Be Excellent To Each Other

I admit that years ago I was a homophobe. I wasn't what you could call hateful of gay people, just fucking terrified of them. However, I now know that it was my insecurity because at that time I hadn't been in a lot of relationships. Since then I have been married and lived in and around a lot of gay people. I have worked with them, shared friendships with them and to me they are just the same as any one else. Sorry, 'they' seems so horrible to say.

Any way. So yeah, in the USA I met far more gay people (both male and female) than I have here. I don't know if it's still not as socially acceptable here in the UK as it is there, or whether it's just because there are more people in the USA than there are here.

So yes, me = totally accept gay people and their rights.

I'm also a big fan of gay humour and even more so when it annoys homophobes. As an example there was this wanker redneck bloke at my old work, so the gays would intentionally wind him up. Seeing him squirm was just very funny to me..

Right so cutting to the chase. I have a pretty decent family. They're all honest hard working people and they're all pretty open and accepting of others. Of those family members I would have liked to have thought that one in particular (a cousin a few years younger than me) would be very open and accepting of others. However a few days ago he went to see Jim Carrey's new film and came back warning people on Facebook not to go and see it because it was 'shit'. He then said that half of the cinema got up half way through it and walked out. This obviously sparked my curiosity as at the time I had no idea what the film was about, so I asked him.

He replied "Well it turns out he's gay".

I was fucking shocked and dissapointed. But it wasn't just him. According to him half of the cinema full of people got up and walked out because it turned out the film was about a gay man.

This was a cinema in Eastbourne.

So is this an isolated incident? or is the U.K really behind the states when it comes to this stuff?

I don't like fags anymore.
at least I keep telling myself that and it helps the nicotine cravings

Cock off fagballs.

Gayest thread ever.

you've lived in a lot of gay people?

To be fair, having had the pleasure(?) to visit Eastbourne on a number of occasions for work, everyone there did seem to be about 100+, so they may be that little bit more conservative.

Hang on - isn't all the advertising for that film all about how he's gay and that? And yet it came as a surprise to the good burghers of Eastbourne?

Well I think like The Cable Guy a lot of people heard only 'New Jim Carrey film' and expected it to be a comedy.

You really need (or not) to experience Eastbourne to understand, I should say senility is pretty rife, they probably thought they were seeing the lastest Doris Day vehicle...

I laughed my arse off at that film.

He got paid? HAHAHHAHAHA!

I figured with it sharing a border with Brighton they might be a little more open minded tbh.

Well, considering the context we'll let you off your ASSumptions.

Best one I ever heard was very very camp gay (Rob) to very large disgruntled redneck.

What's your idea of foreplay sweetie? a couple of farts?

I had to take off my Plantronics, cup my face and go outside to piss myself laughing (not literally of course because some smart ass would say that if I didn't add the disclaimer).

Your humour threshhold is pretty low, eh.

You a big Jim Carrey fan?

My threshold is very low yes. I like to laugh and laugh at really silly things.

As for Carrey? It's bad enough being manic at times myself and realising what a cunt I look.

So you could say not really, no.

Liar, Liar is one of the greatest films in history.

You lie.

And it has Jennifer Tilly's boobs.

I'd have thought the UK would generally be more tolerant than the US, considering that generally they're a more right-wing society than we are. I can't imagine Eastbourne is a good cross-section of our population, I have to admit. I doubt they have any black or Asian people living there, either.

Brighton, on the other hand!

I confess I have never been there (yet..).

Then again you raise a good point. I have only ever seen one black person where I live here and the kids around here are racist little cunts. The one time I did see a black man was on the train from Littlehampton and when he got off (pah, typical of racist little worms) they all started with the nigger references. They looked quite horrified when I got up and stared them down wearing a hoodie with JAMAICA plastered accross the front.

I was also shocked to find that a lot of racist groups are based in Hampshire.

So yeah, it could just be the area tbh. As I say, I have never been to Eastbourne but I do know it's one of god's waiting rooms.

I knew what the Jim Carey film was about before I saw any advertising for it but I was quite surprised when I first saw the trailer and actually commented to Jen that they had done a good job of not making it clear that it was about two gay men.

I thought his best effort was Dumb and Dumber. And that was aided by his (at the time) lovely wife and the other dood.

What film is this? That "I Love Philip Morris" one?

From the trailer that just looks like a film about a con man, like Catch Me If You Can.

Yeah that's the one. It's about a real guy who was a conman and went to prison and got in a relationship with Ewan McGregor*.


*may not actually have been Ewan McGregor in real life.

That is one hell of a conclusive exit poll. Could it not be that the 'reveal' that the man was gay was so ridiculous and unbelievable, coming on the back of torrents and torrents of shite that people couldn't tolerate a shit film any longer?

Or, a load of 'oh so funny' gay jokes got a bit much?

That said, I think I saw somewhere that the film had good reviews.

Curiously enough I think there are degrees of homophobia. Some people wouldn't dream of even telling homophobic jokes behind a gay person's back, and find such a practice wrong, but who would at the same time be very uncomfortable seeing a film depicting two men in a relationship - even if it didn't portray them making love. Then of course there are the immature Jim Davidson types and the genuinely unpleasant shrivelled shit-for-souls, and then there are those who dispassionately disapprove on religious or moral grounds but who are perfectly willing to tolerate.

It's an odd medley. I have to admit though, I am somewhat surprised and depressed by what you say JC about half the audience walking out. I remember trying to get people to see Brokeback Mountain. Even people I didn't consider homophobic just couldn't bring themselves to go and see it, not even when on TV, finding the idea unpleasant. They don't mind gay people, it's just that they run screaming from the depiction of a gay relationship. Odd.

Frankly, I don't believe this. I find it exceptionally hard to believe that the people of Eastbourne would spend money, then not see the film out, irrelevant of content.

79% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

I went to see Brokeback Mountain on the night of release. Every one knew it was about gays. A whacking great load of people got up and walked out during that (mostly at the make love in the tent scene). And they knew what the film was about.

Still, I suppose the shock of not knowing and then finding out would reveal people's true colours. I think tbh that it's probably down to a lot of people smiling along and saying they are accepting of gay people but then when they're put on the spot (like at the cinema) they can't help being who they are.

I'm just bitterly dissapointed in my cousin. I guess he's been hanging around with the douchebags he knows for too long to know any different.

Is this acutally true? Could it not be an exageration?

Actually on 'getting up and walking out on a film' South Park : BLU would have the record for me. I went to see it three times (mainly to see people's reactions when it revealed it's true self) and the ammount of people who got up and walked out (or had their kids ears cupped as they walked out) was uncanny.

I don't know about the UK in general, but you can't move for gays round here.

It didn't really help that it was always talked about in the media and by people in general as "that gay film", suggesting a certain frippery and sensationalism, as though bumming was all it was about. I think this is one of the reasons most of the people I know avoided it, or assumed it'd be rubbish, and I think most of them (including my mum and dad) found it quite a touching and poignant film once they actually got around to seeing it.

Maybe the film turned them and they all went outside to bum each other in the mouth.

Not according to him. And I have to say he's not the sort of person to exagerate (sic).

There was no making love going on in that tent ;-)


Conversely, when I saw the same film in a full cinema in Birmingham, no one left. When extrapolated, my sample selection proves that there are no homophobic people in Birmingham at all.

I had to leave during Brokeback Mountain because my massive stonk-on had torn through my jeans and I couldn't risk anyone noticing when the lights came up at the end.

I'm sure glad there are no gays around here.

Good lord.

I think it's just Eastbourne then.

Or you, JC. You weren't smoking a huge cigar, wearing a massive stetson and laughing raucously throughout, were you?

You appear to be suggesting that there is some other, possibly more acceptable, way of watching films in the cinema. That would be news to me, I have to say.

That was actually at Croydon all three times. (the South Park thing).

I think a lot of parents made the mistake of not actually checking out what they were letting their kids watch. And when they got to the cinema it didn't take long to find out.

Are you sure it wasn't because you were asking them to come with you?

I would imagine you could put this sort of cross-sectional analysis to any group of people on any viewpoint from homophobia to the moon landings.



It is easy to label people, and you have to be careful. I think there may be a difference between homophobia and not wanting to see two people rut gratuitously on the big screen. Would you have described them as heterophobes if they hadn't wanted to see film with man-woman sex in it?

When I first tried to rent Brokeback Mountain on DVD the guy in the video shop said he wasn't stocking it wasn't anything he was interested in stocking and then warned me that it had a gay 'scene' in it (which I knew, not being from the planet zorg).

A while later I went back in there and there was a copy on the shelf. I said 'oh, did you change your mind then?' and he explained that people (students) kept on asking for it so he got a couple of copies in, but wouldn't watch it himself, again warning me that it had a gay 'scene' in it.

Craig and I both enjoyed the movie very much. Now that DVDs don't seem to cost the earth we have it to keep, though it is too heartbreaking for me to put on again. I think we only actually watched it the first time when I rented it, but I wanted to have a copy for my DVd collection (of 6 DVDs).

Jeebus, what did he think was going to happen if he watched it?

The problem with irrational phobias is that they are just that.

Although a lot of it can be conditioned from parents, peers and the meedja.

I'll have you know that we Zorgians are an erudite, progressive and freethinking people, thankyouverymuch.

yeah, but have you got Brokeback Mountain out on DVD over there yet?

No.

Given the current trend, I wonder if a sequel would be in 3D?