Description
Book SynopsisThis book is an exploration of both mainstream and independent media. Grounded in qualitative methods, this book explores three trans masculine run YouTube channels alongside the streaming productions: The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Orange is the New Black, and Transparent. Analyzing and contrasting these narratives illuminates how even the most progressive of pop culture productions fail to present multi-dimensional transgender narratives, thereby intensifying stigma and shame for those outside of the binary (male or female, man or woman, gay or straight). In contrast, trans masculine produced YouTube vlogs, such as those discussed in this book, can help audience members unlearn the ways in which the continuum of sex, gender, and sexual orientation has been simplified and obscured through corporate media. These vlogs thus exemplify the various ways in which independent media acts as an educational tool toward greater awareness, and perhaps empathy, of/for the self and others in regards to sexual identity.
Trade ReviewBerberick offers us a unique view through a nonbinary lens and invites us to reread the media we consume, whether mainstream or independently produced. Written with great thought and care, they center the complex narratives of everyday trans masculine lived experiences, including the most intimate and vulnerable of topics, that are ignored by mainstream media and instead must reside in online media spaces trans people harness for storytelling and worldmaking. Let us hope that mainstream media, especially in its role as cultural pedagogue, will heed Berberick’s call for increased representation of more nuanced characters whose genders span the continuum and in whom trans and nonbinary viewers can see themselves.
-- Kevin Jenkins, Postdoctoral Scholar of Art Education at the Pennsylvania State University
Table of Contents1: Trans In/visibilities: Theory, Media, Praxis, and Pedagogy
2: Hybrid Methodology: Research Beyond the Binary
3: Reframing Sex: Bodies in Motion
4: Vlogs on Loving: Dispossessed and Reimagined Intimacies
Concluding the Channel
