Progressives live in the past

Julie Burchill writes:

I love Louie Spence, the queerly leering hero of the recent reality TV hit Pineapple Dance Studios. So I was irked by the kneejerk anti-American conservatism of the reported premise of his new show, wherein he will visit “redneck” towns in the USA, strike a pose and wait for “his sexuality and appearance” to stir up controversy.

This sounds woefully out of date. In the Glee-crazy US, the world’s finest comic writer, David Sedaris, has remarked that on national signing tours he is often confronted with apparently redneck men who proudly push forward their fragrant adolescent sons and assure Mr Sedaris that they, too, are gay.

If you want to make a point about contemporary prejudice against homosexuals, surely it would make a far more challenging show to go to a series of Muslim states and prance around in pantaloons? But of course, then the consequences would be no laughing matter.