GLBTQ Representations in Contemporary American Media

Dr. Chris Freeman COMM 499/Spring 2009 Annenberg School of Communication Tuesdays, 2-4:50pm ASC223

“Any vision of real justice for gay people must include an understanding that a homophobic institution is inherently corrupt because of its homophobia. This may apply to your family, your college, your favorite TV sitcom, your landlord, your newspaper, your workplace, your radio station. If a family is diminishing its gay and lesbian members, it is not a legitimate institution of authority. If a classroom excludes or diminishes gay people, it is intellectually corrupt. The irony is that these ruling institutions pretend that they are neutral, objective, normal, right and value free, the opposite of their actual function.” –Sarah Schulman

About this course Representation is an important and challenging realm for theoretical inquiry. The way issues, ideas, people, and institutions are represented in discursive ways—in television, newspapers, magazines, classrooms, on the Internet, and in numerous other contexts—has a great deal to do with how those ideas, groups, and individuals are understood, especially by those on the outside looking in. In this course, we will spend the entire semester thinking, reading, writing, and talking about the representation of queerness—of GLBTQ people and lives—in the United States in last seventy-five or so years.

We will look at issues such as identity politics, identity formations, social and intellectual censorship, and we will look at various texts and genres—journalism, history, memoir, fiction, television, film, documentary, and others. After spending some time on background material such as the emergence of the ‘modern homosexual’ and the history of sexuality as a topic for intellectual inquiry, we will move into more contemporary issues such as gays in the military, gay liberation, McCarthyism, the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights movements, Gay Liberation/Pride, the rise (and fall?) of Queer politics, AIDS and its implications for lesbian and gay people, the rise of Trans visibility, the marriage issue, hate crimes, and other social and political challenges facing GLBTQ people in the 21st century.

Objectives and Requirements One of our primary goals will be to understand the nature of cultural/media studies and the theoretical and practical uses of studying such issues of representation in popular culture. Issues and identities—in this case, contemporary GLBTQ lives—can perhaps best be studied through the lens of cultural analysis, so the variety of approaches, texts, and topics in this course should provide students with a thorough understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of cultural/media studies.

Students (in groups of two or three) will lead discussions throughout the semester, and each student will present her/his research paper (8-12 pages) in the final few weeks of the term. Students will also write a shorter paper (5-7 pages) which will be a book review or other “topical”/issue essay. Attendance and active engagement with readings and discussions will be expected; missing more than two meetings could result in failure of the course or in a severe penalty in the final grade. Attendance is especially important since this class meets only once a week.

Grading Review Essay (due week 8) 30% Research Paper (due week 15) 40% Research Presentation 10% Leading Discussion 10% Class Participation 10% Texts Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues, Alyson, 1993, 2003. Larry Gross and James Woods, eds. The Columbia Reader on Lesbians & Gay Men in Media, Society, and Politics, Columbia UP, 1999. Larry Gross, Up from Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Media in America, Columbia UP, 2001. Suzanna Danuta Walters, All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America, Chicago, 2001.

There will be regular supplements to these texts in the form of handouts, email attachments, and film viewings. We will sometimes watch the films during class; other times, you will be asked to view them before class.

Schedule Weeks one & two: Introductions and Cultural/Historical Background Columbia Reader, 1-36: Introduction; Identity: Duberman, Goode & Wagner Gross, Up, Chs. 1 & 2; Walters, part one; Screening: Celluloid Closet (Epstein and Friedman, 1995)

Weeks three & four: Identities Columbia Reader: Introduction, 75-78; Stein, 81-92; Queen, 105-107; Wilson, 108-112; Feinberg. Feinberg, 1-118; Screening: Word is Out (1978); Up, Ch. 2

Weeks five & six: The Institutions: Religion, Education, Psychiatry, Science Columbia Reader: Introduction, 119-23; Cardinal Ratzinger, 135-38; Price, Ramsey Group; Feinberg, 119-end; Up, Ch. 3; Columbia Reader: Introduction-6; Marcus on Evelyn Hooker, 169-74; Marmor, et al and Hemphill, 175-84; 185-219; CONFERENCES for research and short paper topics

Weeks seven & eight: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Excerpts from Allan Berube, Coming Out Under Fire (1990); Up, Ch. 7; screening: Coming out under Fire (Dong, 1994) Review Essay due week eight; brief presentations of essays

Weeks nine & ten: Mass media: Visibility at what price? Columbia Reader: Faderman, 241-45, 291-347; excerpts from Chris Bull, Witness to the Revolution (Alyson, 1999): 71-74, 244-47, 285-94, 387-90; screenings: Boys in the Band (Friedkin, 1970); It’s Still Elementary (Chasnoff, 2007); Up, Ch. 4, 5, and 9; Columbia Reader: 349-38; Walters, parts two and three

Week eleven: Gay Media/AIDS reporting Columbia Reader: Newton, 270-273, Introduction & Albert, 387-401 (Media & AIDS crisis); 437-42, 446-60 (gay media); 466-74; Walters, part four; Up, Ch. 6, 10, and 11; excerpts from Michael Warner, The Trouble with Normal (2000); Screenings: Silverlake Life (Friedman & Joslin, 1993); Longtime Companion (Rene, 1990)

Weeks twelve and thirteen: Transvisibility/Hate Crimes/Homophobia Roz Blumenstein from Love, West Hollywood (2008); Feinberg revisited; Walter, part five; excerpt from Janet Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed (Harvard, 2003) on Christine Jorgensen; Hate crimes; Lawrence King, especially Newsweek cover story (Summer 2008); screenings: Paris is Burning (Livingston, 1990); bell hooks and Judith Butler on Paris; The Brandon Teena Story (Muska & Olafsdottir, 1998); Walters, conclusion; Up, Ch. 13 and 14; Columbia Reader: Sedgwick

Weeks fourteen, fifteen and final exam period: Community Learning/Learning Community Presentations /discussion of Research Projects (20 minutes each); Research Papers due week 15 Columbia Reader: Schulman, 655-57; Hempill, 658-59; Up, Ch. 15; Final Exam meeting will include the last presentations and will involve sythesizing discussion of those projects.