Popular Culture and Queer Representation: a Critical Perspective

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POPULAR CULTURE AND QUEER REPRESENTATION A Critical Perspective

◆ Diane Raymond

ueer” is a category in flux. Once a term of homophobic abuse, “Qrecently the term has been reappropriated as a marker for some gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (glbt), and other marginalized sexual identities. In addition, “queer theory” has emerged in academic scholar- ship to identify a body of knowledge connected to but not identical with lesbian/gay studies. The term is itself open-ended, and its advocates argue that its fluidity is to be embraced rather than “fixed.” Though there is no consensus on the term’s meaning (and who is included and who excluded), there is general agreement that the “queer” is politically radical, rejects binary categories (like heterosexual/homosexual), embraces more fluid categories, and tends to be “universalizing” rather than “minoritizing,” to use literary theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s (1990) distinction. That is, queer theory reads queerness throughout the culture and not simply as a fixed, clearly demarcated category. Further, queer theory problematizes certain sorts of questions that have been standard in gay and lesbian theory. Queer theory, for example, tends to be interested less in whether homosexuality is a result of nature or nurture and more in what function the question of causation serves in the culture and in ideology. Queer theory emerged as one of the many oppositional discourses of the 1960s and 1970s, including postcolonial, feminist, and multicultural

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theory. Unlike their earlier theoretical was to look at “queerness” in acts of forebears like Marxism and feminism that production or acts of reception. Making demanded exclusive theoretical allegiance Things Perfectly Queer looks especially or hegemony, these theoretical positions at same-sex relationships—between Lucy remained open to multiple ways of combin- and Ethel, Jack Benny and Rochester, and ing perspectives and subverting monocausal Laverne and Shirley, to name a few—as explanations for oppression. Indeed, in offering to viewers a buried, yet undeniable, queer theory and a number of others, queer pleasure. hyphenations became common and hybrid This chapter takes a somewhat different theories borrowing from a variety of views approach from that of Doty. Though I promised rich opportunities for analysis. agree with Doty that there is no unambigu- Regardless of their specific differences, ous meaning in a cultural text and that the these marginalized views sought to move reception positions that audience members the “margins” to the “center”: “This way occupy are culturally and historically of seeing affirmed otherness and difference, grounded, I want to look at denotation and the importance of attending to margin- rather than connotation. At the time that alized, minority, and oppositional groups Doty wrote his analysis, connotation was and voices previously excluded from the about all that queer viewers had available cultural dialogue” (Kellner, 1995, p. 24). In as a source of pleasurable viewing. But addition, these theoretical perspectives today, as the section below points out, tended, unlike earlier theoretical approaches prime-time television is rife with gay and to culture like the Frankfurt School, to lesbian (if not bisexual and transgender) reject any strict dichotomy between high characters offering the potential for new and low culture and to reject any vision of sorts of analysis; that change is significant popular culture that constructed it as and has occurred since Doty’s work monolithic and viewers as passive dupes. appeared. I want to suggest that this The relationship between viewers and cul- new cultural phenomenon should not be tural artifacts, including popular media, uncritically valorized as an unambiguous was, according to these postmodern views, symptom of heightened cultural tolerance more complex, culturally mediated, and and inclusion. Rather, while I do not wish open to a mix of possible “readings.” to minimize the benefits of such shifts in A number of queer theorists have used cultural consciousness, I want in addition these foundational principles to analyze to offer somewhat more suspicious readings media from a queer or non-dominant per- of these themes and trends. spective. Alexander Doty’s 1993 book, More specifically, I want to look at three Making Things Perfectly Queer, for exam- recurring patterns or tropes that I have ple, used queer theory to offer new ways identified in situation comedies. The first to read mainstream television. There he pattern—the increased appearance of glbt argued that “ghosts,” to use his term, major or supporting characters—acknowl- inhabited cultural texts and that those edges the very real changes that have ghosts ought to be driven out of their occurred in the constitution of the charac- closets. Like Sedgwick, Doty suggested that ters populating television’s worlds. The cultural texts offer the potential for queer remaining two tropes—that of the “gay readings that focus on connotative rather pretender” and that of the “straight- than denotative meaning, that is, that seek mistaken-for-gay”—have less to do with to find credible readings hidden in a text the actual diversity of characters we see and that a culture of homophobia and hetero- more with how gayness itself is understood sexism bars us from seeing. Though some and metaphorized. All three offer the texts certainly contain explicit themes or potential for subverting heterosexist norms characters marked as queer, Doty’s concern and assumptions. I shall argue, however, Dines10.qxd 7/26/02 2:11 PM Page 100

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that how these shows resolve tensions often homogeneity of any group, including this results in a “reinscription” of heterosexual- one. ity and a “containment” of queer sexuality, Given my own theoretical overview, I that is, that the resolution these programs must insist here that my conclusions can be offer enables viewers to distance themselves tentative at best and are meant to suggest from the queer and thereby to return to more complex ways of reading rather than their comfortable positions as part of the determinative readings themselves. Thus, I dominant culture. Such a dynamic enables am not suggesting here that I have discov- power to mask itself, making it all the ered or deciphered any truth residing below harder to pin down and question. Thus, the surface of these popular texts. Indeed, where Doty attempts to “queer the this essay will be successful if it enriches my straight,” my approach suggests how what readers’ abilities to create meanings differ- might seem to be “queer” can come to be ent from my own suggested ones in the normalized in mainstream culture. popular cultural texts they read. Further, In making this argument, I shall rely given the truism that no social group is mostly on feminist and queer theory, and the homogeneous and that even a single indi- second section of the essay will outline vidual occupies multiple subject positions, I briefly the conceptual underpinnings of in no way mean to imply that my readings those views on which my analysis depends. It here are “queer,” generalizable to any par- is important to distinguish queer theory as ticular group or sort of person, or noncon- an academic field from the glbt “commu- troversial. To put the point more simply, nity” and to acknowledge in this context there is no “correct” queer reading, no one that gays and lesbians are not a homo- queer reading, and no unchanging queer geneous group with a singular, uncompli- perspective. cated sense of identity. The search for This chapter does not take issue with the identity always occurs on contested terrain claim that the increasing visibility of gays and the struggle to find a voice takes place and lesbians in the media has important in a dynamic relationship with the domi- direct and indirect positive effects, not least nant culture where signs and signifiers can of which has been the new availability of be appropriated and reappropriated in an role models and cultural icons for younger endless chain of interpretation. Thus, glbt people, the attention to homophobia meaning is rarely predictable and never and hate crime, the growing recognition of fixed. Further, queer viewers and readers, demands for civil rights for glbt people, and however much they resist dominant mes- the public’s seeming greater comfort with sages about sexuality, the family, and love, “out” glbt celebrities. Having acknowl- nonetheless are constituted by dominant edged such changes, I want move beyond ideology’s messages about these practices. them here to complexify the issue of repre- Such readers, then, are neither completely sentation, more specifically the representa- autonomous beings severed from social tion of glbt people in a period in which gays relations who invent their own readings of and lesbians (if not bisexuals and transgen- texts nor are they completely submerged dered individuals) seem to be everywhere in in social structures, blindly responsive the media—situation comedies, dramas, to group norms. As feminist theorist People magazine, MTV, even the hit reality Jacqueline Rose (1986) has noted, “The show Survivor. relationship between viewer and scene Despite the occasional mention of a is always one of fracture, partial identi- drama, my focus here is on comedy, the fication, pleasure and distrust” (p. 227). arena where images of glbt people appear Finally, debates within the glbt community most frequently. To attempt to explain in remind us that gender, race, class, age, and any persuasive way why such is the case other variables of identity undermine the would take me far from my topic. But Dines10.qxd 7/26/02 2:11 PM Page 101

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I might briefly conjecture two possible their virtual absence in popular media, explanations. First, as traditional family particularly television. For example, in comedies—along with the traditional 1995, Larry Gross used the term “symbolic family—began to disappear, space opened annihilation” (p. 62) to describe the invisi- up for “alternative” sorts of narratives, bility of gays and lesbians in mass media; if, including those of nontraditional “families” as Gross suggested, representation attaches (e.g., Friends, Designing Women, and the to power, then that invisibility evidences vast number of workplace comedies whose the powerlessness of the queer community. origins lie in The Mary Tyler Moore Show); Even media studies sensitive to portrayals of even so-called “family” shows like, for “minorities in the media” (e.g., Greenberg, example, Party of Five diverge from the tra- 1986) tended to focus mostly on ethnic and ditional model. With the gradual disappear- racial minorities and to ignore sexual orien- ance of the traditional family sitcom, even tation as a defining aspect of identity. heterosexual characters began to occupy According to Gross, gays and lesbians tend nonnormative narrative positions. For to be even more isolated and invisible than example, the oldest son in Party of Five members of racial and ethnic minorities and becomes a surrogate father and mother to are therefore “probably the least permitted his younger siblings; married characters on to speak for ourselves in the mass media” popular shows like Mary Tyler Moore get (p. 63). divorced; in some cases married characters Finally, media critics pointed out that are never seen with their spouses; and those rare depictions of glbt people tended holidays like Thanksgiving, traditionally both to dichotomize anyone glbt as victim constructed as times for “family,” get or villain and to reinforce demeaning reconstructed on shows like Friends. These stereotypes and caricatures: gay men as shifts in roles and viewer expectations effeminate and lesbians as unattractive clearly allowed for the appearance of man-haters, for example. According to nonheterosexual characters in major and Gross (1995), “Hardly ever shown in the supporting roles; cultural shifts linked to an media are just plain gay folks, used in roles increasingly visible gay and lesbian move- which do not center on their deviance as a ment no doubt helped to buttress such threat to the moral order which must be changes. Finally, situation comedies—how- countered through ridicule or physical ever “realistic” they might be—do not violence” (p. 65). An underlying assump- claim, like dramas, to be offering us “real tion of such an apparently commonsensical life.” That lack of seriousness may allow critique is not only that more images of these programs to play with themes under marginalized peoples will effect social cover of humor where those themes might transformation but also that the notion of a be too volatile or even too didactic for “positive” image—“just plain gay folks”— another sort of audience. Such play and is uncontroversial and transparent. flexibility may also help to account for Today’s even casual television viewers, what may be a wider variety of possible however, would find such critiques oddly readings. I want now to turn to an overview out-of-date. Network programs are now of those representations. full of gay/queer characters; indeed, the more-than-occasional prime-time television ◆ viewer would likely be mystified by Gross’s The Queering (1995) claim that the rare continuing gay of Television character “tend[s] to be so subtle as to be readily misunderstood by the innocent” (p. 66). Forty-two million people watched Until very recently, it was not unusual the coming-out episode on Ellen on April for glbt activists and scholars to bemoan 30, 1997, making it the highest-ranked Dines10.qxd 7/26/02 2:11 PM Page 102

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show on television that year except for the find viewing pleasure—are Cagney and Academy Awards. Though some argue that Lacey really lovers? Can one find a queer Ellen DeGeneres’s sexuality led to the can- resonance in the films of Rock Hudson? cellation of her show in 1998, the queering and so forth—such readings seem quaint of prime-time television since that time is and tame by today’s television standards without dispute.1 when gayness is much discussed, gay sexual A recent Boston Globe article notes practices are the subject of comedic banter, there are at least two dozen gay television and a range of appealing characters are characters scattered throughout prime-time openly gay or lesbian. shows (Rothaus, 2000). Where once soap Albeit somewhat one-dimensional, these operas floated gay characters only to have gay or lesbian television characters are them die of AIDS or leave town mysteri- attractive and professional—Will Truman ously, All My Children has introduced a is a lawyer, and the lesbians on Friends and new plot line in which a character who has the now-defunct but highly popular Mad grown up on the show comes out as a les- About You are doctors, accountants, and bian. According to the actress who plays mothers. They include younger charac- the character, the story-line—about how an ters—Buffy the Vampire Slayer has fea- almost obsessively heterosexual mother tured two teenaged girls in a budding deals with her daughter’s lesbianism—is lesbian relationship, and Dawson’s Creek meant to be “accessible to everyone” featured a main character’s coming out in (Rothaus, 2000) and, though allegedly not its story line. They are occasionally people didactic, makes a “concerted effort to show of color—Spin City includes an African that a gay relationship is just like any American gay man as part of the political other” (Rothaus, 2000).2 Will and Grace, team. Viewers have seen lesbian weddings, two of whose four major characters are lesbian and gay parenting arrangements, openly gay, is one of the most popular gay therapists, gay seniors, and the angst shows on television. Indeed, one might and humor of coming out. Such “main- argue that television is light years ahead of streaming” seems likely to change popular mainstream film, whose “gay” characters perceptions and misperceptions about still seem to be confined to psychopathic homosexuality. As Mohr points out, murderers (e.g., Basic Instinct, The Talented “Without demonization, it is hard, perhaps Mr. Ripley, Silence of the Lambs, Brave- impossible, to conceptualize homosexuality heart, JFK, American Beauty, etc.) or as a vampire-like corruptive contagion, a lonely, asexual best friends (e.g., Silkwood, disease that spreads itself to the pure and As Good as it Gets, etc.);3 for the most part, innocent by mere proximity” (p. 333). one needs to turn to independent films to Though there is no question that the see the “just plain gay folks” Gross seeks. majority of the viewing audience for these Where once glbt characters were the shows is heterosexual, these portrayals “exemplar of degeneracy” (Mohr, 1997, engage with viewers who see themselves p. 331), today’s gay characters are “queer as hip, nonjudgmental, mostly urban, and as folk,” to borrow the title of one continu- gay-friendly. Will and Grace is full of ing cable television program. Given that the campy in-jokes (many referring back to majority viewing audience is heterosexual, popular culture itself) and sexual innuendo, programming sympathetic to glbt commu- and as viewers we are asked to feel superior nities must appeal to mainstream liberal to Jack’s mother who fails to realize that he viewers who today most likely know some- is gay. Saturday Night Live pokes fun at a one gay in the workplace, the family, or Batman-and-Robin-like team of super- among friends.4 Thus, where once glbt heroes, the Ambiguously Gay Duo, in viewers had to resort to oppositional or animated sketches full of phallic imagery subversive readings like Doty’s in order to and less-than-subtle references to anal Dines10.qxd 7/26/02 2:11 PM Page 103

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intercourse. Smithers is clearly smitten of advertising campaigns, serve a dual with (and even has erotic dreams about) function: They avoid alienating gay audi- Mr. Burns in The Simpsons and in one ences at the same time that they mask the episode gay director John Waters is the gay content and retain majority viewers. voice of an antique dealer Homer idolizes Finally, in a number of cases, actors playing until he discovers that the dealer is gay. heterosexual characters are known to view- We are amused that Jaimie’s impossible-to- ing audiences to be gay, lesbian, or bisex- please mother-in-law in Mad About You ual. For example, David Hyde Pierce, who prefers her lesbian daughter’s lover to plays Frasier’s brother Niles Crane, is Jaimie. The stars of Xena discuss without openly gay; knowledgeable viewers, then, defensiveness in mainstream periodicals can play with multiple levels of reading per- the “lesbian subtext” of that long-running formances such as Pierce’s, even where the series. It is now homophobes, not gays and ostensible plot line involves, for example, lesbians, who are vilified or ignored, and his long-term obsession with Daphne, his often the test of a character (e.g., the gay father’s live-in physical therapist. plotline in Dawson’s Creek) comes down to Thus, queer images, themes, and tropes how well he or she deals with a friend or are now in circulation in a way that marks family member’s coming out. this particular period as distinct from earlier This “queering” of television goes well eras where homosexuality could only be beyond the presence of glbt characters. A hinted at or, if explicit, pathologized. Now recent New York Times article references that, as Mohr puts it, queer folks “are no the growing number of gay television writ- longer something monstrous, repulsive, ers who are influencing shows even where unthinkably abject” (p. 333), how do these there are no gay characters. The article sug- new images function in popular discourse? gests that “a gay sensibility has infiltrated Though cultural studies critics have tended American comedy, even when flying to look for so-called subversive moments in beneath the radar in an ostensibly hetero- television and film as opportunities for resis- sexual situation” (Kirby, 2001, p. 23). This tant readings, my approach here adopts phenomenon—sometimes termed “gay a different orientation to suggest how winking” or “gay vague”—allows for mul- moments of apparently subversive potential tiple readings of a character or situation, are undermined and ultimately contained. those readings dependent on the subject Recent queer and feminist theory offers new position of the viewer. Thus, Frasier’s two ways of thinking about such dynamics. brothers, but for the fact that they sleep with women, are stereotypically gay in their tastes and preferences; knowing more ◆ about Puccini than basketball, these broth- Queering Theory ers evidence a gay sensibility striking to all and Representation but the most naïve. Indeed, much of the humor emerges from their macho-cop father’s vain attempts to make his sons Ideology, as cultural studies theorists have more “butch.” Further, Niles and Frasier’s persuasively argued, constructs viewing shared memories of the childhood trauma positions and identities. Sexuality, at least they experienced as a result of being fussy, in modern times, is one component of that intelligent, artistic, and averse to athletics ideology, a component whose regulation resonate with the experiences of many glbt occurs both formally and informally. In a people who did not as youths conform to culture grounded in what Adrienne Rich the dominant culture’s gender codes. (1980) has termed “compulsory heterosex- These more subtle gestures may, as Danae uality,” popular culture will tend to portray Clark (1993) suggests in her discussion heterosexuality as if it were natural and Dines10.qxd 7/26/02 2:11 PM Page 104

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inevitable and to position alternative forms The mechanisms that serve to construct of sexuality as “other.” Compulsory hetero- and regulate sexuality may not be obvious sexuality (or what some have called or even intentional; indeed, as Foucault “heteronormativity”) functions to under- (1990) puts it, “Power is tolerable only on line the fact that heterosexuality is an condition that it mask a substantial part of institution, a practice, with its own set of itself. Its success is proportional to its abil- expectations, norms, and principles of con- ity to hide its own mechanisms” (p. 86). If duct. If, however, heterosexuality is not a ideology generally effaces itself, then even naturalized, innate state of being, then its the very producers of popular culture— existence is more fragile than is obvious at whatever their explicit political leanings, first glance. Given that fragility, heterosex- sexuality, or agenda—are immersed in that uality cannot be taken as a given or pre- ideology. Further, power’s ability to mask sumed; in a culture framed by homophobia itself may mean that, ironically, the mecha- and heterosexism, institutions both formal nisms of power produce pleasure. We don’t and informal; police behavior, boundaries, have to go far to find such examples— expectations, and values; a dynamic blend Gothic romances, pornography, certain of incentives and disincentives function to clothing styles, exercise regimens, gendered channel desire in “appropriate” ways and toys for children, and so forth—all function to make invisible those practices falling out- to produce pleasure as they disguise the side its discursive domain. ways that they reinforce norms relating to Heterosexuality and homophobia sexuality and sexuality and, less obviously, organize the structures in which we are race, age, and class. The question becomes, immersed, structures so pervasive as to then, not whether queer (or straight) view- become almost invisible. Sociologist Pierre ers find pleasure in the proliferation of Bourdieu (1990) has employed the notion of these television images (they would not habitus to describe how what is constructed endure if they did not produce pleasure) but can come to seem inevitable and natural. rather how one might read and understand Like the fish that does not feel the weight of such pleasure. Pleasure itself is never inno- the water, human beings live in a world of cent or neutral and there is a danger in “social games embodied and turned into valorizing pleasure without looking at its second nature” (p. 63). Indeed, the very fact context. Given that, I want to ask how the that our culture organizes itself around sex- new representations of gays and lesbians uality and that sexuality is defined in terms circulate in culture. of the sex of one’s object of desire is note- If the homo/hetero schema is “written worthy. As Sedgwick (1990) conjectures, into the cultural organization of Western one can, with a bit of imagination, conceive societies” (Epstein, 1987, p. 133), then the any number of ways to organize sexual question of the homosexual/heterosexual identity, including “preference[s] for certain matrix rather than the question of personal acts, certain zones or sensations, certain phys- identity becomes primary. Such a perspec- ical types, a certain frequency, certain sym- tive would suggest that what is at stake is bolic investments, certain relations of age or less the question how many gay/queer char- power, a certain species, a certain number of acters populate television or even how sym- participants, etc. etc. etc.” (p. 8). Finally, the pathetically they are portrayed but rather cultural energy involved in disciplining gen- about the ways desire and meaning are der and sexuality suggests how fragile those structured, even in the absence of such institutions actually are; if Butler and images. Thus, identity must be thought of Foucault are right that gender and sexuality as always in relation, never fixed or stable. are achievements rather than givens, then As Fuss, Sedgwick, Butler, and others have sexual identity is complex, incomplete, and noted, heterosexuality is a parasitic notion, unstable. dependent on that-what-it-is-not, namely, Dines10.qxd 7/26/02 2:11 PM Page 105

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homosexuality. “Each is haunted by the fashion, weight, career, and popular media other” (Fuss, 1991, p. 4), and the homo- is exemplary in this respect.5 sexual comes to represent the “terrifying In addition, Torres (1993) points to the [sexual] other” of the heterosexual. Yet ways visits from “real lesbians” may help to popular television programming seems to deflect the viewer’s attention from the pos- belie this theoretical claim, bombarding us sibility that ongoing characters may harbor with images of gayness and far less threat- same-sex feelings. Especially in shows that ening homosexuals who suggest the possi- feature all, or mostly, female troupes like bility of new normative understandings of Kate and Allie, Designing Women, Cagney sexual difference. and Lacey, and Golden Girls, for example, First, one should note that the appear- the introduction of lesbian and gay charac- ance of difference per se is not necessarily ters may serve to reassure viewers that the subversive. As bell hooks (1999) points out same-sex groupings are purely platonic. in her essay “Eating the Other,” the com- Cultural unease with lesbianism may be modification of difference can have the tied to cultural unease with feminism, but it effect of silencing resistance and transform- may also emerge from lesbianism’s own ing resistance to consumption. Without a murky boundaries. Obviously, my case mutual recognition of the role that homo- would be much easier to make if these char- phobia plays in these dynamics, “bound- acters reflected negative or insulting stereo- aries [ ] remain intact” (p. 186). That types; yet, I have already suggested that the heterosexuals now can, like tourists, visit characters we see exhibit a range of person- glbt culture does not in itself guarantee ality types, interests, values, and flaws. But social change. Further, capitalist systems I want to look more closely for a moment need difference to create desire and to sell at a dynamic in Will and Grace that may commodities. Kellner (1995) notes: help to clarify how the subversive potential in these images is ultimately policed and Difference sells. Capitalism must con- contained. stantly multiply markets, styles, fads, and artifacts to keep absorbing con- sumers into its practices and lifestyles. IT’S NOT JUST THE NUMBERS . . . The mere valorization of “difference” as a mark of opposition can simply help The dynamic I want to explore pervades market new styles and artifacts if the dif- this show, and its repetition suggests a ference in question and its effects are not certain ambivalence over sexuality, queer adequately appraised. (p. 40) sexuality in particular. To illustrate this phenomenon more concretely, let’s look at Stuart and Elizabeth Ewen (1992) are right the montage that opens the show. In these that “novelty and disposability make up the brief scenes, we see the show’s four main backbone of the market” (p. 193), then the characters in a variety of poses and places. static is the enemy of popular media. Yet, strikingly, we never see the two gay Difference can also serve to provide one men together and the only times we see the with a sense of uniqueness or individuality. women together occur when they are with As Jonathan Rutherford has quipped, “It’s at least one of the men. Instead, we are no longer about keeping up with the treated to a number of opposite-sex cou- Joneses, it’s about being different from plings. We see, in the first clip, Will and them” (quoted in hooks, 1995, p. 157). Grace dancing a tango, a dance which has Further, the promotion of gayness as a come to epitomize sexual heat and “lifestyle” tends to attach it to commodities romance. We see Jack and Karen frequently rather than practices as an expression of the together in other scenes, including one self. Will and Grace’s bitchy attention to where they bounce off each other’s chests Dines10.qxd 7/26/02 2:11 PM Page 106

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and another where they hug. In episodes of a more fluid sexual identity, or even a the show, we frequently see Will and Grace recurrence is rarely if ever entertained. in bed together and, though Grace recently Indeed, fluidity seems to pose such a had and lost a boyfriend, Will’s relation- threat that its possibility is rarely if ever ships are rare and end almost as soon acknowledged. Thus, when “real” gay or as they begin. Will and Grace’s behavior lesbian characters tell their stories, their nar- mirrors that of a traditional heterosexual ratives tend almost always to reinscribe gay- husband and wife, and Karen is quick to ness as innate, and those who are gay as point to Grace’s neurotic attachment to having no choice. Thus, we hear that Will Will (indeed, she often refers to Will as has always loved Grace, but that he has Grace’s gay husband). Grace becomes the never had any sexual feelings of any kind for supremely neurotic fag hag par excellence her. When she is devastated to learn that he who identifies with gay culture, surrounds has had sex with another woman, he insists herself with gay men, and is never guilty of that it was merely to have the experience even the mildest expression of homopho- and that he had no real interest in the bia. Will and Grace are comfortable physi- woman. The idea that Will’s best friend Jack cally with one another, they finish each might have been attracted to a woman is so other’s sentences, and, though they briefly obviously ludicrous that the very idea earns lived apart (across the hall from one a huge laugh. The noteworthy absence of another!), they soon came back together as bisexuals in these comedies suggests that the roommates. Do we, like Grace, hope some- fluidity of a bisexual sexual identity may be day that the two will be united, that Will too disruptive for such programming. In can be converted to the heterosexual part- that sense, bisexuals may be television’s ner that Grace desperately wants? Further, abject subjects, in the Butlerian sense that Jack’s flamboyance and his stereotypical they are unthinkable and/or unnameable, nature may suggest that Will is somehow not even subjects in discourse (1993). To be less gay and therefore recuperable to explicitly prohibited permits the possibility heterosexuality. of a “reverse discourse,” but to be “implic- As already noted, there is no question itly proscribed is not even to qualify as an that the new glbt characters we see on tele- object of prohibition” (p. 312). Finally, vision are an attractive group both morally these deterministic narratives also tend to and physically. In some cases, for example, privilege gay men’s perspectives who, far ER and Buffy, shows allow a long-standing more than lesbians, tend to recount their character to play with a same-sex attrac- sexual histories as inevitable, predeter- tion, even if the feelings/relationships are mined, and innate (Whisman, 1996). One temporary. The famous “kisses”—one possible exception is Ross’s ex-wife Susan, thinks back to the Roseanne show for one who falls in love with a woman and leaves of the first—and the more recent kisses on Ross for her. Yet the show’s narrative con- Friends and Ally McBeal—occur during sistently teases Ross for having married a sweeps weeks and are unabashed strategies lesbian, thus occluding the possibility that to increase the viewing audience. The fact Susan is either bisexual or that she was that these episodes earn viewer warnings is heterosexual while married and later chose noteworthy in itself. But even more note- or became a lesbian. worthy, it seems to me, is the fact that these Finally, an important strategy for learn- episodes result in no change in diegesis ing to read popular texts like television sit- or character evolution. These kisses come coms is to look for those moments where a and go as if they were a dream; they moral voice seems to speak. Because these are never incorporated into a character’s shows, as mentioned earlier, are meant to understanding of his/her identity and be light and entertaining, they cannot sexuality, and the possibility of bisexuality, afford to be overly didactic. But there is no Dines10.qxd 7/26/02 2:11 PM Page 107

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question that moral ideology permeates comedies ever since Jack Tripper in Three’s these shows. In some cases, it is certain Company posed as gay so that his uptight characters who seem to represent the voice landlord would let him live with two attrac- of moral authority. In Will and Grace that tive women. While it may not have been the character seems to be Grace, who, despite modus operandi of an entire show (as in her ditziness, often seems to be the moral Three’s Company), it has been used repeat- voice of the show. As mentioned above, edly. Martin, Frasier’s dad, poses as gay in Grace’s total absence of any vestiges of order to avoid having to date a woman he’s homophobia makes her a kind of model for not interested in. Kate and Allie in that the heterosexual viewer. Karen, though also long-defunct series, pose as lesbians in heterosexual, is far too over-the-edge and order to curry favor (and a new lease) from campy for viewers to identify with. In con- their lesbian landladies. In Three Sisters, trast, Grace is a dependable friend, a one sister’s ex-husband convinced her that creative and dedicated professional, and he was gay in order to get a quickie divorce. enemy of oppression. In one episode, Grace Klinger in M.A.S.H. was, we assume as is horrified to discover that Jack is not out viewers, a heterosexual man posing as gay to his mother. She urges him to come out or transvestite in order to secure a release and emphasizes the importance of being from the military. Finally, and most honest about his identity. In another recently, the soap opera Days of Our Lives episode, for example, Grace refuses to introduced a new plotline where Jack speak to Will because he is willing to date “outs” himself to Greta so as not to hurt someone who is in the closet. Grace repeat- her feelings and confess that he is not edly pushes on this issue and accuses Will of attracted to her. hypocrisy and self-loathing. The fact that Readers no doubt will be able to come the heterosexual woman on the show is the up with examples of their own, and the ease one to insist on being openly gay is itself with which we are able to produce these worth noting. Even more striking, however, examples suggests how common this trope is the fact that the narrative vilifies those is. How might one explain its recurrence? glbt people who, for a variety of powerful On the one hand, one reading suggests that reasons, decide not to come out. Never these examples of gender and sexuality play acknowledging any costs to being openly may be consistent with a progressive queer gay, the moral message seems to be that all agenda that suggests either that we’re all secrets are bad and the decision to stay in queer or that there’s a little queer in each of the closet is just another secret that one is us. Sedgwick labels this approach to sexu- never justified in keeping. Questions of ality a “universalizing discourse,” meaning power and subordination are thereby that it views queerness/sexuality as non- erased in the effort to homogenize all lies binary and more amorphous than is tradi- and secrets. Indeed, once Jack does tell his tionally believed. Though one might read mother that he is gay, she immediately the gay pretender trope along these lines, responds, “I have a secret too.” The such a reading, I suggest, is possible yet momentum switches away from Jack’s con- unpersuasive. What makes for the humor in fession and its possible implications to her these situations is, at least partly, the fact announcement that the man Jack’s biologi- that the viewers knows that the character ‘s cal father is not who he thinks he is. heterosexuality is never in doubt. Such cer- tainty enables these characters to play with gay stereotypes without seeming to be PRETENDING TO BE GAY . . . homophobic—in Frasier, for example, Martin suddenly becomes limp-wristed, My second theme, the trope of the gay interested in décor, and able to express his pretender, has been a staple of situation emotions. Certain mannerisms come to be Dines10.qxd 7/26/02 2:11 PM Page 108

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coded as gay even though the character audiences to ignore telltale signs of gayness if expressing them is not. The character we a television character or actor. To the less “know” is straight is positioned against the naïve viewer today, the flamboyance and character we “know” is gay (interestingly, campiness of a Liberace, Flip Wilson, or this trope seems to be rarely used with PeeWee Herman suggest a gay sensibility female characters; does this suggest that too obvious to be overlooked. But today’s lesbians have fewer identifiable manner- situation comedies manipulate signs of isms?) and the comedy of errors and mis- gayness to create humor and playfulness. For readings ensues. example, in a now-classic Seinfeld episode, Yet there is never any suggestion what- Jerry and George are mistakenly identified soever of any temptation or questioning as a gay couple by a college reporter who on the part of the “straight” character; then outs them in her school newspaper. that firmness of resolve serves once again The refrain “not that there’s anything not only to reinforce a strict binary of wrong with it” serves in part to mock stan- gay/straight but also to suggest that solid dard liberal attitudes toward homosexual- and impermeable boundaries frame one’s ity. Even when Jerry finally ends up dating sexuality. Thus, potentially oppositional the reporter, she continues to have doubts discourses are subverted by naturalizing about his sexuality. This particular episode them within terms that make sense in the also borrows from the gay pretender trope, context of the dominant perspective. as George, desperately wanting to break up In addition, the “gay pretender” trope with a woman he’s seeing, finally decides to implicitly creates a fantasy world where not use this misunderstanding as an opportu- only do gays and lesbians not experience nity to extract himself from the relation- cultural ostracism and legal discrimination; ship. In Third Rock From the Sun, John they also enjoy more power than hetero-sex- Lithgow attempts to “come out” as an alien uals. In addition, it is striking that sex and and is instead assumed to be coming out sexuality seem to be foregrounded in these as gay. Friends often hints at the ways dynamics. They are landlords who favor Chandler’s affect positions him as gay. “their own kind”; they are released from Again, this trope might serve to undermine the burdens of heterosexual dating and essentialist notions of a clear boundary romance (and, indeed from having to tell between hetero- and homosexual identity. the truth!); they do not have to serve in the Indeed, part of the humor in these episodes military; and they are simply able to have is that the heterosexual character’s manner- more fun, as Karen in Will and Grace dis- isms come to be recoded as queer. Further, covers, when posing as a lesbian enables her this trope suggests the ways that virtually to offer make-up tips and kiss cute women. any behavior can be reread as gay once the This inversion results in humor and unan- viewer’s perspective is framed by that lens. ticipated consequences but it may also serve The “straight-mistaken-for-gay” trope, to mask the ways that power operates and like the gay pretender, derives much of its to make the mechanisms of power even humor from the audience’s knowledge that more covert. the character(s) in question is/are not in fact gay. Such an epistemological advantage sets the audience member apart from the mis- I’M NOT GAY BUT MY taken character and provides the audience BOYFRIEND IS . . . member not only with a certain degree of distance but also with reinscribed bound- Finally, the “straight-mistaken-for-gay” aries between the gay and the straight. If we trope is common throughout comedy. This ever wondered, for example, whether Jerry trope represents an almost total inversion and George were even vaguely attracted to of the tendency in earlier television each other, our identification with them Dines10.qxd 7/26/02 2:11 PM Page 109

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and not with the mistaken reporter ensures sexuality as a (if not the) significant that we leave with no doubt whatsoever. In determinant of cultural and individual iden- this context, it is perhaps significant that tity. If Doty (1993) is right that queerness Chandler in Friends is the first character to should “challenge and confuse our under- “truly” fall in love and marry. Further, standing and uses of sexual and gender cat- viewers are explicitly told that his “cold egories” (p. xvii), then the sorts of examples feet” prior to the marriage result directly I’ve been describing and analyzing here rep- from his fear of commitment and not from resent failures. any vestiges of bi- or homosexuality. Third Marginalized identities are not just Rock’s mistaken-gay episode teaches every- oppressed by power; they are also, as one that there is a little alien in each of Foucault points out, constructed by those us but not that the character himself might very same power relations. Thus, there is no be gay. doubt that these new representations of glbt Further, both the gay pretender and the characters and of heterosexuality will give mistaken gay tropes seem to give these pro- birth to new meanings and new signifiers grams permission to play with sex and sex- attached to queer sexuality. But we must uality more explicitly than they might with wait for that next episode. a heterosexual characters. The use of dou- ble entendre in these scenes of misunderstanding is one strategy that opens up and Notes ◆ foregrounds the sexual aspects of homosexuality. So, for example, a scene from Days of Our Lives allows its generally more 1. Indeed, fall 2001 premiered a new show buttoned-down characters to joke obliquely starring DeGeneres, who plays an out lesbian about penis size: Harold, who is gay, is who returns to her hometown. Unlike her earlier coming on to Jack, who is pretending but is show, where it took years and much publicity not gay. Greta, their mutual friend, accuses for her to out herself, in this new show she is Harold of having a big ego. Jack, inno- already out in the first episode and her sexuality cently, says, “It’s not how big your ego is. is treated casually by her family and those she It’s what you do with it.” Harold, who meets. assumes that Jack is playing with him, finds 2. I cannot help but wonder about this phe- this banter incredibly erotic. Moments nomenon in light of the increasing invisibility of later, Jack returns to this theme when he race in popular media. Timothy Simone (1989) informs them both (still referring, he has noted the “increasingly clandestine” (p. 10) believes, back to “ego”) that “size doesn’t presence of race concepts. As the language of matter.” Harold is totally charmed, but two popular culture is increasingly “cleansed of overt conversations and not one have taken racial reference” (p. 17), queer folks have place. Such dialogue is all the more signifi- become the latest “other.” cant when one remembers that the charac- 3. Unless the film deals explicitly with “gay ter of Jack is one that has been part of the issues” like AIDS (Philadelphia, Long Time show off-and-on for over twenty years. It is Companion, etc.) or homophobic violence (e.g., only when he is “playing gay” that we have Boys Don’t Cry). access to an erotic side of him that the cul- 4. Gross (1995) suggests that misinforma- ture links with gay male sexuality. tion and homophobic stereotyping in the Queer theory embraces a kind of intel- media are connected to most heterosexual lectual tension: where, on the one hand, the people’s lack of first-hand knowledge of gays viewer insists that sexuality and the domain and lesbians. I’m not sure that was true ten of the sexual are cultural inventions and not years ago, but it certainly seems not to be the essential, on the other hand, it deploys case today. Dines10.qxd 7/26/02 2:11 PM Page 110

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5. Note too how this dynamic functions to Gross, L. (1995). Out of the mainstream: efface the element of class. Thus, it is not Sexual minorities and the mass media. In surprising that Rosario, Karen’s third-world G. Dines & J. M. Humez (Eds.), Gender, main, serves as the butt of much of the show’s race and class in media: A text-reader humor. (pp. 61-69). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. hooks, b. (1999). Eating the other. In S. Hesse- Biber, C. Gilmartin, & R. Lydenberg (Eds.), ◆ References Feminist approaches to theory and method- ology. New York: Oxford University Press. hooks, b. (1995) Killing rage: Ending racism. Bourdieu, P. (1990). In other words: Essays New York: Henry Holt. towards a reflexive sociology. Cambridge, Kellner, D. (1995). Media culture: Cultural stud- UK: Polity. ies, identity, and politics between the modern Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and and the postmodern. London: Routledge. the subversion of identity. New York: Kirby, D. (2001, June 17). The boys in the writ- Routledge. ers’ room. New York Times, pp. 23, 33. Butler, J. (1993). Imitation and gender subordi- Mohr, R. (1997). A gay and straight agenda. nation. In H. Abelove, M. Aina Barale, & In J. Corvino (Ed.), Same sex: Debating D. M. Halperin (Eds.), The lesbian and gay the ethics, science, and culture of homo- studies reader (pp. 307-320). New York: sexuality (pp. 331-344). Lanham, MD: Routledge. Rowman & Littlefield. Clark, D. (1993). Commodity lesbianism. In Rich, A. (1980, Summer). Compulsory hetero- H. Abelove, M. Aina Barale, & D. M. sexuality and lesbian existence. Signs, 5(4), Haperin (Eds.), The lesbian and gay studies 631-660. reader (pp. 186-201). New York: Routledge. Rose, J. (1986). Sexuality in the field of vision. Doty, A. (1993). Making things perfectly queer: London: Verso. Interpreting mass culture. Minneapolis: Rothaus, S. (2000, December 30). Better recep- University of Minnesota Press. tion for gay TV characters. Boston Globe, Epstein, S. G. (1987). Gay politics, ethnic iden- p. D26. tity: The limits of social constructionism. Sedgwick, E. K. (1990). Epistemology of the Socialist Review, 93/94. closet. Berkeley: University of California Ewen, S., & Ewen, E. (1992). Channels of Press. desire: Mass images and the shaping of Simone, T. M. (1989). About face: Race in American consciousness. Minneapolis: postmodern America. Brooklyn, NY: University of Minnesota Press. Autonomedia. Foucault, M. (1990). The history of sexuality Torres, S. (1993). Television/feminism: Heartbeat (Vol. 1, R. Hurley, Trans.). New York: and prime time lesbianism. In H. Abelove, M. Vintage Books. Aina Barale, & D. M. Halperin (Eds.), The Fuss, D. (1991). Inside/out: Lesbian theories, lesbian and gay studies reader (pp. 176-185). gay theories. New York: Routledge. New York: Routledge. Greenberg, B. S. (1986). Minorities and the mass Whisman, V. (1996). Queer by choice: Lesbians, media. In J. Bryant & D. Zillmann (Eds.), gay men, and the politics of identity. Perspectives on media effects (pp. 165-188). New York: Routledge. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.