The White Hyper-Sexualized Gay Male

THE WHITE HYPER-SEXUALIZED GAY MALE: A LACK OF DIVERSITY IN GAY MALE MAGAZINES by BENER ESHREF A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS WITH HONORS in THE FACULTY OF ARTS (Sociology) Dr. Daniyal Zuberi, supervisor DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY The University of British Columbia (Vancouver) April 2009 ©Bener Eshref 2009 Abstract The gay male community has traditionally been a marginalized population struggling for acceptance within the larger international frame. However since the development of gay magazine publications in the 1990s images of the gay male have been more widely spread throughout mainstream society. This study explores how race, age, body image, and sexuality are stereotyped to represent one standard image of the gay male as found in Western gay magazine publications. This is a quantitative media analysis, examining images, covers and advertisements in gay male magazines over a period of four years. By engaging in relevant theoretical discourses, empirical evidence, and scholarly research, this study critically analyzes how the gay identity is mediated by both the mainstream and gay publications. Results from the analysis points to wide spread discrimination within gay publications targeted at all gay minorities, which could have detrimental effects on the gay community. 2 Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………. 2 Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………..3 Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………...4 Dedication………………………………………………………………………..…6 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………7 History of Gay Males in Media……………………………………………..10 Literature Review…………………………………………………………………...13 Methodology………………………………………………………………………..27 Magazine Selection……………………………………………………...…28 Data Collection………………………………………………………….…32 Methodological Shortcomings…………………………………………..…33 Findings – Descriptive Analysis…………………………………………………...35 Race and Ethnicity…………………………………………………………35 Age…………………………………………………………………………42 Body Image is Everything………………………………………………….44 Sex Sells……………………………………………………………………50 Cover Image……………………………………………………………….56 Conclusion………………………………………………………………...………59 Appendices………………………………………………………………………..62 Appendix A - The Advocate cover……………………………………….62 Appendix B – Out cover………………………………………………….63 3 Appendix C –DNA cover………………………………………………...64 Appendix D – Instinct Magazine cover……………………………….…65 Bibliography………………………………………………………………..……66 4 Acknowledgments I would first and foremost like to thank my supervisor Dr. Daniyal Zuberi, for all the unwavering support over the course of this thesis, and for willing to take me on with an already full schedule. Your enthusiasm took this project farther than I could have imagined. I would also like to thank the staff at Priape’s Davie location for supplying me with endless amounts of material needed to conduct my research. In a society where gay publications are still not widely available in most libraries, your knowledge and support truly demonstrated how kind the community actually is. Additionally I would like to thank Dr. Sonja Embree, of the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, for your all dedication and endless effort to the research program. Thank you for taking the time to spend with me challenging my ideas and pushing me past my limits to produce a thesis I am personally proud of. And finally I would like to thank my good friend and academic peer, Sarah Yim for your invaluable contributions and willingness to critically examine my work, your help has aided me far more then you will ever know. 5 Dedication Thank you to my family, and my dear friends for being there to support me during the long and at times frustrating periods of this process. Additionally I would like to thank the gay community for all the support and acceptance while conducting this research. For all the support and encouragement over the past year and lifetime, I dedicate this thesis to all of you. 6 Introduction In today’s society many individuals take their acceptance within different communities for granted. As Western society becomes increasingly developed social circles have begun to intermingle, losing the stigmas that once separated groups. While African-American and feminist activist groups have managed to achieve some levels of acceptance within mainstream society, other segregated group like the queer movement, in particular the gay male community, are continuously struggling for as much equality as possible. In struggling for equality many activist groups turn to media sources to help spread their words. African-American groups in the 1950s and 1960s used newsletters to promote their meetings, and to spread the word of acceptance. Contemporary feminist groups have turned to the Internet to spread their slogans; developing Internet based web-magazines, and forms to communicate their unremitting struggles. The western gay male movement, similar to both other movements, turned to newsletters and magazines to communicate their struggles to both their community and the general public. Magazines and newsletters became the most important tool used to legitimize the movement’s struggles for acceptance, however within contemporary times the gay male movement has shifted away from activist related publications, to a more commercialized product. While images of the gay male have become standard within western society, the representation of what a gay male is, or what he should be, has become quite repetitive. Mass media has turned to stereotypical images of a white, fit or muscular, well groomed, and styled man to represent an entire community. From these standard images, western society has created the notion of the ‘metro-sexual’ male, a heterosexual male concerned with his outward appearance, which has been directly compared to nearly every gay male established within the 7 mass media. While the media explosion of representations of gay males was going on, queer academics, activists, and community members were questioning the validity of these images. This growing concern developed into the gay community publishing their own print material that was supposed to be a more realistic representation of their community, and would theoretically help counterbalance these stereotypical images created by mass media. As the publications are targeted towards a gay male audience, one would believe that they would have a larger range of representation of the community as a whole, as apposed to continuously running images that represent what the heterosexual community has depicted of the gay male. Gay male magazines serve to legitimize the differences within the community, depicting more diversity within the population, however this could be easily questioned. Critics of gay publications (Julie Dorf, founding director of the international gay and lesbian human rights commission) believe that gay male magazines actually perpetuate the stereotypes developed by mass media, and in reality continue to misrepresent the diversity within the gay community. In order to examine whether gay magazines actually represent a large segment of the community or play into the labels placed upon them by a heteronormative viewpoint, I attempt to critically examine the diversity found within gay male magazines. By engaging in relevant theoretical discourses, empirical evidence, and scholarly research, this study will critically analyze how the gay community is represented in western gay male magazines. By examining the images of males found within gay male magazines, for race, body type, age, and sexulization this research holds implications for gay media publications to re-evaluate the messages they are sending out to the gay male community in what is acceptable appearance within the population. I will argue that gay magazines actually perpetuate the standard stereotypes that are found within mainstream society. Furthermore it is my contention that gay publications actually negatively impact the gay 8 male community, by pushing individuals who are not seen within the magazines back into their ‘closets’ and in turn actually creates a society in which unrepresented men are unwelcomed, and unvalued. The research gathered from a quantitative critical media analysis should illustrate whether or not the gay publications play into the stereotypes held by mainstream society, or challenge them into re-examining what a gay male in western society actually looks like. History of Gay Males in Media (Film, Television, and Magazines) Gay males have been found within mainstream media for decades, most often placed in subordinate, comedic positions. Since the late 1970s and early 1980s gay males became a standard in nearly every romantic comedy Hollywood produced. Most of the males, which are often played by heterosexual actors, are played as overly flamboyant and more concerned about their appearance then about anything else. From this point forward gay males have been stigmatized with the effeminate label. The medias selective “feature and reinforcement of certain characteristics and images” (Gross & Woods, 1999: 4) has lead to mainstream society believing the images of what has been displayed. Furthermore many gay activist groups decided to not argue against the images found within the media, as they were often seen as stepping-stones into mainstream acceptance (Gross & Woods, 1999). Gay society saw the representation of their people in Hollywood as welcomed, in that previously words like ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ were taboo in the media, in addition the entertainment industry

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