Up from Invisibility

by Gross, Larry P.

• ISBN13: 9780231119528
• ISBN10: 0231119526
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-12-01
• Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr

Summary

A half century ago gay men and lesbians were all but invisible in the media and, in turn, popular culture. With the lesbian and gay liberation movement came a profoundly new sense of homosexual community and empowerment and the emergence of gay people onto the media's stage. And yet even as the mass media have been shifting the terms of our public conversation toward a greater acknowledgment of diversity, does the emerging "visibility" of gay men and women do justice to the complexity and variety of their experience? Or is gay identity manipulated and contrived by media that are unwilling -- and perhaps unable -- to fully comprehend and honor it? While positive representations of gays and lesbians are a cautious step in the right direction, media expert Larry Gross argues that the entertainment and news media betray a lingering inability to break free from proscribed limitations in order to embrace the complex reality of gay identity. While noting major advances, like the opening of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore -- the first gay bookstore in the country -- or the rise of The Advocate from small newsletter to influential national paper, Gross takes the measure of somewhat more ambiguous milestones, like the first lesbian kiss on television or the first gay character in a newspaper comic strip.

Table of Contents

Preface	xiii
The Mediated Society	1	(20)
Mass Media and American Society	1	(5)
Television as the Mainstream	6	(6)
Sexual Minorities and the Media	12	(5)
Subversion and Resistance	17	(4)
Coming Out and Coming Together	21	(19)
The Homosexual in Midcentury America	21	(3)
Giving Voice to the Voiceless	24	(5)
Provoking Concern	29	(3)
The Voice Gets Louder	32	(5)
Coming Out in the Nation's Living Rooms	37	(3)
Stonewall and Beyond	40	(16)
``Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees Stinging Mad''	40	(3)
``Turning Their Condition into Politics''	43	(3)
Expressing Outrage	46	(4)
Talking Back to the Media	50	(6)
At the Movies	56	(25)
``A Queer Feeling Every Time I Look at You''	56	(4)
``Show Me a Happy Homosexual and I'll Show You a Gay Corpse''	60	(4)
Friedkin Delivers Gay Corpses	64	(3)
Getting the Word Out	67	(4)
Gay Films for Straight Audiences	71	(4)
Universal or Particular?	75	(6)
Television Takes Over	81	(13)
New Medium, Old Message	81	(4)
No Sex, Please, We're Queer	85	(9)
Aids and the Media	94	(16)
Rumors of a ``Gay Cancer''	94	(2)
Circling the Wagons	96	(3)
Natural Squeamishness	99	(5)
Media Activism in a Crisis	104	(6)
Journalism's Closet Opens	110	(21)
Burying and Marrying	110	(3)
All the News Not Fit to Print	113	(5)
The Gray Lady Goes Gay	118	(7)
Coming Out in the Newsroom	125	(6)
Breaking the Code of Silence	131	(12)
Naming Names	131	(4)
Outing the Pentagon	135	(4)
Kinda Ask, Sorta Tell	139	(4)
Hollywood Under Pressure	143	(13)
AIDS Victims and Villains	143	(4)
A Kinder, Gentler Hollywood	147	(3)
Queering the ``Straight'' Text	150	(6)
Hollywood's Gay Nineties	156	(28)
``I feel pretty and witty and . . . Hey!''	156	(8)
Still Villainous After All These Years	164	(5)
Sad Young Men	169	(8)
Some of My Best Friends Are Celibate	177	(7)
Beyond Prime Time	184	(24)
Adam and Steve and Phil and Oprah	184	(4)
The Tongue-Tied Public Square	188	(7)
Getting Over the Rainbow	195	(6)
Locker-room Closets	201	(7)
Morning Papers, Afternoon Soaps	208	(13)
Coming Out in the Comics	208	(8)
You're the First Person I Have Ever Told	216	(5)
Old Stories and New Technologies	221	(12)
The Good Parts	221	(6)
Somewhere There's a Place for Us	227	(6)
A Niche of Our Own	233	(19)
Movement to Market	233	(11)
Are We Being Served?	244	(8)
Facing the Future	252	(13)
Visibility and Its Discontents	252	(6)
Looking Backward	258	(7)
Sources	265	(8)
Bibliography	273	(16)
Index	289