Playing Gay is Not Okay, But Not Playing Straight is Worse

“In short, the truthful lesbian is far less troubling than someone who challenges bi-gender semiotics and whose objects of desire are unknown” (Sloop, p. 85).

Gossip undeniably shapes celebrity culture and has become a powerful industry in itself. Blogger Perez Hilton was considered a major celebrity cameo when he appeared on The Voice earlier this season to cheer on one of his friends. Perhaps nothing sets the gossip community abuzz more quickly than celebrities’ love lives. It is common to give celebrity couples cutesy nicknames before they have officially come out as a couple. As any celebrity who has ever played gay or any actor who has appeared on Broadway can attest, gossip sites love to speculate about celebrities’ sexual orientations; however, nothing seems to frustrate gossip sites more than a sexually ambiguous performer.

Sadly, even in 2012, it is hard for actors to play gay characters without immediately being questioned about their sexuality. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal were both questioned about their heterosexuality while starring in Brokeback Mountain, and while Ledger was absolved after having a baby with his female costar, Gyllehaal’s true sexuality is still debated fairly regularly. That said, actors who play coy about their sexual orientation are widely criticized.

As John Sloop notes in his book, Disciplining Gender: Rhetorics of Sex Identity in Contemporary U.S. Culture, “Although ours is no doubt a heteronormative culture, it is also a culture that insists on a clear delimitation between male and female as separate genders, on heterosexual and homosexual as distinctly separate spheres of desire. It is a culture, then, in which knowing where to place someone in the matrix of gender and desire is valued over confusion” (pp. 84-85).  Sean Hayes, who played the flamboyant Jack on Will and Grace, was criticized for years for refusing to comment on his sexual orientation. When he finally came out in 2010, Hayes criticized gay media publications such as The Advocate for pressuring him to come out. Even this year, White Collar star Matthew Bomer was criticized for not publicly addressing his sexuality (i.e. confirming the long-standing rumors that he is gay). He officially came out of the closet last month.

While Hayes and Bomer have both confirmed their sexuality, stars like Jodie Foster and Queen Latifah, both reported lesbians, continue to aggravate the media. Both stars refuse to comment on their love lives, and when either speaks about her personal life, the internet lights up. In fact, Googling either celebrity alongside the word “sexuality” brings up several different blogs claiming to confirm that she has “finally” opened up about her sexual orientation or is showing off her girlfriend.

It is unfortunate that in 2012, the media does not afford sexually ambiguous performers more privacy. Even more unfortunately, these performers do not directly threaten heterosexuality. They do not lead outwardly homosexual lives, but they do not lead outwardly heterosexual lives. Why not allow the Jodie Fosters, Oprahs, Sean Hayes, and Taylor Lautners of the world to challenge sexuality binaries? Does it really affect our lives and our relationships, or is it, as one Newsweek columnist wrote in 2010, “the big, pink elephant in the room?”

P.S. I agree with Scarlett’s post. J Watching Boys Don’t Cry made my confusion worse.

Where is the love?

I have to admit that confusion is my default feeling after reading Chapter Two: Disciplining the Transgendered: Brandon Teena, Public Representation, and Normativity in the Sloop book.  This confusion is caused by several different factors.  First I think it is wise to acknowledge that the whole Brandon Teena case in itself is a complicated and somewhat confusing case study to analyze.  However, Sloop does not just focus on the case study itself, he branches out to analyze how the media framed this case and the discourse that it caused in society.  All of these layers of analysis within the chapter are enough to make one’s head spin (and I am hoping that I am not alone in this feeling, although it is okay if I am).

Throughout the chapter Sloop discusses how our society thrives on labels and boxes.  The fact that Brandon Teena did not fit into one box or adhere to one label was and still is troublesome to society.  We have discussed in previous classes how the fact that gender and sex is not a fluid construction in our society causes a great deal of trouble.  Sloop’s analysis of Brandon Teena just re-affirms that notion.  It also served to be eye opening as to how narrow minded our society truly is, which for me, is extremely disturbing.  What is even more troublesome for me is that only through the readings of this course and through the light in which Sloop discusses this case have I realized how narrow minded I have been when it comes to gender and sex.

One of the first things that Sloop discusses that caused me anxiety was when he analyzed the rhetoric surrounding the murderers and their motives for killing Teena. The media as well as the two men responsible for abusing and murdering Teena justify their actions by saying that they were hurt by the “deception” that they experienced.  While I can understand that people do not enjoy being deceived and lied to, I hardly think that is just cause for the brutal actions that both men inflicted upon Teena.  The fact that the media framed Brandon Teena as the one who was guilty of deception simply created an out for his two murders and gave society a reason to excuse the acts of violence and abuse that they participated in.  It is easier for our society to accept and understand something if we are able to relate to it.  Since majority of our society are unable to relate to Brandon Teena, the media needed to find a new spin on the story.  Everyone has experienced deception at some point and level in their life, thus the story becomes relatable.

The media makes this case relatable and accessible in other ways as well.  The audience is validated when it is revealed that there was something “wrong” with Teena, there was a deeper penetrating issue that caused his sexual confusion.  Either there was a hormone imbalance during his mother’s pregnancy or he was sexually abused as a child.  By exposing these tangible instances, it makes it easier for society to accept Brandon Teena’s actions.  We need to be able to create scenarios and instances to make it easier for the situation to accommodate our frame of reference instead of just accepting the fact that Brandon Teena thought he was male, wanted to be male, or whatever he believed. 

I also found it mildly horrifying that the media was so transfixed with determining what Brandon Teena’s true gender and sex was.  I understand that as a society, we need to be able to define the unknown in terms that we are able to understand, but it seems as if in the whole mix of all of this society and the media lost sight of the big picture: someone was sexually abused and murdered in what I see as a hate crime.  In all of the drama surrounding determining if Brandon Teena was male or female, gay or straight, transgendered or transsexual, we forgot one thing: despite what he was or how he identified, he was murdered, and shouldn’t that action in itself speak louder than defining his “true” identity?

What You Don't Know Can Hurt You

As a rule our society is stuck on knowing everything. We are not comfortable being in the dark about anything even if it does not directly affect us.  Currently, America is obsessed with the idea of same-sex marriages, a concept that honestly does not affect all Americans, but only those in the process of trying to attain a marriage license. It is situations like this that make non-heteronormative relationship dangerous. I argue in this post that a sense of unknowing and ignorance is ultimately what caused Private Barry Winchell's death. His murderers were not knowledgeable about his relationship with Calpernia Addams. Specifically that Winchell was not gay and that Addams was a woman simply awaiting a surgery that would complete her womanhood.

Chapter 5 of John Sloop’s book illustrates the life and death of Private Barry Winchell at Fort Campbell. Calvin Glover, a soldier, beat Winchell to death. Fellow soldier Justin Fisher, Winchell’s roommate, pushed Glover to this attack. Glover and Fisher assumed Winchell was gay and decided there was no room in the Army for a gay man. These assumptions were made after it was discovered that Winchell was dating Calpernia Addams, a former navy medic and pre-opt male-to-female transgendered woman. The murder was considered a hate crime and compared to the story of Brandon Teena.

Within this chapter Sloop analyzes several aspects of the story surrounding Private Winchell. Sloop compares the Winchell story to the Brandon Teena story in how both individuals were made to be gay or lesbian so the public and media could better understand and accept their stories. Sloop states, “having encouraged Addams to refer to herself as a gay man in order to simplify public perception of the killing as a hate crime” (pg 124). This is similar to how the Boys Don’t Cry film portrayed Brandon as a lesbian in the end, so the audience would better handle his story; soften the blow so to speak. It seems that we are too concerned with the public’s understanding and feelings about one’s lifestyle, so in order to make them comfortable we alter the authenticity of their life.

Barry Winchell never "came out" as gay because he was not gay. Growing up Winchell only dated women as his own mother explains. When he met Calpernia she was a woman by all standards. On page 131, Addams admitted that she felt she was a woman. Addams was even described as a female in reports with examples such as, “country girl”, “Nashville preacher’s daughter”, etc. With this is mind, although Addams was born a man when she met Winchell she was a woman, which furthers the point that Winchell was not gay. He was not attracted to a man, but to a beautiful woman. His roommate and killer figured that because Addams was born a man and Winchell was a man than the two were living as a gay couple. I understand that the idea of sexuality and sex are fluid and hard to understand for most, but if Glover and Fisher would have just taken the time to try and understand the situation maybe they would have reacted differently. 

With all this being said it seems that society is stuck on labels and classifying people. As cliché as it sounds, society only sees black and white, when we all know there are gray areas of life. As far as society is concerned, you are either homosexual or straight, male or female, man or woman and no in between. I guess the saying "Knowledge is power" is more than appropriate in this case. 

Polysemy, the Presidential Campaign, and Mormons

I have been following this year’s presidential campaign with more than my usual amount of interest because a member of my church (and a friend of my brother and sister-in-law) is running for office. You may have heard about him—his name is Mitt Romney. Romney has run into some unique challenges during his run(s) for office that directly affect me—more on this later. So, while preparing for our class this week, a quote from this week’s readings caught my attention: “It is as if a dozen candidates . . . are running for the Presidency of an undiscovered country, looking for connections, for a nerve to touch, seeking a language” (McGee, 1975, p. 245). This could have been written yesterday about the current presidential campaign. It is to the point that news articles talk about the “not-Romney” Republican candidate of the week, as the various candidates attempt to reframe their position as they go from state to state seeking votes.

The questions of “Who is my audience?” and “How will my audience interpret my message?” have never been more important—nor have they been harder to define—than in this campaign. Our country is experiencing hard times, and our country’s leadership helps to determine the direction we take to overcome those hard times. What (or whose) vision do we want to follow? As McGee elaborated,

Each political myth presupposes a “people” who can legislate reality with their collective belief. So long as “the people” believe basic myths, there is unity and collective identity. When there is no fundamental belief, one senses a crisis which can only be met with a new rhetoric, a new mythology. (p. 245)

We have several streams of rhetoric wandering through the current political landscape. While it is an easy journalistic shorthand to refer to them as conservative and liberal (or red and blue), the reality falls into a much more complicated mix of opinion. For instance, one candidate, Ron Paul, proposes less government. Most would consider this conservative. However, many in the radical feminist movement are equally supportive of less government, because they feel the hegemonic practices of government interfere with the ability of individuals to exercise their freedom. Less government could also mean no border patrol (liberal), smaller military (liberal), lower taxes (conservative), and potentially no Department of Education (antithetical). Thus, McGee’s point that competitive relationships exist within each individual is born out within a single candidate’s position. There is no collective identity here—there is a confused mass of interwoven ideals that lead from a single position.

How is an audience supposed to respond to this confusion? This leads me to our Condit (1989) reading on polysemy. Basically, proponents of polysemy argue that audiences have the ability “to shape their own readings” (p. 103) of text and media. While Condit granted that it is possible for individuals to talk back to and create their own frames for understanding the media, she proposed that it is much more accurate to define this process as polyvalent responses to any given message, because different life experiences—and in particular, socio-education levels—affect the ability of any given individual to create a different shape to the normative message. So, while different interpretations may be possible, the reality is a wide range of possible interpretations, with most of them following the general “expected” response. Thus, she argued,

If the particular range of television’s textual polysemy excludes marginal group messages, and if oppositional reading requires comparatively oppressive quantities of work, then minority groups are indeed silenced, even as audiences, and therefore discriminated against in important ways. (p. 110)

Extrapolating from Condit’s argument to the question of how an audience is supposed to respond to the political posturing of our current candidates means that audiences will respond as they are expected to respond, because the political rhetoric is too complicated for the average voter to sort through. Thus, if the media presents a candidate as two-faced, that is how the average voter will judge that candidate. If the media finds someone who accuses a candidate of some crime, even if the candidate is subsequently exonerated, the average voter will only have heard about the initial accusation, and made a decision based on the initial sound-bite.

This is huge for Mitt Romney because the media wants to make something big out of his religious beliefs. While he wants to focus on his experience and leadership, the media is bound and determined to ratchet the “weirdness” of his personal beliefs into the national consciousness. I doubt his campaign team has recognized how significant this is, given Condit’s analysis. In other words, the Romney team (and those associated with the Mormon Church) are being targeted and marginalized by the media, because most voters will not engage in the amount of study it would take to overcome the anti-Mormon message currently being promoted by popular media. It is subtle, but very persistent.

It comes as no surprise then, to me, to see that while the Church claims its “I’m a Mormon” campaign is a-political, the media blitz corresponds directly with the Romney campaign because the anti-Mormon message goes well beyond this candidate’s effort. It hits at every person who claims membership in the Church—which is where I come in. It doesn’t take much effort to transfer that “weird” belief that a presidential candidate holds to the person who lives next door who you know goes to the same church in the same way that it didn’t take much effort to transfer the actions of a few terrorists to the much larger (and much more peaceful) Muslim community. Thus, another segment of the population becomes marginalized unless some effort is made to counteract that marginalization process. While The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has indicated a preference to be called by its full name, it has come to terms with embracing the more common “Mormon” terminology in order to educate a nation being targeted with anti- messages. So, to adopt a note from the campaign, my name is Karen Marie Hansen Morgan, I am a mother, doctorate student, writer, business analyst, farmer, musician, and I am a Mormon. (If I am weird, it’s probably because I’m a farmer.)

How we disenfranchise members of our society is something we need to become more aware of in order to counteract this type of marginalizing rhetoric. Regardless of one’s political position, if this training in critical rhetoric is to have use in “the real world” we need to focus our attention on those instances where the message is divisive. Letting a message sender “get away with it” means we contribute to the problem, and not to the solution. Attending to the rhetoric in the current political campaign is a good place to start.

The New Face of Media

Bonnie J. Dow concludes part IV titled, “Gender and Communication in Mediated Contexts” of The Sage Handbook of Gender Communication, asking, “Why do journalists measure the progress of representations of women on television through a focus on the depiction of the lives of single white heterosexual career women? What does such a focus say about the race, class, and sexuality blinders that operate across mass media, whether in journalism or series television?” These questions struck a nerve and immediately I felt obligated to show some of the many television syndications that portray Black women as day-to-day successful businesswomen, thus overshadowing this notion that only white women can carry out this role in the media.

Donald Bogle’s book Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretative History of Blacks in American Films discusses the roles often garnered by Black actors in films. These are roles that were unbecoming and only continued to perpetuate the harsh societal stereotypes of the Black culture. Bogle examines the roles of the Mammy, Jezebel, and Sapphire, typical roles portrayed by Black actresses. Over the years, these roles have continuously been featured in the media, limiting the opportunities for such actresses to play major leading roles.

Although we are still plagued by these “typical” Black characters, a new Black female character has arrived. She is the affluent, well-respected, and professional businesswoman. Yes, she still has traces of her predecessors with her sassy, sexy, no non-sense attitude, but that is what makes this character unique. In 1984, we were introduced to her as the character of Clair Huxtable played by Phylicia Rashad. On the popular sitcom The Cosby Show, Clair was the wife of Cliff Huxtable, a successful obstetrician, however Clair was just as successful in her role as a powerful and feared attorney.

Over the years this character has been widely recognized and endeared by many. For the first time, a Black woman was not just the homemaker caring for the family as the Mammy character did for her white family years ago. Clair Huxtable opened the door for more strong Black female characters in the media.

In the 1990’s, we met Khadijah James and Maxine “Max” Shaw, played by Queen Latifah and Erika Alexander on the show Living Single. Khadijah James was the editor and publisher of Flavor Magazine while Maxine was the quirky yet successful attorney. Once again society was introduced to strong Black women in great positions of power in their specific fields. From the 90’s to the 2000’s the roles of Black successful career women began to appear more.

In 2000, Girlfriends premiered, executive produced by Kelsey Grammar. This show featured four best friends juggling careers, families, and friendship. Joan Clayton was yet again the fearless and feared attorney, Toni Childs was the well off real estate agent, Maya Wilkes was the urban book author, and Lynn Searcy was the bohemian chic character having achieved five degrees with her hands in several career ventures. Never had we as media consumers ever been exposed to several Black female characters with prestigious careers. All three of the TV shows mentioned were widely acclaimed and popular lasting more than five seasons a piece and just a few of the many syndications that showcased strong Black successful female characters.

These characters help illustrate that the progression of women in the media cannot only be measured by the progress of single white heterosexual career women, but also by Black women and women in general. Although we are making strides and improvements, it may be some time before characters of the LGBTQI community are portrayed in successful roles besides the few exceptions of Modern Family and Grey’s Anatomy.

In discussing this flaw in journalists and media’s idea of the progress of representation in the media I hope that we do not continue to disregard the many advances that have been made by women in general in the media regardless of race, class, and sexuality. This post can best be summed up as Dow states, “lack of representation or negative representation in media was a form of discrimination that, if corrected, would lead to improvements in women’s lives off the screen and on the page” (p. 265). Seems to me it’s overdue that we shake things up for the betterment of women.

You Can't Handle the Truth!

This week’s reading of Dow’s “Introduction: The Rhetoric of Television, Criticism, and Theory” challenges the way that television is analyzed and opens the readers eyes to new opportunities when critiquing the media in general.  Dow states, “However, the motive for diversity in critical approaches should not be a search for the holy grail of truth but an exploration, with unavoidable twists and turns, toward the many, sometimes contradictory, possibilities of understanding.”  This is a statement that holds a lot of power. 

Critics often become so easily enraptured and consumed by the artifact that they are analyzing that sometimes an overall perspective is lost.  Many criticisms tend to have tunnel vision in the sense that they disregard other perspective or other issues that the particular criticism can uncover.  What Dow is challenging with her statement is for critics to open their eyes and to not take themselves so seriously.  There is no doubt that a traditional critical standpoint is valued in all aspects of the world of academia, however being staunch and static in research can limit one’s opportunities to discover new perspectives.  Dow is merely pointing out that sometimes our pursuit to discover the truth, we sometimes neglect other important factors in our research.  Finding the truth is important, but it should not always be the main focus so that it blinds us to other research opportunities.

Dow is hinting that a stagnant view of criticism can limit the impact it has on the audience.  She also wants us to consider how the research that is conducted will impact the audience, as well as the role that the audience plays in the research.  Dow believes that we should give the audience credit.  They are not mere passive viewers, but instead are often engaged in the media outlets which they are consuming.  There is no doubt that there are indeed passive viewers out there, however Dow is simply saying that scholars do themselves and the audience a disservice by over-generalizing and assuming that all consumers of television and media are passive.

Dow calls into question how scholars view the audience because it is reflective of the critics’ quest for seeking the ultimate truth.  If we are consumed with finding the truth, but only seek it from a certain perspective, than are we really going to find the capital “T” truth?  The question I bring to the table is who are we to determine what is true and what isn’t?  How are we to know each audience members frame of reference and past experiences?  What is true for us as scholars and as an audience will not necessarily be true for other audiences.  As scholars, we should not limit ourselves by assuming that the audience we are analyzing is in capable of understanding the mediated messages we are receiving.  Condit as quoted by Dow articulates it best by saying, “…The masses may not be cultural dupes, but they are not necessarily skilled rhetors.”

While we should not doubt the intelligence level of the audience being analyzed, we should also recognize that they are subject to and fall victim to the hegemonic messages that the media produces.  Dow states, “I question the quality or power of that resistance in the face of the repetitive and consistently reinforced hegemonic media messages that they consume.”  We should not assume that the audience is unaware of the power that the media has over them, however we would be naïve to believe that the constant exposure to these messages and ideas leaves no impact.

There are all things that we as scholars need to consider when conducting our research.  We need to recognize that it is important to find truth as it is defined to us, however we cannot become blinded by our own ambition and we cannot discredit our audience.  If we can handle our “truth,” so can they.

Reproduction ability: The root of all evil?

In Linda Alcoff’s article, “Cultural Feminism Versus Post Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory,” Alcoff discusses the differing methodological and philosophical views held by Culture and Post Structuralist feminists. In her discussion of cultural feminism she mentions the views of Mary Daly who asserts that “male barrenness leads to parasitism on female energy” (p. 408). She goes on to say that since men cannot physically have children, they become dependent on women for reproduction. In turn, men become insecure and want to dominate the women in their lives.

Alcoff states, “The only real difference, the only difference that can change a person’s ontological placement on Daly’s dichotomous map, is sex difference. . . her definition is strongly linked to female biology” (p. 409). Thus, Daly (as cited by Alcoff) is saying that the biggest differences between men and women lie not in the construction of gender, but rather in the physical and biological anatomy of the two sexes.

So then does Daly not believe in gender at all? Or is she merely saying that it is not as important as sex? This particular discussion within cultural feminism reminds me of the article, “The Evolution of Gender and Communication Research,” by Dow & Wood that we read a few weeks ago which said, “Cultural feminism, the goal of which is to celebrate a distinctive women’s culture that reflects essentialist views of femininity” (p. 14). So then what makes up this “distinctive women’s culture”, or even more specifically, what makes up a “woman”? It seems that some cultural feminists, such as Daly, believe that men are more dominate and powerful in society simply because they are ‘overcompensating’ for their lack of reproductive ability. But what if a woman is not able to reproduce? Is she automatically equal to a man because the man no longer feels threatened by her?

 It is an interesting perspective that Daly takes within cultural feminism. However, I feel it is not possible to talk about male/female inequality without taking gender into account. I believe it is the replication of certain gendered actions, such as those discussed by Butler in “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution” that make a woman a woman and a man a man. Alcoff, who quotes another feminist, Rich, states, “The ancient, continuing envy, awe and dread of the male for the female capacity to create life has repeatedly taken the form of hatred for every other female aspect of creativity” (p. 410). To me, this means that the ability to reproduce, or the biological sex differences, create the basis for hatred which then carries over into everything that is ‘feminine’ or gender related.  The foundation of this need for control and patriarchical hierarchy among men has its foundations in the male’s lack of ability to reproduce.

Cultural feminism is an interesting perspective that Alcoff discusses in her article. However, it is the view point taken by Daly that really captured my attention as an interesting explanation into the creation of continuation of feminism.