A sexual minority in the media is anyone who doesn't stay within the typical, heterosexual, same race/ethnicity relationship. Even more than that, a sexual minority is anyone who is in a marital relationship or older than 40 years old. Unless of course you are Lucille in Arrested Development. In this week's readings Shugart talks about how the media is reinventing the gay male with the same privileges if not more privileges to a woman's body than the hetero male. As I was reading this article I realize how many points made sense because with the gay male touching the woman and dressing her and looking at her there is no perceived threat like there could be with a heterosexual lame friend. As I was reading through this I was wondering why these relationships are presented in this way. Is this an example of how heterosexual males can't have intimacy with a woman without having it be a sexual relationship but gay males can? In society and in the media it seems as if men aren't allowed to have women as friends without having some sort of sexual benefit to add on to the relationship. Two women can have a close friendship, two men can have a close friendship but as soon as gender is put into the mix sex has to become a part of it. In the position of the gay male in media however, this issue is taken away for one of the two characters. The presentation of power shifts in these gay male, straight female friendships. Where females are usually ignoring or sidestepping advances of their male friends, now males are sidestepping or denying female advances.
The article also made some good points about how the media shows many women wanting or "needing" a gay male best friend. One that keeps her in line. Is there are different reason though why straight females might want these male gay friends? Security and companionship without the dramatics and emotion associated with a sexual relationship may be a couple reasons.
When I was in San Diego I picked up a Reader which is like their version of the Mercury and I happened upon an ad for Lips the restaurant. While a few movies have used the idea of crossdressing and transvestites as comedy there have been few that include these type of characters in as normal. The media says that these type of preferences are not normal.
The porn article talks about some people that are not part of the norms for two reasons, one the stars are of different racial backgrounds and two because they are pierced and tattooed which of course is a deviation from the norm still.
The Glu article is a really interesting one that highlights issues of lesbianism and how many magazines were still catering to either the male fantasy or the butch preferences. The creator of Glu talks about how she knows many famous people who are presenting themselves as heterosexual in the public eye but are really lesbian or gay. It raises the question, "why do these people still feel the need to identify as heterosexual?" Are these stars or people in high places fearful of losing their audience because their sexual preferences off screen are different than they play on screen? And is the U.S. ready to watch heterosexual males and females play true homosexual characters and vice versa. We have started integrating the straight male playing homosexual males in Brokeback Mountain but public opinion was really divided on the movie. And while many straight women have done sex scenes with other women have they played parts where they had no interest in men what so ever and the relationship between them and another female was based on real relationships and not male fantasy?
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