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gay british play

From Victim to Weekend, we remember some of the bt Brish gay films.

Contents:

BETIFUL THG IS A MASTERPIECE OF GAY STORYTELLG

Betiful Thg Is a Masterpiece of Gay StorytellgThe 1996 Brish film portrayed s workg-class LGBT characters wh remarkable sensivy and Pictur ClassicsWhen Jonathan Harvey’s love story Betiful Thg buted 1993 as a play, he had no ia would eventually be herald as a crown jewel of gay storytellg. “But wasn’t tend to be a gay play, jt a play that happened to have gay characters.

Remend ReadgDpe Betiful Thg’s tle, gay life the early 1990s was anythg but pretty.

AIDS, then a terrifyg new disease, had started killg thoands of gay men the prev . In 1987, Bra’s Prime Mister, Margaret Thatcher, gave a speech plag that, rather than learng to rpect “tradnal” valu, children were beg tght that they “have an alienable right to be gay. ” It was hardly a cince that Sectn 28—an amendment that prohibed lol thori om “promotg homosexualy” or teachg schools the “acceptabily of homosexualy as a pretend fay relatnship”—was enacted by Thatcher’s ernment the followg year.

10 GREAT BRISH GAY FILMS

The film was genuely subversive for s time and place: Depictg gay kids who don’t succumb to the “plague” or ultimately bow to prsure om their bigoted peers was no small thg at a moment stricken by an pecially vilent, anti-LGBT mood. Inially, neher boy has fully accepted his sexualy, and Betiful Thg is a lite exploratn of the often-paful procs of g out that evolv to a gay film is filled wh charmg and poignant moments that uld be found any romantic dramedy.

At another pot, a cur Jamie steals a gay magaze and, rrectly, tells Ste what “ottage” is (“It’s yogurt. Later, the two go to a gay jot—the first place they thk to go to where they n be public about their relatnship sans judgment— a scene that gently pots to the historil signifince of gay bars as safe spac. Wh the relatable and humane moments, the film telegraphed to s mid-1990s dienc somethg they hadn’t heard much before: Gay people are jt Betiful Thg div even eper.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* GAY BRITISH PLAY

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