Problematic but fun to talk about
Found this video
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2009/11/evolution-of-gay-men-on-tv.html
and laughed at the following cliches:
I’m gay and…
1. Super wealthy
2. I don’t like wearing shirts
3. White…but more importantly, tan.
4. scared of my strange new feelings!
5. I kind of want to piss off my parents with my gayness (desperate housewives).
6. You cant see me kissing until the 2000s.
7. I am super turned on by first touching another man’s neck and/or shoulders. That is how we reproduce.
8. Shhhh. No one close to me knows! If they found out they would look at me weird and be all like “wtf!?”
Of course this video does not represent all depictions of gay males on television but I would say it is a good cross section. Of course this is not including any shows from thw Logo channel that are specifically marketed to LGBT peeps. So these shows were all written for an assumed straight and closeminded audience (feel free to challenge my generalization).
I would like to discuss a few questions in relation to this video:
What came first, the stereotype or the media depiction?
What assumptions, reactions do you have to the depiction of “gay identity”? Do you think this even exists?
Better clips to consider?
Where the hell were all the black gay men!? What would those clips even be? Men on films?
Thoughts!?
theresinator and 
Ian are discussing. 
Ian 9:33 pm on November 2, 2009 Permalink |
Amber, you bring up so many fascinating points and ask so many good questions I hardly know where to begin. These are rich, complicated topics.
First off, I guess, I’ll offer my thoughts on “gay identity.” Does it exist? Yes … well, sort of. But only in people’s heads. Like all social identities, it’s artificial and has a history — and modern American sexual identities (i.e., “gay” and “straight,” mostly) happen to be very recent, very fuzzy and in the midst of rapid change.
What I found especially interesting was that the theme of gender nonconformity was almost entirely absent in these clips. Sure, some of these guys were rather suave, but they were all essentially masculine in their self-presentation (at least according to contemporary American standards). I was most struck by the “Desperate Housewives” clip; the young lovers actually call each other “dude,” a phrase stereotypically associated with perfectly conventional, entirely masculine (and hence implicitly homophobic) white teenage boys. Curious, curious. For much of the 20th century, however, homosexuality was entangled with gender inversion; while this connection was to a certain extent ill-informed, it did reflect the way that many “gay” men understood themselves. That you don’t see much evidence of that in these clips from the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s deserves some discussion. I’d also say that the larger problem regarding the relationship between sexuality and gender remains unsolved and demands more attention.
About the apparent absence of black gay men in “serious” television. Tricky, tricky. It probably partially reflects a general scarcity of blacks on television. But I’m unsure. I would like to discuss why the only clear representations of gender nonconformity is in the “Men on Films” clip. Is it because this is comedy and “they’re gay” is the punchline, so they need to really play up the stereotypes to get the laughs? Can we read race into this — is there a connection to black males’ unique anxieties about their masculinity? What’s going on?
theresinator 1:12 am on November 3, 2009 Permalink |
Hmmm I like your point about how none of these depictions of homosexuality rely on a “gender inversion”…..except for “Men on Films”. Is it possibly because we are smart enough to know that it is not an issue of inversion so the thought of it is just funny? No, we are definitely not that smart. Just because the depictions in this small cross section were not effeminate (ew what a terrible word for a person with a degree in Women and Gender Studies to use) does not mean that that is what people don’t assume the “gay identity” to be. When these shows were being conceived and written I am sure some writer told him/herself “well I am going to shock them and show people the opposite of what they expect: guys who seem normal but they are into dudes!” I’m sure a lot of people patted themselves on the backs for these depictions.
SO about the black guys. I admittedly laughed a lot when watching the clips. Then I admittedly felt guilty for not taking the time needed to really deconstruct this comedy. I especially feel like a paper needs to be written on “men on tv” parts 1 and 2. In the first episode one of the guys gets hit on the head and when he comes two is no longer high voiced and slinging sexual innuendo and…gasp…seems to be hetero. In the second part the other guy is visually uncomfortable doing the show with his new straight-acting partner and keeps trying to hit him on the head to put him back to normal. Seriously, I wanted to transcribe.