50 Gscene
JAQ ON THE BOX
TWISTED GILDED GHETTO
ALL CHANGE
SLAY AT HOME
) After my Jaq on the Box column from 2005 cropped up in Chris Gull’s raid of the archives last month, it occurred to me just how much has changed in the world of TV in 15 years. Back then I would have struggled to fill a page with commentary on shows featuring LGBTQ+ characters.
) Creeping quietly around, with just the rustling of tissue paper to betray my presence, I’ve dropped off the husband’s gifts. It’s hard getting a PlayStation in a stocking but I’ve managed it and have slipped back on to the sofa, toes cosy in my sheepskin slippers, sipping home-made sloe gin at 6am, peeping out in the dawn light over a city blanketed in glittery white snow. All is calm, all is white and, apart from the loud farts trumpeting out of the bedroom, parrup-pa-pa-pumm, it’s peace on earth. He sleeps above in deep and dreamless sleep. I turn the golden ring on my finger and smile warmly, giggle to myself, another unlikely event from this very different year.
BY JAQ BAYLES
BY ERIC PAGE
But now… I’ve picked up on a plethora of series – mainly American or Canadian admittedly – that feature strong LGB and even T characters in prominent roles. Corrie’s Hayley cropped up in 1998, the first transgender character in a British soap, but she was portrayed by a cis actor, which has often been the case with trans characters.
LAVERNE COX AS SOPHIE BURSET
While there’s still a long way to go to redress the balance of representation of trans and non-binary people on TV screens, there are at least now a handful of regular characters in popular series being portrayed by trans and non-binary actors. Orange is the New Black’s trans credit card fraudster inmate Sophia Burset is played by trans woman Laverne Cox, while in Good Girls, also on Netflix, 11-year-old Sadie, who transitions to Ben, is played by Isaiah Stannard, who was cast presenting as female, but came out as trans when he joined the show in 2018. Over on Sky Witness (don’t judge), 911-Lone Star features black transgender firefighter Paul Strickland, played by trans actor Brian Michael Smith. The original 911 features an ‘out’ black lesbian firefighter, Hen, bringing us nicely on to the roll call of my favourite TV lesbians du jour. I could bang on about Gentleman Jack, Killing Eve, Wentworth Prison and Orange, but you’ve probably already watched those, so here are a few top tips for anyone fancying a foray into the lesser-known lesbian/bisexual women realms governed by the remote control. COBIE SMULDERS AS DEX PARIOS
First up is Stumptown, starring Cobie Smulders as Dex Parios, an ex-Marine-turned PI struggling with PTSD. She is a tough-talking, wise-cracking, hard-drinking, gambling, uncompromising character who’s pretty fluid in her choice of bedmates.
Not a few of the shows I’ve found are based on some kind of law enforcer, the latest being Tommy, a procedural crime drama featuring Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie) as the eponymous first female chief of LAPD and an ‘out’ lesbian.
DANIEL LEVY AS DAVID ROSE
Still in LAPD land, LA’s Finest showcases female detective partners Syd Burnett (Gabrielle Union) and Nancy McKenna (Jessica Alba), the former a(nother) a tough-talking, wise-cracking bisexual… I never suggested any of these shows lacked clichés. Finally to the men (sorry boys), and my favourite gay man ever on TV, Schitt’s Creek’s David Rose, played by Daniel Levy, who cocreated the show. He manages to come across as both sweet and caustic – and has the most amusing wardrobe ever to grace a Canadian backwater. Schitt’s Creek is the best thing I’ve seen on Netflix all year… perhaps ever, and there are six seasons. Enjoy – I’m jealous.
We knew Xmas was going to end in tiers, Miss Rona is sticking around for a while yet, but we’re used to it. Life has become the size of a cosy village and, although the raging frustrations of our FOMO’d globe-trotting party animals are glowering like a cross between Mrs Danvers, Rebecca and Nurse Ratched, defeated behind the shuttered Manderley of Missed Things, we’ve decked the halls, and bowed the holly, fa la la la la la la la. I poke the embers of the fire, give the Ghost of Christmas Past the side eye as it lurches home from an all-night party, kilt askew, clutching a blow-up reindeer and a rather fetching gurning Venezuelan muscle boy, the remains of the sawn-up driftwood collapse in a sigh of ash and I pop the last chestnut on to roast. The house looks like Mr Dickens has been round, goose and all, and wrapped us up in pagan Yuletide joy. We’re staying home this year, first time ever we’ve both been together at home, not with the farflung folks in their ancestral villages deep in the mid bleak winter, performing the rituals of our youth, returning like swallows, westward leaning, still proceeding. We create our own rituals this year. A midnight walk along the Downs, stars glittering like the tears of orphans, earth stands hard as iron, our hearts almost worn out from worry. I made the wreath, it’s like a drag queen door knocker, lit up so it can be seen from space and so fat you need to turn sideways to get in and out the house, I added in a lot of holly, the berries redder than Lola’s lips, the green twisted thorns scratch at you like Jack Frost’s fingers, grasping from the door; but the Pando means we have few guests, at least inside. We share Mrs Cradock’s home-made PlumRum on the doorstop, sweet pies then mince off into the night. Bye, bye, lully lulay. Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very next day you gave it back, with gratitude but explaining you’re now a vegetarian and offal is off. Even traditional Welsh Boxing Day roasted hearts, stuffed with faggots and tiny onions, can be an unwanted gift. We’ve made a lot this year, pickles, preserves, gins and rums, no knitting, or crochet thank goodness, it never got that bad, we always had sex to fall back on! I’m the Mrs Rochester of Wrapping, with a resting Grinch face, clutching tiny silver scissors, rustling in the shadows. I can’t sleep, I’ve run out of things to do, but wait there’s Myrrh but I’m sleighed. The decanter glugs and I look the Ghost of Christmas Present directly in the eye and shrug. We clink schooners. O tidings of comfort and joy, the snuggle is real Dear Reader, may nothing ye despair, so be exquisite and never explain.
