “What do you think?” Alexis nods and replies, “I think it’s great.”
“There you go,” Clay says to me, “there’s your quote.”
“What attracted me so much, especially after reading the book,” Alexis explains, “is that it’s about real people. It has such a range of emotions. It’s an incredibly funny show, but there are also dark storylines that you can relate to. I hope the songs will be the stitch between the material and will accentuate the mood.”
“I think the whole point is that even if you’ve never met people like this in your life it is about basic human emotions that can appeal to anyone in the audience,” Kat adds. “You may not recognise the type of person but what they’re experiencing you will know about.”
“It’s not a gay play,” Clayton insists at this point, which I think is exactly right. “It’s a social play,” Kat confirms “It’s a commentary on a certain time and a certain place.” Now we’ve really hit on something, and everyone becomes more animated as a result.
“The danger is,” David weighs in, “that it gets pigeon-holed so that people think ‘we can’t go and see that, it’s not for us’.”
Clayton and I had talked about the book crossing over from the ghetto of the gay and lesbian booklist when last we spoke, and so I asked if its emotional range was the element that made it cross over as a play.
“That’s all down to PR, and how you pitch it,” Clayton responds.
“It’s a shame that it has to be thought of as a crossover,” Kat adds, and here we really get into the meat of it. “It’s a shame that all theatre can’t be accessible to whomever chooses to go. But that’s living in an ideal world. We’re not in that ideal world unfortunately. How do you make the crossover? It’s word of mouth. If two people come to see it who don’t think it’s going to appeal to them, realise it does and tell ten of their friends, then you’re on to a winner.”
“Our performance will prove that it is not traditionally gay theatre,” Alexis comments, “and that it speaks to a range of people from all walks of life.”
“The way forward for human beings is to see how similar we all are,” David observes. “All cultures and societies are controlled in a way by the differences between us, and this pushes you toward being tribal, when in fact we are so much more similar than we are different. As Samuel Johnson said, ‘We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure’.” Precisely.
“The characters in the play are all people who are normally pushed to the edge of society, and people don’t normally dwell on,” Clayton goes on to explain. “Old queens, trannies, hookers, ex-drag queens dying of cancer.”
“They’re not normally people who’d be in your circle of friends,” Kat comments. Jorge bursts out laughing and says, “They’re in our circle of friends”.
“We were doing an interview in a coffee shop and Angie was there,” Clayton recounts. Angie, who is a post-op transsexual, is featured heavily in the play. “Then Alexis arrived and within two minutes she was saying, ‘How about you come back to mine and sit on my face’.”
“In that hour,” Alexis laughs, “I probably saw her boobs more than I’ve seen my girlfriend’s!”
“And they spring out, don’t they?” David notes. “Boing! There they are. Perfect.”
“The thing is that you think these are larger than life characters but they’re real,” Kat says, bringing it back to the subject at hand. “They live their lives in this way. It’s amazing how theatrical real life is. In many ways I’ve had to say take the theatrics out because no one is going to believe that it is real.”
“That’s the thing about being in Soho, it seems to attract all those eccentrics,” Clayton responds. “I was very fortunate because they just walked in the door.”
“I think you’re a magnet for them, actually,” I say, laughing. “Remember at our first interview when Pam the Fag Lady walked in just as we sat down?” Pam is a Soho institution, and pops up all throughout the book.
“She was there the other day when we having coffee,” David tells. “And Rupert Everett was two tables away. You just go into Soho and you’re on this amazing stage with all these characters. Remember that time we first went out and had a coffee after you contacted me on MySpace?” David says to Clay. He leans in toward the recorder again and raises his chin. “Remember MySpace, readers? How our ancestors lived.” He then settles back into his chair. “We were talking away and I said that what is really hard about my work is that I have to write for myself.”
Clay nods and smiles. “And a little light bulb went off above my head.”
“I said it would be wonderful if you could write something and I could perform it. Initially this was going to be a one-man show and now it has turned into what it is.”
It is time to return to the work at hand, and Clay invites me up to watch the rehearsal for a while. It is a genuine treat, and over an hour has passed before I can tear myself away. From shop to blog, from book to play, the story of Dirty White Boy is a fascinating one. “You do not educate a man by telling him what he knew not, but by making him what he was not,” John Ruskin wrote in Munera Pulveris. That is in essence what we had been talking about on that glorious April afternoon, and it is Clay’s genuine gift as a storyteller I think to myself as I leave. I step into the lift, and Captain Picard says, “Door Closing. Lift going down. Warp 5.” I smile to myself because there is something that feels so right about that.
Tagged: alexis gerred, clayton littlewood, david benson, dirty white boy, soho, Soho Stories