CONSERVATISM in DRAG: SAFE SALEABLE GAY CHARACTERS in a PROGRESSIVE EMBELLISHMENT by SHANNON SUE RISHKY B.S., Boise State Univer

CONSERVATISM IN DRAG: SAFE SALEABLE GAY CHARACTERS IN A

PROGRESSIVE EMBELLISHMENT

SHANNON SUE RISHKY

B.S., Boise State University, 2008

M.S., Boise State University, 2010

A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the

University of Colorado Colorado Springs

in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

Department of Sociology

2019

SHANNON SUE RISHKY

This thesis for the Master of Arts degree by Shannon Sue Rishky has been approved for the Department of Sociology by

Jeffrey Montez de Oca, Chair Heather Albanesi Abby Ferber

Date May 8, 2019

Rishky, Shannon Sue (M.A., Sociology)

Conservatism in Drag: Safe Saleable Gay Characters in a Progressive Embellishment

Thesis directed by Associate Professor Jeffrey Montez de Oca

ABSTRACT

In the twenty-first century, gay men have been portrayed more frequently and positively in the media. However, many scholars assert that traditional hegemonic and heteronormative ideology drives narratives when constructing gay characteristics. This research adds to the ongoing debate over mediated constructions of gay men’s gender performances but also adds age to its intersectional analysis. In this paper, the inconsistencies in gay characters’ gender performances in the programs Shameless, Six

Feet Under and Grace and Frankie were studied utilizing a qualitative content and frame analysis and applying a Marxist intersectional approach to identify gender performances at the intersections of race, class, and age.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to acknowledge my thesis committee, Dr. Jeffrey Montez de Oca, Dr.

Heather Albanesi, and Dr. Abby Ferber for their commitment to my education, research, and graduate thesis.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I INTRODUCTION ...... 1

II LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 5

Hegemonic Masculinity ...... 6 Intersectional Construction of Gender and Family ...... 7 Advertising Culture ...... 9 Reception Studies ...... 11 Age ...... 12 Gender Queer and the TQI+ ...... 14 Research Questions ...... 17 III METHODOLOGY ...... 18

Research Design ...... 18 Sample ...... 19 Procedures ...... 20 Measures...... 21 IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ...... 24

Shameless ...... 26 Six Feet Under ...... 32 Grace and Frankie ...... 37 V CONCLUSION ...... 43

REFERENCES ...... 46

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

There has been a rise of LGBTQI+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer,

Intersex, and more) representation in the media during the twenty-first century. Records show that only 50 U.S. television programs between the years 1970 and 1999 had a cast member representative of LGBTQI+, but by 2010, more than 250 different programs were inclusive of LGBTQI+ characters (wikipedia.org).

Media content is intended to support consumerism and promote imagery, narratives, and cultural ideas that reinforce social, political, and economic conditions

(Coltrane & Messineo, 2000; Gamson et al., 1992; Hart, 2000). The ongoing debates over civil rights for the LGBTQI+ community and the increase in their media presence provides gay culture economic worth. With these broader social and political issues about the values and rights of the LGBTQI+ community there has been a shift in the market conditions.

The media aids corporate interests and the interests of their corporate owners through the cultural images they produce (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000; Gamson et al.,

1992; Hart, 2000). In so doing, the media has a significant role in the U.S. consumer society because they can design social frames that promote commodification and influence the consumption practices of the viewers’ lifestyle choices.

The relevance of gender and sexuality within this shift is because the media is accustomed to writing and producing from a heterosexual/heteronormative perspective, lifestyle and culture. Heteronormativity is the idea that there are two distinct genders based on biological sex, and thus, sexuality, gender identity, and gender roles are assumed to be innate or natural (Avila-Saavedra, 2009). The problem is that while there are now a diverse range of television shows that present themselves as edgy and challenging worldviews on cable and television networks, broader reactionary markets still tend to structure programming content that naturalizes heteronormativity for

LGBTQI+ couples by depicting one partner as feminine and the other as masculine

(Bartholomaeus & Tarrant, 2015).

The heteronormative standpoint is that the biological male is by nature linked to a gender order that is reflective of a heterosexual man in his identity, sexuality, and roles

(Avila-Saaved, 2009). Although a naturalized gender order that links ideas about the biological superiority of men to dominance, the writers rely on hegemonic masculinity, that is, an idealized male gender performance, to further establish male dominance between the men of a gay partnership (Connell, 1987; Donaldson, 1993). As a result, the media emphasizes paradoxical realities for gay couples by utilizing gender code- switching in masculinities centered on race, class, or age to articulate traditional heterosexual gender scripts. These scripts are the written form of speech in a screenplay used by the actors to perform their character. Narratives, which are the way that different elements of characters performances are organized to tell a meaningful story. Discourses, which are the spoken communication between characters interactions. And images that strongly reflect the gender order. Unfortunately, hegemonic masculinity is what

2 reinforces structures of oppression, dominance, and once again, a particular gender order

(Bartholomaeus & Tarrant, 2015; Connell, 1987; Donaldson, 1993).

Theoretical Framing

Intersectional evaluation links macro and microstructures of identity performances at the intersections of race, gender, age, and class. This approach has been used for the study of various social positionings and the experiences shaped by common practices and norms (Carbado, Crenshaw, Mays, & Tomlinson, 2013; Cho, Crenshaw, &

McCall, 2013). Using this approach to examine media representation of LGBTQI+ helps illustrate how the dimensions of identity performances are constructed in mediated interactions (Carbado et al., 2013; Cho et al., 2013; Collins, 1998).

A Marxist intersectionality approach engages the analysis of class through institutional transformations and articulations by situating meaning in lived experiences that traverse numerous racial, ethnic, gendered, aged, sexualized, and geographical identities and create various economic circumstances (Bohrer, 2018; Hudis, 2018; Moran,

2018). Institutional sites express the various levels of structures that are emphasized by the materialistic dialectics of a Marxist theoretical approach to intersectionality (Hudis,

2018; McCoid, 2008). It allows for the analysis of individual oppression linked to larger structural and cultural institutions drawing attention to historical processes of inequality related to larger systems of imperialism, patriarchy, and capitalism (McCoid, 2008). The state, economy and social institutions convey culture because media production and distribution arise in particular economic and political systems (Bohrer, 2018; Durham &

Kellner, 2006). Combining Marxist materialism that emphasizes a dialectical approach to

3 political economy with intersectional approaches to identity performances offers a better method to evaluate gendered media representations and the relationship between the economy and media structures of broadcasting that reinforce consumption practices.

This study used a Marxist intersectionality framework (McCoid, 2008) to analyze inconsistencies in the construction of different aspects of sexuality and gender performances in gay characters relationships in family television shows at the intersections of class, race, and age that either reinforce or resist both hegemonic masculinity and heteronormativity. The American television programs Shameless (2011),

Six Feet Under (2001), and Grace and Frankie (2015) were selected for this study because the variables within these family television programs permitted the investigation of heteronormative scripting both uniformly and intersectionally (Abbot & Wells, 2011;

Ball, 2001; Kauffman & Morris, 2015). By scripting gay characters within a heteronormative frame, media reinforces both consumerism and hegemonic masculinity.

Therefore, this study emphasized gender roles historically created through wage labor practices and state intervention in the family and market conditions related to consumer society.

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

In the twenty-first century gay characters in televised programming are considerably more frequent and positive, yet media studies have suggested that heteronormativity still drives narratives, scripting, and imagery when constructing homosexuality (Battles & Hilton-Morrow, 2002; Coltrane & Messineo, 2000; Dhaenens,

2012; Dhaenens, 2014; Kim et al., 2007; Poole, 2013). Scholars have argued that when family television programs frame gay relationships to align with those of traditional heterosexuals, they reinforce the gender order, hegemonic masculinity, and gender inequality. This is because the relationships and families of LGBTQI+ couples are found to be complex and diverse, so by watering them down it sends a message to the audience that reinforces the family structure and gender roles and norms of heterosexual couples

(Dhaenens, 2012, 2014; Eguchi, Calafell, & Files-Thompson, 2014; Kim et al., 2007;

Poole, 2013; Avila-Saavedra, 2009). Research has indicated that contemporary media programs often use hegemonic and heteronormative discourses to convey masculine characteristics at the intersections of age, class, race, sexuality, ethnicity, and geographical location (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000; Bartholomaeus & Tarrant, 2015;

Mersel, 2006; Avila-Saavedra, 2009). A plethora of media studies have found that acting as a directive to support corporate agendas, media programming habitually exploits market conditions and appropriates gay lifestyles producing imagery, scripts, frames, and narratives that inundate audiences with taken for granted expectations of heterosexuality

5 while constructing gay relationships (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000; Gamson, Croteau,

Hoynes, & Sasson, 1992; Hart, 2000; McCormack, 2010).

Hegemonic Masculinity

R.W. Connell (1987), borrowing the term hegemonic from Antonio Gramsci, defines hegemonic masculinity as cultural practices of masculinity leading to the ascendance of an idealized way of being a man in the world. Hegemonic masculinity relies on structures of oppression and dominance that naturalize the gender order and the superiority of the male sex category (Bartholomaeus & Tarrant, 2015; Connell, 1987;

Donaldson, 1993). Hegemony means that through a balance of coercion and consent society agrees to leadership by a group or class (Bartholomaeus & Tarrant, 2015; Jewkes,

2015). Core elements of hegemonic masculinity include being strong, successful, capable, reliable, and in control (Donaldson, 1993; Kimmel, 1994). Hegemonic masculinity rarely reflects the actual lived experience of men in society. Instead, manhood has different meanings in various social settings that provide widespread ideas, describe situations through everyday interactions, and functions through deep-rooted patterns, practices, norms, and cultural standards of masculinity (Connell &

Messerschmidt, 2005; Donaldson, 1993; Jewkes, 2015; Kimmel, 1994). Since masculinity is in constant flux, the collective meanings constructed through relationships with each other, the world, and ourselves change with the meanings of hegemonic masculinity (Donaldson, 1993; Jewkes, 2015; Kimmel, 1994). Hegemony is how gendered relationships in institutional settings sustain power (Connell, 1987). Hegemonic masculinity involves persuasion, through media images and narratives that naturalize the gender order (Connell, 1987; Donaldson, 1993; Kimmel, 1994). Investigating how the

6 media frames the gender order highlights the media’s potential to influence gender construction, gender conformity, and gender reinforcement.

Intersectional Construction of Gender and Family

The concept of an idealized family form emerged with the nineteenth-century capitalism and wage labor, so it was closely related to the development of mass consumption practices (Koontz, 2015). This was because public policy was establishing family wages. In so doing it linked the state with the market, which then created economic conditions for the development of the “traditional” nuclear family. The social construction of the nuclear family, while diverse, was found to be associated with both public policy and cultural attitudes about self-sufficiency (Collins, 2015; Koontz, 2015).

Under post-war U.S. capitalism, the model for the idealized man became the white middle-class breadwinner; an ascendant form of masculinity (Koontz, 2015).

Consequently, the imaginary concept of the traditional family became defined as natural and consisting of a married, heterosexual, white couple who can reproduce biological offspring (Collins, 1998; Tisser-Desbordes & Visconti, 2018). The traditional family also had an assumed and imposed gender order. Men were allotted authority and control and granted access to the public sphere. Women’s domestic work was separated from the labor market and carried out in the private sphere (Collins, 1998; Crenshaw, 1989;

Montez de Oca, 2013). The role of the nuclear family had dual purposes: it functioned as the ideal form to reinforce ideological conceptions about biological conditions and acted as a guiding principle for social organization (Collins, 1998, 2015).

The social arrangements of the ideal family gave the male, as primary breadwinner, the authority over the household. The female was then given authority over the children but was to remain submissive to the male head of household (Collins, 1998;

Koontz, 2015). This hierarchical model of the traditional family has organized the otherwise diverse groups of people found within the U.S. society (Collins, 1998). “In particular, hierarchies of gender, wealth, age, and sexuality within actual family units correlate with comparable hierarchies in U.S. society” (Collins, 1998, p 64). In this way, hierarchical arrangements have come to be perceived as what is natural and as an extension of the biological hierarchies of family (Collins, 1998, 2015). By naturalizing gender order through the lens of patriarchy and family, the media and television programming in the United States have perpetuated gender, sexual, and age inequality.

Societies working tandemly with family arrangements and through historical practices, have constructed not only gender, age, wealth, and sexuality hierarchies, but also racial hierarchies (Collins, 1998; Crenshaw, 1989; Tisser-Desbordes & Visconti,

2018). Racial myths have played on the idea that people of color are less civilized, childlike, and intellectually underdeveloped when framed as a family, which may explain why people of color were subordinated to white men (Collins, 1998; Yep, 2003).

Sociocultural assumptions about racial hierarchies interwoven in the logic of the traditional family have constructed whites as intellectually mature and more developed than children and therefore entitled to legitimate authority (Collins, 1998). White supremacy positions white men in dominant social positions aided by their white women helpmates (Collins, 1998; Yep, 2003). As a result, white men gained more power, and racial exclusion was justified (Yep, 2003). These historically generated and naturalized

8 ideologies of the biological family have maintained the invisibility of racial oppression and reinforced the dominant power structures in the United States.

Framing

According to Goffman (1974), frames are products of a larger shared culture that can be manipulated intentionally to deploy cultural ideas. Constructing social reality often involves processes that frame media images and narratives through metaphors using stereotypes formulated on ideal types (Scheufele, 1999). Media framing draws attention to qualities of culture through primary frameworks that oversimplify an infinite number of organized features of social relations (Goffman, 1974; Scheufele, 1999). Primary frames are often neatly organized around systems of recognized norms and rules providing loose meanings embedded in cultural understanding (Goffman, 1974). Framing proposes that the way information is presented to the audience will influence how people process the information (Goffman, 1974; Scheufele, 1999). Frame slices are spatially discrete regions of a frame offering small amounts of information at a time (Scheufele,

1999). Frame slices can be enclosed differently depending on the message the media wants to convey.

Advertising Culture

Fundamentally, television shows have existed to produce a profit for corporate sponsors and advertisers who buy airtime during programming to attract specific groups of diverse consumers (Gamson et al., 1992; Hart, 2000). However, it is ratings provided by independent and third-party firms that have determined the purchase price of commercial airtime (Meehan, 1990). Nielsen Company, formerly known as The A.C.

Nielsen Company, for instance, is a rating firm. They send out surveys to active consumers from among the general public asking questions in regard to the things in which they watch or listen. They then take that data to the media, so they then know what is most popular. From there, the media sets pricing for time slots and scheduled programming. Ratings have also been tools for predicting economic success in consumer marketing because they could exclude individuals who were not beneficial to the advertisers (Meehan, 1990). Economic concerns have been driving media content, whereby corporate culture has been forced to appeal to a broader market and an audience generalized from ratings that are biased towards active consumers (Coltrane & Messineo,

2000; Gamson et al., 1992).

Economic constraints, imposed on primetime television, have influenced representations of gay characters. Market-driven needs have structured representations of gender and sexuality through scripting, framing, and narrating meanings associated with gay partners (Hart, 2000; McCormack, 2010). Marketing gender through consumption practices, the media has converted the progressive gender representation of gay characters to reflect traditional views of gender and sexuality (Hart, 2000). Thus, television programming has been perpetuating prejudicial attitudes towards different identity groups by offering lifestyle choices as simple solutions that tend to reinforce dominant economic interests (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000; Hart, 2000). Primetime television has reinforced traditional views of both gender and sexuality by offering audiences images of gay masculinity, through scripting, narrating, and discourses (Hart,

2000; McCormack, 2010). In doing so, the media has produced gay gendered bodies that suggest gay couples follow heterosexual gender and sexual patterns (Coltrane &

Messineo, 2000; Hart, 2000). The media’s dependence on advertising has created an obligation to commodify images and narratives of gay couples that are structured by heteronormativity since that is less threatening to the prejudices of the consumerist audiences targeted by the broadcasts (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000; Hart, 2000;

McCormack, 2010). Scripting gay masculinity from a traditional lens, the media has deliberately obscured economic forces that shape identities (Hart, 2000). Family media programming creates content and imagery reflective of standardized norms in gender and sexuality (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000; McCormack, 2010) to saturate the audience with taken for granted assumptions of heteronormativity (Hart, 2000) that reinforce corporate agendas and benefit capital accumulation (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000; Gamson et al.,

1992). Television programming offers viewers images of self, shapes reflections and discourses of “others,” and sustains boundaries, feelings of entitlement, and institutional discrimination by defining gender and sexuality through consumption practices (Coltrane

& Messineo, 2000).

Reception Studies

Reception analysis is the examination of interpretation and meaning-making of texts by audiences that consist of varied cultural backgrounds and life experiences.

Studies in that field have looked at how LGBTQI+ audiences perceive homosexual representations in media popular with the LGBTQI+ community. It has been found that most television audiences who read narratives of gays scripts perceive them as reaffirming the social order, not resisting it (Bond, 2014; Kim et al., 2017; Dhaenens,

2011; Levina, Waldo, & Fitzgerald, 2000). Media representations of heteronormative scripts have been over-represented in the media popular with lesbian, gay, and bisexual

11 audiences (Kim et al., 2007). Avila-Saavedra (2009) and Dhaenens (2012) found similar results when they investigated how television viewing audiences in Western society interpreted the representations of homosexuality among media popular with both straight and gay audiences. They found that most of their participants were not aware of resistant and queered representations in gender and sexuality (Avila-Saavedra, 2009), with the exception of two panel members who perceived the frames to be resisting heteronormativity and hegemonic discourse (Dhaenens, 2012). McInroy and Craig (2015) found, that while LGBTQ+ participants in their study concluded that online media representations of transgender youth were multifaceted. These same study contributors found that offline media or television programming representations of transgender youth were not authentic and reinforced stereotypical heterosexual gender portrays. The results of those studies have provided evidence that among viewing audiences, unconventional forms of gender and sexuality in gay couples are often concealed through scripts and narratives that reflect gender and sexuality as heterosexual (Dhaenens, 2012; Kim et al.,

2017). Reception studies find that conventional scripts have limited the discursive representations of homosexuals (Bond, 2014; Dhaenens, 2011, 2012; Avila-Saavedra,

2009). Conventional scripting of homosexuality has offered a limited model for sexuality encouraging heteronormativity (Bond, 2014; Dhaenens, 2012, 2014; Kim et al., 2007).

Age

Researchers who study the intersections of gender and age have discovered that the media draws on the discourses of hegemonic masculinity when scripting both older and younger men (Bartholomaeus & Tarrant, 2015; Mersel, 2006). Looking at both age factors and social class, Bartholomaeus and Tarrant (2015) and Mersel (2006) discovered

12 that the media repeatedly and intentionally incorporates images and narratives of manhood that ignore overt acts of sexuality for older adults and young teens. Mersel

(2006) through historical analysis of cultural scripts, discovered models of men at different ages interwoven in several plotlines. The media has used images of older adults that reflect and reinforce consumerism, not those which have a sexual lens. Commercial imagery consistently placed images of older adults in activities such as shopping, dining out and vacationing (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000; Mersel, 2006).

Conceptual framing has even been used to facilitate marketing agendas towards the desired audiences when it is the elderly population. Many advertisements showing older adults have often reflected images and narratives of family and domestic fulfillment

(Coltrane & Messineo, 2000). The media in many instances have marketed adolescent’s sexuality through relationships that are shaped by friendship, rather than by sexual encounters (Mersel, 2006). The media has selected issues such as homelessness, HIV, suicide, drug addiction, alcoholism, and sexual abuse to frame the sexuality of adolescents within themes such as friendships and tropes of victimhood. This framing has made gay youth appear vulnerable and conceals explicit acts of sexuality (Coltrane &

Messineo, 2000).

Similarly, Bartholomaeus and Tarrant (2015) found that there is an axis of age separating hegemony and masculinity within gender relations and that it is an essential factor in positioning men within the gender order. This was observed in the images and narratives for older-aged characters because they were projected in positions of higher social status, yet with a decline in their sexual libido (Bartholomaeus & Tarrant, 2015;

Mersel, 2006). For example, older men have been scripted to be prudent advisors who

13 pass cultural knowledge onto their grandsons. This positioning framed and narrated older-aged men around their intellect rather than their physicality (Bartholomaeus &

Tarrant, 2015; Coltrane & Messineo, 2000). Preteen and early teen sexuality, on the other hand, was signified through social issues that divert attention away from sexuality

(Bartholomaeus & Tarrant, 2015). Talk about sexuality have been consistently framed by activities and discussions of sexual issues related to psychosocial problems faced by teens

(Coltrane & Messineo, 2000). Media representations deliberately misrepresent sexuality in teens by framing and narrating teens as innocent and vulnerable obscuring their sexuality (Bartholomaeus & Tarrant, 2015; Coltrane & Messineo, 2000). The literature concluded that the media is a real tool that can be used to understand how sexual and gender identities create inconsistent representations of masculine categories

(Bartholomaeus & Tarrant, 2015; Mersel, 2006). These irregularities are situational and unreliable, which marginalizes older men, younger men, and men seen as “others”

(Mersel, 2006). In this context, the older men are less masculine, the younger men are masculine but not masculine enough (yet), and men who are “othered” as having less power. These illustrations of masculinity are neither consistent with or typical of actual men’s lives (Bartholomaeus & Tarrant, 2015; Mersel, 2006).

Gender Queer and the TQI+

Queered versions of gender and sexuality have emerged in the twenty-first century. For example, the growth in LGBTQ+ representations particularly those in the transgender community has increased significantly since the 1970’s (McInroy & Craig,

2015). However, the images and narratives have continued to be framed heteronormatively (Avila-Saavedra, 2009; Battles & Hilton-Morrow, 2002; Eguchi et al.,

2014; Poole, 2013). Commerce and the pressure to turn profits have dictated essential elements of media content that have resulted in imagery that promotes commercial interests (Avila-Saavedra, 2009; Eguchi et al., 2014). Portrayals of gay men in the media construct gay masculinity as logically consistent with heteronormativity (Avila-Saavedra,

2009; Eguchi et al., 2014; Merrifield, 2016). Metro-sexuality was made popular by shows like Will and Grace, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, however they created tensions between “straight” and “queer” versions of manhood. The series Queer Eye for the

Straight Guy was hosted by five gay men known as the “Fab Five” who would help straight men learn how to be more sensitive, dress better, and groom better. The Fab Five were gender queered and their feminine gender expressions remained consistent throughout the series. The straight men would only participate in single episodes in which they would arrive and leave a self-identified heterosexual man still expressing themselves as male-gendered but were simply transformed into a better version of themselves. With the feminine expressions of the gender-queered remaining constant as well as the masculine expressions of the heterosexual men staying the same, it established a boundary between what is deemed feminine and what is deemed masculine per the dominance of heteronormativity (Avila-Saavedra, 2009; Poole, 2013). It’s all Relative,

Modern Family, and Six Feet Under presented gay characters in relationships where one partner was often more financially successful and incorporated narratives that normalized heterosexual ideals of monogamy (Avila-Saavedra, 2009; Merrifield, 2016; Poole, 2013).

The increased framing of gay men from a less threatening lens of heteronormativity in the twenty-first century (Avila-Saavedra, 2009; Poole, 2013) and, with the expansion of gender non-conforming characters in television programming, gay

15 men have been depicted as married and raising a family; giving both gay and straight men models of the gay community that appropriate gay culture to promote consumerism

(Avila-Saavedra, 2009; Merrifield, 2016; Poole, 2013). Queered concepts of sexuality have been shown to link idealized heterosexual norms centered on recognized practices of monogamy, family stability, and heteronormative notions of romantic love over promiscuity (Battles & Hilton-Morrow, 2002; Eguchi et al., 2014; Poole, 2013). Using traditional romantic conventions, writers have relied heavily on heterosexual positioning that contains the radical potential of non-normative sexual identities and minimizes their expressions of sexuality (Avila-Saavedra, 2009; Battles & Hilton-Morrow, 2002).

Moreover, the trouble with heteronormative scripting is it portrays images of the sexual relations between gay couples through the lens of heteronormativity rather than through its complicated and often resistant diversity (Eguchi et al., 2014; Poole, 2013).

Pushing individual truths and marketing talk therapy, talk shows have blurred the boundaries of queered genders, expressions, and sexualities by inviting diverse guests that represent various sexual and gender manifestations (Gamson, 1998). While producers have welcomed gender queered guests on their shows, they have been scripting

LGBTQI+ issues within a family context to draw in middle-class white female consumer audiences (Gamson, 1998). The media has represented heteronormativity as the acceptable moral compass for most LGBTQI+ behavior (Gamson, 1998; Merrifield,

2016). As Gamson (1998) said, “Sexual differences are easily conflated with class and racial inferiority” (p. 221). Same-sex relationships, viewed through the lens of heteronormativity, has supported both gender conformity and monogamy (Gamson,

1998). Although queered programming has been presented as challenging the status quo,

16 as well as tantalizing and exciting its consumers, it (alongside other gay and lesbian representations) has done little to promote real change in heteronormativity or hegemonic masculinity (Avila-Saavedra, 2009; Eguchi et al., 2014; Merrifield, 2016).

Research Questions

Based on this previously discussed research, the six primary questions addressed in this paper are: (1) How are gay couples scripted, narrated, and framed in television shows in the twenty-first century? (2) How are gay characters represented intersectionally across race, age, and class in homosexual communities on television? (3) Do television programs provide frames discourses, and narratives that resist the gender order or reinforce gender and sexual norms in gay characters? (4) In constructing gender and sexuality in gay couples, is there variation in the way that programs about family both challenge and reinforce heteronormativity? (5) Do challenges to heteronormativity, produce parody and paradoxes that ultimately reassert rather than challenge the dominant social order? (6) How does the construction of gay identities intersect with the capitalist market, race, age, and class on contemporary and diverse television series?

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

Research Design

The design of this study utilized both a frame and textual analysis to examine hegemonic masculinity and heteronormativity, which emphasizes heterosexuality in family-centered television series.

Frame analysis assists in searching for meaning that provides ways of describing observations (Goffman, 1974). Frame analysis allows portions of meanings to be broken down part by part for interpretation. Framing draws attention to how the media constructs specific topics and creates storylines. Frames help to organize ideas, themes, narrative’s, images, and draw attention to multiple meanings within media representations (Goffman,

1974; Scheufele, 1999).

Textual analysis involves orderly searches for meaning. Through thoughtfully organized coding, researchers can see patterns, discover relationships, make interpretations, and engage their intellectual understanding through qualitative analysis

(Hatch, 2002).

Textual analysis is a broader methodological approach within which frame analysis can operate. This is because it allows for theory building by searching for meaning inductively. In so doing, it helps to establish themes, allows multiple interpretations of concepts, and offers ways to describe meaning through cultural and structural content (Hatch, 2002).

Sample

The sample consisted of the first and last episodes of each season from three selected American television series, Shameless, Six Feet Under, and Grace and Frankie.

The sample also included one randomly selected episode from each of the individual seasons to analyze the construction of gay couple’s masculine and feminine characteristics. To avoid sample bias, an online random number service RANDON.ORG was used to randomize the one episode that was not the first or last episode for each series of each season of the selected programs. The sample consisted of 15 episodes each from 5 full seasons of both Six Feet Under and Grace and Frankie. Since Shameless is a longer-running series with 8 full seasons, 24 episodes were incorporated. The average length of time per episode was 45 minutes. In total, the study analyzed 54 episodes.

These programs were selected because 1) They had at least five full seasons which was beneficial for looking at the construction of gender roles in the gay characters,

2) They were family shows with a plot and characters applicable for the investigation of heteronormative, hegemonic, and heterosexual scripting both uniformly and intersectionally through a range of different variables, 3) Their storylines were general knowledge to the audiences who watch the shows, 4) The series was situated in the consumer society of the United States, 5) They shared the same language; English, 6) The cast provides at least two major gay characters in a relationship/relationships which served to isolate the variables of importance to this study and, 7) They include at least one of the variables of significance such as age, race, or class.

Characters

The characters (n=9) were selected because 1) The same person had played the character throughout the series, 2) They were the only gay character(s), with the exception of minor gay characters that appeared episodically, 3) The characters came from one of the three series under examination, 4) Age variance, and 5) The gay characters investigated provided at least one of the variables under examination such as race, class or age.

Shameless. The dynamics of Ian Gallagher within his gay relationships with the queer characters Kash, Mikki Milkovich, Caleb, and Trevor were looked at.

Six Feet Under. The attributes of David Fisher and Keith Charles were examined.

Grace and Frankie. The characters Sol Bergstein and Robert Hanson and how their older gay masculinity is constructed.

Procedures

Each episode was watched three times for this study, and one time each for the (pilot) original study that this study came from, so in total four times each. At the time of the study, all three television series were retrieved from (personally) paid subscriptions (of the researcher). Shameless and Grace and Frankie were made available through Netflix

($11.99/mo), and Six Feet Under was made available through an Amazon Prime

Membership ($59.99/annually). The films were watched only by the researcher. The recording feature on the TV was used to locate, record, and replay specific frames within an episode by minute and second.

Measures

From the films, the data was organized and coded to identify themes depicted both within and between the characters of the shows over time.

Heteronormativity/Heterosexuality. The variables used to measure heteronormativity/heterosexuality were masculinity and femininity. They were based upon critical masculinities literature and the characteristics which resemble heteronormativity, such as those of traditional heterosexual gender norms such as marriage, monogamy, and male-centered head of household families.

Masculinity. The codes for masculinity were: breadwinner (authoritative, decisive, and supports other partner financially), physically forceful (in control, aggression or violence, and athletic), sexually dominant (initiating sex and sexual position), having low relationship commitment (lower levels of intimacy), lacking emotionality (stoic and only emotionality is related to anger), along with style of dress.

Femininity. The codes for feminity were: homemaker (expressive role and responsibility for household task; cooking, cleaning, laundry, and child-rearing), indecisive (follows orders, irrational and meek), sexually submissive (does not initiate sex and sexual positioning), emotional (other than anger, crying, pouting, and sensitive), shows fear (anxiety, alarm or apprehension) along with style of dress (louder clothing, material of clothing, and sleeping attire).

Hegemonic masculinity. Because hegemonic masculinity relies on subordinating masculinities that do not meet the ascendant form of masculinity and therefor intersects with other social identities, these variables were coded and measured by their frequency.

Class. Characteristics associated with the urban underclass, working class, upper- middle class, material wealth or the lack of, political, cultural, social capital or lack thereof, sexual promiscuity, and place of employment.

Race. Characteristics associated with not being able to self-govern, hyper- masculine, aggressive, unable to control violent outburst.

Age. Characteristics were coded for non-sexual or hyper-sexual scripting.

Code-switching. Variations in resistance and reinforcement of heteronormative scripting were investigated by tracking the number of times that each character performed either a stereotypical masculine or feminine behavior, action, or was shown as gendered in interactions with others. This helped to account for the media’s practice of alternating

(code-switching) between different masculine characteristics in character development.

To account for code-switching I tracked the number of times per episode each character code-switched between superior and inferior masculine statuses in framing. By counting the number of times each character displayed a code-switching characteristic, I was able to isolate the variables of race, age, and class to analyze gender and sexuality within hegemonic masculine narratives. The themes were then broken down by language, attitudes, and activities.

The variables of sexuality, gender, and family were held constant in various incidents, such that the intersections of age, race, and class within heteronormativity and hegemonic masculinity could be identified. For instance, Shameless and Six Feet Under assisted in analyzing gender and sexuality, as they intersect with race and class, and in one case age. Grace and Frankie maintained the parameters and consistency of a range of variables but also allowed for an analysis of both masculinity and sexuality in the over sixty population.

CHAPTER IV

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

A Marxist intersectional theoretical framework was used to examine how gay characters were represented. As heteronormative in TV shows. Using frame and textual analysis, the data revealed that while the programs Shameless, Six Feet Under, and Grace and Frankie all challenged heteronormativity in some way they also reasserted both heteronormativity and hegemonic masculinity.

Coding for heteronormativity revealed that although characters were often framed and narrated as gender fluid, the programs relied heavily on “traditional” and “ideal” gender roles to script masculine and feminine characteristics. Code-switching was identified because the gender representations of the gay characters within these series were inconsistent through both masculine and feminine framing, scripting, and narrating in varying degrees. Ian, Mikki, Caleb, and Trevor from Shameless, and David and Keith from Six Feet Under all contained masculine characteristics through their athletic bodies and male-dominated career choices. Robert’s (Grace and Frankie) masculinity, on the other hand, was framed through idle class masculinity. Also, both Ian and Keith showed less striking feminine characteristics contrasted with other personalities. When in the home or within relationships, Kash (Shameless), Mikki, Caleb, Trevor, Robert, and David were framed and scripted as more masculine whether it was because they were of older age, possessing an athletic physique, possessing class power, or playing “top” or

“bottom” within their sexual encounters. Whereas, Sol, (Grace and Frankie) Ian, and

Keith regularly displayed more feminine characteristics in the home and their

24 relationships whether it was by tending to younger children, taking care of household chores, or having emotions attributed to weakness. Shameless, Six Feet Under, and Grace and Frankie allowed for gender flexibility in character development, however, under a range of different variables media representations constructed gender heteronormatively within the frame of family, relationship status, and careers utilizing factors external to gender such as age, class, and race to transform gender performances.

The media’s use of code-switching between superior and inferior masculine characteristics in character development was found to reinforce hegemonic principles of masculinity at the intersections of class, race, and age. In Shameless hegemony was maintained through multiple transformations in Ian’s class position. For example, Ian was depicted with both working class and middle class masculine statuses when in relationships with Mikki, Caleb and Trevor. In Six Feet Under hegemony was maintained by utilizing racial tropes and scripting Keith as violent, aggressive, and unable to control his emotions or maximize his resources. The program also centered in on whiteness, which is a critical component of hegemonic masculinity. The program Grace and

Frankie reinforced the hierarchies of age and masculinity by constructing masculinity through productivity and wealth. In that same program, Sol and Robert were constructed from a lens that reflected a decrease of their sexual libido which according to hegemonic ideology subordinates their masculine qualities. While hegemony was evident in all three programs, the intersections of class, race, and age of the gay characters were not represented in each of the shows. However, although not a part of this study, ableism as a result of a mood disorder, did emerge under the analysis of Shameless.

The variations, contradictions, and progressiveness in these programs are a strategy of capital accumulation. Shameless, Six Feet Under, and Grace and Frankie are different because of institutional structures in the economy. The growth of the cable industry provides useful niche markets where the advertising industry, television rating firms, and cable companies can mass market to diverse audiences (Gamson et al., 1992;

Hart, 2000; Meehan, 1990; Mersel, 2006). The strength of audience markets is that they establish advertising revenue which is a substantial component in fostering monopoly commercial domains (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000; Durham & Kellner, 2006; Gamson et al.,1992). Using irony, paradox, and parody, these shows engaged stereotypical expectations by challenging and reinforcing them.

Shameless

Showtime’s comedy-drama series Shameless portrays the dysfunctional Gallagher family that live in poverty on the south side of Chicago (Abbott & Wells, 2011). The character Ian is a member of the Gallagher family, and he engages in gay relationships with Kash, Mikki Milkovich, Caleb, and Trevor. Structuring Ian’s gender flexibility at the intersections of age, class, race, and notably able-bodiedness, the program relied heavily on heteronormative framing and hegemonic narratives. While heteronormative framing was consistent with traditional heterosexual norms and values, different aspects of identity performances within a hegemonic masculine narrative determined subject positioning. At the start of the series, Ian is a 15-year-old boy who is athletic, hyper- masculine, and in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). Throughout the first quarter of the series, Ian’s masculinity is constructed through aggression and athleticism.

For instance, Ian often physically fought with his older brother Philip or his father, Frank.

Furthermore, Ian is framed as an athlete with images of him running, working out, or in an athletic, intense career. As a military cadet, Ian is presented to be in control and authoritative. While the physique of Ian’s body makes him masculine, his experiences in various relationships are what construct his femininity. In season one, Ian is working at a market and has an affair with his boss, Kash. Kash is older than Ian, around his mid- thirties, and is married, Middle Eastern, and a Muslim. Both on the job and during sexual encounters, Kash is more authoritative, controlling, and sexually dominant. The factor that shifts Ian from being the aggressive, authoritative masculine athlete is his age in relation to Kash’s age. Ian is younger than Kash, so despite Ian’s physicality, he takes on a more submissive and feminine role.

Ian’s relationship status changed mid-season three, and thus, his experience and the expression of his femininity and masculinity did as well. Mikki, his new partner, is the son of a blue-collared homophobic father and has just returned home from juvenile hall. Their relationship is turbulent, and the feminine partner between the two is often

Ian. Mikki is the leader of a street gang and is scripted and framed as a hyper-masculine white urban underclass male. When Mikki and Ian lived together, the writers framed

Mikki as the financial provider. In contrast, Ian performed domestic skills and began to act as a caregiver for his youngest brother Liam and Mikki’s child. While the family frame positioned Mikki as more masculine than Ian, Mikki is less masculine in terms of class and sexual positioning. These types of gender performances in Shameless inconsistently mobilized identity.

The tension between Mikki and Ian’s class aspirations construct masculinity rooted in power. Other than the alcoholic father Frank, Ian and his family aspire for class

27 mobility, which is a prominent middle-class, American value. This aspiration allows the audience to root for the Gallagher family when socio-environmental factors prevent the characters from succeeding. Mikki, on the other hand, invokes symbolic aspects associated with the ‘urban underclass.’ Within the larger discourses of gay sexuality, the partner who is the receiver of sexual penetration is termed as the “bottom” signifying femininity, which in this case is Mikki. Mikki’s position in the lower hierarchies of class and sexuality subordinate his masculinity by relations of double deviance. Because Ian is continually striving for a better life even in the face of adversity his masculinity is associated with white middle-class norms and values. Mikki, on the other hand, is depicted as a delinquent unwilling to leave the underground economy, and thus, a failure per white man standards. As a failed white man, Mikki loses masculine power and becomes the partner who is sexually penetrated whereas Ian’s repeated penetration of

Mikki is a momentous symbol of manhood.

While Ian’s masculine status is superior to Mikki because of sexual positioning and middle-class values, his job history subordinates him to two of his other partners;

Caleb and then Trevor because they both hold and maintain responsible jobs, and Caleb is a fireman. They live in nice homes, wear expensive clothing, dine in beautiful restaurants, and come from middle-class families. Caleb is from a middle-class family of color, and his father is a pastor. While Caleb and Ian date, Caleb encourages Ian to become an emergency medical technician (EMT). However, Ian is reluctant because he fears disclosing that he is bipolar will disqualify him for the job. Caleb instructs Ian not to disclose the medical condition on his application, which allowed Ian to become an

EMT. Unfortunately, because Ian is struggling to manage his emotions, he is laid off.

When Ian and Caleb fought about Ian losing his EMT job, Caleb told Ian that everyone has stuff they have to deal with, so he needed to stop feeling sorry for himself. He then told Ian that he needed to “man up” and push past it. Within this context, the writers framed Caleb as a partner who could teach Ian how to gain employment in the middle- class sector and how to manage his emotions properly. With this same frame, the program was able to subordinate Ian’s masculinity at the intersection of mental health and class power relations (Battles & Hilton-Morrow, 2002; Coltrane & Messineo, 2000;

Eguchi et al., 2014; Gamson et al., 1992; Hart, 2000). While Ian lacks emotional stability and the tools needed to transform his class position successfully, Caleb mobilized class power rooted in the cultural capital necessary to compete in the middle-class job market.

The program continued to shape Ian’s sexuality and gender under the construct of able-bodiedness. Throughout three entire seasons, Ian is in a state of bipolar mania.

Within this portion of the series, Ian is a dancer at a gay night club. In this frame, Ian’s script makes him appear sexually promiscuous and effeminate. He wears a gold speedo and dances topless; Ian makes his masculine body a spectacle for the pleasures and desires of other men. By grinding on top of customers or providing sexual pleasure for patrons in the restroom, he is positioning himself as effeminate and using his sexuality to service older, wealthier men’s desires. Constructing Ian’s gender during a state of mania, gives the television audience a skewed representation of the sexuality and sexual behaviors of persons with a mood disorder (who have a psychological disability). More specifically, because Ian is acting hyper-sexually and appearing sexually promiscuous, he is conveying a stigmatized message that those with a psychological disability share in those same gender expressions, sexual identities, and lifestyle choices (Alcoff, 2000).

Under this same mania construct and paired with Ian’s desire to make something of himself, Ian then decides to become a crusader for social justice. Now personified as an advocate for social change, Ian tries to free queer youth from conversion therapy as a solution to cure homosexuality. He gathers a group of kids from the shelter, proclaims himself to be the “Gay Jesus,” and then blows up a van that belongs to the conversion camp. While this action is of extreme irony, it helps to remove notions of his sexuality, makes Ian’s mental state the ruler of his social actions, and lastly dismantles his middle- class values. In so doing, Ian has failed at maintaining his otherwise superior race and gender as a white man and, thus is destined to repeat the cycle of poverty.

Shortly before this time, Ian entered into a new relationship with Trevor a middle- class transgender man framed as educated and affluent. Trevor similar to Caleb has a secure job position running a shelter for LGBTQI+ youth and possesses various capital assets. Early in their relationship, Trevor educates Ian on how to be appropriately queered by educated, middle-class standards. While Ian is the more athletic and physically powerful within the relationship, he is subordinated by the class privilege that equipped

Trevor to use the higher order thinking skills necessary for interpersonal problem- solving. For example, the Gallagher family barred their father Frank from coming into the house. So, when Frank tried to force his way through the door, Ian blocked him and threatened to spray him with pepper spray. Trevor, in contrast, stepped in and reasoned with Frank by explaining to him why his actions and behaviors did not warrant breakfast at the Gallagher house. Even though Ian has the masculine characteristics of aggression and a body with physical strength, Trevor as a result of his class and emotional intelligence is also positioned to have masculine characteristics in the form of leadership,

30 greater self-control, and social space awareness. Consequently, the masculine characteristics of Trevor superseded those of Ian, making Trevor the more masculine partner in their relationship.

Television programming has constructed poverty as problematic and as a deviation from the normative paradigm of the upper-middle-class in the United States

(Leistyna, 2014). Because Shameless is a comedy-drama focused on general entertainment, it waters down the reality of social closure. Illustrations of class in this program reinforce cultural beliefs in individual merit and the principle of meritocracy.

The transgression of sexual and gender boundaries through the external facets of class, age, ability, and race momentarily contradict heteronormative principles within the images, scripts, and frames; that is this show did challenge the “natural” order of gender and sexuality. However, the producers succeeded in buffering against any discomfort and were able to reassert heteronormativity by ensuring that in most frames at least one of the partners was portrayed as the masculine one and the other as the feminine one. Or that one of the partners at the intersections of class and age was projected through a superior masculine lens (Bartholomaeus & Tarrant, 2015; Coltrane & Messineo, 2000; Hart, 2000;

Mersel, 2006; Poole, 2013). Because the producers used multiple strategies of gender transformation to create masculine hierarchies entrenched in power relations, the producers were able to reify hegemonic masculinity and traditional heteronormativity across Ian’s character.

Six Feet Under

Six Feet Under is a Home Box Office (HBO) production that ran from the years

2001 to 2005 (Ball, 2001). After this series was coded and analyzed the program revealed that gender could be scripted to fit stereotypical conceptions of white, heteronormative, middle-class men. The series is a family drama about the Fisher family who own and operate a funeral home in Los Angeles. The main character is David Fisher whose father died in the opening episode and is in an on-again, off-again relationship with Keith

Charles, a man of color. David at work, home, and within relationships is typically in control, authoritative, and stoic. Keith’s gender in comparison is more flexible and contradictory. He is an athlete, man of color, and over the series, he worked as a bodyguard, police officer, and security officer. Keith is scripted and framed as masculine; and at times, through images, he is portrayed as being violent, aggressive, and hyper- masculine. At the same time, however, Keith is also scripted as more feminine and framed as a homemaker through images of him cooking, cleaning, caring for children, and nurturing David. Scripting Keith as feminine in the home but hyper-masculine in his career blended his feminine and masculine characteristics. Keith in the public domain is framed and narrated as a protector. Keith’s physique is what personifies his masculinity, and his job responsibilities are centered around him defending the general public yet more specifically protecting white, rich men framed as incompetent and unable to protect themselves. In the private domain, Keith’s gender scripting relies heavily on historically constructed and deeply rooted American ideas of caretaking. Gender performances articulated at the intersections of class, race, family, and careers in this program, produced contradictory narratives, images, and discourses in masculinity and reasserted

32 heteronormativity. By scripting David through an ascendant lens of masculinity and situating Keith within gender plurality, the writers were able to reaffirm societal gender norms related to privilege (Donaldson, 1993; Dhaenens, 2011). The writers were also able to subordinate Keith’s masculinity by producing images of him through repeated violent, emotional outbursts communicating that he lacked self-control. These characteristics, according to hegemonic ideology, are not associated with the ascendant form of masculinity.

While Keith does not have a feminine physique, his feminine qualities are represented through stereotypical domestic family roles. For instance, he is often shown folding laundry, doing dishes, and even cooking with the kids. On the other side, David is seen living in his family’s home and dealing with family business. The producers despite

Keith having a very strong, masculine body, reinforce heteronormativity by positioning him into such gender specific domestic duties since David within a family frame is engaged in the masculine responsibilities (Collins, 1998; Dhaenens, 2011).

By the end of the series, David and Keith have taken in two foster boys named

Durrell and Anthony and are in the process of buying the Fisher home and family business. In the final episode of the series, David and Keith have moved into their new home and are sitting at the dinner table with Durrell and Anthony. David is seated at the head of the table which indicates that he is the male head of the household and given this position of authority because they have the two boys. While David and Keith’s family is not traditional in the logic of biological children, the narrative makes it clear that offspring define a “true” family. As the series comes to an end, the writers creatively take the audience through the future lives of the Fisher’s. David and Keith eventually establish 33 their domestic partnership and gender roles. As well, the audience is shown images of

David teaching Durrell the funeral business and Keith taking care of the home and family.

In the way that David and Keith negotiate family roles, their characters reasserted conventional heteronormative norms and values. David reflects the “ideal” or hegemonic conception of manhood in his narrations and frames. Keith supports both of the controlling ideas found to reinforce femininity and hegemonic masculinity– unpaid domestic labor such as caretaking and the inability to control his violent emotions. Thus he was framed according to the roles historically created through wage labor practices and state intervention in the family (Collins, 1998; Donaldson, 1993), and to associate

Keith’s racialized gender performances as subordinate through racialized performances of masculine characteristics. This gender framing is a key component of hegemonic masculinity. David and Keith’s domestic arrangement reiterates the ascendancy of white middle-class marriage (Collins; 1998; Donaldson, 1993) that materializes in a family environment (Collins, 1998; Hudis, 2018).

In this television series, David and Keith are represented as upper-middle class.

Manifestations of their financial security are displayed by images of David wearing tailored suits, providing for his entire extended family, spending income from the family business, and having access to private venture capital. Keith has money in retirement plans and stock, lives in a beautiful home, and wears expensive suits and casual clothing.

The intersections of race and class frame Keith’s gender performances, more specifically through narrations and metaphors with him struggling to self-govern, that is control his aggressive tendencies. For example, David and Keith get into a dispute. Keith grabs

David by the wrists and pins David to the wall. In season three episode one, while David and Keith are in couples counseling, Keith is argumentative, raises his voice, clinches his fists, and displays anger on his face. In this same episode, Keith and David got into an argument about their relationship, parenthood, and therapy. Keith did not want to discuss how his actions made David feel. So, David raised his voice and shouted, and then Keith got forceful. To account for his actions, Keith reminded David that he did not grow up in a home that talked things out. David responded by saying, “Yes I know, and I did not grow up in a house where violence was the answer to a dispute” (12:54–13:32).

Controlling images, narratives, and frames that construct David’s character with leadership qualities associated with middle-class white cultural capital make emotional encounters evidence that Keith’s character is unable to properly self-govern or maximize his resources, and thus produce different masculinities. The foundation for Keith’s gender performance is historical racial ideologies. More specifically those that linked people of color to intellectual inferiority or those which justified the denial of civil rights because they were stigmatized as being uncivilized (Collins, 1998). These cynical and dishonest dialogues are an artifact of racial ideology (Collins, 1998; Donaldson, 1993). By framing

Keith with access to economic capital but lacking other forms of capital needed to be a man in US society successfully, this program articulates and associates masculinity with leadership effectively subordinating maleness that does not live up to white middle-class standards.

In Keith’s position as a police officer, bodyguard, and a home security officer, he is routinely portrayed as an antagonistic person. Further, Keith’s body frame and how it is used violently to protect white clients contributes to the construction his masculinity. At

35 the same time, however, Keith is eventually forced to step down from his career in law enforcement because he severely beats a criminal he catches breaking into a home. While that occurrence is not within the sample of this study, the experience is so stressful that he continues to have flashbacks for the remainder of the series. He went from being a police officer to a security guard, which bruised his ego tremendously. For instance in episode thirteen of the second season, Keith informed David that he had been laid off.

The camera then shifted to a memory of Keith attacking a white man. Additionally, from mid-season four through season five, Keith becomes a bodyguard for a wealthy white gay client. In this position, Keith is often framed and narrated as violent, aggressive, and hyper-masculine. For instance, one-time Keith and his boss were at a popular gay venue, and Keith had to defend him from propagandistic rioters. Keith placed his body in front of his boss and redirected the crowd away from him hostilely. Interweaving narratives, frames, and scripting of Keith as physically forceful provides the audience with dominant messages and taken for granted assumptions about race relations (Hart, 2000; Poole,

2013). The primary effect of this framing is that it situates Keith’s character in contrasting identity groups and personifies deceptive discourses through mediated and hyperreal representations of men of color (Collins, 1998; Dhaenens, 2011).

The results of this assessment indicate that Keith’s gender through code-switching within complex racial hierarchies significantly altered Keith’s scripting episodically. Six

Feet Under reinforced racial stigmas by producing images, frames, and narratives of

Keith, a man of color, as violent. Because power relations rely on the process of social interaction, altering Keith’s scripting subordinates’ masculinities experienced by race disembodied from class (Hudis, 2018; Moran, 2018). While Keith is framed with

36 feminine characteristics and is a part of the upper-middle class, he is also athletic, hyper- masculine, and sometimes violent. Six Feet Under utilized Keith’s character to transgress gender norms, but by doing so, the program reasserted stereotypes about men of color and brutality. Exploiting dynamics outside gender to convert Keith’s gender performance, traps Keith in a dualistic heteronormative power relation that subjugates both his racialized masculinity and his domesticated femininity (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000;

Dhaenens, 2011; Poole, 2013). While this program offered diversity in gay characters and was inclusive of race, it still utilized traditional racial tropes and was centered on the

Fisher family business and whiteness. Keith who is a central character of the program is ultimately inconsequential. He only exists to serve the needs of David and the white men who cannot protect themselves.

Grace and Frankie

Grace and Frankie is a Netflix production about women and men in their late 70s

(Kauffman & Morris, 2015). In the first episode Sol and Robert, who are upper-class white men that own a law firm together announced that they were going to divorce their wives, Grace and Frankie, after 40 years of marriage to marry each other. The series is sexually liberal for a contemporary story about a family-centered on men and women in their 70s. Grace and Frankie are scripted and framed for a large portion of the series as entrepreneurs who produce sex toys and lubrication for women over 60. The series is quite forward-thinking in its construction of sexuality at the intersections of age for the female leads. Nevertheless, both Sol and Robert are often scripted and narrated in sexually conservative and neutral frames. By substituting sensual frames with narration, images, and scripting that constructs Sol and Robert’s gender performances through 37 work, wealth, family dynamics, and domesticity, the program downplays the sexuality of the leading gay couple. While both men are scripted and framed throughout the series with flexible gender performances. The use of heteronormative framing scripted Robert as more masculine than Sol at both work and home. For example, Robert at work is more authoritative and controlling. At home, he is often framed paying the bills and taking care of financial investments. Sol in contrast, at work, is less decisive and follows orders.

Furthermore, in the residence, Sol is framed as the homemaker more often than Robert and displays both anxiety and fear. While the program does offer challenges to heteronormativity, it ultimately mimics traditional heterosexual marriage norms by using dominant masculine and feminine characteristic’s to frame Sol and Robert’s relationship.

Which is ironic because, in both Sol and Robert’s marriages to Frankie and Grace the couples were not framed from a heteronormative perspective. Sol and Frankie both contained more femininized qualities such as irrationality, indecision, and being less authoritative in their heterosexual relationship. Whereas, Grace and Robert both encompassed more masculine qualities. Both Robert and Grace commanded authority, were decisive, and were authoritative in their heterosexual marriage.

The constructed identities for the leading characters on this television program were characterized by an edifice of the upper-middle class, which is an essential characteristic of hegemonic masculinity. This series supplied frames and discourses that made extreme wealth look not only desirable but attainable to the consumer audience.

Frankie and Grace constructed the wealthy masculinity of Sol and Robert in a variety of ways. Since wealth manifests materially, the demonstration of material wealth is a key strategy. For a while Sol and Robert continued working at their law firm. But they were

38 seldom in the office and instead were usually shown dining in expensive restaurants with the family. They also own a vacation beach home together with their ex-wives in La

Jolla, California where the real world worth of homes averages between 3.5 and 5 million dollars (Trulia.com). In the opening episode, Grace gathered up expensive art, gold statues, and luxurious furnishings that she then took to their beach house when leaving

Robert. Additionally, throughout the series, Sol and Robert entertained family, friends, and guests in their home where exotic and costly wines, foods, and rich desserts were consumed. Wealthy masculinity is also expressed through Robert and Sol’s wedding plans. Robert who is in charge of the ceremony, reception, and entertainment acquired pamphlets from several upscale venues. He also enlisted a wedding planner and instructed Sol to hire a caterer for the food. Sol planned the dinner menu and chose several highly selective seafood options such as salmon and halibut and at Robert’s demand also included prime rib as a red meat. Projecting masculinity through prosperity, this program obscured Sol and Robert’s sexualized gender identities while making it evident that the rich and powerful are paid well supplying a lucrative disposable income.

Masculinity operationalized through wealth in Sol and Robert’s characters constructs manhood as flexible so that characters can move between different discourses of affluence signified by consumption practices (Coltrane & Messineo, 2000; Dhaenens,

2011; Hart, 2000).

Further, the program also utilized Sol and Roberts wedding to highlight heteronormativity paradoxically. While Robert and Sol are at the dining room table writing vows, Robert looks over at Sol and tells him that he would like to have traditional vows. Sol responds to Robert with disdain and reminds Robert that traditional weddings

39 are tied to misogyny and homophobia (3:56). Using satire, the narrative situates mediated same-sex love in discursive cultural and political traditions by constructing Sol and

Roberts union through legally recognized same-sex matrimony practices. Manifesting Sol and Robert’s relationship discursively through marriage, this program supports traditional heterosexual norms tied to relationship longevity and monogamy (Gamson, 1998; Mersel,

2006).

Where the young gay body in Shameless is often framed as hyper-sexual and sexually curious, the aging gay body in Grace and Frankie is framed through a lens of asexuality. Sol and Robert are regularly framed from a construct of family, consumerism, and leisure that neutralizes their sexuality. Constructing plural gendered identities

(Mersel, 2006) through external structures of age, social status, and declining vitality,

Grace and Frankie leaned heavily on conservative frames that sexually “other” Sol and

Robert’s characters. In the opening episode, Frankie and Grace in the beach house are talking about how the two women could have missed that their husbands are gay.

Suddenly in a humorous narration, Frankie says, “Well I wish Robert luck because Sol needs Viagra” (6:44). Framing Sol as sexually dysfunctional, normalizes, problematizes, and subordinates older gay men’s masculinity (Bartholomaeus & Tarrant, 2015; Mersel,

2006). In this narrative, Sol is framed from a construct of age at the intersections of sexuality and sexual dysfunction. The program Grace and Frankie reasserts hegemony by inverting Sol’s sexuality and by utilizing commentary that relies on chronological masculinity scripts.

This show seemed uncomfortable representing the sexuality of older gay men.

Robert and Sol are only framed in three episodes that scripted, narrated, or provided

40 images of them as sexually active older adults. At the end of season one, Sol sleeps with his ex-wife Frankie. This causes a rift in Robert and Sol’s relationship. They take the advice of a friend and their therapist about incorporating some sexual spice into their routine. Robert and Sol agree to have Roy, a friend from the theater group, over for dinner. At dinner, Roy flirts with both Sol and Robert which causes jealousy and a fight that leads to make-up sex. However, Sol and Roberts sex act is implied through scenes of

Robert sauntering out of the bedroom in a velvet robe and Sol with a smile cooking breakfast rather than shown as an intimate performance typical on shows such as

Shameless. In the last episode of season four, Roy sexually stimulates Sol and Robert by caressing their ears. This causes Sol to jump up and ask Roy to leave. Roy, in turn, figures out he is being used and gets offended. This requires Sol and Robert to continue the dinner and put off their sexual desires for each other. As the scene continues into season five episode one, Sol and Robert are in the kitchen doing the dinner dishes, and

Roy enters naked (3:01). Robert and Sol look at each other and freeze. Both men hesitate, and then Robert falls to the ground as if he has fainted (5:02). Sol then bends down and asks Robert why he pretended to faint, and Robert responded, “I did not know what else to do” (6:43). While the writers set up a three-way, which is consistent with stereotypical discourses that assume gay men have far more sex than heterosexual couples and with different partners, they do not go through with it. Instead, this failure emasculates Robert and Sol’s characters as gay men and constitutes sexual ambiguity. Offering frames and scripts of sexuality about older adults that cleverly reasserts heteronormativity, Sol and

Robert are framed and narrated as monogamous and mostly asexual. While framing does

41 not explicitly imply asexuality, it complicates the process of masculinity by upholding sexually neutral frames for older gay adults.

Because this show is marketed to both older and younger heterosexual females and has Jane Fonda as one of the leading female characters (whose carrier has been built on female sexuality through her iconic character Barbarella (1968), it celebrates feminine heterosexuality at the intersections of age. Grace and Frankie’s femininity is centered on sexuality. Robert and Sol’s masculinity, in contrast, is constructed through productivity and narratives that obscure sexual acts. Engaging anecdotes that result in sexual incongruencies, this program often frames gender in a way that promotes disparities at the margins of age and masculinity. As older men who are wealthy and white, Sol and

Robert are allotted social status, but as older gay men they experience a decline in both sexuality and masculinity (Bartholomaeus & Tarrant, 2015). This framing is consistent with the literature that finds that the media often neutralizes sexuality in marketing older gay characters, because they fear the audience may be homophobic (Coltrane &

Messineo, 2000; Mersel, 2006). It also articulates white upper-middle-class norms and values. Robert and Sol chose to leave their wives of 40 years for each other. Grace and

Frankie are liberated and can explore their sexuality but Sol and Robert, as failed white men, are homonormatively framed and denied sexual pleasure.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

The television series Shameless, Six Feet Under, and Grace and Frankie are all distributed through subscription television. Subscription television offers more creative license because the FCC places looser restrictions on it than network television, which gives writers more autonomy (Hart, 2000; Gamson et al., 1992). In the twenty-first century, many cable television shows appropriate lifestyle choices through imagery, narratives, and framing in a complex and shifting dynamic that incorporates a broader range of individual contradictions in material conditions dialectically and intersectionally

(Coltrane & Messineo, 2000; Gamson et al., 1992). As a valuable marketing strategy,

Shameless, Six Feet Under, and Grace and Frankie used progressive and transgressive gender representations that emphasized social, cultural, and political paradoxes in a neo- liberal landscape. The clever construction of both femininity and masculinity in gay character development in these programs offers audience members both dramatized and comedic mediated identities that represent a more substantial portion of the demographic population of the gay community in the United States. Unfortunately, corporate voices construct the narrative discourses of gender both hegemonically and heteronormatively within the frame of family, relationship status, and careers. The fictional lived realities of these personalities do little to promote real social change. Instead, the framing, scripting, images, and narration reinforce and reproduce heteronormativity and hegemonic masculinity within a capitalist consumer society. Offering exciting and politically safe program substance to upscale consumers in segmented markets, it was observed that

43 these programs often incorporated narratives, images, frames, and scripting that relied on stereotypical constructs associated with historical dialogues that narrated white heteronormative upper-middle class men as biologically superior. Also, while more media conglomerates are producing television programs with LGBTQI+ characters, it perceptibly does little to broaden wider cultural beliefs. Because television broadcasting relies on advertising revenue and a rating market, it produces insincere imagery intended to reinforce the current social and political environment in American society (Coltrane &

Messineo, 2000).

The variable of age is of particular interest in this study. It was noted that even if

Ian is characterized in a frame to possess masculine characteristics such as his physique, if his partner is older, then the masculine traits of his partner are represented by stronger, more dominant forms of masculinity, i.e. hegemonic masculinity, and thus subordinate

Ian into the feminine position. This finding suggests that there is an intersection between age and sexuality, and that gay men of younger age who possess masculine characteristics are presented as the feminine partner when their partner is both older and possessing some form of masculine traits as well. It is recommended that future research on the intersection of sexuality and age consider variations of gender expression of the older partner, that is, an older partner who does not possess masculine characteristics to begin with.

The limitations of this study include one of the programs (Six Feet Under), which is a 19 year old television series. This program may therefor include gender representations that are culturally relevant for that time period which could have impacted the framing of gendered characteristics. This study also employed a small set of

44 unique television programs as the sample. Although these television programs are a distinctively useful source of evidence that offer insights into the construction of gender in gay relationships, the results are nongeneralizable. Another limitation yet noteworthy recommendation for future research is the length of the programs. Shameless is nearly twice as long as the other two series; the reason this is important is that the identities, personalities, and traits of characters in TV films grow and change through each season.

Because Ian is presented with more experiences and opportunities to shape and construct his identities, the researcher could observe the various intersections of his race, age, gender, class, and abilities. Six Feet Under and Grace and Frankie were shorter which could have limited the potential development and representations of the LBGTQI+ characters. However, while outside the parameters of this study, it was noted there were several occurrences of hybrid masculinities within each series. A researcher might investigate how television constructs safe saleable masculinities across contemporary media programs. A study of this magnitude would be beneficial in helping researchers develop a practical critique of competing forms of masculinity and how the media represents manhood at the intersections of race, class, ability, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, geographical locations, and age in popular twenty-first-century television programming.

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