Summary
Hefina calls Gethin and asks him to pass along a message to Jonathan, thanking him for his beautiful Christmas card. Hefina's husband looks disapprovingly at the card, which has a pencil drawing of a naked man on the front of it. Hearing Gethin's voice, Hefina clocks that he has a slight Welsh accent and wishes them both a happy Christmas, saying a Welsh phrase to him before hanging up. When Gethin hangs up, he is overcome with emotion.
The group rides a bus back to the Welsh mining town, which has suffered from a recent economic downturn. Mark goes to talk to Dai, who tells him that some miners in the village want to go back to work and break the strike. Dai also tells him that their gas has been shut off. Mark goes to bingo at the Welfare Station, where they are giving away tins of canned meat.
Jonathan brings Gethin to meet Hefina, Dai, and Cliff. They ask him where he is from, and he tells them he comes from Rhyl. Hefina, Dai, and Cliff adopt sober expressions, and suggest that they cannot accept someone from North Wales into the community, before erupting into laughter—it was only a joke. Gethin laughs along with them.
Mark talks to Stella, Mike, and Zoe about how they have to raise more money for the miners and Stella wants to discuss making a women's group so that LGSM can be more democratic. That night, at the Welfare Hall, Cliff tells Mark, Mike, Gethin, and Martin about the Great Atlantic Fault. Gethin remembers the fault as "The Dark Artery," and they discuss the fact that the coal from the fault is "perfect and pure." Cliff says he lost his brother to the mines at 36, but without the mines, the villages have nothing.
Mark looks around and is struck with a thought, standing on a chair to make a speech about the fact that the LGSM hasn't collected enough money for the miners. "Sometimes you have to attack to push forward," he says, "And that's exactly what we're gonna do!" He tells them that the LGSM is going to do something so spectacular that "the National Coal Board will come crawling on their hands and knees in full drag to beg you for forgiveness." The crowd assembled cheers triumphantly, and a woman begins to sing a rousing anthem, "Bread and Roses." Everyone sings the song. Suddenly, two local men come in and yell, "Go back to where you came from," before Martin pushes them outside.
Martin and Dai confront the men, with Martin getting into a physical fight with one of them. He threatens to hurt them if they try and harm anyone in the Welfare Hall. Mike and Mark talk about what they can do to raise more money, and Mark discusses the fact that morale is just as important as progress. "There's nothing worse than a lost cause," Mike says to himself.
At a house gathering, Gethin discusses how relieving it is to be himself in Wales, the place he was raised. "What I don't understand is why you never came back before," Hefina says, and he tells her that his mother could not accept him and hasn't spoken to him in 16 years. To this, Hefina suggests that he ought to say something to his mother. Gwen shows Steph a locket with a picture of her husband in it, to whom she was married for 44 years.
Maureen, Johnny, and Lee strategize about how to get the gay people out of the village. Suddenly, Cliff knocks on the door and invites Maureen over. Just as Cliff is convincing her, Gail passes by and yells that Maureen ought to take "the rod out of [her] ass for a minute," and Maureen slams the door angrily.
Joe looks out the window the next morning and sees Gethin and Jonathan embracing, before Gethin gets in the bus and drives away. Maureen goes to the phone booth and calls a newspaper to break a story. Gethin goes to see his mother. Joe returns to his parents', where he finds a letter telling him he has been suspended from his catering college.
The next day, the LGSM along with Dai and Cliff visit the mines, where they see the news story that Maureen broke. The headline reads, "Perverts support the pits." The article is very unsympathetic and belittles the solidarity between the gay group and the miners.
When Mark calls an emergency meeting at the bookshop, someone throws a brick wrapped in the newspaper through the glass window, then a firecracker that explodes. Back in the Welsh town, Hefina confronts Maureen. "There used to be a tradition in Wales of honoring your guests...There's only one thing that's unnatural about this whole bloody business. Betraying the community. And when I find out who sold that story, believe me, they'll know what it feels like to be ashamed," she says.
At the bookshop, Mark is struck by an idea. He proposes that they use the publicity generated from the newspaper article, however negative, and own it to get more support for their cause. The group makes t-shirts and plans a fundraising concert. Mark visits a record label and asks if any artists want to play at the concert, and the receptionist tells him that there are no gay artists on the label. "They don't have to be gay, that's the point," he says to her, but she ignores him.
Mark speaks to a gay publication that asks why gay people should support miners. Mark responds, "Miners dig for coal, which produces power, which allows gay people like you to dance to Bananarama until three in the morning." Sian, Hefina, and the other women arrive to help with the fundraiser. Joe is dubbed the official photographer for the event. Dai invites the LGSM to a union meeting the following day, and they find a newspaper article promoting the fundraising concert, at which Bronski Beat will play.
Analysis
Margaret Thatcher's policies continue to wreak havoc on the economy of Onllwyn, and the miners begin to wonder if they should not go back to work sooner rather than later. The LGSM's second visit to the village starkly contrasts its first, in that the economy is almost completely broken down and morale is terrible. While their first visit was defined by a sense of forward momentum and solidarity, a belief in the possibility of working together to resist the oppressive policies of a conservative state, the second visit is less encouraging. The personal solidarity and warmth between the miners and the LGSM has strengthened, but the political conviction hangs in the balance, as the miners become increasingly pressured by Thatcherism to bend to the will of the state.
On the second visit, the Welsh member of the LGSM, Gethin, travels with the group, and reluctantly reconnects with his regional roots. At first, it is unclear why his relationship to Wales is so fraught, though we can only imagine it has to do with a formative and traumatizing experience of homophobia. However, being in Wales as an adult working towards a political goal has evidently had a healing effect on Gethin, who connects with many of the locals. His visit to the village is a kind of homecoming, connecting with the culture of his upbringing and showing him that he can find belonging there, even though it never seemed like it.
We also learn more about the villagers' relationship to mining. In a discussion about the "Great Atlantic Fault," Cliff tells the members of LGSM just how important mining and the coal industry are to the community, even going so far as to say that even though he lost his own brother to the mines when he was 36, that has not soured his opinion about how essential the mines are to the local economy. "Without it, these villages are nothing, they're finished. That's what I'd say if I ever came face-to-face with Margaret fucking Thatcher...The pit and the people are one and the same," Cliff says. Here we see how inextricably linked the identity of the people in the town and the industry of mining are. It allows the viewer as well as the members of the LGSM to empathize with the townspeople on a new level. Just as homosexuality is an intrinsic part of the gay visitors' identities, a point of pride that others have a hard time valuing, the mining industry an important part of Onllwyn's identity that has been pushed to the margins and devalued by Thatcherism.
The conflict in the film is not simply about how to raise enough money for the miners, but also about the internal conflict within the Welsh community about the gay activists. Maureen and her sons are staunchly opposed to the intervention of the LGSM and hold very bigoted views about homosexuality. While Maureen seems to have moments of wanting to fit in with her fellow committee members and have her mind changed about sexuality, it does not really work. This is partially exacerbated by the fact that she herself feels persecuted by people in her community who see her as uptight or closed-minded. In the character of Maureen, we see the complexity of a bigoted individual, how such individuals often feel like the victim, even as they spew hatred and bigotry.
Mark remains the moral and political center of the narrative. While many characters in the film stand up to injustice, Mark is the leader, encouraging people to stick with their beliefs and fight back even when people belittle them. After the horribly offensive article is published, he transforms the bigotry they face into fuel for the next big political move, a concert fundraiser featuring Bronski Beat. He tells a discouraged Joe that when someone calls them names, it is best for them to use it and own it, and this philosophy makes him a determined and unflappable activist.
