Newsnight Review Friday 10 July

Martha Kearney is joined by playwright Mark Ravenhill, author Stella Duffy, journalist Johann Hari and fashion writer Henry Conway.

They will be looking at how gays and lesbians are portrayed in culture, in the light of the new film, Bruno.

FILM | Bruno

TELEVISION | Comedy

ART | Gay Icons

FILM | Before Stonewall

Bruno

Bruno is the latest offering from Borat creator Sacha Baron Cohen. The gay Austrian fashion journalist of the title is disgraced in his home country and moves to the United States to become a Hollywood star.

Along the way he adopts an African baby and tries to bring peace to the Middle East, to get himself kidnapped by the Taliban and to turn himself straight with the help of an evangelical counsellor.

The real people he encounters are the stars but does the film expose or reinforce prejudices?

Bruno is on general release from Friday 10 July

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Television comedy

Panellist Mark Ravenhill makes the case that TV comedy has returned to the gay stereotyping of the 1970s.

He sees a line from Larry Grayson and Dick Emery through to Little Britain's "the only gay in the village" and Jonathan Ross' Four Poofs and a Piano, but are they really derogatory portrayals?

The panel looks at what the modern sketch show and the continued popularity of the camp entertainer says about our collective sense of humour.

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Gay Icons

The National Portrait Gallery asked 10 prominent gay people, including Elton John, Sarah Waters and Sir Ian McKellen, to choose six people they considered iconic.

Choices ranged from The Village People and Princess Diana, to Graham Taylor and Nelson Mandela, with one of the selectors nominating their own family.

Lord Waheed Alli, takes us on a tour of his selection while our panel debate what makes a gay icon.

Gay Icons is on at the National Portrait Gallery until 18 October

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Before Stonewall

First released in 1984, documentary film Before Stonewall looks back at the period in US history when homosexuals were not to be acknowledged, let alone given rights.

The film considers the roles of influential thinkers, activists and artists leading up to the 1969 riots in New York gay bar The Stonewall Inn.

The panel look back at the documentary and forward to current society to ask, how far have we come? Is gay culture is now mainstream?

Before Stonewall is available on DVD

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