This week, the TV presenter Philip Schofield made headlines by coming out as gay at the age of 57. Since then, he has been constantly praised in the media, uniting voices as far apart as Piers Morgan and Owen Jones. Schofield has been called brave, an inspiration, someone who deserves a lot of respect for having the guts to come out on a public platform. Apparently, being a TV presenter acknowledging your sexuality in 2020 makes you someone the public should look up to. I should say that I wish Schofield no harm, and hope he feels happier for the rest of his life than he has done up until now.
I hope it is not offensive that when I saw this news, my initial reaction was 'So what?' I honestly don't think I was even aware that he was straight - not that I expected him to be gay necessarily, I just can't recall ever having wondered about his life away from the cameras at all. And that's my first question - why does anyone care who an actor or a TV presenter lives with or who they are into? If you're in hospital, you don't question that about the doctor or nurse patching you up, so why does it make any difference for an entertainer? It doesn't make any difference to their ability to do the job they're paid for.
But there is a broader point to this. This is 2020 - whilst there is still homophobia around, here in the West it has significantly lessened in recent years. Same-sex marriage has been legal in the UK for six years. I walk around in public hand-in-hand with my boyfriend nearly every day, and I can honestly say that we have not experienced a single piece of homophobia since we got together in July last year (there was even one occasion where we were approached by the BBC to talk about our experiences of homophobia, and we had to honestly say that we hadn't experienced any - needless to say, they didn't use our segment!)
I know that I'm going to be accused of talking from a privileged position and claiming homophobia is over, and that's probably partially true, so let me make a few things clear. It is brave to come out as gay if you are a black footballer. It is brave to come out as gay if you are working-class, live in a strong faith community or are an immigrant from a country where it isn't as accepted as it is here. It is brave to come out as transgender, non-binary, intersex or any of the less understood part of the LGBTQ+ community. It is not brave for an overpaid, overprivileged TV presenter to come out as gay in the United Kingdom in 2020. Compare this with someone like Ellen DeGeneres, Julian Clary or Paul O'Grady. These people were openly gay before it was so commonly accepted. They took risks that could have ended their careers (there are most likely people whose public careers did end over this kind of issue, whose names are forgotten). These are the people we should be considering inspirations - the people who helped to actually normalise this kind of thing, the people who made it possible for me to walk around with my boyfriend without any fear of the public's reaction. They are the ones we should be giving our undying respect to. As someone in a same-sex relationship, I actually find it quite offensive that we are giving Philip Schofield, a man who remained in the closet until the stigma was almost over, this level of praise. Whilst I'm glad he has been able to be true to himself and accept himself (as everyone should), he is not a hero and not an inspiration to the LGBTQ+ community.
The most disturbing thing about this is that there are still major issues with homophobia that are being ignored. In September last year, Jamie Grierson in the Guardian wrote that the UK Home Office has rejected more than 3,000 asylum claims from LGBTQ+ nationals from countries where same-sex acts are criminalised. Only five years ago, our Home Office was claiming that female asylum seekers couldn't be lesbians because they had children and long hair. The main reason that we still have such a medieval attitude towards homosexuality in this specifically when we've come so far in other aspects is all related to power. Homophobia is far easier to tackle than racism, because there are more gay people in positions of power in the UK than there are BAME people, therefore those people look out for their own marginalised group. If a certain aspect of homophobia doesn't affect them, it will not get sorted out. Our culture of hierarchies, class and privilege only makes radical changes when they directly affect those in power - for the same reason, female CEOs earning slightly less than male CEOs is considered far more important a feminist issue than a 17-year-old girl forced to work as a prostitute to afford to feed herself. As a left-wing socialist, I firmly believe that the least privileged in our society should always receive the most support. Last time I checked, 57-year-old wealthy white male TV presenters were not the least privileged in our society, even if they've been in the closet for years.
My final point concerns Philip Schofield's history as a TV presenter. I don't watch his shows frequently, because as a matter of fact I think he's an extremely poor interviewer. Whenever I have caught any of his features (which normally happens when I'm particularly interested in the studio guest) I find Schofield to be the opposite of impartial. He frequently presents his own opinions as factual, and the interviewee's viewpoint is seen through that lense. Granted, he doesn't do it as rudely and abruptly as some other TV personalities, but that's not really an excuse. In December, shortly before the General Election, Jeremy Corbyn was a guest on This Morning, and Schofield's approach to anti-Semitism allegations completely cheapened the whole discussion. Anti-Semitism is a huge issue, and rather than allowing it to be discussed rationally and intellecutally, Schofield adopted the sort of strategy a tabloid newspaper would, by snapping 'Just say sorry!' every time Corbyn tried to speak (the precise moment is at around 8.30 below).
By taking this line, Schofield himself was positioning himself with a partisan political stance - he implied that Corbyn had something specific to apologise for (whether he did or not is irrelevant, an interviewer should be impartial).
Meanwhile, after interviewing Boris Johnson, Schofield and his co-presenter Holly Willoughby publicly posed for this photo - hardly masking their bias as interviewers:
At Christmas, Schofield then had the absolute gall, after thinly promoting a man who has spent his whole working life trying to dismantle the NHS, to tweet this picture.
And back on the subject of LGBTQ+ freedom, Jeremy Corbyn supported gay rights before it was fashionable. He was attending Pride events and supporting the earliest openly gay MPs as early as the 1970s. Boris Johnson, on the other hand, has referred to gay men as 'tank topped bum boys'. His party introduced Section 28 in the 1980s, making it incredibly hard for teachers to support students who were struggling with their sexual identity, and ultimately creating another generation of people ashamed of coming out. Even though the Conservative Party has become a bit more open to homosexuality in recent years, the fact that it has a Prime Minister who has made derogatory comments about gay men and prominent MPs like Jacob Rees-Mogg consistently vote against progressive Bills for LGBTQ+ people, all the evidence to me shows that many of its members haven't changed their minds, and that this progressiveness is only an image. For anyone who claims to have felt vulnerable on the grounds of their sexuality to promote this party just screams of overwhelming levels of privilege.
So Philip, congratulations. All the best to you and your family, I hope you're all happy as everyone should be. But no way are you my hero.
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