Buy new:
$24.50
FREE delivery Friday, May 17 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Ships from: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
$24.50
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Friday, May 17 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35. Order within 18 hrs 36 mins
In Stock
$$24.50 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$24.50
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon.com
Ships from
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
30-day easy returns
30-day easy returns
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Returns
30-day easy returns
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$3.50
The cover has visible markings and wear. The cover has curled corners. The pages show normal wear and tear. There is light highlighting or handwriting through out the book. There is writing, discoloration, or markings on the edges of the pages. The book has pages that are folded or dog eared at the corners. Codes or product keys that accompany this product may not be valid. Fast Shipping in a Standard Poly Mailer! The cover has visible markings and wear. The cover has curled corners. The pages show normal wear and tear. There is light highlighting or handwriting through out the book. There is writing, discoloration, or markings on the edges of the pages. The book has pages that are folded or dog eared at the corners. Codes or product keys that accompany this product may not be valid. Fast Shipping in a Standard Poly Mailer! See less
$3.99 delivery May 20 - 21. Details
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$24.50 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$24.50
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Ships from and sold by Goodwill Retail Services, Inc..
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Alexander Doty
+ Follow
More books from this author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture Paperback – June 14, 1993

by Alexander Doty (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 7 ratings
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$24.50","priceAmount":24.50,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"24","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"50","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"LfEm1IsO2rVLRg3r%2Fxt1ZHuZXkEZpABxAhhXfWc6LwbcaGJiyFsy4wEh%2BeCItwnQ%2F3jEDJnTN82LJCYYcbWeRANXh0CexVrW%2FWbCFtotPp%2FqeEgdn0Cimy%2BP3M3dkRPLaAmgoHmFujs%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$3.50","priceAmount":3.50,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"3","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"50","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"LfEm1IsO2rVLRg3r%2Fxt1ZHuZXkEZpABx9UzPXoxwbPpEj1xURfLJqppGvi38KPrDnzw4yBR8FU6oDSMD8nftj0NK6ntV3j8E7ER8bZVyAKB3RzWtbReS9ISJk3V3Q9yOaeScKNN%2FPE3uwxOI%2B9Z54sAV%2BIDxr%2BOHkqYx1DZMVQu21%2B0lPWcIyvfQIOKpLoHa","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

Doty argues that films, television, and other forms of mass culture consistently elicit a wide range of queer (sexually liminal) responses, and suggests an interpretive framework for understanding mass culture that stands as a corrective to many standard cultural approaches.

Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    168 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Univ Of Minnesota Press
  4. Publication date
    June 14, 1993
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0816622450
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0816622450
  8. See all details
Next page
The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Frequently bought together

Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture
$24.50
Get it as soon as Friday, May 17
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
Queer Cinema in the World
$30.95
Get it as soon as Friday, May 17
Only 7 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader
$41.95
Temporarily out of stock.
Order now and we'll deliver when available. We'll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your account will only be charged when we ship the item.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
Some of these items ship sooner than the others.
Show details Hide details
Choose items to buy together.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Alexander Doty teaches film and mass culture in the English department at Lehigh University He is the author of articles on film, mass culture, and queer studies, and is currently coediting an anthology on lesbian, gay, and queer mass culture theory and criticism.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Univ Of Minnesota Press; First Edition (June 14, 1993)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 168 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0816622450
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0816622450
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 7 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Alexander Doty

Alexander Doty

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
7 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Dr H
5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Introduction
Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2014
Verified Purchase
The late Alexander Doty helped so many of us to shift from Gay & Lesbian studies to a broader queer approach, and he did it in this book. The introduction remains a highly accessible and valuable description of the field of queer studies, and his chapter on queer auteurs George Cukor and Dorothy Arzner offers a compelling model for film scholars. If some of the other chapters are out of date or more whimsy than we often allow in scholarship, so be it. He entertains and educates, and the world is less bright without Doty. This remains a go-to queer media studies introduction in my library.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
bellczar
2.0 out of 5 stars Author reads too much into happenings
Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2012
In this provocative book, Alexander Doty characterizes many sitcoms centered on female casts as having "lesbian narratives." By this he doesn't mean that the women are lesbians, but that the situations on the series are centered on interaction among a core group of women, such as Lucy & Ethel on "I Love Lucy," Lucy & Viv on "The Lucy Show," Mary & Rhoda & Phyllis on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," and the four women of "The Golden Girls," among others. Certainly, then, a better word is needed to describe this. Feminine narrative, perhaps? So Doty is correct to say that a feminine narrative is behind most of these shows (maybe not "I Love Lucy," which included strong male participation). However, what this has to do with lesbianism is most unclear. Indeed, Mary & Rhoda and the characters on "The Golden Girls" spent most of their effort trying to pursue male companionship. Doty blows many things (single lines of dialogue) out of proportion to insist that homosexuality was being implied in some of these series. His arguments for this are weak. Even weaker are assertions that more was going on between some of the female actors off-screen than they stated publicly. But this is based on vague and ambiguous second-hand statements allegedly made to biographers and doesn't belong in an academic volume; it's more like tabloid trash.

Similarly, in another chapter, Doty dissects the on-screen persona of Jack Benny to allege that the character Benny played in his radio and television series was a closet homosexual. As in the "lesbian narrative" chapter, Doty blows individual bits of dialogue from random episodes out of proportion to insinuate sexual meanings where there almost certainly was none. Doty finds a need to separate the Benny character from Jack Benny himself, going so far as to refer to the character as Jack and the man as Benny. Although Jack Benny's use of feminine mannerisms was part of his comic character, there was never any suggestion of attraction among the males on the series; nevertheless, Doty alleges that Rochester (Eddie Anderson), Don Wilson, and Phil Harris each displayed elements of it, which flies in the face of the frequent references on the show to the beauty of Harris's wife, Alice Faye.

This is a provocative book, but not a very accurate one. Too many of the author's arguments rest on dubious conclusions made from random, ambiguous evidence.
4 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Christopher W. Chase
4.0 out of 5 stars Teaching us how to queer cultural artifacts...
Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2001
Doty's volume is very popular. Here he analyzes various forms of mass culture, from the Jack Benny radio program to the TV program "Laverne and Shirley" to demonstrate the existence of queer (non-heterosexually coded performance) narratives at the center of all of these cultural productions.
For example, Doty argues that in popular TV shows such as "Alice," "I Love Lucy", "Laverne and Shirley", the show depends on narrating from the perpective of the women in the show. Doty argues that the plot complications almost always stem from some male interference with the pleasure of the narrator, from unwanted suitors to demanding male bosses. Because heterosocial interaction is coded from narrator's perspective as intrusive, Doty labels these plot narratives "lesbian." Thus a queer reading of these shows reveals homosocial, if not homosexual, relationships as the important character and plot elements that are defended.
Then again, it is heterocentrism that defines queer as "homosexual behavior" in the first place, so why should queer studies accept that definition, when its intention is to undermine hetercentrism in the first place!
Jack Benny on the other hand, displays a central character whose behaviors are semiotically coded "feminine." He frets, bites his lip, has a lack of aggressive sexual desire for women, a loose, bouncy walk, and a high-pitched nervous giggle, to mention but a few things. The narrative display a central tendency to displace Benny from situations of power and influence--not the least of which was Benny's self-deprecating humor. Doty reminds us that Benny's biographies are full of his contemporaries remarking on his feminine characteristics. In this case, a queer reading is produced by taking an ostensibly "straight" man and imbuing him thoroughly with clearly "female" characteristics, all of which adds up to a queer character, never fitting in with compulsory heterosexual and masculine traits.
These are just two examples of how queer readings are produced in Doty's work. All in all, he aims to show that it is queerness, not straightness, that lies at the center of mass cultural production. Thus he argues for the overturning of heterocentricity as the dominant way of reading culture. A tall claim, no doubt, but one that is tantalizing nonetheless.
7 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report