
Gay Life
1980 · Documentary
Gay Life was a groundbreaking documentary series on London Weekend Television, produced by its London Minorities Unit. Broadcast in 1980, it may have then been the first series devoted to LGBT people and issues on a major television network.
Episodes
▶1. Security Vetting and Gays in the Civil Service▶2. Male Gay Lifestyles▶3. Child Custody and Adoption▶4. Police Harassment and Entrapment of Gay Men▶5. Gay Relationships and Gay Weddings▶6. Gay Teachers▶7. Gays in Heterosexual Marriages▶8. Gays and Media Stereotyping▶9. Young Lesbians▶10. Gays in the Armed Forces▶11. Gay Political Organisation▶12. Being Gay in the ThirtiesGifford Skinner describes what it was like to be a gay man in the 1930s. Illuminating and nostalgic, Gifford recalls picking up guardsmen in Hyde Park as well as some of the homosexual ‘characters’ he encountered in London’s West End. The gay activist, historian and sociologist Jeffrey Weeks is interviewed about gay law reform.▶13. Male SexualityFrom clubbers at Heaven and cruisers on Hampstead Heath to academics and journalists, gay men offer their candid views on sex and relationships. They give a brief history of cruising, rue the dashed hopes of Gay Lib, and, most interestingly, critique the goal of emulating the traditionally masculine ideal of the heterosexual man, a self-loathing trait still prevalent among gay men today.









