Reinventing Privilege: The New (Gay) Man in Contemporary Popular Media

In recent years, the gay man/heterosexual woman couple configuration has become a genre unto itself in mediated popular culture, resulting in unprecedented mainstream visibility for gay men. Major mainstream films, such as My Best Friend's Wedding, Object of My Affection, and The Next Best Thing, showcase this combination as their centerpiece, as does the highly rated prime-time network situation comedy, Will & Grace. In this essay, I assess this particular performance of gay identity in order to discern what qualities render it – as presented in this configuration – not only acceptable but popular, given the heteronormative sensibilities that characterize the mainstream audience to which it is directed. I argue that, in these texts, homosexuality is not only recoded and normalized in these representations as consistent with privileged male heterosexuality but is articulated as extending heterosexual male privilege. In so doing, blatant sexism is reinvented and legitimized, and gay male identity simultaneously is defined by and renormalizes heteronormativity.     

Queens for a Day: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and the Neoliberal Project

This paper moves beyond a conventional critique of gay stereotyping on Bravo's popular makeover show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy to consider how the show puts gay cultural expertise to work to reform a heterosexual masculinity that is compatible with the neoliberal moment. At issue are the newly public acknowledgement of gay taste and consumer expertise; the “crisis of masculinity” that requires that heterosexual men must now attend to their relationships, image, and domestic habitus; and the remaking of the straight guy as not only an improved romantic partner—the metrosexual—but a more flexible, employable worker. The author concludes by considering how camp deconstructs some of Queer Eye's most heteronormative aims, even while leaving its class and consumption rationales intact.     

On Misfits and Margins: Narrative,Resistance, and the Poster Child Politics of Rosie O'Donnell

This essay addresses why Rosie O'Donnell's “coming out” as a lesbian, as a gay parent, and as an advocate for gay adoption generated such little and lukewarm response, arguing that O'Donnell's lesbianism was rationalized in the public discourse by powerful preexisting narratives that constructed her as both maternal and childlike. These narratives converged with the narrative alterity of O'Donnell's homosexuality in such a way as to sharpen and strengthen established heteronormative discursive margins. The O'Donnell case contributes to an understanding of how dominant narratives negotiate competing narratives of resistance and offers an opportunity to examine mediated representations of “coming out.”     

Neither Fish nor Fowl: Feminism,Desire, and the Lesbian Consumer Market

This article addresses gay marketers’ tardy and ambivalent attempts to imagine and organize lesbians as a viable target marketing niche. Practical considerations make lesbians less attractive as a market: They have a lower average household income than gay male and heterosexual couples and they are hard to reach for market research purposes and with advertising. But the lesbian market is also dogged by the popular image of lesbians as lacking both erotic and acquisitive desire, embodied in the stereotype of anti-consumption, parsimonious, unsexy feminists who resist marketers’ interest in them as consumers.     

Sexual References and Consequences for Heterosexual,Lesbian, Gay,and Bisexual Characters on Television: A Comparison Content Analysis

A content analysis was conducted to examine sexual references and consequences among lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB), and heterosexual characters on television. The sample was composed of programs portraying an LGB lead or reoccurring character. Results showed that heterosexual and LGB characters engaged in sexual talk and behavior in similar contexts. When discussing LGB sexualities, however, heterosexual characters were disproportionately likely to make jokes; LGB characters were disproportionately likely to discuss coming out. LGB characters depicted in sexual references were more likely to be in dialogue with a heterosexual character than another LGB character. Sexual consequences were more common for heterosexual characters than LGB characters. No gender differences existed in frequency of sexual references or consequences among LGB characters, evidence that the sexual double standard found in previous research may not apply to LGB characters. Results are discussed in terms of potential effects of exposure.     

The experience and expression of romantic jealousy in same‐sex and opposite‐sex romantic relationships

This study examines and compares how males and females in same‐sex and opposite‐sex romantic relationships experience and express romantic jealousy. Undergraduates at a large, southern university and visitors at a metropolitan Pride Celebration (N = 149) completed measures assessing cognitive and emotional jealousy experience, jealousy expression, and demographic information. The reported usage of two of Guerrero, Andersen, Jorgensen, Spitzberg, and Eloy's (1995) communicative responses to jealousy typology significantly varied by sexual orientation and sex. Specifically, gay males were significantly more likely to use violent communication/ threats than were heterosexual males. Further, lesbians reported using manipulation attempts to a significantly lesser degree than did heterosexual participants and gay males. In contrast, levels of cognitive and emotional jealousy experience did not significantly differ by sexual orientation or sex. Implications for these findings are presented in light of the broader study of close opposite‐sex and same‐sex romantic relationships.     

“Is Gay the New Black?”: An Intersectional Perspective on Social Movement Rhetoric in California's Proposition 8 Debate

This essay charts a critical intersectional rhetoric as a means for understanding the articulation of a Civil Rights Movement (CRM) analogy in marriage equality campaigns. Analyzing the campaign against Proposition 8, California's version of the Defense of Marriage Act, I argue that the use of such analogizing elides difference, prevents meaningful and complex conversations about power and oppression, and makes visible the material intersectional tensions between and among communities of color and gay and lesbian communities and how these discourses further marginalize those that identify as queer people of color. Through criticism of campaign commercials, movement strategy, and the protest rhetoric after the proposition passed, I argue that CRM analogy discourse historicizes racism, privileges white gay identities, and exacerbates divisions that prevent coalition building.     

Malevolence,stigma, and social distance: Maximizing intergroup differences in HIV/AIDS discourse

This study examined the intergroup language used by young heterosexual Australians in conversations about HIV/AIDS and safe sex. Sixty male and 72 female heterosexuals participated in four‐person facilitated conversations (same‐sex or mixed‐sex) about HIV/AIDS and safe sex, which were recorded and transcribed. We focused on extracts concerning strangers or malevolent individuals who appear to be group members, along with extracts involving foreign national groups. Discourse analysis showed that groups at lower levels of social distance were constructed mainly in terms of individual responsibility. At moderate social distance, stereotypes were more negative, but sub‐typing was common, whereas at the highest levels, people were constructed entirely in intergroup terms. The findings of this study suggest that HTV prevention programs should make reference to all salient outgroups, so as to neutralize communicative strategies that strengthen intergroup boundaries as a means of reducing perceived personal threat of HIV infection.     

Pistols and petticoats,piety and purity: To Wong Foo,the queering of the American monomyth,and the marginalizing discourse of deification

–Recently, the mainstream media have begun to include positive portrayals of gays and lesbians. This essay suggests that these positive portrayals demand critical scrutiny to determine how they redefine mainstream culture and how they serve to challenge and/or reinforce heterosexual bias. In an analysis of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, we examine how a narrative film negotiates the practice of drag and represents gay male “drag queens” through a progressive refiguring of the monomythic themes which inform the popular genre of Western film.     

When norms are violated: imagined interactions as processing and coping mechanisms

Relying on the fundamental assumption of violation theories that norm violations stimulate receiver thought processes, we explored receivers' symbolic cognitive processes in response to particular types of norm violations. Specifically, we reasoned that imagined interactions serve as a processing mechanism whereby individuals review the behavior of another, identify the type of norm violation, and make decisions about how to respond-all within their efforts to cope with deviations from norms. Utilizing the classroom context, we examined how teacher norm violations, operationalized as teacher misbehaviors, provoke students' imagined interaction activity. Results revealed that imagined interactions were used in respect to all three types of violations profiled and that participants were significantly more likely to engage in imagined interactions than to interact with or confront norm violators. The results are discussed in terms of implications for extending violation theories to include context-based goal attainment and power differentials between interactants.     

Gay On-Screen: The Relationship Between Exposure to Gay Characters on Television and Heterosexual Audiences' Endorsement of Gay Equality

The current study, grounded in the parasocial contact hypothesis, employed a survey of emerging adults to investigate the relationship between exposure to gay characters on television and heterosexuals' endorsement of gay equality. A positive relationship existed between exposure to on-screen gay characters and gay equality endorsement. The relationship was stronger for racial minority participants than for White participants, and for participants who had no or few interpersonal relationships with openly gay individuals than for participants who had more than three respective relationships. Results are discussed in terms of the parasocial contact hypothesis and television as an agent of social change.     

Gay characters in conventional spaces: Will and Grace and the situation comedy genre

This paper explores how Will & Grace, which has been heralded in the popular press for its positive representations of gay men, situates the potentially controversial issue of homosexuality within safe and familiar popular culture conventions, particularly those of the situation comedy genre. This paper draws on feminist and queer theory to examine the liabilities of relying on these familiar situation comedy conventions, demonstrating how the program equates gayness with a lack of masculinity, relies on sexual tension and delayed consummation, infantilizes the program's most potentially subversive characters, and emphasisizes characters' interpersonal relationships rather than the characters' connection to the larger social world. Additionally it argues that by inviting mainstream audiences to read the program within familiar televisual frames, Will & Grace can be read as reinforcing heterosexism and, thus, can be seen as heteronormative.     

The Attentional Mechanism of Message Sensation Value: Interaction between Message Sensation Value and Argument Quality on Message Effectiveness

Rivalries may affect ingroup and outgroup (rival or nonrival) representations as well as students' identification with their home school. This study examines how subtle linguistic changes in question comparison, between the home school and another school, rival or nonrival, and between the self and other home school students, provide access to changes in these cognitive representations. Data were collected shortly before a rival football game or during a nongame week. The linguistic changes, manipulations in the direction of comparison (e.g., home school to rival school vs. rival school to home school), were designed from Tversky's (1977) model of similarity judgment. The results suggest that sport rivalries increase students' perceptions of unique features of home school students, but do not increase perceptions of unique (even unique, negative) features of rival school students. The increase in ingroup unique features before a rivalry game is strong enough to reverse the usual observation that the self is seen as less similar to others than others are to the self. Applications and implications for question design, e.g., sports polls, and this central topic of campus community conversations is discussed.     

Two representations of the research process: The preparing,searching, and using (PSU) and the beginning,acting and telling (BAT) models

Two representations of a three-stage diagrammatic model that holistically depicts the research process are presented. The representations incorporate elements culled from existing information-seeking behavior and information literacy instruction research, as well as evidence gathered from a study of third grade elementary school students, as they worked to fulfill a class project's requirements. Both representations are content independent, attribute equal importance to each of the three stages, and target the K-12 educational environment. The full representation, the preparing, searching, using (PSU) model, is intended for use by instructors and more advanced students. The model identifies elements inherent within the three stages of the research process including actions, affective behaviors, impact factors, learning, and reflection. The simpler representation, the beginning, acting, telling (BAT) model, which is embedded into the PSU, presents only the three main stages and the actions associated with those stages using a familiar graphic (a bat) and a mnemonic device to visually present the basic elements of the research process to younger elementary school students. The PSU model is designed to identify and address the unique information behaviors of students (affective, cognitive, and physical) and factors that may impact the research process. As a result, the representations can be used by educators, including information professionals and teachers, to inform instruction, such as lesson planning, development of assignments, resource location and evaluation, and the use of information, to fully exploit all aspects of the research process. The PSU model can also be used to teach more sophisticated concepts to older students by introducing more complex features gradually to the BAT model.     

Gendered Relationships on Television: Portrayals of Same-Sex and Heterosexual Couples

Although intimate heterosexual couples often exhibit power imbalances in gender role behaviors, with one partner more dominant and the other more submissive, it is unclear whether the same is true for homosexual relationships. Anecdotal evidence, however, suggests that television portrays both heterosexual and homosexual couples as gendered. This content analysis of intimate relationships on television examined whether heterosexual and homosexual couples are portrayed as gendered, finding evidence of gendering for both homosexual couples and heterosexual couples. Possible implications of these gendered portrayals for viewers' perceptions and behaviors include cultivation of negative stereotypes and modeling of gender-typed behaviors.     

Negation and Validation of Self via the Media: Israeli Gay Men s (Dis)Engagement Patterns with Their Representations

Forty-five Israeli gay men unfolded their life stories in order to delve into their media reception patterns. Overall, they prefer to disengage themselves from a discourse that symbolically annihilates them or negatively constructs their representations. Absence from the mediated reality as well as social invisibility are perceived to reduce ontologically the gay individual. On the other hand, these narrators exhibited intentional consumption of texts that refer to gay issues and figures. The gay individual who regularly senses that his self is being negated attributes great value to images that can validate his existence, and hence allocates resources in their consumption. Both patterns of reception complement each other and shed light on the complex dialectics between marginally situated, muted co-culture members and the public sphere.     

Pornography,Alcohol, and Male Sexual Dominance

This study surveyed German heterosexual men's interest and engagement in a variety of dominant behaviors observed in recent analyses of pornography. Interest in watching popular pornographic movies or more frequent consumption of pornography was associated with men's desire to engage in or having already engaged in behaviors such as hair pulling, spanking a partner hard enough to leave a mark, facial ejaculation, confinement, double-penetration (i.e. penetrating a partner's anus or vagina simultaneously with another man), ass-to-mouth (i.e. anally penetrating a partner and then inserting the penis directly into her mouth), penile gagging, facial slapping, choking, and name-calling (e.g. “slut” or “whore”). Consistent with past experimental research on the effect of alcohol and pornography exposure on men's likelihood of sexual coercion, men who had engaged in the most dominant behaviors were those who frequently consumed pornography and regularly consumed alcohol before or during sex.     

Testing Components of Confirmation: How Acceptance and Challenge from Mothers,Fathers, and Siblings are Related to Adolescent Self-Concept

The current study assessed how confirmation from family members (mothers, fathers, siblings) was related to adolescents' (ages 13–22) self-concepts. To extend confirmation theory, two components of confirmation were distinguished—acceptance and challenge—to understand their unique and combined contribution to predicting adolescent sense of self. 206 adolescents completed a general questionnaire, and a subset (n=60) completed daily diaries regarding conversations with family members. Analyses of the general perceptions of family interactions suggested the roles of acceptance and challenge in predicting adolescent sense of self varied by family member, whereas analyses of adolescents' reports of daily conversations suggested acceptance and challenge were strong predictors of sense of self regardless of family member. In addition, although the combination of acceptance and challenge was hypothesized to predict the strongest levels of sense of self, analyses suggested the effects of acceptance and challenge were additive. Adolescent participation in conversations, as hypothesized, also mediated the relationship between confirmation and sense of self. Overall, analyses provide partial support for the theoretical extensions, and directions for further theory development and future research are discussed.