Pop Culture Aiding in the Pursuit of a Sense of Belonging for LGBTQs

In this post I will elaborate on the importance of safe spaces for the LGBTQ community, not just to seek refuge from harm but to create a sense of community and identity for queers. Through examination of the hit television sitcom Modern Family, author Mary Gray’s idea of “boundary publics”, and analysis of earlier formations of spaces for homosexuals from “Homosexuality and American Society: An Overview” by John D’Emilio I will examine the importance of the current increase in queers in the media and how this cultural shift aids in establishing a notion of belonging for LGBTQ people.

            Since the earliest times of homosexuality in America, spatial arenas for lesbians and gays were of the utmost importance. Because twentieth century called “homosexual behavior a sin and a crime” (D’Emilio, 10) finding a place to go to act as they pleased was the only way queers could meet one another. D’Emilio asserts that “lesbians and gay men formed literacy societies and planned private entertainments that sustained friendships” (12) as their only way for promised social interaction. Although such societies fostered a “collective consciousness and sense of identification” (D’ Emilio, 13) for these gay subcultures, the negative media attention from religion, lawyers, and doctors proved fatal to lesbians’ and gay men’s ability to expose themselves, thus pushing emerging homosexual subcultures further into secrecy. D’Emilio also exclaimed that even in the 1930’s as homosexuality began to rear it head through plays and literature after the “diffusion of Freudian psychoanalysis” the sense of homosexual community was again torn down by “publishers and newspaper editors” (17). Because of the lack of obvious subculture and community queers were almost always left feeling profoundly different from family, friends, and society, thus leading to a “lonely, difficult and… excruciatingly painful experience” (D’Emilio, 18).

            Presently, our nation as created a much more homosexual fostering , even representing, society. While it does need to be noted that our nation still much further to go before LGBTQ individuals are truly equal and no longer such a marginalized group, we are still leaps and bounds ahead of our twentieth century self. Today many churches hang rainbow banners reading, “ All Are Welcome Here”, doctors conduct and even design sexual reconstruction/reassignment surgeries, and supreme court jurisdictions pass laws supporting equal rights for queers. Yet, perhaps most overwhelmingly noticed is the presence of lesbians and gay men in the pop media. In almost every sitcom, television drama, ensemble and even many novels there is a gay character or two. Meaning that a young person growing up gay (or even the elder) can find a meaningful reflection of how he feels at the cinema and in-longing-running popular or family TV series without much difficulty. Reflection of gay lifestyles range everywhere from drug-dealing Lafayette Reynolds in the series True Blood, to doomed cowboys in Brokeback Mountain, to TV sensation Glee with both lesbian and gay characters. The list goes on and on and is an ever-growing body of media that is transgressing sexual repression and shaping LGBTQ individuals belonging to a media culture, which is incredibly prevalent in our modern day society.

            “Boundary publics”, as author Mary Gray describes in her article “From Websites to Wal-mart”, can be used as the blanket term that LGBTQ representing media falls under. This idea of boundary publics is an “ occupation for queer identity… rather than… tangible building or specific streets” it is a term that encompasses the intangible approach for space-making and constitutive process for the queering of identity” (Gray, 53). While many films and show do well in depicting queer characters for lesbians and gay men to identify with, the series Modern Family does the best job creating a multitude of boundary publics through gay couple, Cam and Mitchell.

            The name Modern Family for this series, rather than satirical, can instead be seen as empowering to the queer community. Even if an LGBTQ person does not identify as the queer, white male couple (or other family nuances of the series) they can use the idea of the contemporary family being any individuals no matter what mix of race, sex, or class. Although the traditional femme and masculine roles within gay couples are somewhat played out through Cam and Mitchell, many gay stereotypes are broken. Examples of this are prevalent in nearly every episode of the show. Even in the brief clip from the episode “Mitchell and Cam’s Trophy Fight!” the passive role of the femme male is contested through the argument the couple has, the rural gay is loosely represented (yet, more so exhibited in other episodes) through the brief introduction of Cam’s experience with fishing and the wilderness he grew up in, as well as queers as parents.

Although our society and pop media culture alike must continue to combat heteronormativity and work to include all fortes of the LGBTQ community in boundary publics. In terms of media coverage in the forms of television and movies our nation seems to be making distinguished steps to identifiable sphere of community where queers can be not only out and proud but equal to their homosexual counterparts.

Bibliography

D’Emilio, John “ Homosexuality and American Society: An Overview” from Sexual

Politics, Sexual Communities in the United States 1940-1970. Chicago, III: University of Chicago Press, 1983

Gray, Mary  “From Websites to Wal-Mart: Youth, Identity Work, and the Queering of

            Boundary Publics in Small Town, USA” from American Studies, Vol. 48, No. 2,            Homosexuals in Unexpected Places? A Special Issue (Summer 2007), pp. 49-59

Lloyd, Christopher, prod. "Mitchell and Cam’s Trophy Fight!."

            Modern Family. ABC: 28 Apr 2011. Television.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiVU8Mfwxa4&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL5E1D67E25E1687C7