MovieChat Forums > Extras (2005) Discussion > About the Sir Ian McKellen episode...

About the Sir Ian McKellen episode...

posted 15 years ago by shoshowii
15 replies | jump to latest

Were we, as the viewer, meant to be as disgusted as Andy was about the whole "it's-a-gay-play" outrage?

Throughout the series, we're meant to sympathize with Andy who's in show business and constantly shat on by celebrities, what with their egos and fragile identities, so I wonder if we were also supposed to find him playing a gay man on stage as equally repulsive as he seemed to consider it to be.

I, for one, wasn't sympathetic to that at all; and, in fact, I respect an actor who can be so versatile that he can play a homosexual without fear of public reception, or perception of him being homosexual. Simply because there's nothing wrong with it: it's a love shared between two people, and that's it.

I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking the whole episode, but it was the first time I was completely against Andy's way of thinking; and I was wondering if it was just me...?

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[–] TooDarnLoud 14 years ago

Its just another situation that Andy has gotten himself into that he isn't comfortable with. I don't think Andy is a homophobe per se, but he just doesn't want to be perceived as such by the public. Andy is a little bit of a hypocrite, but this is why i like the character. Like David Brent, he is a flawed person who doesn't know what he wants.

I dont think the guys meant for the viewers to see it as "oh no, its a gay play", but rather "this guy is uncomfortable about it, now watch what happens".

[–] Hungerhill 14 years ago

He is always a little embarrassed about his perceived lack of success with women and is obviously after leading men roles.Steve Sherwood's arrival on set exaggerates this.

[–] Finkle-is-Einhorn 13 years ago

andy doesnt have a problem with gays but i think he thinks people will think shes gay if he does the play and probably feels uncomfortable about it, yes its stupid of him to think that, but it just andys hangups , plus he would have been sort of ok with it if his freinds hadnt turned up as he knew they would mock him

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] tenwhoweretaken 13 years ago

He just didn't want to play a gay man.

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem doing it, but if it makes someone uncomfortable then I'm not going to judge them. People can be 100% supportive of gay equality and yet still feel discomfort acting as a gay man.

[–] Rommeltop 13 years ago

Don't forget that earlier in the episode that tall "hunk" that gives Darren Lamb dating tips told Andy that he thought he was gay and then Darren and the tall guy mocked Andy and told him they thought he was gay, so this would've made Andy more self conscious about looking gay. - Not so much in a homophobic way, but more of a "I'm not gay and would rather people not think I was" way. (If that makes sense).

I also thought Darren Lamb made a good case as to why Andy should be in the gay play: "Gay, my friend is all the rage...It will show you are sensitive and versatile..." and then referred Tom Hanks winning an award for the movie Philadelphia and the success of Brokeback Mountain etc etc.

However, it has struck me that perhaps deep down Ricky Gervais is quite bigoted and I think this creeps through with his writing and standup. So perhaps a little of Gervais comes through with Andy Millman (and David Brent).

[–] Rommeltop 13 years ago

Also, Millman ruins the play long before he breaks character and addresses the audience about how unhappy he was about kissing the other actor.

[–] verycoolnin 13 years ago

Andy played a gay Genie in a play so it is a bit inconsistent.

[–] Rommeltop 13 years ago

Andy played a gay Genie in a play so it is a bit inconsistent.

True! I can't believe I didn't think of that.

[–] icequeen_vienna 13 years ago

Yeah but that was a pantomime and not serious.

He didn't want to be seen in a gay play with all his old school mates watching. Whereas of course he should have bitten the bullet and done it.

It was only a play, after all - but if he had made a success of it, it could have led to better things.

[–] nephihaha 13 years ago

I think it does raise an interesting point. Actors are frequently required to kiss people that might not be attractive to them. I'd be uncomfortable kissing a stranger male or female on stage.

Actually I loved that bit where Andy tries to pick up a girl with sparkling water.

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It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!

[–] nikki-folwell 13 years ago

Dude I'm sorry, but I just have to put this out there. I think we owe it to ourselves to put this into some kind of perspective: it's all very well saying "Andy's not really a homophobe, he's just not comfortable playing a gay character, because then all of his old schoolmates will think that HE'S gay" etc. etc., but I'm afraid that this justification, or attempt at it, doesn't change the fact that his behaviour in that episode was unreasonably ridiculous.

The fact is, if he was really that uncomfortable with the play's content and his role in it, then nobody was forcing him to be involved. He was free to walk away from it at any time. He didn't have to tell Sir Ian that he was bailing out because of embarrassment, all he had to say was something like, "Some bad news - this play is conflicting with my hours at When The Whistle Blows. I'm going to have to quit. I hope that you're able find somebody else." Problem solved.

But he decides to stay in the play regardless. Now I realise that Andy is prone to putting his foot in it. But really, sometimes it's just a matter of common sense, which for the most part, Andy does have. When he discovers that Steve (who I thought was a complete douche) and his friends have attended the play, well yes, that's a pain in the arse, but again, if he's not going to try and get out of it (he could've feigned a migraine and asked for his understudy to fill in), then he might aswell just get on with it. When Steve and the others then catch him in the dressing room, half-unclad and with Sir Ian calling out for vaseline, Steve's mind about Andy would undoubtedly have been made up. And STILL Andy goes ahead with it. He therefore has no excuse to do what he ends up doing. Having voluntarily chosen to go through with it all, the fact that he actively sabotages the play and makes a complete spectacle of himself in front of everybody isn't really forgivable. OK, it all proved to be too much for him, but, dare I repeat myself - a) he's had plenty of opportunities to pull out by then; and b) after seeing all of the things that Steve has seen, it's unlikely that anything Andy says or does will convince Steve that he's straight, so what's the point in wrecking his one chance to prove to an audience that he can do serious drama, just so he can assert to a bunch of small-minded friends that he's not what they think? D'you get what I mean? He would've been immediately banned from that theatre and lost the respect of far more people than that one little group. There was no going back by then, so he should've just acted like a grown-up and gotten it over with. It might not have been pleasant for him to kiss that guy, but it would've surely been far better than what happened instead. It wasn't funny, it was just irritating. This may sound harsh, but quite frankly, I would've found the outcome of that episode much more enjoyable if Sir Ian had punched Andy in the face as he left the stage, or at least given him a good shove. I certainly would have.

Andy makes mistakes like all of us, but in this episode it just went beyond a joke and became an act of blatant stupidity which, up until now, Andy has usually been able to avoid. He's not normally that idiotic. Most of the time bad luck always hits him through the fault of somebody else (such as Maggie or Lamb) rather than him personally. The only other occasion I can think of in which he did something unbelievably dumb was when he blew his chances with that Catholic woman whom he liked, but that was slightly different because in that situation he hadn't had weeks of rehearsals to prepare for it.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Phew. End of rant.

[–] Mat-37 11 years ago

What was funny is that, before this, Sir McKellen explains to him in great lengths what acting is, saying things so painfully obvious that it is a big joke.
And then, immediately after that, Andy shows he fails to understand what acting is when refusing to portray a gay person for fear of being thought of as gay himself.

- A point in every direction is the same as no point at all.

[–] nephihaha 11 years ago

McKellen's excellent at dead pan pisstakes of himself. He stands out in this series, along with Patrick Stewart.

McKellen sends up an old gay acting queen quite well in "Vicious".

"And then, immediately after that, Andy shows he fails to understand what acting is when refusing to portray a gay person for fear of being thought of as gay himself. "

True, but people genuinely do confuse characters with the actors sometimes.

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It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!

[–] Helena727 9 years ago

Were we, as the viewer, meant to be as disgusted as Andy was about the whole "it's-a-gay-play" outrage?

I had a different take on it (and fwiw, I am far left politically and am an active supporter of/marcher for LGBT rights, amng others).

I think RG was, in a lowkey way, sharing something personal/difficult and shining a light on a difficult truth -- that some guys struggle with feeling masculine enough, because this culture has such narrow and nutty ideas about what is feminine and what is masculine. And even tho I think that women have it much harder than men in most respects, in this respect men have it harder, bc they're not really allowed to talk about these insecurities; for ex., men aren't encouraged to open up to their friends, and men's magazines are a relatively recent phenomenon, plus I don't think they necessarily address this very sensitive topic; and the group in power is *never* supposed to demonstrate anything that can be construed as weakness, such as feeling insecure about the very qualities that are identified with their power (in this case, men/masculinity).

RG -- and I do mean RG, not his characters -- is kind of ... closer to neutral than to what is considered guy-sexy (he's short, his voice is high, he doesn't have the sharper/defined features that are associated with masculinity). I'd be astonished if this (feeling insufficiently masculine) hadn't been an issue from puberty thru his 20s and maybe beyond. And in a still-fairly-homophobic culture, a hetero man who doesn't feel all that masculine doesn't want to be associated with what is viewed as the ultimate in non-masculine. (Not my view of gayness, but society's, I think.)

So a person absolutely can be 100% supportive of gay rights and 100% comfortable with gay friends but still struggle with discomfort at being ID'd as gay. (A woman I'm close with has the female version of that; it's about feeling unattractive bc this culture's definition of "feminine" doesn't fit her.) I don't know whether RG *is* free of all homophobia -- who knows? But I don't think he was trying to let himself or anyone else off the hook; I thought the ep was saying, "It's sad that some people, like Andye's macho acquaintances, are so narrow-minded; it's sad that so many of us feel so uncomfortable in our own bodies that we actually care about whether certain people see us as we want to be seen." Keep in mind that the character Andy was comfortable exploring the role of a gay man -- that's not nothing for someone who feels fairly unsexy (lost his virginity at 28, and to a woman he found unattractive -- that's very sad).

Anyway, I think the ep was ribbing both homophobia and our continued discomfort within these narrow either/or definitions of masculine/feminine, straight/gay.

"All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people."