This is a 1975
TV film based on the autobiography of
Quentin Crisp. The strange title was coined by him. Since, for several years, his main source of income was modeling (naked) in (state) art schools, he considered himself a "naked civil servant".
Crisp was a very effeminate gay man, and he made no effort to hide the fact: dyeing his hair, using make-up etc. Before the second world war, and even afterwards, this honesty was not without risk: the film shows how he got beaten up on several occasions, just because he looked "abnormal". The term used at the time for his "condition" was "sexual perversion". The scene were the army refuses to take him because of this "perversion" is hilarious.
All in all a very entertaining movie and a reminder that anti-gay bigotry existed in Europe for longer than I thought. E.g., amazingly, practicing homosexuality was illegal in the UK until 1967: ☆☆☆.
Crisp was a very effeminate gay man, and he made no effort to hide the fact: dyeing his hair, using make-up etc. Before the second world war, and even afterwards, this honesty was not without risk: the film shows how he got beaten up on several occasions, just because he looked "abnormal". The term used at the time for his "condition" was "sexual perversion". The scene were the army refuses to take him because of this "perversion" is hilarious.
All in all a very entertaining movie and a reminder that anti-gay bigotry existed in Europe for longer than I thought. E.g., amazingly, practicing homosexuality was illegal in the UK until 1967: ☆☆☆.
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