_____  ___    ____  ____    ______    ___         _______    _______       ______      ________    _______        __          
    (\"   \|"  \  ("  _||_ " |  /" _  "\  |"  |       /"     "|  /"      \     /    " \    /"       )  /"     "|      /""\         
    |.\\   \    | |   (  ) : | (: ( \___) ||  |      (: ______) |:        |   // ____  \  (:   \___/  (: ______)     /    \        
    |: \.   \\  | (:  |  | . )  \/ \      |:  |       \/    |   |_____/   )  /  /    ) :)  \___  \     \/    |      /' /\  \       
    |.  \    \. |  \\ \__/ //   //  \ _    \  |___    // ___)_   //      /  (: (____/ //    __/  \\    // ___)_    //  __'  \      
    |    \    \ |  /\\ __ //\  (:   _) \  ( \_|:  \  (:      "| |:  __   \   \        /    /" \   :)  (:      "|  /   /  \\  \     
     \___|\____\) (__________)  \_______)  \_______)  \_______) |__|  \___)   \"_____/    (_______/    \_______) (___/    \___)    
                                                                                                                                   

[zines * music * nonsense]

Gay & Bisexual But Homophobic: A Tragic Compendium of Pathetic Cinema

Once upon a time I started describing certain films as "bisexual but homophobic" to my friends in the legendary Ghost Quarter discord server (don't ask for an invite, you won't get one). The purpose of this webpage is to provide a public record of the films and movies I define as bisexual, or gay, but homophobic. Do not ask what the methods are that I use, nor how I arrived at these cateogries: all will soon become clear below.

Borstal Boy (2000)

This film is based on Brendan Behan's memoir of his time in British jails and borstals (juvenile detention). The book "Borstal Boy" is a fairly striaghtforward recounting of our hero's time in nick, but it does have themes, namely Brendan's growing disillusionment with Irish nationalism and Catholicism, the effect of incarceration on him as a human being, and the development of his sexuality. The movie Borstal Boy tries to do justice to all of these themes and grinds them into shit in the process.

Basically, director Peter Sheridan is attempting to represent on film a novel that has an extremely limited first-person point of view, and is set in a monotonous enviroment. He's also attempting to do all of this with the visual language (and budget) of a TV movie. These challenges sink the script and thus sink the film, although a couple of more interesting performances from the cast could have helped it out. Poor Mr Sheridan throws everything he can think of into the film to liven it up. A little German boy is blown up by a landmine, an amoral rapist tries to kill our hero, a bisexual love triangle is introduced and an Oscar Wilde play is staged. Unfortunately, the film is still boring as shit.

The aforementioned bisexual love triangle is the closest thing this film has to a main storyline, and it's the reason that this film achieves the dubious honour of being bisexual but homophobic. In real life, Brendan Behan probably was bisexual, and homophobic to boot. This claim made some Irish republicans very annoyed when this film was releaed in 2000, but Ulick O'Connor had said Brendan Behan was probably bisexual in a comprehensive biography released in 1970, so they were a little bit late to the fucking party really. I can admire Peter Sheridan's willingness to depict Brendan Behan as bisexual, because even today Brendan Behan is not seen as a queer writer by the general public. However he managed to do it in the most stereotypical and downright biphobic way.

Brendan has to choose between two love interests - one male, one female, one the hot gay fellow prisoner who's also a sailor, one the hot but snooty prison governor's daughter who appreciates Brendan's artistic soul. Brendan spends the whole movie treating gay sailor Charlie (played by, get this, Danny Dyer) like shit for being gay and for hitting on him. Then he reads Oscar Wilde to impress the snooty but hot prison governor's daughter, which prompts him t o briefly relax his attitudes and kiss Charlie. Then some pointless bullshit with the amoral rapist murderer happens and Brendan decides to go back to being homophobic, which leads Charlie to get sick of all this nonsense and take up an offer of his old job back from the navy (oh yeah, it's set during world war two). Charlie promptly fucking dies when his ship gets hit by one of those torpedo yokeybobs. Brendan sees the headline reading "SS CRUMPET TORPEDOED, HUNDREDS OF SAILORS LOST AT SEA" or whatever and cries hysterically about how it's his fault and he basically murdered Charlie. Hot prison governor's daughter comforts him without ever pointing out that yeah, actually he did basically murder Charlie. The upshot of all this is that Brendan Behan goes home to Ireland with a new love for British people and a new commitment to not killing them.

Incredibly, they made Brendan Behan more homophobic than in the original novel, which was published in 1958.

This was Peter Sheridan's first and last movie and I can see why. For better or worse, Brendan Behan manages to convey a lot of personality in Borstal Boy the novel. This thing is limp and lame. It's a prison movie without the grime and a queer movie with a downright 1950sish view of homosexuality. It truly earns the infamous title of being bisexual, and homophobic.

Check this out. The first home media copies of this film came with a cover (left) that more or less tells you what to expect - charming but ultimately pointless angsting, with homoeroticism to boot. The one on the right however was released after Danny Dyer shot to fame as a host of crap macho TV (Britain's Deadliest Men? I think?), and thus was ruthlessly rebranded to suggest that not only is Danny Dyer the lead actor in this film but that he spends it doing actiony things, not having his heart broken by a callous dickhead who writes poems.

NEXT TIME on Gay and Bisexual but Homophobic Masterpiece Theatre: The Courier!