Description
Book SynopsisThrough a study of media representations, this unique collection provides a snapshot into the issues surrounding LGBT identity during a time when the Defense of Marriage Act is called into question and explores what it means to study images through a queer lens.
Trade ReviewCampbell and Carilli (both, Purdue University Calumet) have assembled a collection of accessible essays that interrogate contemporary LGBTQ texts, politics, and experiences. Contributions include reflections on and controversial responses to programs such as SpongeBob SquarePants, The L Word, Will and Grace, Queer as Folk, Glee, and TransGeneration; a modern application of Vito Russo's arguments from The Celluloid Closet (CH, Mar'82); critiques of songs such as 'I Kissed a Girl' (Katy Perry) and 'Born This Way' (Lady Gaga); the subversive potential of effeminate/queer Japanese male television commentators; the dissident maternity photos of Thomas Beatie; the often-forgotten legacy of Kathy Kozachenko, the first voter-elected openly lesbian city councilor in the US; the sex/gender policing of intersex athletes; (in)conspicuous advertising to/within the LGBTQ community; and sexualized/hetero-normative assumptions of children's television programs. Many of the essays also offer recommendations about the ways in which a queer representation could be fashioned into a more nuanced and socially just representation. The breadth and depth of this collection is impressive; it is a must read for anyone interested in media criticism, popular culture, and LGBTQ studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers/faculty, professional/practitioners. * CHOICE *
From Sponge Bob to Glee to I Kissed a Girl, this much needed, comprehensive collection addresses how gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people are depicted across a wide variety of media. Through intriguing analyses of images, sexuality as performance, and the implications and effects of living marginalized, this book is a must-read for anyone interested not only in the specifics of the right to realistic representations but also in issues of identity and ethics of representation. -- Debra Merskin, University of Oregon
Table of ContentsIntroduction Jane Campbell and Theresa Carilli QUEER IMAGES Chapter 1: Focus on the SpongeBob: The Representational Politics of James Dobson Jason Zingsheim Chapter 2: The Complex Relationship Between (and within) the Suppressed and the Empowered: Contradiction and LGBT Portrayals on The L Word Jennifer Guthrie, Adrianne Kunkel and K. Nicole Hladky Chapter 3: Comic Corrections towards a Family Perfection: (Re)Reading Queer as Folk and Will and Grace Rachel E. Silverman Chapter 4: Revisiting The Celluloid Closet Jane Campbell and Theresa Carilli Chapter 5: To Glee or not to Glee: Exploring the Empowering Voice of the Glee Movement. Lori Montalbano PERFORMANCES OF SEXUALITY AND GENDER Chapter 6: A Pregnant Pause, a Transgender Look: Thomas Beatie in the Maternity Pose Kristin Norwood Chapter 7: The Rhetoric of Sexual Experimentation: A Critical Examination of Katy Perry’s I Kissed a Girl Brittani Hidahl and Richard D. Besel Chapter 8: Queer Male TV Commentators: Kinjo-no-Obasan in Advanced Capitalism Kimiko Akita LIVING IN THE MARGINS Chapter 9: The Construction of Queer and the Conferring of Voice: Empowering and Disempowering Portrayals of Transgenderism on TransGeneration K. Nicole Hladky Chapter 10: “Born This Way”: Biology and Sexuality in Lady Gaga’s Pro-LGBT Media Shannon Weber Chapter 11: First But (Nearly) Forgotten: Why You Know Milk but not Kozachenko Bruce Drushel QUEER ISSUES Chapter 12: “Is she a man? Is she a transvestite?”: Critiquing the Coverage of Intersex Athletes Rick Kenney and Kimiko Akita Chapter 13: The Commercial Closet: How Gay-Specific Media and the Images of “the Closet” Erases the LGBT Community from the Mainstream Gaze Kristin Comeforo Chapter 14: “Should We Stop Believin’?”: Glee and The Culture of Essentialist Identity Discourse John Wolf and Valarie Schweisberger Chapter 15: “The play’s the thing”: Representations of heteronormative sexuality in a popular children’s TV sitcom Zoe Kenney
