The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Get it straight over gay roles
Idon’t know whether it’s good idea that comedian and actor Jack Whitehall, who is apparently straight, has been cast in the role of a gay man – seemingly the Disney Corporation’s first “openly gay” character – in the forthcoming film Jungle Cruise. The role of the straight man in comedy used to mean something different in the dim and distant past.
But that was then and this is now. The argument isn’t, as I think I understand it, that only gay people can play gay people but it must be extremely frustrating and infuriating for gay actors not to be cast in what probably look to many like tailor-made roles reflecting their own experience.
There are, of course, views put forward that when gay actors have been cast in previous eras, they have been shoe-horned into portraying gay stereotypes – Mr Humphreys Syndrome as it has become known here in Britain.
In Hollywood-land, it tends to be what Rupert Everett has described as “Gay Best Friend” Syndrome.
Mr Whitehall’s role, as the brother of the female star, is described as “hugely effete and very camp” and that does seem to fall right back into that kind of category.
In contrast, our very own Alan Cumming is now starring in a US TV series, Instinct and, in listing the main points of the show in interviews, has remarked that the fact that his character is gay is well down the list of interesting things about him.
Of course, in the past when such things were kept under wraps, closeted gay actors were cast in what were seen as thoroughly heterosexual roles. You only have to look at Rock Hudson’s romantic comedies with Doris Day.
Would it not, I venture to suggest, be a mark of progress in the 21st Century if more openly gay actors were cast to play straight, heterosexual roles?
The argument that the audience wouldn’t find it believable really doesn’t hold water when you consider the suspension of disbelief in other aspects of film-making or stage-craft.
Fruit
After last week’s revelation, expanded upon in these very paragraphs, about children not knowing where fruit and veg come from, I have decided, if only unilaterally, that there is some light at the end of the tunnel that isn’t a train packed with unregulated food products from profiteering nations which do not know our ways when it comes to food safety standards.
I feel confident, however, that both the general knowledge and the health and well-being of future generations will be assured by the fact that there is now a Girl Guide badge in mixology. Instructions are given on how to make a mocktail and ways to: “…explore different juices, fruits, herbs and spices to create combinations you’ve never tried before. Use up to eight ingredients you have at home to make a new drink.
“You could add cinnamon to a vanilla milkshake, slice fruit into water or blend up banana with your orange juice.”
Well, you certainly could do just that although the elephant in the room is surely that in some cases, at least, some of the older little darlings might just have already noticed that there is another magical ingredient in many of the existing, proprietary brand fruitstyle drinkies on the market and go about adding a shot or two of that from the bottle bank of mum and dad. Most of them will certainly know where that comes from.
It’s all a learning curve, after all. And I admit to being intrigued by the GG mention of slicing fruit into water. It’s comin’ yet, for ‘a that, as they say and it doesn’t just limit itself to lemon and lime. I found myself recently in a Yorkshire pub rejoicing in the rather butch name of The Boltmakers’ Arms, when the Bet Lynch lookalike behind the bar (no clichés left unstated here either) asked me, re my order of a gin and tonic: “D’you want froot wi’ that, loove?”
“Ah,” I thought, finding myself channelling my inner L P Hartley in a moment of literary enlightenment, “this is a foreign country and they do things differently here. Mayhap this is their way of offering me ice and a slice. When in Rome and all that. It would be churlish to refuse.” So I didn’t.
So while my companions were busy downing their pints of Boltmakers’ Best, I was tackling a goldfish bowl of G&T festooned with fresh strawberries and awash with blueberries. Surreal didn’t quite begin to cover it. I can only presume that Bet-behind-the-bar was a Guider in disguise.
But I reckon we are still safe with the Girl Guides who know right from wrong and how to just say No-hito to anything but a Tee-total Sunrise. Think about it. The current organisation motto states: “I promise that I will do my best to be true to myself and develop my beliefs, to serve the Queen and my community, to help other people and keep the Guide Law.”
Somehow I don’t see that being replaced any time soon by: “It’s five o’clock somewhere…”