KAOS: 2010

review

Doctor Who, EastEnders,
Coronation Street

ast night's editions of EastEnders, Coronation Street and Doctor Who - all highly publicised Christmas specials - provide an intriguing insight into the national psyche.

What does it say about us, for example, that the soap's festive editions were both full of vicious, poisonous women - one of whom stabbed herself in the stomach to keep her man - and that the supposed SF drama was sentimental mush, a sort of lightweight sci-fi Mills & Boon?

There's something seriously wrong, either with the viewing public, or the people responsible for the shows, if this is what we want to watch (or what they think we want to watch) on Christmas Day.

How is it remotely appropriate that we witness Janine Butcher (EastEnders, BBC One, 8pm), pick up a carving knife, put it in the hands of grief stricken, bipolar Stacey Slater, and plunge it into her own stomach? On Christmas Day. Before the watershed.

I could talk lovingly about EastEnders 'til the cows come home, and I usually love crazy Janine's antics as much as the next twisted, vindictive queen, but this just wasn't called for. A step too far beyond the boundaries - even if it wasn't Christmas - the scene was nasty, disturbing and exploitative.

Coronation Street wasn't much better. Just a couple of weeks after the nightmarish tram disaster, which also saw John Stape bash his bunny boiler stalker's head in with a hammer (and subsequently conceal her body at ground zero), we see Tracey Barlow rejoin the cast. She's been away in prison for bashing her boyfriend's head in with an ornament, you'll recall (a pattern, or just repetition?)

A character without any redeeming features, Tracey Barlow isn't someone you want to have around - expecially not on Christmas Day. So quite why the Coronation Street production team thought it would be a good idea to bring back this vile creature to spend Christmas with us... Oh wait! More sensationalism! More magazine covers! And so we endure an hour of screeching, brawling harridans in the Rovers Return (with fellow white trash specimen Becky, who, let's not forget, indulged in a spot of looting during the tram disaster, whilst friends and neighbours were dying around her).

Coronation Street therefore managed to trump EastEnders' stabfest, with a level of ugliness and inhumanity unheard of on British television since Katie Price was last on telly. Thank God for the brief appearance of Scary Mary and her mobile home - that's real Coronation Street.

Which brings us to Doctor Who. I really wanted to hate this latest episode of the new series. This year's season was abysmal, for numerous reasons, and expectations were rock bottom. There's showrunner Steven Moffat's familiar tedious obsessions: we must endure yet another episode in the company of a child, and there's a dreary hetero romance, opera singer Katherine Jenkins cast presumably because Moffat would like to get off with her. But on the positive side, Karen Gillan's ghastly Amy Pond is barely seen, tucked away on a crashing space liner (sadly, she's saved in the end).

It's glossy, inconsequential, and gutless. I'd be lying if I said the emotional payoff didn't have me welling up - yes, it was terribly sad, and Jenkins sounds lovely when she opens her gob and sings - but I don't watch Doctor Who to be moved to tears, which seems to have been the primary goal in recent series. Women and metrosexuals will love it, but what I'd love is for the series to have some balls, just for once.

Maybe it could learn a thing or two from EastEnders.

a news compendium

with a gay bias
issue 81 | December 2010 | FREE

<<< Daniel, lensed by Dylan Rosser. More on manikins later on.

But first...

Gay language Polari is at risk of dying out. "Polari, the nineteenth-century code language used by gay men, is one of a number of languages at risk of dying out within a generation according to researchers at Cambridge University." There's a guide to Polari here.

||| The end of camp gay men? Kevin Troughton writes in The Guardian, "Effeminate gay men are an increasingly rare sight now the 'straight-acting' are in the ascendency."

||| On a similar note... "It seems like there is a stereotypical, standard effeminate-sounding gay accent, no matter where in the US you go." Discuss.

<<< Ruby Thomas and Joel Alexander (left) have been convicted of the murder of Ian Baynham (right) in Trafalgar Square, London, in September last year. One witness likened their frenzied attack to "a scene from the film A Clockwork Orange".

||| What does the Bible really say about homosexuality? "The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson examines the Biblical texts traditionally used to address the issue of homosexuality from a religious (Jewish and Christian) perspective", over four separate articles. The first "is the philosophical basis for all that follows in examining the seven passages which are used to assert that God condemns homosexuality and homosexual practice. To borrow Phyllis Trible's phrase, used to describe the Biblical texts employed to keep women 'in their place', these are the "texts of terror" used against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people."

||| What does the Bible really say about homosexuality? Part 2: Homosexuality in Leviticus.

||| What does the Bible really say about homosexuality? Part 3: Homosexuality in Sodom and Gomorrah.

||| What does the Bible really say about homosexuality? Part 4: What did Jesus say about homosexuality?

US & CANADA

<<< Gay and homeless: In plain sight, a largely hidden population. "Every year, hundreds of gay youths end up on the streets of L.A. County, where they make up a disproportionate share of the people under 25 who are homeless."

||| Dan Choi hospitalised: A discussion about our community's multi-faceted sacrifices. Being demonised by a bitter lesbian probably hasn't helped him either (reported in the last issue).

<<< Not just gay-friendly: Here come the ultra-gay hotels. Lords South Beach Hotel in Miami "worked with Out magazine to develop a Concierge App listing top local LGBT hot spots, asked Levi's to custom-design its gray and white jean uniforms, and is preparing to launch its own social network so guests can check one another out."

||| UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 70 countries where being gay is still considered a crime...

||| ...Yet last month the UN voted to "okay" the killing of GBLT people across the globe. A major effort is now underway to reverse the decision.

>>> Artist Lucinda Naylor's sculpture created from 2000 anti-gay marriage DVDs, mailed out by Minnesota's Catholic bishops.

||| Hide/Seek: Too shocking for America. America's first major exhibition of gay art has outraged the country's right – leading to one of them being banned. Check out the art here.

||| The National Portrait Gallery removes a video by David Wojnarowicz after pressure from right-wing groups, in a move decribed by the New York Times as an "appalling act of political cowardice."

||| Artist AA Bronson has demanded the National Portrait Gallery remove his piece Felix, June 5, 1994 from the Hide/Seek exhibition in protest at the censorship.

||| The 'Fire' man, by Philip Kennicott. Fascinating essay on artist David Wojnarowicz, who died in 1992 aged 37.

>>> Remember Misssissippi corrections officer Andre Cooley, fired for being gay? The Forrest County Sheriff's Department says it did no wrong.

<<< Aaron Scheerhoorn, 28, was stabbed multiple times in Texas earlier this month, outside a Houston gay club, by Lydell Grant, in what police believe was a "crime of passion".

||| Sports secret no more: Gay players are among us.

||| Another all-American high school football team male rape scandal.

||| Politicususa reviews Sarah Palin's America By Heart: "Never once... does Palin use the words homosexual, gay or lesbian. She does, however, hint at what she thinks of sexual minorities. 'When it comes to raising good citizens,' she writes, 'all 'lifestyle choices' are not equal.'"

||| Ah, American politicians: the gift that keeps on giving. "I'm not a witch" has been picked as the top quote of year. There's no contest really...

||| America regresses to the days of the wild west: Detroit to end police, street lights, garbage pickup in 20% of city.

>>> If only all terrorists were as cute as Mohamed Osman Mohamud. He'll be popular in prison...

||| Adele Starr, a gay rights activist since 1974, is dead. She was 90.

UK

||| No room at the inn: Gay couple refused double-room by Christian owners...

<<< ...Who threaten to close their hotel if a judge rules they were in the wrong. As you can see, one of the couple is Jabba the Hutt.

||| LONDON: Closeted man strangled gay victim and went back to strip club. James Foley convicted of manslaughter of Algerian Fethi Bouchareb, and gets away with less than four years in prison.

>>> GBLT "divorce" rates are up after five years of civil partnerships.

||| Is Stephen Fry heterophobic and misogynistic? Self-confessed "humourless politically correct feminist" Yasmin Alibhai-Brown thinks so.

||| A new expo for gay men will open in London next year. Manbag Live will showcase "the latest advice on fashion trends, grooming, well-being, gay travel, investments, civil partnerships, health and fitness, plus all the latest restaurants, bars and clubs".

||| Parents of GBLT young people need support, not criticism. Marjorie Smith writes in The Guardian, "Faith communities and schools have a pastoral responsibility to families."

||| The secret world of gang slang.

<<< London's new Routemaster bus is unveiled; in pictures.

EUROPE

<<< File this under WTF?! The Pellegrini Brothers acrobats performed in front of Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican earlier this month. As you can see, he was very impressed.

>>> POLAND: Meet Krystian Legierski, Poland's first openly gay elected official. And just to make things really difficult for himself, he's also black.

||| European states will not be forced to allow gay marriage.

||| FIFA president Sepp Blatter apologises for saying gay football fans should "refrain from sexual activities" if they planned to go to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. That's alright, then.

||| ITALY: Police arrest gang over Rome gay club robberies.

>>> NETHERLANDS: Homophobic attacks are on the rise - and Islam is the root cause.

||| Gays in the Dutch army? No problem.

||| TURKEY: Turkey's military doesn't just discriminate against gays - it humiliates them.

MIDDLE EAST

<<< ISRAEL: Gay's facing a wave of intolerance.

||| A new EU report claims Lebanon's freedom of association is the "most liberal" in the southern Mediterranean - but activists say the report is flawed.

||| IRAQ: The targeting of gay men in Iraq. Excellent essay by Brian Whitaker on what's going on in Iraq.

||| IRAN: We are a Buried Generation: Discrimination and Violence Against Sexual Minorities in Iran, a report by Human Rights Watch.

AMERICAS

||| BRAZIL: Gay couples entitled to pension benefits, government announces.

<<< BRAZIL: Rio's drug war (39 more pictures). A boy with "Peace" written on his forehead, at the Complexo do Alemão slum in Rio de Janeiro, last month.

||| ARGENTINA: Gay-friendly Buenos Aires experiences massive inflow of GBLT tourism.

||| Ecuador's first gay marriage.

||| Curaçao: Newly independent island welcomes gay travelers with Dutch-inspired diversity.

||| Another gay murder in Jamaica: 26-year-old stabbed to death in Kingston, on the morning of Friday, Dec 3.

>>> The Big Picture: Haiti, ten months later (40 more pictures).

AFRICA

||| Colonialism and homosexuality, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.

||| Gays in Africa face ever intensifying persecution, fuelled by "by fundamentalist preachers, intolerant governments and homophobic politicians".

||| KENYA: CCTV is to be installed in prisons to discourage gay sex.

||| KENYA: Why Kenya's new Constitution protects gays, by Professor Makau Mutua. "Homophobia – the irrational, unscientific, and primitive fear of gays and lesbians – is the vilest of hatreds. It's illogical and untenable. Homophobia lies in the same gutter with all the other hatreds, including racism, misogyny, religious bigotry, and tribalism."

||| KENYA: Homophobia only serves to spread homosexuality, by Dr Lukoye Atwoli.

||| CAMEROON: A report, "Criminalizing Identities: Rights Abuses in Cameroon Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity", flags up the suffering of the GBLT community in the east African country.

>>> Ugandan tabloid resumes anti-gay witch hunt. 22-year-old editor Giles Muhame is a member of rabid anti-gay preacher Martin Ssempa's Makerere Community Church...

||| A day after the second list of "homosexual generals" is published, a Ugandan court bans the paper from an further exposés.

||| Kill gays architect David Bahati is denied entry to the International Consortium of Governmental Financial Management conference in Washington because of his anti-homosexuality bill.

||| American activists urge the US State Department to grant asylum to those fleeing persecution.

||| SENEGAL: Homophobic violence on the rise.

||| First website for Ethiopian GBLT launches.

ASIA PACIFIC

||| CHINA: Gay Chinese kids seek acceptance. But for the Chinese government, gays are just another minority.

<<< CHINA: How's this for a picture? A paramilitary police recruit weeps silently before leaving his loved ones behind to start his service, earlier this month.

>>> CHINA: Shanghai apartment fire (31 more pictures). 58 people lost their lives in the blaze last month.

<<< TAIWAN: The story of Gin Gin's, Taiwan's first GBLT bookstore; it first opened in 1999.

||| SINGAPORE: Gay rights group People Like Us submit report highlighting that country's poor gay rights record ahead of a UN review.

||| PHILLIPINES: Legislation outlawing discrimination against gays stalls, thanks to opposition by the "powerful Roman Catholic hierarchy and its allies in the Philippine Congress".

||| INDIA: Happy and gay in Delhi University.

<<< INDIA: Religion, religion, what crimes are committed in your name! Here, a Muslim boy flagellates himself during a Muharram procession, earlier this month.

BODY & MIND

||| Does our fascination with the tragedies of others reflect our culture of narcissism?

<<< Internalised homophobia: what it is and how to deal with it.

||| Once AIDS was a death sentence. Now it's become a way of life.

||| The stigmatising of HIV continues to be the biggest challenge.

||| The bigotry that keeps AIDS alive.

||| Why Christians should be ashamed on World AIDS Day.

||| The man they cured of AIDS.

>>> A cure for baldness "could be available in 5 years".

||| Beauty sleep isn't a myth.

ZOOLOGY

<<< The Big Picture: Great Migrations (27 more pictures).

||| Penguin dilemma! Taut with tension, bursting with hope, and packed with drama - this sh*t is deep:

WEB & GADGETS

>>> Sick? You better believe it: a gold-dispensing ATM machine in Florida, earlier this month.

||| Facebook to compensates GBLT staff for discriminatory government tax.

||| Could be one of the reasons why Facebook is one of the best places to work.

||| The world according to Facebook:

PRINT

<<< Corey @ I'll Keep You Posted reviews Sissy Sammy in the land of WeHo 90069 - An Adult Fairytale by Dale Guy Madison.

||| One Minute With: Armistead Maupin, novelist.

FILM

>>> REDACTED.

<<< The BBC has a video report on the controversy surrounding Dunno Y, featuring Bollywood's first gay kiss.

||| What I see in the mirror: John Waters.

||| Winona Ryder on Mel Gibson: "I remember, like, fifteen years ago, I was at one of those big Hollywood parties. And he was really drunk. I was with my friend, who's gay. He made a really horrible gay joke. And somehow it came up that I was Jewish. He said something about 'oven dodgers,' but I didn't

get it. I'd never heard that before. It was just this weird, weird moment. I was like, 'He's anti-Semitic and he's homophobic.' No one believed me!"

TV

||| 90210's Teddy (Trevor Donovan, above right) is to get a boyfriend.

||| Australia's Nine Network is handed the strongest possible sanction over its broadcast of a sex scene in Dante's Cove.

<<< Coronation Street: "The outsider sees more, hears more, has to remember more to survive," he says. "All that is terrific training for a writer." Creator Tony Warren on how his show wouldn't have been the same had he been straight.

||| Coronation Street through the years: in pictures.

||| Coronation Street live episode – review.

>>> Coronation Street's 50th anniversary Radio Times covers - all of them.

<<< Cybermen - from Doctor Who - appear in character around London, including on the Tube.

MUSIC

||| JLS - good only for how they look, not how they sound - cover Bliss. And ain't that the truth... The walking slabs of meat also did some singing and dancing at London superclub G-A-Y at Heaven. I imagine the sort of trash that frequents such establishments probably liked the singing'n'dancing better than the flesh, which says a lot.

||| Hispanic homophobic bigots want Univision fined for interviewing Ricky Martin.

||| Trey Songz is "furious" over persistent rumours that he's gay...

||| ...Meanwhile Raz B is also talking homosexuality - and molestation. Again.

<<< Milli Vanilli comeback? And a Milli Vanilli movie too.

||| The Dlisted take on Willow Smith: "There's no time for school shit when she's trying to focus all her energy on snatching RiRi's wig off in a bid to become the next big thing."

>>> Having maxed out the talent around the time of EI, Nelly remains true to one of the music industries most holy maxims: sex sells.

SEX BIZ

<<< Brandon Lee starred in gay porn while serving in the Navy - and his commanding officer only made a joke about it.

||| Porn performer Derrick Burts - who tested HIV positive - speaks for the first time.

||| Has America's war on bareback begun? California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health has fined gay porn studio Treasure Island Media for exposing employees (i.e. the models) to "semen and other potentially infectious materials".

MANIKINS

<<< Rob Evans in the 30th anniversary special issue of i-D magazine, in a Dolce & Gabbana editorial lensed by Bruno Staub, and cast exclusively with black male models.

>>> Cuban twins. Cuban twins. Cuban twins. Mull those words over. When you've calmed down, add ace shutterbug Kevin Slack to the mix.

<<< No, this hasn't been wrongly filed here. You might think it's a promo shot for a Kristen Bjorn movie, but it's actually for Priape Canada's autumn magazine.

>>> Bret Grafton shot this editorial, the purpose of which was to sell obsenely overpriced underwear to people dumb enough to pay for it, for Mint Male Magazine.

<<< Here's more underwear shenanigans, from James Tudor (photographer unknown).

>>> Meanwhile, Jack Mackenroth gets naked for ace shutterbug Rick Day.

<<< "Chaleurs Hivernales", an editorial for Blake Magazine by David Arnot.

>>> Brazilian dating website Disponivel has created a series of new promotional shots.

SPORT

<<< Gavin Henson is naked again...

>>> ...But that's not half as exciting as Chad Ochocinco getting naked for PETA.

||| Nooooooooooooo!!! Big-bootied Rafael Nadal (he plays tennis, or something, I'm told) is ripping the Emporio Armani Underwear clean off fellow Latin lovely Cristiano Ronaldo, burying his face in them, then prancing around in

them for a big bucks advertising campaign.

>>> This might be the only time you read about Singapore's water polo team on this site. Are they boasting, or compensating?

...AND FINALLY

||| One invention you probably won't see being pitched on Dragon's Den.

||| Phallus challenge in Paris.

||| And finally...