THEGAYUK

Author: Roger Walker-Dack

  • FILM REVIEW | Rent Boys

    ★★★★ | Rent Boys

    For well over the past four decades, Berlin’s Zoo Railway Station has been the main stomping ground for the city’s rent boys.

    Using archive footage from 1965 this fascinating documentary from gay activist filmmaker Rosa Van Praunheim paints the scene there as it has evolved until the present day. It is a desperately sad tale of the squalid and dangerous lives these boys lead in an occupation that at best leaves them scarred for life, and at worse cost them their lives.

    In the early days, in particular, most of the boys that hustled sex for money were victims of sexual abuse themselves and were plying for trade in their very early teens, and some even younger. Their tales were particularly harrowing especially when they were continuously exploited by paedophiles, and were completely unaware of all the inherent dangers of life on the street.

    Nowadays very few of the boys are German and are heterosexual immigrants from neighbouring ex-Eastern bloc countries who, discovering that they can make more money from one encounter with a ‘john’ than they could laborfor a month back home, are prepared to become ‘gay for pay’ for the financial rewards. They take the same risks, plus the possibility of being deported too.

    Van Praunheim profiled a few of the boys who had been working Zoo Station and the environs for some years now, and despite all the risks, still appeared reluctant to give it up. He went to the hustler bars and talked to the barkeepers who related about the abuse, the violence, the crime and the drug taking in a resigned almost complacent manner. He also followed the workers of SUB/WAY a support group who try their best to help the boys particularly to prevent the spread of AIDS & HIV, and dedicated and hardworking as they are, seemed to be making little headway in getting them off the streets.

    The boys’ stories are heart-rending and there isn’t one that has a happy ending. As they eventually drop out/leave fresher naive young boys take their places and the supply chain never seems to be broken. As Van Praunheim’s film shows, the price the pay for their seedy unhappy lives is far too high.

    Fascinating, but extremely disturbing to watch.

  • France Defends Its Openly Gay Ambassador To The Vatican

    For the second time in the past decade the Catholic Church are allegedly refusing to recognise the France’s nomination as their Ambassador to the Vatican.

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  • Hot Cop Goes Hot Pink For Anti-Bullying Campaign

    Toronto police officer Luke Watson’s desire to see an end to anti-LGBTQ bullying burns with a hot pink intensity.

    To mark ‘Day of Pink’ on April 8th an international day against “bullying, discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, and transmisogyny across the world,” Watson dyed his hair pink and pledged to keep it that way for an entire week if the Twitter photo of his new ‘do was retweeted 1,000 times. It reached 3000 within the day and is now going viral viral.

    Please pass on to any members of HM’s Constabulary who are also looking for ideas on how to show their support too. Especially the hot ones!

    by Roger Walker-Dack

  • FILM REVIEW | The King Of Escape

    ★★★★ | The King Of Escape

    Tubby French tractor salesman Armand is having some sort of mid-life crisis.

    Openly gay with a penchant for mature married men that he picks up in a cruising area outside of the country town where he lives, his life takes a dramatic turn when he jumps to the defence of a teenage girl who is being attacked by four thugs. 16-year-old Curly is the daughter of Daniel one of Armand’s work rivals who is less than grateful for Armand’s bravery (in which he had paid the thugs rather than physically beating them off). Curly, however, is thrilled, and sees in Armand a knight in shining armour who she persuades to rescue her from her controlling father and an oppressive home life.

    What happens next in this wonderfully bizarre oddball comedy is a fair stretch of the imagination but thanks to the collection of odd larger-than-life characters, you cannot fail to be charmed. Bored Armand is easily persuaded by an excitable and very sexy Curly that he should try batting for the other team. He does manage to lose his ‘straight cherry’ helped by some magical enhancing roots he digs up in the woods where most of the sex (and there is a lot of it) takes place. Before he does take off however despite the fact that Armand is really a lazy slob, he still manages to persuade his straight boss with a deadpan face to let him give him a blowjob.

    When Daniel persuades the local police chief to put a tracking bracelet on Armand he retaliates by running off with the horny teenager with half of the local community in hot pursuit. However, when both the novelty and the effects of the chewing the roots wear off, Armand is very keen to dump his young new girlfriend and go back to his world of tractors and old men. There is a hilarious end to the story with a lot of the latter and all naked.

    The movie made in 2009 by writer/director Alain Guiraudie has now been released on VOD/DVD following the phenomenal success last year of his award-winning very explicit and controversial Strangers By The Lake. The abundance of sex in this earlier movie, however, is played more for laughs and cannot be described even in slightest as being mildly erotic or sensual. What Guiraudie does succeed at so well is making his gay characters devoid of any of the usual clichés and has them simply blending in with all the other locals without anyone raising an eyebrow about their sexuality.

    Be prepared to laugh a lot and also be shocked by all the nudity.

  • Presidential Hopeful Marco Rubio On Gay Marriage

    Two days ago a leading conservative RepublIcan Senator Marco Rubio of Florida declared that he was running to become the next President of the United States.

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  • Out Gay Actor Chad Allen Says Goodbye

    Out gay actor Chad Allen who rose to fame after starring in the hit TV series Dr Quinn: Medicine Woman has just published a video to say goodbye to his website fans as he is now leaving the bright lights of show business to focus on his own private life.

    Allen was forced out of the closet in 1996 during Dr Quinn when a tabloid published photos of him kissing another man, but since then has been very involved in LGBT activism something he plans to continue to keep doing.

    He also fully embraced his sexual orientation on screen, portraying Donald Strachey, a gay detective in a series of TV movies, and played a young gay addict who is placed into an ex-gay’ Christian retreat to be “cured” of his homosexuality in the movie Save Me.

    In the video Allen explains,

    “I’ve been focusing on my education and working as a clinical psychologist, which is something that I’m super excited about and I feel like it will give me an opportunity to take my life experiences and my passion for well-being and human growth and particularly my passion for helping young gay people grow in a healthy, confident way and I’ll be able to effect the world in a slightly different way. I like to think of my work as an actor and my work in psychology as being kind of similar. They’re both human behaviour. One’s an artistic perspective and this one a scientific.”

  • FILM REVIEW | Brotherhood

    ★★★★★ | Brotherhood

    Lars is a young Danish soldier who is resentful because he has been thrown out of the Army after being accused of making a pass at some of his men.

    Frustrated at being back home with his pushy interfering mother, and at a loose end and unsure of where his life is going, he becomes easy prey for a local gang of xenophobic neo-Nazi thugs looking for new recruits. Although somewhat reluctant at first, he naïvely allows himself to be drawn into the group and is soon recognised by the leaders as being a brighter than average convert who they want to install as a fully-fledged member.

    Lars’ quick rise through the ranks doesn’t sit well with everyone, particularly as he is foisted onto the group’s hard-nutted lieutenant Jimmy who is bitterly resentful of Lars for usurping the position that he felt his psychotic brother should have got received. The angry Jimmy is ordered to be his trainer but the hate he shows however soon turns into lust, which ultimately turns to love in this most unlikely setting.

    This award-winning movie shows the sheer brutality, and the depth and bitterness of the far right’s racism and homophobia in a powerful and moving way. It’s both explicit and shocking and its subject matter is unquestionably disturbing, but the way that this drama unfolds, juxtaposing vitriolic violence and hatred with its edge of tenderness in the love that comes through, makes this film totally unmissable.

  • FILM REVIEW | Do I Sound Gay?

    When journalist David Thorpe found himself single again in his mid-forties he started to angst as to what could possibly be so wrong with him that he should be dumped so unceremoniously. His immediate thought was that the problem must be his voice, that he had always hated, and how it must now be a turn off for other men too. It propelled him into jettisoning his job working for a non-profit housing association and embarking on a journey to ask the world at large the question that had been nagging him for years… do I sound gay?

    ★★★★★

    Thorpe’s somewhat light-hearted investigation starts with him accepting that he dislikes gay-sounding voices, especially his own and he wonders if with professional help it can in fact be changed. A very pushy speech therapist has him working on his ‘nasality’ and long vowels to get a ‘go-too’ voice whatever that maybe. She, thank goodness, is not the only figure that Thorpe seeks advice from and his interviews with some legendary gay figures make both sound, and also hilarious, contributions to his quest.

    Satirist David Sedaris admits that his own remarkably effeminate sounding voice means that he is regularly mistaken on the phone as a woman. Disarmingly frank Sedaris confesses that he actually feels good when a stranger tells him that he doesn’t ‘sound gay’ even though he had believed himself to be ‘beyond all that’. Project Runway’s Tim Gunn says he was appalled when he first heard his voice, but has learned to live with it and love it even. ‘If people hear my voice and call me gay, I’ll say thank you. I’m proud of it’.

    Sex columnist Dan Savage adds a touch of seriousness to the topic by commenting that ‘hating your voice is the last vestige of internalised homophobia.’ On the other hand actor Jeff Hiller handles the reality of the roles that his ‘gay voice’ will limit him too with remarkable good humour and a healthy dashing of some wicked wit. ‘If the gay role is a meaty part, they will always cast a straight actor. If the part is a gay guy with a hot body then I obviously cannot play that. So I just play the sad self-hating bitter queens’, he says roaring with laughter and adding ‘ I’ll take those ugly girl roles because at least I get to work.’

    Thorpe sprinkles his immensely watchable documentary with some lively vox populi, and also his own friends are on hand to lend their voices too even though they do not share his concern that the subject matter is really that important. When at the end he pushes them to give an opinion of his newly trained voice they all tell him that they cannot notice any difference in how he sounds at all. However what they (and we) perceive by now is that his voice didn’t change, but he did.

    As his most entertaining journey draws to a conclusion Thorpe realised that there was nothing wrong with sounding like he does, and equally there is nothing wrong with being a gay man having a gay voice. He was very content to have taken on his quest summing it up his reasoning of ‘if you cannot handle the answer then it’s a question you’ve got to ask.’ We’re glad he did.

  • Netflix Reunited Fonda And Tomlin Over Gay Husbands

    Netflix has just released a trailer for a brand new comedy series about two women in their 70s who are left single when their husbands both come out as gay.

    Reuniting the totally fabulous LILY TOMLIN and JANE FONDA who had previously starred together in the hit movie 9 to 5 who now play Grace and Frankie whose lives are left dangling when their husbands (played by Emmy Award Winners Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston) declare their love for each other.

    The 13-part series that that is tipped to be one of Netflix’s biggest successes to date was created by ‘Friends’ creator Marta Kauffman,and is expected to air later this year, but no release date has so far been set.

    P.S. 2015 could prove to be a big year for Lily Tomlin as she also stars in Paul Weitz’s movie GRANDMA that was one of the biggest hits at Sundance Film Festival in January. Playing a lesbian on the screen for the first time Ms. Tomlin gives one of the best performances of her career in this darkly funny and also touching film of one long day in the life of one very frayed family. Due in our cinemas later this year.

     

     

     

  • White House Releases Powerful Video About The Harm Of “Gay Cures”

    In the wake of President Obama’s historic statement this week speaking out against gay “conversion therapy”, a group of White House staffers led by Amanda Simpson, Executive Director of the U.S. Army Office of Energy Initiatives, and the first openly transgender woman Presidential appointee ever, created a video to discuss the dangers of this harmful practice.

    Also on the video are some of the President’s most senior advisers including Valerie Jarrett and also Megan Smith, Chief Technology Officer of the United States and Douglas Brooks, Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy. In addition to this, the U.S. Surgeon General  Vice Admiral Vivek H. Murthy, M.D. released a statement today calling for state and federal action to protect minors from conversion therapy.

    “Being gay is not a disorder. Being transgender is not a malady that requires a cure. Had I been Leelah Alcorn’s physician, I would have told her exactly that. And that’s the message I want other doctors, nurses, health professionals, and public health leaders to help get out to parents and children who may be confronting these issues.”

    by Roger Walker-Dack

  • Is Boy George The New Kim Kardashian?

    Boy George has just announced that not only is he moving from London to Los Angeles this summer but that he has signed up to make a reality TV docu-series chronicling his new life.

    It will cover him dating, house hunting, embarking on Culture Club’s North American tour, managing Brando, his pop group, launching a vegan food line and juggling visiting family members. The star has maintained a worldwide presence for the past 30 years, having sold over 100 million singles and more than 50 million albums as a performer and songwriter with 80’s super group Culture Club and as a solo artist in his own right. He is one of the world’s most successful and in-demand international DJs touring extensively across the globe.

    If Marge Simpson met Dolly Parton and went dancing with Ziggy Stardust, it wouldn’t come close to what you’ll see. Why now…why not? Why me…who else?”said Boy George.

    Boy George’s Manager Paul Kemsley and award-winning producer Cindy Cowan are developing the series on the star along with Bunim/Murray Productions the producers of Real World, Project Runway and Keeping Up with the Kardashians,

    Watch this space for further details as to when we can hope to see this on our screens.