Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

Bad Gays: A Homosexual History by Ben Miller, Huw Lemmey

14 reviews

daniellekat's review against another edition

I really don't want to DNF this but I'm only half way and my attention has dried up. 
This is so well written and I can easily see how this topic would make for a hilarious podcast, but there is SO MUCH information packed into each chapter. While each chapter focused on a particular "Bad Gay", this book was actually more about the history of homosexuality and each Bad Gay was mainly used to provide a time frame in that history. I was expecting more of a brief biography for each chapter with a side serving of history, but the abundance of names and dates and places ultimately did me in. I really enjoyed the narrative writing style, especially coupled with the authors side remarks, but after 7 chapters this had me glazing over. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia and Colonisation

Minor: Death, Torture, Murder, and War

abiiba's review against another edition

funny informative

3.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Genocide, Homophobia, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Colonisation, War, and Classism

vaguelyredhead's review against another edition

informative slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, and Transphobia

Moderate: Sexual content and Colonisation

Minor: Genocide

the_vegan_bookworm's review against another edition

informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

I feel like this book sets out with a really interesting thesis and then proceeds to not be able to address it adequately at all. It seems to me to be a problem of trying to tackle too many angles, which leads to not adequately discussing any of them well. On one hand, this book seeks to go through history from a queer perspective, which is interesting but falls apart when trying to deep dive into the "bad gays" it is profiling. The chosen profiles don't really fit into the chosen narrative arc of homosexuality throughout history, so it feels muddled as a focus. This is not helped by the run-on sentences and lack of overarching reflections for the thesis statement.

The book also tries to look at queers who are evil or bad throughout history, but it doesn't provide enough context on any of them to really substantiate these claims of evilness. For many, the individuals just seem to be participants in a colonial/imperial/racist system rather than people actively enacting harm. For individuals with whom I was familiar (such as J. Edgar Hoover), I felt that the details were far too light on the very real and active harm perpetuated by the individual. If you go into this story without the background knowledge on the people profiled, I don't feel the authors really provide it or justify it enough for you to think "ah yes, this is a person who could be seen as truly evil". They also have a very white and male selection of individuals that they profile, which they don't address at any time. 

They might have had better results if they chose fewer individuals and really dived into their respective backgrounds, while making stronger points and analysis related to the thesis they set out to discuss. With the great number of people profiled, the biographies feel very disjointed and not cohesive as a book.

This is still 4-star for me, since I learned a lot of interesting things about homosexuality throughout history and the figures highlighted in the book. If you're really interested in history, I think there are some great historical nuggets buried in here that still make it an interesting read!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Racism, Transphobia, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Colonisation

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Sexual content

Minor: Genocide and Hate crime

vagaybond's review against another edition

informative reflective

4.25

I love when books exist about queer culture, people, theory, sociology etc that use the word f

aggot

and refer to people as racist with the knowledge and fair assumption that I would not first need to be convinced racism exists. It's like a friend and comrade is infodumping to me in the alley outside a drag show while they're having a cigarette. It's writing that talks to me like a peer and a queer.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Bullying, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Religious bigotry, Murder, Outing, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

This book profiles several different historical figures who have done a variety of different things which are by and large, horrifying. Some of these figures have died by suicide or assassination. There is a fair bit in the book which talks about older gay men being into young boys, but it doesn't outright state what exactly that means or what the age gap is, or how young these boys are. It's unclear if they merely mean adult twinks or actual minors. (I may be misremembering details, but this is my best recollection after listening to the audiobook.)

theotheleo's review against another edition

challenging funny informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia and Pedophilia

Moderate: Misogyny, Colonisation, and Pandemic/Epidemic

katyfayyyx's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

2.5

Happy Pride Month 🏳️‍🌈. I will be honest there was no reason why I started reading this book I just saw it on my bookshelf and I thought I wanted to read something that was non-fiction so my brain doesn't turn off after collage and it is pride month so I thought why not.  Also can we have a moment of silence for that cover, I don't know why but I fucking love this cover. However, I had the same issue with this book that I did with the last book I read as a love the idea of this book I just wished another author has wrote this book because it is just such a good idea but it has been executed so poorly. I love the idea of this book and I really liked some of the chapter but at the sometime I hated some of the other chapters some where just so dead and boring and you can tell the chapter that the authors had a clear passion and interest for as they are just written with more passion and than other chapter it just felt like they had copied and pasted their wikipedia page on other people's characters. Which again puts me in a weird position because I can't rate this 3 stars because for me its means I liked all of this book which in fact I didn't there was sometimes that this book made me never want to read again, I just wanted to put this book down and never look at it again because I was just so fucking bored. 

However, there was a number of elements of this book that I really did like or even love one of which was how diverse this book was when it come to race, nationality, class however I would say I wish there was more diversity when it came to gender and gender identify. I also loved how this book did not hide away from the harm and the privilege that gay white man has and the harm they have done with that and how this is not just a discussion about sexuality but about race and class and how your experience as a queer people can be different because of this other factors. I also really like the introduction and the way it set out all the idea of this book in an easy but fun and interesting way and it has definitely got my attention. it provides you with a lot of information but it does it in a clear way that keeps you interested. I would say something I thought was a little cringe was the way they would be discussing a really serious topic such as empire but then would try put a joke which 99% of the time wasn't even funny and I just wanted them to stop. I will say I liked how there was a discussion of how homosexuality has been weaponised in a number of ways such as race and antisemitism. I will also say this book was very clearly well researched, referenced with well developed points. Somethings else I really enjoyed about this book was that not of these bad gays are actually bad however does not shy away from their bad and sometimes evil behaviour but also adds a new perspective but not justifying it. 

However, they are the only things 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Homophobia, Racism, Transphobia, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, and Colonisation

Moderate: Death and Sexual content

Minor: Cursing, Genocide, and War

mermaidsherbet's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Racism, Transphobia, Violence, Antisemitism, Colonisation, and Classism

Minor: Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, and War

alexiconic's review against another edition

informative inspiring lighthearted slow-paced

4.0

An interesting, well researched and passionately written example of how to do popular history right. Would have loved to see a bit more reflection on the choice of selected “bad gays” throughout the book as well, after a while the reader doesn’t remember as well what was detailed in the introduction. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Biphobia, Child abuse, Death, Homophobia, Transphobia, Antisemitism, and Colonisation

queerloras's review against another edition

funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

3.75

I thought this was a really interesting look at queer history, focusing not on the familiar heroes - Marsha P. Johnson, Harvey Milk, Oscar Wilde, etc. - but the messy types who we are less keen to claim as "one of us". The section on Magnus Hirschfeld was particularly interesting, and I liked how global the history was  admittedly generally the Global North, but the people covered were from everywhere between the USA and Japan.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Bullying, Cancer, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Lesbophobia, Outing, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, and Classism