I keep thinking of the same joke. Imagine getting to a point in Strictly Come Dancing, a competition built on a sparkly tower of sequins and shimmies, a show that had its regular musicals week last weekend, and thinking, no, that bit is just too gay for me to stomach. Bring me the telephone, Steve, there’s homosexual activity on my ballroom dancing show.
Last month, Johannes Radebe and Graziano di Prima danced together in the show’s first complete same-sex dance in its 15-year history. Around 200 or so people had enough of an issue with it to formally complain, with another 100 adding their objections over the last few days. It boggles the mind that two men dancing can provoke any kind of upset, that it appears to have infuriated people who watch Strictly makes it all the more baffling. Last week, Craig Revel Horwood opened musicals week by dragging up, climbing aboard a giant cake and belting out Hello Dolly (“wow, wow, wow, fellas / look at the old girl now, fellas”). It was left open to viewers’ interpretation whether it was a direct response to the complaints of the week before.
It’s silly. And it is worth keeping this minor row in proportion. If 300 of the 9.4 million who watched last week, for example, were moved to complain, then that’s 0.003% of viewers. That’s under half of the live audience present in the studio. It’s an embarrassingly tiny amount. If I were a homophobe, I’d worry I just didn’t have the numbers any more. For the majority of viewers, it was simply part of the show, unremarkable, in the best possible way. For Radebe, it was a significant moment. “For the first time in my life, I feel accepted for who I am. That says so much about the people of this country,” he told Hello! magazine. It is easy to dwell on the negatives, because they provide a more outrageous headline. But this is one of the biggest shows on British television finally throwing its audience a same-sex dance, then trolling homophobic viewers with drag.
Television’s other ratings juggernaut, I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!, has had its first transgender contestant this year in Caitlyn Jenner. Say what you will about Jenner’s politics, but she has emerged as the kind of 70-year-old woman who will happily roll up her sleeves and get stuck in to the bushtucker trials. When she first went into the jungle, social media was a cesspit of transphobic posts and unfunny, knuckle-dragging attempts at humour. The extent of it was shocking and horrible. But on the show itself, her presence has been quietly significant. Jenner talked openly and honestly with her fellow contestants about transitioning, about why she did so when she did. Perhaps there is something about that environment that encourages frankness, but to see her talk about her life, as privileged as it is, without any sort of salacious spin put on it by outside forces, was refreshing. Less splashy, but as important, was Adele Roberts, who left the jungle first, and was greeted by her girlfriend on the bridge with a kiss. It was a tiny detail, but again, the everyday normality of it mattered.
Many LGBTQ viewers seek out characters that are like them in drama and comedy. In the age of streaming, and with the avalanche of prestige television, this is easier than it has ever been because there are more queer characters than we have ever seen before. There’s a niche Netflix drama for everyone. Reality TV feels different. Strictly and I’m a Celebrity cross generations of viewers. They still bring in the numbers like no other shows can. They are universal, event television, family shows. They set the public conversation. While a minority of their viewers might take issue with the inclusion of people who identify as LGBTQ, the fact that most have no problem with it is heartening.
I can laugh about a small proportion of the audience feeling confused as they navigate the campness of Strictly while also feeling something funny about two men dancing closely (maybe it’s homophobia, but maybe it’s just desire, Steve). However, it remains upsetting that this has to be discussed at all. When Hungary has upped its anti-LGBTQ rhetoric by pulling out of the Eurovision song contest – billed by a pro-government journalist as a “homosexual flotilla” that might damage the mental health of the public – it is a reminder that to be queer, right now, is to feel unsettled. Populism is not our friend. Nor is Britain’s prime minister who still refuses to see any issue with calling gay men “tank-topped bumboys”, who once objected to Labour “encouraging the teaching of homosexuality in schools”. Television shows such as Strictly and I’m A Celebrity have a part to play in what we see as the makeup of our society. For the most mainstream of television programmes to be contributing to the visibility of LGBTQ people is something, but there has to be more, until two men can dance together on primetime and it prompts no complaints at all.
• Rebecca Nicholson is a freelance writer
