1 post tagged “homophobia”

Life on Mars meets Camberwick Green

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One reason we love Gene Hunt, as played by Philip Glenister, in Life on Mars is the stuff he gets away with saying on prime-time TV. The excuse: it’s set in 1973 and he’s a mean-bastard cop. The reality: probably a backlash against political correctness. Here’s something no 2007 character could ever say, especially as it makes fun of gays:

He is a bum bandit, a poof, fairy, a queer, a queen, fudge packer, uphill gardener, fruit picking sodomite.

Or when attacking Sam, also with the usual homophobic comments:

You great, soft, sissy, girly, nancy, French, bender, Man. United-supporting poof!

In fact, anything blue seems to get a laugh:

I’ve come at this from more angles than Linda Lovelace.

Or the use of brand names:

What have you been eating? Pedigree Chum?

Or just famous people:

Wouldn't Nixon notice a van parked outside the White House?

   Then, the other characters get their own back, like Sam:

Listen to me. I can just about handle you, driving like a pissed-up crackhead and treating women like beanbags, but I’m going to say this once and once only, Gene: stay out of Camberwick Green!

Or, in summarizing Gene Hunt:

An overweight, over the hill, tobacco-stained, borderline alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding.

   But I still think Dirty Harry has the most politically incorrect line, despite Gene Hunt:

Harry hates everybody. Limeys, niks, hebs, fat dagos, niggers, honkies, chinks, you name it.

   And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the American version of Life on Mars has a chance.
   I will miss this show when it finishes on Tuesday night in the UK.