The other week I went to a screening of a new film to be shown on BBC Two in the autumn called Shoot The Messenger.
It starred David Oyelowo (of Spooks fame) and was about a teacher in a predominantly black school who is driven out of his job when he is accused (wrongly) of assaulting a pupil. His life loses focus and he ends up in a downward spiral that leads to him being homeless and on the streets, blaming his misfortune entirely on black people. (The film opens with him declaring that, 'Everything bad that has ever happened to me was caused by a black person.')
From there on in the film is unrelentingly negative about black people and black culture. It is very humorous, but it is also, like I say, wearyingly negative and sometimes racist, with characters saying that black people can't be trusted, that they should 'get over slavery', that they have silly 'individual' names, that they isolate themselves by going on about community and yet contradict that so-called community by invovleing themselves with guns and gangs.
And yet it starred a predominantly black cast, and was written, directed and produced by black people. As a white person this was interesting and hugely enlightening to me. I had no idea that black people had these issues with themselves and their culture. As a white person looking in I've always seen a people who were very proud, defiantly so, of their skin colour. I had no idea that some of them were fed up the way they were 'supposed' to conduct themselves.
As a gay man it was even more interesting to me, not least because I've had exactly the same issues with my sexuality for as many years as I've been 'out' and a regular on the gay scene. When I was growing up and felt what I now realise are quite common feelings - all the usual of being an outsider and thinking there is no one else like me out there - I thought that once I did come out and start going out on the scene that everything would fall into place and I'd feel 'right'. It didn't and I didn't. In fact I felt worse. All I found was another set of rules and ways I was supposed to be that I didn't want to be.
It's only in the last couple years that I've come to some sort of truce with the gay scene and being 'gay', if that's what you must label me. Rather than try and fit in with the scene, or try and fit in with any scene, I've made it all fit in with me. I take what I want from the scene and the gay 'community' then I leave it behind and go and do something else. I don't let it define me, I just exist within it when I choose to. I just be.
Watching Shoot The Messenger I realised that it's extremely easy for me to do that. While I'm sure people have preconceptions about me when they discover I'm a homo, I have the luxury of being able to break those preconceptions down either before or after they discover that. If you're a black person unhappy with some or all of the codes or conventions of their community, that's less easy because the colour of your skin is immovable.
Of course, like sexuality, it is something that becomes irrelevant. To any decent human being free of bigotry such things are unimportant and provide no barrier. But, as I say, it was interesting to me that some black people DO have these issues. What really rammed the similarities to my own experiences with sexuality home was the reaction to the film afterwards.
It was watched by a predominantly black media crowd - journalists from black papers and magazines and representives from bodies that monitored black representation - who gave a wildly contradictory and inflamed response as those that made the film took questions. There was a lot of shouting. Some were angered by its unrelenting negativity and perceived racism, some found it incredibly uncomfortable viewing and, while they hadn't experienced themselves the issues raised, applauded its bravery, while others just applauded it and sung its praises.
What I noticed was now similar the reactions were to those that the gay community and the gay media had in response to Queer As Folk when it was first broadcast seven years ago. There were, of course, plenty who loved it, those that moaned that it didn't represent the gay community as a whole, and those that said it was a negative representation of gay people.
I would say, in response to both Shoot... and Queer..., they are both high profile representations of their respective cultures and that should be enough. They are realistic representations to those people they are talking about. How exactly can you represent a whole community or culture in a piece of drama? The very nature of the medium means you can only follow one or a handful of characters' journeys. How can those few characters speak to and about everyone? It should be enough that these dramas are bringing little known sides of people's lives to the mainstream.
It's not about 'positive' or 'negative' representation. How we would like to be seen by others is different for every single individual black or gay or any other person from a minority. It's about having as much representation as possible, getting as many people's stories on screen, in books, in magazines etc etc. Queer As Folk was ground-breaking and paved the way for much more gay representation on TV. I expect Shoot The Messenger will be talked of in a similar way in years to come.
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