Hello everyone, My name is Elinor and I'm the producer of CLAPHAM JUNCTION. That means I helped to put the film together, working closely with the writer, Kevin Elyot, and director, Adrian Shergold.
It would be great to hear what you thought of the film. Please do get in touch.
It is different form the "beautifull thing" etc.... but it is about what is happening in the real life NOT to all of us NOT everyday BUT it can happen to ALL of us !!!
I think it is good to have this kind of reflection and to show SOME of what can happen to gays on some specific grouds - everyday !
If we wanted more Brokeback or Another country - we have got it by the gallon.
this is ANOTHER aspect of the gay life and yes it is not pink !!!!
Have to say I am very disappointed with this! right from the off gay people were depicted as sex obsessed cheaters (one of the first dramas featuring a newly wed gay couple and the guy cheats on his partner!) What WAS The point of this? to show prejudice still exists in society HOW? By showing pedos, cottaging old men, sex obsessed gay people? As a gay man living happily in a monogamous relationship with my partner planning on getting a civil partnership next year I am deeply offended at this depiction of gay life.
Please do explain to me, I know I'm not the most artistic person, but I fail to understand how this could EVER improve the situation for gay people, only detract any positive steps made!
I would consider it one of the most destructive pieces of drama for the rights of gay people I have seen in my life.
Help me understand this PLEASE!
I'm not Bound by those Restrictive rules of Grammar! I'll put a full stop or a capital letter where I feel like!
OK, so this is my third post on this matter. Tell me, please. What on earth made you and the writer think it appropriate and good to depict a gay man as a paedophile?
Did you not for one second consider the effect which that could have upon so many of us gay guys who have to live in a prejudiced society, some of the inhabitants of which already consider gay men to be paedophiles?
_______________________________________________________ Member #1 of the "I Created My Own Special Group" Group.
In response to MarkFM ("Help me to understand this please!") Kevin Elyot set out to write a provocative piece of drama, in order to raise the issue of continuing homophobia in society (despite legislation), and as a result it is inevitably looking at gay life from a specific angle, in order to highlight the problems, not in this case celebrate the lives of contented gay men. We believe that audiences are sophisticated enough to see that it is a specific point of view, not the whole picture.
Originally posted by U_Enter: OK, so this is my third post on this matter. Tell me, please. What on earth made you and the writer think it appropriate and good to depict a gay man as a paedophile?
Did you not for one second consider the effect which that could have upon so many of us gay guys who have to live in a prejudiced society, some of the inhabitants of which already consider gay men to be paedophiles?
I was just reading Sixu's post, which I think highlights the reasoning behind the scenes between Tim and Theo.
Thanks very much for all your posts. It's been very interesting to hear your responses, positive and negative. I'll keep logging in over the next few days.
We believe that audiences are sophisticated enough to see that it is a specific point of view, not the whole picture.
Elinor
But surely you know this is the picture we *always* get! This wasn't just bleak, it perpetuated the myth that gay = lonely, sad victim who dies in the end. And you think that audiences are sophisticated enough to know that this isn't the entire picture? I'm struggling to think of many films that dare to break this mould. I'd rather see a bunch of drag queens or steretypical hairdressers fighting back and having a laugh than this tired miserable narrative.
I've written a review of this for my blog. I reproduce it here:
Clapham Junction, written by Kevin Elyot and broadcast last night on Channel 4 as part of it's Gay Season, should perhaps have been subtitled 'One Ring to Bind Them All' since its narrative centred around the meanderings of a civil partnership wedding band through the lives of a group of gay men in London.
The opening scene indicated that we were to be presented with something very different to what gay drama had offered up in the past. Delivered entirely without irony, it saw a TV commissioner rejecting a gay-themed script because he felt the whole "gay thing" had passed its sell-by date. If only Mr Elyot had listened to his scripted avowal. Rather than illuminating the prevalence of homophobic violence in today's society, Clapham Junction laid bare the writer's internal homophobia. What followed had little to say about the lives of gay men in 2007.
The gay lives portrayed here were, for the most part, brutish and without redemption. Sexual couplings were drug-fuelled, violent and often took place in public toilet.We had the usual array of queer stereotypes, including the married man who gets a bit in the toilets on the way home from work, the self-loathing psycho who loves his Nan but commits acts of random violence against other gay men, the frustrated schoolboy and the alcohol-swigging predator, who can't keep it in his pants, even on his wedding - sorry, civil partnership - day. And most startling of all, there was a man who was "inside for interfering with youngsters." Quite what a paedophile was doing in a drama which announced itself to be the story of 36 hours in the lives of a group of gay men is anyone's guess. Lesbian characters were wholly absent.
"I like the Third Reich," said the 14 year-old history student, as he made sexual approaches to the sex offender, conjuring up hackneyed images of merry queers in Nazi uniforms, mincing about to Liza Minnelli records. "Perhaps we enjoy sniffing around in dark places," said another character at an oh-so-polite, middle class dinner party which vainly attempted to contextualise the queer zeitgeist in a stream of clumsy dialogue.
Later, one of the awfully polite women at said dinner party goes all funny because the sex offender lives close to her. She's so affronted that she has to run home lest the vile paedo interferes with her son. Rushing to her son's room, she discovers he's gone. But what's this she sees across the street? It's her boy, framed in the sulphurous light emanating from the window of the paedo's lair. She rushes over and an unlikely confrontation ensues. Meanwhile, our cute-faced psycho gets a taste of his own violence and ends up trying to touch up the gay doctor, even though he's stretched out, bashed and bloody, on a hospital stretcher. Wouldn't you? You see, the doctor notices that the psycho has The Ring, which actually belongs to the doctor's partner, who gave the ring to the waiter after he had sex with him. The waiter then got murdered on the common and was discovered by the psycho, who had actually met him earlier in a club. They all lined up and with a big heave-ho, the enormous turnip was pulled up out of the ground.
Clapham Junction was TV drama trapped in a self-loathing, 1980s timewarp. It was like witnessing a piece of right-wing propaganda emerge from a parallel universe where Russell T. Davies' Queer as Folk, with all of its pathos and exuberance, never happened.
Clapham Junction, step up to the podium and accept your turnip.
WELL SAID OZEKI. Tired, Miserable narrative it certainly was! More to the point it was totally irresponsible of the writer and producers to go for the'shock value' storylines of such stereotypes in a way of showing homophobia in todays society. It felt like the exploitation of gay 'themes' in an attempt to make a ground breaking statement. I am a gay man who is hard pressed to know anyone or experienced anything that was portrayed in Clapham Junction. I agree with the person who says that this show has set gay rights back 40 years. IRRESPONSIBLE FILM MAKING -AN OPPORTUNITY WASTED.
I enjoyed the film and thought it was very well made and scripted etc... However, I feel it gives a very bad reputation to gay males. I don't believe we should pretend these kind of events don't happen as I think it's a good thing to bring them to people's attention. I do belive though that a more lighthearted approach should sometimes be taken when making films of this nature. Purely because its a bad representation of the gay community. It's not fair to show gay men in this light as not all gay men do these kind of things. I think it would help a lot of parents with gay children to see a different side to what being gay is about. It certainly doesn't always involve drugs and beating people up. There are gay men out there that exist and lead normal everyday lives, they have jobs, they have friends and they meet someone, fall in love and do all this without the need to go clubbing every weekend, or to fill themselves full of drugs or to sleep with every gay man they see. I had a friend who came out to his parents a few years ago and his mum automatically assumed that he would end up on drugs with AIDs and living in a seedy flat with an old man. I'm sure she only thinks all this because of what is depicted on TV, what other reason do people have to believe otherwise?
I for one would like to see more programmes and films on gays and lesbians showing them as normal everyday couples. I think that would help people to accept us and will help show everyone that we're no different....
An interesting board here and good to see the differing highlighted views on this bound to be controversial subject. I understand the views expressed but beg to differ. I do not think that the film gave anyone an easy time of it. Is it perhaps to easy to recognise just the homosexual “stereotypes” and not evaluate that even the heterosexual characters were also of the same ilk.
The overprotective prissy middle class mother, the straight/gay man (STRAY) who hates himself so much he attacks those he wants. The depressed and isolated “possible “sex offender” and the married men in denial of past deeds and present needs.
Not all of the characters that had gay sex identified as gay, nor was any statement made about their sexuality. It is interesting that the boards here soon became filled last night with shouts about how not all gay men are like this etc. Well, from my understanding many are, hedonism and fun are the staple diet for many, as is loose sex and a need to conceal ones true identity. To me the irony is that the same is true of heterosexuals, just not as interesting because they are not the “other” they are the ones that do the “othering”. Heterosexual sex is normative and therefore it is far less interesting to them than what we get up to.
So nice also to see how many posters are happy with the traditional monogamous relationship and very happy to by the sound of it. Not so nice is the belief that we have to defend ourselves from the other lifestyles we choose to live from essentially a heterosexual, hegemonic point of view that really has no relevance to us. I cannot help but see with gay eyes, but whom would a heterosexual have identified with in this film? The pickings were at the least meagre with the likelihood that any bigots watching would be unlikely to find solace in any of the characters portrayed, possibly forcing them to confront their own sense of disgust, hate or ambiguity to the subject of homosexual sex.
The storyline about the adolescent and the older man has typically evoked cries of paedophile and child abuser, which is a shame. Firstly a paedophile is someone who likes pre-pubescent children and that young man was hardly that. Secondly’ how easily, when many of us have experienced similar yearnings and needs at the same age, we slip into the condemnation, a condemnation that has often been used to attack the gay community in the past and a weapon that if we yield it, will condemn another generation of adolescent homosexuals to approbation, ostracisation and self hatred.
I cannot recall the last time this type of representation of adolescent sexuality was so deftly handled. It should lead us to questions many assumptions about what we are told and what we read, most powerful indeed.
On the whole an excellent and gripping drama, with some well needed comedic moments and a knowing sense that it was telling a good story from the start. To assign this the role of an “attacker” would, I humbly believe” be foolish. Not only that it would lull us to fall into the same rhetoric as bigots and homophobes have been using for decades. Lets not let that happen.
I kind of expected the knee-jerk reactions about this while I was watching this - because the same things were going through my mind at the time. By the end - bleak though it all was - i realised it had given us a lot to think about. Not just us as gay people (some who sit in their 'normal/happy' world & are complacent about what's going on in other gay people's lives - but also those straight people whose views are right out of the Daily Mail.
Yes it doesn't represent my life but as a drama it was supposed to be a snapshot of 24 hours in certain people's lives. It's set in London - and it's difficult to imagine these characters don't exist somewhere in a big city. Of course it's bleak, depressing, uncomfortable and nasty but i don't think it's gratuitous (although I can imagine how "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" wouldn't agree).
These characters probably will do these sorts of things and I don't think there's any point in holding back on what we see them do.
Predictably people are doing the whole "this'll make everyone think all gays are pedos". I think completely the opposite. For a change it actually shows a situation brought about entirely by the 15 year old boy. In no way was the older man playing up the predatory male pedo stereotype. It just highlights the grey area that exists & how the law can't legislate about exactly when boys become sexually aware. The boy here was completely in control of what he was doing - if anything HE was extremely predatory (or to put it another way an extremely horny teenager fulfilling a long-held fantasy) Yes - it was extremely unwise (& unlawful) for the older guy to get involved but if the boy hadn't done it with him be most certainly would've gone elsewhere. When i was that age - the thoughts & desires were there - i just didn't have the courage to do anything about it!
I’m a gay girl and saw the adverts for this programme ‘celebrating’ 40 yrs since homosexuality became legal and thought it looked really good.
I watched Clapham Common last night and found some parts confusing and others extremely uncomfortable to watch.
I did, however, keep watching in the hope that all would become clear at the end and I would be able to make sense of it. What a shame it didn’t.
The paedophile story line was so random and totally plays into the homophobic view that gay people are perverts who will sleep with children (if said children come on to them, because apparently that makes it ok?)
I really think that portraying a paedophile as a ‘gay man’ in the programme was wrong. If Channel 4 want to portray paedophiles in their programmes fair enough, maybe they could do so in a different programme, or perhaps differentiate and not advertise it as being ‘gay’.
In my opinion the law is there (in part) to stop adults taking advantage of vulnerable young people gay/straight/whatever, who are not emotionally mature enough to make these decisions. I know this particular character was 14/15 and came on to the 30-something man and felt ‘ready’ etc. Yes some people do have sex before the age of consent, but this guy had been in prison before for “kiddie fiddling” so he had taken advantage of people under age before-i.e he is a sex offender.
I’m 25 I would never go near a 15 yr old CHILD whether they came on to me or not. Its just wrong.
The character of Terry: Why was he so aggressive and angry? Was he gay and couldn’t accept it? Why did he go into the woods with the guy at the end who had used the same lines Terry used on people, “hot isn’t it?” “Are you from round here?” If he knew he was going to get beaten up? Did he want to get beaten up? Or was Terry planning on beating up the guy? Or did he actually want to have sex with the guy?
Its already been said, but why did the groom have to be unfaithful? And cheating on his wedding day?! Again playing into a stereotype homophobic people have that gay people cant commit to one person and be monogamous, even on their wedding day!
I do appreciate that Channel 4 are giving gay people visibility, I am just disappointed in this instance and hope that the majority of the people watching it were not homophobic straight people… who will have had lots of their stereotypes re-enforced.
Disagree with many of your points their lucky, but most of all the last. I think homophobes watching this would have felt very uncomfortable as my main post stated.
Originally posted by Elinor C4: Hello everyone, My name is Elinor and I'm the producer of CLAPHAM JUNCTION. That means I helped to put the film together, working closely with the writer, Kevin Elyot, and director, Adrian Shergold.
It would be great to hear what you thought of the film. Please do get in touch.
Elinor
Elinor,
This was the most thought provoking programme I have watched for a very long time. I was very well made, with a superb cast.
The problem for me was that it just tried to do too much in two hours. It included just about every negative aspect of being gay today, without showing any positive contrast.
I think it might have been more realistic if it had concentrated on just a couple of the main strands; say the homophobia and the under-age issue. However, I know from 'My Night With Reg' that Kevin Elyot likes to have various separate story lines going which are revealed to have a common link at the end.
It did rather leave me thinking of the old addage from years ago that if there is a gay character in a drama, they are either the villain or the victim.
But full marks for commissioning the work, and to C4 for the Gay Season, the rest of which may redress the balance.
As a gay guy, living in a relatively "closed-minded" part of the country, I felt Clapham Junction raised many of the issues gay people face - even now, in what is supposed to be a forward-thinking, tolerant society. Thankfully, I have never experienced such violence as was shown in the film. I hope that the aforementioned "closed-minded" people had a cjhance to watch it, and maybe their views will change. Thank you for the important part you played in highlighting such crucial issues. Dom
quote:
Originally posted by Elinor C4: Hello everyone, My name is Elinor and I'm the producer of CLAPHAM JUNCTION. That means I helped to put the film together, working closely with the writer, Kevin Elyot, and director, Adrian Shergold.
It would be great to hear what you thought of the film. Please do get in touch.
I have to say, i enjoyed it. i thought the acting was great, and the cast was strong. however, being only 16 and not really fully out, it scared the bejeesus out of me. not so much alfies death. it was more to do with me when im older. not having kids, and the possibility of being alone. and how older gay men were percieved in the programme, and then with the drugs, and the promiscusness(sp?), it kinda worried me. i dont know much about the gay scene at all, and it freaked me out.
The problem I see in this drama was not so much that it contained such bad portrayals of gay men (or straight men for that matter) but the fact that it as very badly written. My Elyot failed to look further than 2 dimensional stereotypes for his cast list, as a previous poster has so adroitly pointed out; ones which came straight out of every 1980s drama about coming of age or the coming of AIDS.
I thought the main premise of the drama was interesting (although if you substitute the wedding ring for 'Reg', you would have Mr. Elyot's other work, so no prizes for originality there) but we have all seen these characters hundreds of times before. I take the point that this is a drama from specific point of view, not meant to be taken as representative, but, really, this kind of fayre has been the norm for the past 25 years.
Originally posted by Elinor C4: In response to MarkFM ("Help me to understand this please!") Kevin Elyot set out to write a provocative piece of drama, in order to raise the issue of continuing homophobia in society (despite legislation), and as a result it is inevitably looking at gay life from a specific angle, in order to highlight the problems, not in this case celebrate the lives of contented gay men. We believe that audiences are sophisticated enough to see that it is a specific point of view, not the whole picture.
Elinor
I can understand that, however the trailer for it said, "exploring how tolerant society is today", about which there was actually very little and I felt it a little derogitory...
I have been unfortunate enough to have experienced an attack, (however nothing to the extremes of what was shown in the program... just a couple of stitches and some cleaning up was required), however, as in the film, the people were never caught... and I don't believe they very often are. And while I was disappointed, generally, with the way we were portrayed, (people who are already tolerant, it would not have made any difference, but people that are not - I believe - would see it as justification for their beliefs), I believe this point regarding attacks was a poignant one, and is something that needs to be taken a lot more seriously... and more needs to be done to find the people concerned...
- I don't hate you, I just like you in a negative way -
Member #1 of the "I Created My Own Special Group" Group. 
