Since its launch in 1982, Britain’s Channel Four took the lead in the representation of LGBT people and their interests on television. Needless to say this did not come without some considerable opposition in the midst of Margaret Thatcher’s buttoned-down regime. Conservative MPs regularly called for the station to be closed down after one queer programme or another had been screened and the tabloid Press nicknamed the station “Channel Porn”.

Nonetheless, Channel Four stuck to their guns and, in 1986, ran a series of programmes of interest to LGBT communities. These included In the Pink, a series of films from a range of different time periods that looked at the variety of ways that queer people had sought to find expression. As the introduction to the accompanying booklet said:

“Gay cinema hasn’t just happened since gay liberation, but gay self-affirmation has given us the impetus to sift through history and tease out has previously been concealed. Gay cinema is a history of different film forms over different film periods and from different countries. It is fragmentary, incohesive, unpredictable. It is sometimes only political in the defiant sense of carving out an identity, trying to find a way to express something that is variously considered taboo, criminal and deviant. Gay cinema doesn’t always shout slogans; it can also wink or smile at its audience. The point is to find a way of representing homosexuality that is recognisable and meaningful to gay people.”

And as the booklet also pointed out, this was the first season of its kind on any television network in the world.

Somewhat bizarrely, after a track record of standing up to critics and screening a variety of ‘controversial’ films including Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane, Channel Four pulled the plug on one of its proposed films. Caroline Sheldon’s 17 Rooms;or, What Do Lesbians Do in Bed? was withdrawn due to anticipated problems over its title (irrespective of the fact that there was no sexual content).

The films that did manage to make it on to the screen (according to the accompanying booklet) were:

• Madchen in Uniform/Maidens in Uniform (1931)
• Scorpio Rising (1963)
• November Moon (1984)
• David Roche Talks to You About Love (1984)
• A Window in Manhattan (1985)
• Before Stonewall (1984)
• Silent Pioneers (1985)
• The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
• What Can I Do With a Male Nude (1985)
• Buddies (1985)
• Breaking the Silence (1985)
• On Guard (1983)

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