The Portrayal Of Homosexuals In Hollywood

The Portrayal Of Homosexuals In HollywoodSince the 1960s, Hollywood film industry has typically treated and portrayed homosexuals as subject of negative stereotypes and kind pariahs. Queer identities might be the most extreme sexual dynamic at work in mass culture and reception and the least respected. amusing representations in the media have been considered to be an immoral code and as homosexuality was introduced into popular culture, the comical and lesbian community was oppressed from the start. Later film and video recording attempted to create well-rounded homosexual characters but often continued to reinstate negative social conventions with great attention in depicting gay stereotypes and how they shaped the publics impression of the gay community. Historically, heterosexuality has been seen as a crucial factor in defining maleness and homosexuals have been perceived as absentminded masculinity and in a sense feminine.Western patriarchal culture and system sees a sim ple interpretation of gay men and homosexual identities be oppressed within structures of domination and privileged. On the field of let on theory, the using up of dumbfound images, references and representations by mass media has not been seen in a positive light. crotchet popularity in advertising is not considered politically significant but instead commercialized. Queer politics expects that queers should be shocking and radical while being subversive. In reality, commercialized queer aesthetics makes it a mass media commodity, in which processed queerness loses its radical edge. As discussed in lecture, Adorno under the Grand Narratives of new(a)ity capably states, Humans are not individuals or subjects, but rather commodities, objects and products of consumption with no unique characteristics so that they are easily and readily replaceable (Queerying Modern Law Lecture 2011). Mass media reference are all considered heterosexual, and mass medias no matter how commercial ized cannot shock, disturb or upset its paying hetero audience too much. Queer images in mass media are usually domesticated to ensure conservatism since being queer represented sexual glamour and exoticism. Images of queer identities in the media have nothing to do with equality between genders and sexualities (Mistry, 2000). The actual processes of commercializing and aestheticizing queer are in fact capitalistic utilization that colonizes queer identities. It makes use of the otherness of gay people which only to maintain heterosexual hegemony (Roseneil 2000 154).As part of a social and mass culture revolutionary movement, the television serial publication Queer as Folk (North American Version) portrays masculinity in a noticeably progressive way due to the overtly sexual nature of the certify and the fact that all of the characters are homosexuals. Queer as Folk, in many ways, attempts to broaden the category of normative masculinity to include gay men. All the while, the seria l publication flaunts and celebrates a non-normative and hegemonic masculinity most notable through the actions and characteristics of main character- Brian Kinney-a successful and right-looking 29-year-old with extreme arrogance, narcissism and sexual promiscuity. The series when viewed closer, subconsciously relates to queer identity, politics, masculinity and acceptance. Queer as Folk significantly function as the relation between queer politics and queer aesthetics.Queer as Folk (North American Version) is set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and follows the lives of five gay men Brian, Justin, Michael, Emmett, Ted a lesbian couple, Lindsay and Melanie and Michaels mother Debbie. The show is based off a British series by the same name written by Russell T. Davies, a homosexual who wanted to fill the void within the British media of homosexual characters. It deals with issues that define queer politics and identities coming protrude, same-sex marriage, gay adoption, discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation, recreational drug use and abuse, artificial insemination, vigilantism, gay-bashing/violence, HIV-positive status, underage prostitution, actively gay Catholic priests, the internet pornography industry. The main characters are Brian, Justin and Michael, three male homosexuals who spend their time in the pubs and clubs of Pittsburghs Liberty Ave. The protagonists personify changes and new gayness- a modern phenomena in cultural representations of homosexuality as compared to their predecessors. In a world of almost compulsory heterosexuality, gay men and lesbians reality are rendered equally marginal and inconspicuous (Robson 1998 6). Postmodernism question the earlier approaches, through defined discourses of homosexuality. In comparing the representations of degenerated gay guys with pre 1990s identity problems, these modern gay men have become out and proud heroes who praised the culture despite being reset from social marginality.Heg emonic masculinity is a widely used concept that refers to masculinity that holds the power in the ordination (Sipil 1994 19). In Western societies, hegemonic masculinity associates white, middle-class, and heterosexual masculinity to power and influence. According to Connell, hegemonic masculinity is not a fixed character type, always and everywhere the same. It is, rather, the masculinity that occupies the hegemonic piazza in a given pattern of gender relations, a position always contestable (Connell, 1995a 76). Masculinities that are not in the power position are subordinated or marginalized homosexuals. Oppression positions homosexual masculinities at the bottom of a gender hierarchy among men. Gayness, in patriarchal ideology, is the repository of whatever is symbolically expelled from hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1995a 78). Queer as Folk reveals, by exaggeration, excessive gay sex, cultural gay stereotypes, which traditionally reduce gayness to hyper sexuality and gender -bending.The show provocatively focuses on representing free time and sexuality of gay guys. It focuses heavily on their parties, alcohol, drugs, and multiple one-night stands, in which people are mainly seeking hedonistic sexual pleasure. It produces Butlerians mind of gender as performative in a way that embarrasses and confuses the viewers (Butler, 1993). The repetitive and explicit representations of sex acts become gender performance, in which the gender identities are very represented by sex. Although the show produced queer aesthetics and making use of its fashionable appeal in today culture (Mistry 2000 87) it is participating by watering down queers critical and political edge. All the while, it supports underlying queer political and provocative tasks. For example the show focus primarily on proud, healthy and wealthy, good looking and lively gays and lesbians that contradict traditional images of gay and lesbian representations usually represented as melancholic, devia nt, degenerated, sickly, and dying men and women (Lahti 1989 and Paasonen, 1999 40). On the other hand it to a fault declares gay rights and, more subtly, queer politics. As seen in a poster that states, Smash the Heterosexual Orthodoxy, and especially in Brians behavior.Brian clearly is a politically sensitive and hetero norms resisting person, usually responsible for explicitly constructing his own queer identity. For example, a sequence where Brian, a gay man, and Melanie, a lesbian woman, walk together with their baby (in doing so they are rebelling and falsely representing a nuclear family indicating the illusiveness of such representations) and kiss goodbye before Brian goes alone to a railcar dealership. The salesman in the store watches through a window of the family performance and with no question believes what he sees is a normal, productive, heterosexual family. Based on this the salesman tries to convince Brian that he should buy some other car than the one he has alr eady chosen, because lots of gay guys drive that car, and it doesnt really fit into an image of a family guy, and a real man. He then adds that the resale pass judgment of those particular cars is high, because gay guys die young. Brian is aggressively and clearly annoyed of the remark and maliciously drives the car through the car stores window right in appear of the upset salesmans desk when it was time to pay for the car.Word CitedButler, Judith. (1993). Bodies That Matter. On the Discursive Limits of Sex. New York Routledge.Connell, R.W. 1995a. The Social Organization of Masculinity. In Connell, R.W. Masculinities, 67-86. Cambridge Polity Press.Lahti, Martti. (1992) Partial and excessively masculinity and the mans body. Womens Studies. 52.Mistry, Reena. (2000). From Heart and Home to a Queer Chic. A Critical Analysis of ProgressivePaasonen, Susanna. (1999) Now And forever rewind . Weddings media spectacle. Contemporary Culture Research publication 61.Robson, Ruthann. (1998). Sappho goes to justness school Fragments in Lesbian Legal Theory. Columbia University Press.Roseneil, Sasha. (2000). Postmodern changes in sexuality Queer framework and its influences 2 2000.Sipil, J. (1994). Mens Studies Cracks in Hegemonic Masculinity. In Sipil, J. A. Tiihonen (eds.). Constructing Man, Deconstructing Masculinities. 17-33. Tampere Vastapaino.