Authors: Suzanna Danuta Walters
ISBN-13: 9780226872322, ISBN-10: 0226872327
Format: Paperback
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Date Published: September 2003
Edition: 1st Edition
Suzanna Danuta Walters is an associate professor of sociology and director of the Women's Studies Program at Georgetown University. She is the author of Material Girls: Making Sense of Feminist Cultural Theory and Lives Together/Worlds Apart: Mothers and Daughters in Popular Culture.
From the public outing of Ellen DeGeneres and the success of Will and Grace to the vicious murder of Matthew Shepard, recent years have seen gay lives and images move onto the center stage of American public life. In this incisive and authoritative guide to the new gay visibility, Suzanna Danuta Walters argues that we now live in a time when gays are seen, but not necessarily known. Taking on the common wisdom that equates visibility with full integration, All the Rage maps the terrain on which gays are accepted as witty film accessories and sassy sitcom stars yet denied full citizenship.
The love that once dared not speak its name now dances at Disneyland's annual gay day and sells Bud Lite. Heck, even Bart Simpson questions his sexuality, while nobody questions South Park's Big Gay Al's, and there is no ambiguity about Saturday Night Live's Ambiguously Gay Duo. This comprehensive survey of gay and lesbian visibility in popular culture offers a whirlwind of facts, figures and documentation of gay representations. Acknowledging television's past e.g., Mike Wallace's 1967 CBS report reconfirming many homophobic stereotypes Walters concentrates on post-AIDS entertainment in which gay characters and themes appear everywhere from HBO's Oz to The Drew Carey Show to that bastion of backlash, Ally McBeal. A double edge runs through Walters's countless examples: does this visibility indicate acceptance, or does "gay chic" just characterize a profitable niche market? Moreover, are these trends destructive? An associate professor of sociology and director of women's studies at Georgetown, Walters (Material) quotes activist and writer Sarah Schulman as criticizing "the creation of a false public homosexuality that is palatable and containable and... not authentic." Walters's analyses are often astute the Roseanne gay marriage show was more about Dan and Roseanne confronting their own homophobia than about homosexuality but occasionally reductive, like her assertion that the film Boys in the Band is "filled with... self hatred" mightn't it be commenting on self-hatred? Citing academics Kath Weston, Josh Gamson and responding to mainstream critics, Walters's initial distrust of this visibility gives way to grudging appreciation in a clear, up-to-date map of the basic debate overhomosexuality in the media. (Oct.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Acknowledgments | ||
Prologue | ||
Pt. 1 | It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times | |
1 | The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name: The Explosion of Gay Visibility | 3 |
2 | Pride and Prejudice: The Changing Context of Gay Visibility | 30 |
Pt. 2 | A Kiss Is Just a Kiss | |
3 | Ready for Prime Time? TV Comes Out of the Closet | 59 |
4 | Dossier on Ellen | 81 |
5 | All Gay, All the Time? | 95 |
Pt. 3 | Coming Soon to a Theater Near You | |
6 | Hiding, Dying, and Dressing-Up | 131 |
7 | Out Is In: Liberal Narratives for the Nineties | 149 |
Pt. 4 | In the Family Way | |
8 | Wedding Bell Blues: Imagining Marriage | 179 |
9 | Mom, I've Got Something to Tell You: The Coming-Out Story in the Age of Visibility | 197 |
10 | It Takes a Lesbian Village to Raise a Child: Parenting Possibilities | 210 |
Pt. 4 | Money Makes the World Go Round | |
11 | Consuming Queers: Advertising and the Gay Market | 235 |
12 | If It's Pink We'll Sell It: Gay Entrepreneurship | 273 |
Conclusion: Beyond Visibility (Welcome to Our Rainbow World) | 290 | |
Notes | 301 | |
Bibliography | 315 | |
Index | 323 |