I saw Stephen Fry's documentary two-parter Out There over the weekend. It wasn't easy watching but it was also a bit of a missed opportunity.
For one thing Stephen's celebrity gay status creates obvious journalistic problems.
The show apparently took two years to make (presumably because of getting Stephen's busy schedule and the opportunity to talk some of the interviewees to line up).
If it hadn't been Stephen Fry (and better still not a homosexual) doing the interviews the series might have got to interview more people and get to the roots of the problem.
The interviews were clearly truncated and paint a universally unsubtle picture of homophobia (in my experience it's not always so crass).
It correctly represents the Iranian state response to gay men as appalling but fails to mention their more enlightened response to transgendered people.
Why do we have to waste time on Stephen talking to other celebrity gays (Neil Patrick Harris, Elton John etc) when there are plenty of everyday people in the UK suffering homophobic attacks or preaching homophobia?
It creates the impression that homophobia is something that only happens in faith based cultures overseas (even though he does go to great pains to claim the British Empire imported these funny ideas to most of these places).
To me homophobia, like arachnophobia is a manifestation of the disgust response.
It makes biological sense living in a desert or a rain forest that fear of potentially poisonous arachnids should bi-pass rational thinking.
Maximising reproduction makes sense, living in small isolated, communities living on the edge of extinction (that includes religious communities).
There is no rational need in the world as it is to be homophobic but it's hardwired in many people and they have to work hard not to be prejudicial.
People take advantage of that for money and influence (the desire for which also makes cultural and genetic sense).
Emotionally traversing the globe listening to horror stories and the rants of the clearly deranged (or at least people edited to sound clearly deranged) doesn't get to the core of the issue. It plays like post-colonial colonialism (though it almost certainly isn't intended as such).
Humans need not be dumb animals driven by outdated programming.
If they remain that way, they will all suffer as everyone is in some exploitable way different.