ComMuniTy& IndePenDentMediA No.1 2006 WOMEN IN ACTION TheThe LesbiansLesbians asas OneOne ofof thethe GuyGuys:s: Media Coverage of Gay Pride Marches1 by Lorna Q. Israel Introduction Since it started in New York City in 1969, following the so-called Stonewall Rebellion, the Gay Pride March has paraded around the world in spaces and among bodies that cling to both heterosexual and homophobic desires. What took place on that momentous night of June 27, 1969 at the Stonewall Inn was inevitable. Gays trooped to the bar that night to make a customary toast to mark the death of gay icon Judy Garland (Fredericks, n.d.). Predictably, the police decided to flex their masculine presence against the homosexual customers. After stating their “usual homophobic comments,” the police started throwing out the customers (Batie, n.d.). Such police action was an attempt to protect the city from homosexual “encroachment” as much as the gays’ protests and dissents were attempts to thwart homophobic elements from entering their space. Stonewall Inn, after all, was a gay bar. This incident would have probably Instead of quietly slipping away remain closeted had the participants into the night, as we had done decided not to draw the public’s for years, hustlers, drag queens, attention toward it. Although it was students and other patrons held generally reported as a “spontaneous their ground and fought back. reaction against police harassment,” Someone uprooted a parking the behaviour of those who were meter and used it to barricade the there had suggested otherwise: door. The agents and police were 75 trapped inside. They wrecked the Gay Games, which took place as the place and called in Dyke March was proceeding. The reinforcements. Their vehicles New York Times allotted nine lines to raced to the scene with lights the Dyke March. The New York Times glaring and sirens blaring. The had been honoured by GLAAD for crowd grew. Someone set a fire. “outstanding press coverage of More people came. For three Stonewall history, culture and days, people protested. And for events.” But because of the paltry the first time, after innumerable press coverage of the Dyke March, years of oppression, the chant, the Lesbian Avengers “requested Gay Power, rang out (batie, n.d.). GLAAD to retract its top honours to the New York Times, and for Since then, public assertion of Gay GLAAD to pressure New York- Power, which had been assembled based media to improve lesbian through the Gay Pride March, has coverage” (Branner, 1994). been calculated to provoke and goad the public from seeing what it would In Manila in 2004, the tenth rather not see. It has become a force anniversary of the LGBT pride in the that is both epistemologically and Philippines was celebrated as part of visually arresting. Visually and the Gay Pride March. A local spectacularly trangressive, images and newspaper covered this event, which ideas displayed during the Gay Pride was participated in by those who call March are also indicative of the themselves LGBT. The Manila Times contradictions, exclusions, and (December 12, 2004), however, marginalisation apparent within and decided to print an interview of a outside the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and male gay who blamed the transgender (LGBT) movement. Philippines’s “bankrupt economy and There seems to be an apparent disgusting human rights situation as tendency to valorise, rather than contributing to the sad state of affairs transform, the heteronormal regime of the LGBT community.” Another (particularly in cities where Gay Pride local newspaper adopted the same Marches are held) that continues to treatment of giving prominence to demonise, discipline, and regulate the gays in its coverage of the 2003 Gay homosexuals. Pride March. The Philippine Daily Inquirer (July 2, 2003) featured a male Where are the lesbians? Where are the lesbians? gay and some names of gays. In 1994 in New York, the organisers Moreover, it described the marching of the International Dyke March, crowd as thus: “gays and straight called the Lesbian Avengers, brought mixed and matched on the to the attention of the Gay and street…students, yuppie types, bar and Lesbian Alliance Against partyphiles, fashionistas, cross-dressers, Defamation (GLAAD) the “lack of fag nets and fag stags were all there mainstream press coverage of the to be counted.” There was no Dyke March.” The Lesbian mention at all of the lesbians or their Avenger’s complaint was also about more popular designations like the extensive press coverage of the tomboy or t-bird. 6 7 CiM No.1 2006 WOMEN IN ACTION These incidents simply foreground in mainstream media), homosexuals an already acknowledged situation have always been visible in the media. among lesbians: their invisibility Media has already shifted from even in the so-called LGBT projecting homosexuals as purveyors community. Richard Norton of perversity to being “newsworthy” situates lesbians within for the controversy and spectacle that discourses on male they provide to a news report. Media homosexuality as being “usually has discovered that gays and lesbians presented as an appendage to gay could be packaged as consumable history…almost every theory items as in news reports. Gays and about homosexuality is lesbians have become “lucrative essentially a theory about male advertising market, which translates homosexuals” (Norton, 2003). into increased coverage of their issues.” This, however, does not automatically Media could not apparently include lesbians because “only those distinguish between a gay and a with disposable income are likely to lesbian. Nothing better illustrates this be covered, and they are more likely than the cover of Time magazine of to be gay men” (Cherata, 1994). Ellen DeGeneres (April 14, 1997) with the caption “Yep, I’m Gay.” In a An attempt to clarify the similar move, the Washington Post and unprofitability of the lesbians, which the New York Times “ran an all-male translates to their invisibility, has been photo of the April Gay Pride March advanced by Lee and Dow (2001). on Washington with captions about They noted that “lesbians seem to gay men and lesbians” (Graff, 1993). occupy the peculiar metaphysical status of the omitted, that is, inferable The invisibility of yet invisible.” They attributed this lesbians observation to the difficulty of locating lesbians inside the realm of the There is a popular assumption that rational: as lesbians, they are the Gay Pride March encompasses all symbolically positioned as below the homosexuals and their ever- norms of heterosexuality. The expanding appellations: gays, lesbians, stereotype that lesbians are mannish bisexuals, transgenders, intersexuals, and masculine symbolically positioned and queers. But it has already been them as being above women just like men. noted that people tend to associate It is in this situation of indeterminacy gays with men. Usage of the phrase of lesbians that the media has “gays and lesbians,” which the media projected them in the Gay Pride deploys blindly, has created a March. situation where lesbians are erased by not mentioning them at all. Media Politics of media in the assumes that when gay issues are Politics of media in the covered, lesbian issues have been Gay Pride March accordingly brought in (Graff,1993). Just like homosexuals, media Contrary to the popular perception corporations have been stereotyped as (among those who remonstrate performing communicative and against the invisibility of homosexuals informative functions. But one must 7 7 bear in mind that this function is a one-way street; news, for instance, is consumed passively—one can simply sit or lie down while reading, 3 watching or listening to media broadcast. There is also always a strident call to protect and maintain press freedom, and to spare media from 4 6 censorship and other controlling measures so much so that one overlooks the fact that the media is the most repressive of them all. As is well known, not all make it to the news, and news In the 2004 Gay Pride are just that: what a newspaper or March, CBS News decided to reporter decides what should be news. caption its photos of the Once the media reports a story or participants as “a person event—and usually it does not make this carrying a flag” (in Panama story or event happen—it becomes the City, Photo 3), “a participant media’s event or story. making a gesture” (in Mexico City, Photo 4), “a gay pride supporter” On BBC News, the 2003 Gay Pride (in Atlanta, Photo 5), “two men walking March in London has become a party. hand-in-hand” (in Paris, Photo 6), and Some of the photos of the March “people marching during Gay Pride” (in uploaded on its website are captioned El Salvador, Photo 7). As the LGBT as “London’s Gay Pride communities around the world March…chance to dress up and marched to the beat of “we” in the party.”(Photo1); “After the parade, the 2004’s March, a “fictive we” was party continues in Hyde Park” likewise created by the media network (Photo2). Threats, disruptions, and within the same event. Any extra- instabilities that were presumably the ordinariness of the flamboyant and purpose of the Gay Pride March have outrageous costumes that had been been stabilised; its festive and worn by participants to the March celebratory atmosphere maintained were edited out by the media by 1 but within the confines of a socially designating the participants as people, approved gathering like a party. supporter, participant, men, or person. By doing so, CBS News successfully addressed itself to both the LGBT and 2 its “straight” audience: neither is likely to be offended. 5 8 7 CiM No.1 2006 WOMEN IN ACTION The BBC had captured in photos the self-gratification) are privileged over actual people who participated in the assertion of autonomy and personal 2002 Gay Pride March and designated agency (like self-determination).