Using videorecorded data from canvassing interviews between activists and voters in Los Angeles, this thesis examines the ideologies of sexuality that emerge in conversation through the interactive construction of argumentative reasoning and socio-semiotic processes of ideological representation. Analysis focuses on the discursive connections canvassers and voters draw between attitudes toward LGBT politics and beliefs about what causes a person to be gay or bisexual. In contrast to ideologies circulated by the mass media, the data demonstrate broad variation in how voters' stances on politics and morality are tied to their own presentations of self and whether they believe homosexuality is something people choose, are influenced toward, or are born with. Nonetheless, canvassers misrecognize this variation and generate restrictive ideological representations through processes of iconization, erasure, and dichotomic replication. In order to better promote LGBT political causes, I call on activists to rethink their persuasive strategies in light of these findings.
Since the early 1970s, an important but under-examined subgenre of Made-for-Television Movies have foregrounded critical LGBT concerns, including coming out, parental custody, HIV/AIDS, gays in the military, and hate crimes or featured affirmative LGBT representations. These programs, often highly-rated and critically-acclaimed, were nonetheless sites of political contestation from social conservatives and LGBT activists. Through the lenses of critical media pedagogy, critical cultural studies, and critical media industries studies, this dissertation conducts a critical cultural history of LGBT TV movies. This history includes critical case studies of twenty seminal LGBT programs featuring original interviews with the producers, executives, and writers responsible for their pedagogical design. The evidence reflects how these programs helped frame these concerns, educate audiences, and advocate on behalf of the LGBT community. This research further suggests how progressive pedagogues and media producers might collaborate to help address other social issues through the use of critical entertainment.
LGBT/Q film festivals are an integral part of the social practice of queer film culture. They are places where social, political and economic discourses intersect and where LGBT/Q identities, representation through film, definitions of queer cinema, community and global queer politics are negotiated. The festivals themselves are constantly responding to the changing surroundings and demands from stakeholders such as their audience base, the communities they want to serve, and economic and political stakeholders. The versatile, ever evolving form of the festival speaks to its performative formation. Therefore, the concepts of performativity, the performative and performance lend themselves to the analysis of the mechanisms and processes at play there. This study, situated at the intersection of film and media studies, sociology and queer theory, builds its arguments on the interdisciplinary field of film festival studies, and sets out to argue for the value of applying the concepts of the performative, performativity and performance to the study of film festivals in general, and LGBT/Q film festivals in particular. As the discussion of the concepts in chapter 1 show, the performative as developed by Austin in language philosophy and its further transposition to performativity in the theorizations of philosophy and literature by Derrida, for gender/queer theory by Butler, and performance for ethnography by Turner, and in theater/performance studies by Fischer-Lichte and McKenzie provides a versatile analytical arsenal for the analysis of film festivals. At the same time it is highly compatible with other existing concepts and theorizations such as event, public sphere, and networks and flows that have already been canonically applied to festival studies. In chapter 2, I mobilize the historical dimension of the performative to discuss the formation of LGBT/Q film festivals and their circuit. There, I sketch out the historical development of the LGBT/Q film festival while paying attention also to the larger social, political, geographic, and economic contexts. The discursive historiography is accompanied by an empirical one, where I analyze the growth pattern and global spread of the LGBT/Q film festival circuit. Along with the global perspective, a discussion of US-American (Frameline, NewFest, MIX NYC), German (Lesbisch Schwule Filmtage Hamburg, Verzaubert, Berlinale Teddy Award) and Austrian (identities) case studies provides further depth in understanding the evolution of the festivals and the circuit. Having drawn a broad picture of the circuit in chapter 3, I zoom in to look at a number of specific incidents of disruption and boycotts as case studies to unravel the different layers in which LGBT/Q film festivals as instances of queer film culture are performed (or failed). In this chapter I mobilize mainly perspectives of performativity and performance from ethnography and performance studies. These are put in synch with concepts such as public spheres, audience address, and event culture in three steps: selection, exhibition, and reception. Under the heading of selection, I discuss the performance of queer cinema as it becomes visible in the practices of selection of films and their programming at LGBT/Q film festivals. There I discuss various processes involved in programming, ranging from pre-selection, to screening committees, to programming strategies. Two historical incidents from the history of Frameline, the "Lesbian Riot" and the "Genderator" incident, serve as examples of how programming directly interrelates with identity negotiations. In the section on exhibition, I turn to the performative architecture of an LGBT/Q film festival by shedding light on the event itself, which follows specific scripts and rituals. In the last section on reception, I look at the corresponding side of these processes and look at the audience. Here, I discuss the formation of a counterpublic sphere, audience address, and the specific reception context of a festival. Two further festival boycotts are presented to analyze how LGBT/Q film festivals operate as queer counterpublic spheres that activists utilize for political intervention. The last section discusses the communal experience of collective viewing and the impact on the formation of a festival community. With this take on audiences, community and reception contexts, the chapter returns to the question of how LGBT/Q film festivals are an integral part of the practices of queer film culture, which was raised in the introduction. In the concluding outlook to the study I propose three further research trajectories. While the study mostly relied on conceptions of performativity and performance in the sense developed in ethnography, gender/queer theory and performance studies, another aspect of performance can be productively brought to bear on the subject of (LGBT/Q) film festivals: performance in the economic sense of efficiency and achievement.
Situational contexts vary substantially across the country. This variation provides conditionswhere a subset of the American public may be exposed to situations that others arenot. How do contexts affect the politics of minority groups? In this dissertation, I examinehow the politics of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people are situated by differing contextsacross the United States. I examine how LGB presence aects and conditions the approvalof the mass public. I examine the mechanism this influence bears on representative behavior in Congress. I finally examine how varying contexts uniquely affects some LGBs over others. In total, I find that varying contexts situate the political positions of LGB peopledifferently. This results in unique conditions where LGB people are politically ininfluentialand cohesive.
The ubiquity of gender-bending and sexually ambiguous imagery in the media seems to herald a post-gay era. But are LGBT/Q identities and representation politics really a thing of the past? Inspection of the circulation patterns of LGBT/Q images on a global scale suggests a more nuanced story. Taking the lead from distribution and film festival studies, in this essay I sketch out how LGBT/Q images travel around the world. The festival network was always an alternative channel to mainstream work. Therefore, I pay particular attention to the international film festival circuit with its art film bias, on one hand, and activist festivals, such as LGBT/Q film festivals and their LGBT/Q-themed films, on the other. Utilizing Lisa Henderson's notion of "queer relay" I argue that the relationship between the queer film ecosystem and the larger art film circuit is highly ambivalent. The deployed art film strategies reveal that we have not yet arrived at actual acceptance and universality in a post-gay, post-identitarian world. However, the positions on the side of distinction and cultural capital do not just lean towards exploitation of queer subcultural productions by neoliberal forces but offer also a relay position that accounts for queer agency in the wider cultural arena.
This paper focuses on a Neo-Orthodox Tibetan Buddhist movement's shifting trans-European positioning on the web and in its media self-representation with regard to public discourses around homosexuality. The analysis presented also proves methodologically relevant, exemplifying through reflexive ethnography how outsider/insider scholars can manoeuvre religious politics. As a global movement of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, the Diamond Way of the Danish lay teacher Ole Nydahl has been particularly successful in its proselytising efforts throughout Eastern and Central Europe. Previous research has noted the selectively socially conservative and mildly homophobic tendencies of the Diamond Way (Scherer 2011; 2013). In the trans-European context, from Russia to the U.K., Nydahls and the movement's mild homophobia/strained LGBT-neutrality appears to draw public criticism for either being too pro-LGBT or too anti-LGBT. The investigation highlights the shifting public perceptions and socio-religious political frontlines in Russia and the U.K. and reveals a pattern of opportunism and (non-)negotiating public opinions.
The legacy of a colonial past marked by violence and oppression still inluences sexual politics on the Caribbean Islands. he absence of laws to protect lgbt citizens together with irmly rooted heteronormative structures make the islands an inhospitable place for those who do not comply with the rules, reinforcing the idea of Caribbean lgbts as virtually inexistent. In Valmiki's Daughter shani mootoo uses literary representation to break "the silence about sexuality and nonnormalizing desire". he novel underscores the sexual diversity of individuals situated inside a region that has been perceived as primarily heterosexual, a perception that needs to be deconstructed. however, mootoo implicitly acknowledges the constricted space for individuals that do not abide by compulsory heterosexuality, attesting the power of discursive processes and practices that still regulate bodies, genders and desires.
Porn is so safe; everything is inscribed in a master plan. Like a drug designed to consume entertainment and to be back to work in time, pornography allows you to be at ease in the corner of your world. Through masturbatory micro-rituals, it reaffirms all Western societies values. Back when Pluto was a planet, pushed by the advent of digital technology, a lightning ripped through the grey sky of this boredom valley. In the historical period between the nineties and the two-thousands, pushed by the possibilities of digital communication, a new body front emerged as theoretical and activist battleground, deconstructing the dogmatic anti-sexwork positions of historical feminism and LGBT-identities. "Porn Studies" came out as an open, multidisciplinary field, mixing Queer Theory, Gender Studies, Media Studies, Cinema History and Performance Art. One of the main goals stands in the use of pornography as text, in which to read and to deconstruct identity boundaries where either heteronormative or LGBT-gentrifying politics produce a flat market space. The application of D.I.Y.-ethics to "Porn Studies" moved the thought to a political and activist level through the practices of self- representation and cultural individualization.
Since 2008 the Gay Museum* (= Schwules Museum*) in Berlin has been reassessing its exhibition and collection practice by exploring what is means to be queer. In other words, the question is how highly complex debates and divergent recognition strategies within the LGBT*I/Q movement can be done differently and in a more democratic way within the museum. A central part of my bachelor thesis is a discussion of critical and emancipatory potential of queer‐feminist imagery and art politics for the exhibition practices of the Gay Museum*. With the thesis presented here, I address and attempt to answer the following question: How can the Gay Museum* become an accepted platform that provokes and negotiates the normalization of hetero‐ and homo‐centric and sexuality discourse? After an exposition of central theoretical concepts, with a particular reference to the methodology of queer‐feminist critique of representation, I give a brief overview of the genesis, meaning and foundation history of the Gay Museum*. I then examine the intentions and outcomes of the exhibition "trans*_homo – of lesbian trans*gays and other normalities" (17.08.‐19.11.2012) through a critical perspective. Specifically, I analyze how and whether in this exhibition action was taken at the level of representation in natural attributions of sexuality and gender. Following my critical analyzes, I explore both potentials as well as the boundaries of queer‐feminist impulses. Ultimately, I want to embed my preliminary findings from the analysis into a theoretical context for discussion. Above all, I intend to contribute to the academic conversation and examination about whether or not the function of the Gay Museum* as a discursive venue of LGBT*I/Q actually can change our modern apparatus. My primarily goal is to present a programmatic image of queer‐feminist politics of representation for exhibition practices and in so, to the extensive field of sexual and gender identity construction, which still holds many unresolved questions and contradictions. As I hope to show, exhibitions have the capacity to do intensive and varied work on the deconstruction and rearrangement of the hegemonic museum practice. The analyzed exhibition therefore provides important consideration for the future practical work and theory of the Gay Museum* as a discursive venue of identity politics (gender and sexuality).
Ideology is an integral component in the reproduction of power. Integral to this central tenet of statecraft is the regulation of identity and proscribed methods of social engagement—positive portrayals of "good citizenry" and delegitimized representations of those challenging hegemony. Through an Althusserian and linguistic analysis, positioning the X-Men movie franchise as an Ideological State Apparatus (ISA), one can examine the lives of mutants portrayed in the text as indicative of preferred methods of state-legitimized sociopolitical interaction. This metaphorical and textual analysis is used to discuss the lived realities of queer persons resisting hegemony, and is located in the bodies and performances of those who resist assimilation and homonormativity and who challenge reformist LGBT organizations seeking rights for non-heterosexuals through further entanglement with the state. I explore the world of mutants and queers with the following question in mind: How can one utilize a queerly theoretical analytical lens while maintaining a discernable distance from reformism, homonormativity, and assimilationist reductionism? Both the fictional world of the X-Men and the lived queer reality reflect the state's efforts to dictate the borders of citizenry, the expression of grievance, and the performance of deviance, difference and stigma. Whereas the mutant narrative reflects statist ideals of a neoliberal, "politically correct" politics of integration, this agenda conceals an insidious denial of queer identity through the coerced conformity of "deviant" bodies. This discourse will be discussed through a variety of locales, including the performativity of gender and sexuality, the narrative of racial deviance, and the discussion of "passing."
