Friday 30 May 2008

sinbad’s in corrie.
he used to be in brookie.
it’s emmerdale next.

Now before I start I need to point out that I have earned my gay membership card over the years. I went on marches, attended countless benefits and, most importantly, have been openly gay in a heterosexual world since about 1976, which is about three-quarters of a century in gay years.
So what I’m about to say may seem somewhat controversial, as to be frank, I think there’s rather too many gay characters on tv at the moment, and if I’m getting tired of them, I’m sure the heterosexual masses must be sick up to the back passage with it all.
This gay dramafest seems to have gone in cycles. Gay friends were followed by gay sons, gay brothers, gay husbands, gay gangsters, gay mothers and now we have an outbreak of gay grandads. Coronation Street’s is Gail’s Dad, Ted Paige, for many years the missing Paige, since Gail had never met him. He’s a genial, somewhat realistic figure, since his only link to stereotypical gayness is his dapper hat and ubiquitous cravat. Almost simultaneously, from across the channel, we have Desperate Housewives, which already boasts a (quite honestly, thoroughly unlikeable) gay couple, a complicated gay teenager, and now has its own gay grandad. Being a US show though, it can’t have any old gay grandad, oh no! DH has Richard Chamberlain, the man who broke a thousand viewer’s hearts as Doctor Kildare.
It’s only a matter of time before Bree is exposed as a drag-queen who killed the original Bree and took her place many years ago.
In many ways, she is gayer than any other character in the show.