Postscript to The Naked Civil Servant

The Naked Civil Servant, the film based on the autobiography of Quentin Crisp, is lighthearted and inspiring.  It’s inspiring in part because it is lighthearted.  Crisp took a lot of heat for being who he was: An honest, open, "effeminate" homosexual, back in the 1930s in England, when homosexuality was a criminal offense. The way he tells his story, part of how he survived was through a lighthearted approach to his troubles—you don’t see much angst in this film.  He and his friend, the club-footed woman, do discuss suffering to some extent; but it’s brief.

It’s possible that the only way someone could survive the indignity of constant contempt was to be honest and whimsical.  This combination provides the charm to this film.

In preparing to watch the sequel, The Englishman in New York, it helps to consider a few questions implied by the first film.

What are the roles of sex, of love, of friendship, of compassion, in this film?

At several points in the film, Quentin professes never to have experienced love; of course, he’s speaking of conventional love:  Between man and woman.  But it’s not clear whether Quentin experiences love towards anyone.  His first sexual experiences are as a male prostitute.  He and his clients get sex, and he gets money.  What might a gay man expect to get at that time?

He has relationships with four men in the course of the film:  The first is a man known only as Thumbnails (his thumbnails are somehow misshaped).  But Crisp claims this love was never sexual.  The second is a civil servant.  This is sexual, but not terribly exciting.  The third is a large man known as Barn Door, who after knowing Quentin awhile, declares they should sleep together; then, after another while, declares they should stop.  The fourth is a Polish man who has spent some years in a mental institution and is “sexual, but impotent.”  Not a very fulfilling list.

He has platonic friendships with several women:  The club-footed woman, who eventually becomes a nun; the wife of the Pole; a ballet teacher who is his landlady for a while.  These connections seem deeper than the relationships with the men, though non-sexual.

Friendship runs deep in this film.  Quentin is a friend of the Pole long before they are lovers.  He is friends with both the Pole and his wife.  The Pole later divorces the wife and marries the club-footed woman.  Crisp remains friends with all of them.  He is loyal to them, and they are loyal to him.  At perhaps the climax of the film, when Crisp is arrested for soliciting (many years after giving up prostitution), his friends proclaim his good character in court and he is found not guilty.

Crisp is compassionate as well.  In his relationships with men, it is always the other man who initiates the connection.  When questioned about his relationship with the Pole, he declares:  “Love is never closing your hand, not even to the unlovable.”

Looking forward to the film’s sequel, one might also consider the role of fantasy and make-believe in Crisp’s life.  At the beginning of The Naked Civil Servant, Crisp suggests a central image might be him playing dress-up as a young boy.  Certainly part of his endurance came from his refusal to concede to anyone that he was doing anything wrong.

But how does a world of wit and fantasy confront the dark realities of AIDS?  This becomes a major theme of the sequel.