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What Amazon's "Glitch" Says About American Pop CultureIt's not just shows and movies created by straight people that emphasize the "sex" in homosexuality: almost every episode of Logo's animated gay series Rick & Steve is rife with explicit sexual humor, and Showtime's official poster for the final season of The L Word could easily be mistaken for an adult film if you didn't know the show:
Why does this matter anyway? Isn't it just entertainment? Yes, but entertainment is our common cultural currency. It's where we see ourselves reflected, and it's one of the primary ways we learn about people who are different from us. When we are reduced to our sexuality, we are seen as other — something less than full human beings, and therefore less deserving of equal rights. When we are not presented three-dimensionally, it becomes more difficult for many heterosexuals to identify with us, because there's no common ground. Whether it's making it more difficult to find LGBT books on Amazon because they are "adult," preventing a high-school gay-straight alliance from meeting because the school doesn't sanction sexual activity, or making it easier for anti-gay activists to block gay marriage, these media images have a negative impact on our lives. To be fair, it's possible to excuse many of the sexualized pop culture portrayals of queer people on an individual basis, and yes, there are more well-rounded portrayals of queer people than there ever have been — but they are still outnumbered by the one-dimensional portrayals. And overall, American pop culture still clearly presents a distorted version of what it means to be gay or bisexual, which is one of the reasons we continue to critique it on AfterEllen.com and AfterElton.com. This weekend, people of all sexual orientations all over the world used Twitter to express their outrage to Amazon, and took to blogs and email to call out the new filtering system — and it worked. Amazon is scrambling now to fix what has turned into a PR disaster for them. But perhaps if we speak out more often against the stereotypes perpetuated by the Lesbian Vampire Killers and Krod Mandoon's of the world, we may prevent another "glitch" like this from happening in the first place. Submitted by on Mon, 2009-04-13 02:29. |
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News, Reviews & Commentary on Gay and Bisexual Men in Entertainment and the Media
It's Old Double- Standard
"Sex" (meaning straight) is OK. Just look around you. EVERYTHING the culture sells is sex-related. Good grief there are Viagra commercials in "The Family Hour"! But when it's "Gay" -- well then that's just too dangerous. It measn "Sex PLUS." Kind of like what hysterical homophobe Paul Cameron says about gay sex being so powerful. In pop entertainemnt this is a tough row to hoe.
Consdier Ugly Betty (which I adore.) Mark is a terifically funny gay character who we're invited to laugh with rather than at. They even gave him a boyfriend for awhile. His relationship with Cliff was quite sweet and not at all about sex in the usual sense. it was a romance. Too bad it didn't continue. Best of all it has a gay teenager, Justin. But he hasn't had sex (at least in the visible part of show) as yet. Marshall on United States of Tara is another gay teen, and even more complicated. As its cable they can (and probably will) go farther. Must have teens on the brain cause I'm now thinking of Eric on Gossip Girl. He seems to have had sex, and currently has a nice boyfriend. In many ways he's the shpow's moral center. But alas he's a minor character.
Needless to say this is only part of a much larger cultural and political issue.
Nice to see the way we made Amazon blink. And so quickly too.
What the general population
What the general population likes to see are gays in they cutesy and flamboyant portrayals. To portray them as anything but such, would be too shocking to their minds. There a rarely any characters that have every been shown to ever be either not obsessed with sex and mentioned or somebody who is flamboyant. What the entertainment industry needs to finally portray is gays that are well-rounded people that contribute to society like the ones in real life hopefully.
They only like to use gays for comedic purposes which is highly wrong. I think sometimes about pre-civil rights jokes and wonder if they were as bad as some of the gay jokes and portrayals are.
well, i have never....
i have never seen 'The L word' but all i know is i am waiting for the day I can watch a gay woman in a tv show that isn't experimenting or trying to get a man off by being with a woman.
I don't know why it's so hard. you can still have your character have a love/sex life, but god.....more depth please.
it use to be an easier thought to have a lesbian on tv and stuff than a gay man, because that was more taboo. i wonder...why, when and how did that change?
Censorship storm
Some one at Amazon did this on purpose with the intent to ban gays. Someone has a name and that someone needs to
stretch their neck out on the blockstand up and take credit for this before I buy at Amazon again.It has also been reported that Amazon first excused this as a "policy."
Mark Probst, wrote to Amazon who admitted to him that all books on gay topics were purposely targeted to be banned, Probst reborts that a book of Playboy centerfolds is not.
But since then Amazon has changed it to a category "glitch" shit storm, Probst links a Publishers Weekly item, with the current Amazon excuse.
Part of the problem, as you report it, stems from the core of the Gay rights Movement, which had it's roots in the Sexual Revolution. While the Sexual Revolution seems to have come and gone, Gay Rights are still perceived in that early light. In the 70s two men having sex was a revolutionary act. Now it's just sex. Yet, as you point out, a stigma pervades.
I guess we shouldn't be too surprised...
I guess we shouldn't be too surprised, though, that the world still perceives us merely in sexual terms.
Arguably, heterosexuals are defined by their sexuality but have been so accepted for so many thousands of years as "normal" that people don't even realize it is a major defining characteristic.
Everybody here (and indeed every article I ever read) overtly or covertly tells us that homosexuality is ONLY about sex--that we are "just like heterosexual people...uh...except for the sex part." I agree that it's a little more complex than just that, but until the day we don't have to use that phrase it will remain our explanation.
Overall, what really makes us different than anybody else if it ISN'T just about our sexuality? I do a LOT of things just like my hetero friends and I even look like them, too. We have different hair, eye, skin color, certainly, but what makes me different from them? Some of use differ in our choices of entertainment or leisure activities. Hmm...what could it be...I know I'm different from them in some significant way, but I can't put my finger on it. Is it because I was born in Colorado, but that guy I work with was born in California? No...that's not what I meant. Gosh, I guess the only thing that really makes me different from him is that I like guys instead of girls.
OH MY GOD! That's why I'm different! But wait...I don't just LIKE men...I imagine myself in a happy relationship with one. WOW! I guess it really will lead to sex at some point (hopefully)!
OH SHIT! I'm doing just what I said made me mad at the heteros! I'm making being gay all about sex! Bad Gay Man! Bad!
Hypocrisy?
Audible.com Does It Too...
Almost 2 years ago while subscribed to Audible, I explored the Gay/Lesbian category. What I found (and blogged about) was that of the top 15 titles in that category, #5 thru #14 were all porn stories by Susie Bright. Susie commented that she was a gay liberationist, but I was looking more for stories like Attack Of The Theater People.
Even today when I take a look, the top storeis at Audible are still porn, "Lads Get Lucky" series apparently.
Hmmmm
Double standard again?
Agreed..
Well said T.W. - a double standard does exist. It is also worth mentioning that there is a difference between embracing sexuality and being defined by it. Though AfterElton has the Hot 100 (a poll that I will be contributing to shortly), it also provides stories about gay entertainment that have nothing to do with sex. The stories on this site compliment each other and, taken together, they form a representation of gay men that goes far beyond the sex-obsessed characterture that typifies most other representations in American pop culture.
In short, I appreciate the work done to maintain such a quality site.
Great Article!
I knew if I waited a couple of minutes some of you folks
would step in and point this out. As we say in the article, there is nothing wrong with sex and we're happy to embrace that. But we also recently did a poll of the fifty greatest gay books, the fifty greatest gay movies, in less than an hour we're interviewing Rev. Mel White and tomorrow's article is an interview with Jake Nodar, the first out gay man to ever appear on The Discovery Channel.
It's all about balance and the point of the article is that when it comes to the traditional popular culture, that balance is sorely lacking.
Let's consider this a moment
In a pre-sexual context, like Disney explores, how much difference would there be between same-gender friends and a "gay" couple?
The drama of boys and girls, which are generally separate cliques until puberty breaks down the "cooties" barrier, is obvious to their audience and something they can easily relate to.
It get more murky with gay characters and that's not a level of dramatic sophistication Disney Channel deals with where everything is like safety scissors.
Disney
While I agree with you that the boundary between portraying friends or more in a adolescent, pre-teen or child context is murky, I don't think this excuses the Disney Channel in any way. They make a ridiculous amount of money from hypersexed children (Hannah Montana, for example?). Even the cartoon movies revolve around twu wuv between a male and female character. Disney deals with sexual or romantic content all the time whether it's through their characters or their performers. But as soon as the question of gay content comes up, it becomes a "pre-sexual" channel where the bf/gf aren't even about sex?
It's romantic content in the world of Disney
I highly suggest you check out "Tinker Belles and Evil Queens" from a non-Amazon retailer. And this: http://www.comicmix.com/news/2008/07/17/interview-greg-weisman-talks-gargoyles/
I think we're getting close to the template with HSM, though. There is a half-heartedness with Chad and Taylor... A f.h. quality with Ryan and Kelsi... And there is a major difference in Chad's relation with Troy and Ryan. His duet in HSM3 with Troy is platonic, even brotherly. "I don't dance" is not. And that Chad/Taylor duet... oh wait... I think it's possible Chad and Ryan showing up together in a HSM reunion movie as a throwaway gag may well happen one day. As might a new version of Spin 'n' Marty recording tween love duets the way the Camp Rock kids do. TV will go there first, most likely.
I've been wondering recently
Just Another Victim
www.bandfags.com
To put another double standard forward
No self control
I guess the thing that angered me the most
Was the feeling of being erased again. Coming out is so damn hard, and even friends will give you the old "Do we have to talk about this? I'm your friend, I don't care who you sleep with," Which translates into "Fine, you're gay, please don't share any details." There only seem to be two modes that many straight people can process, the happy neuter sassy gay, and the sexual predator, and if you aren't the former, you must be the latter. By defining everything we do in terms of our sexuality and claiming that topic is off limits, they render us invisible. So a public kiss, or a touch, or a smile between two people of the same gender who care about each other, becomes "forcing your lifestyle on the rest of us." I celebrate my sexuality, but I also celebrate all the rest of being gay, falling in love, building a family, being part of a community. If they get away with erasing that, they succeed in reducing us to the sad stereotype that the religious right claims we are.
Nous Sommes Tous Sauvages.
I couldnt agree more...