Presentation for A2 Media Studies class on queer theory

1. Queer Theory
Another way to see representations

2. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2
zikCUPPxw

3. Are you queer?
• Queer is by definition
whatever is at odds
with the normal, the
legitimate, the
dominant. There is
nothing in particular to
which it necessarily
refers. It is an identity
without an essence.

4. Dominant ideology and hegemony
• ―Normalising‖ gender roles
• White, male, heterosexual as the norm
• Institutionalised – politics, church,
education, the traditional family etc.

5. However, if you’re different then…
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO
mS3sb9oxE

6. Queer Theory
• Queer Theory rejects conventional or
mainstream behaviour, including sexual
identity, but also a range of identities
including race, disability and gender.
• It rejects the essentialist nature of
theories of identity based on binary
oppositions like
male/female, gay/straight and argues
there is another space outside which is
‗queer‘.

7.  It explores and challenges the way in which
heterosexuality is constructed as normal...
 And the way in which the media has limited
the representations of gay men and women.
 Suggests sexual identity is more fluid
 What media celebrity examples can you think
of?

9. Judith Butler

10. Judith Butler
• Suggests gender is not the result of
nature, but is socially constructed.
• Male and female behaviour roles are not the
result of biology but are constructed and
reinforced by society through media and
culture.
• Sees gender as a PERFORMANCE.
• She argues that there are a number of
exaggerated representations of
masculinity and femininity which cause
―gender trouble.‖
• (Any behaviour or representation that
disrupts culturally accepted notions of
gender.)

11. Who is?

12. Gregg Araki – a gay movie?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by
_4IDH5h1U

13. A heterosexual movie?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag
RzpnS_FGw

14. Gender Trouble
 In
her most influential book, Gender Trouble
(1990), Butler argued that feminism had made
a mistake by trying to assert that 'women'
were a group with common characteristics and
interests
 That approach, Butler said, performed 'an
unwitting regulation and reification of gender
relations' - reinforcing a binary view of gender
relations (men and women)
 She argued that, rather than opening up
possibilities for a person to form and choose
their own individual identity, feminism had
closed the options down

15. • ―There is no gender identity behind the
expressions of gender; ... identity is
performatively constituted by the very
"expressions" that are said to be its
results.‖ (Butler)

16. Queer Readings: This..
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAf
bp3YX9F0

17. Or this?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfb
jUmG8zGk

18. • ―Of course Top Gun isn‘t a ‗gay movie‘ —
but it‘s clearly, flag­rantly not a straight
one either.‖ (Mark Simpson)
• How does this work?

19. • Queer theory suggests there are
different ways of interpreting
contemporary media texts

20. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
• Sedgwick describes Queer Theory as: ―the
open mesh of
possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonance,
and resources, lapses and excesses of
meaning when the constituent elements
of anyone's gender, of anyone's
sexuality aren't made (or can't be made)
to signify monolithically‖ (1993)
• What does that mean?

21. Fluidity
 This
implication of ‗fluidity‘ allows us to
consider concepts such as transgenderism
(moving between genders), transsexualism
(physically changing gender), intersex (both
sexes present, affects 1 in 2000
babies), pansexual (sexual attraction not
based on gender) and trigender (a gender
outside of male or female) amongst others
 At it‘s most radical, it implies all currently
accepted definitions of sex, gender and
sexuality are questionable, if not redundant

22. Its influence
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1
l7JZA5LQc

23. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W
YIOnm_HFc

24. And how it challenges
• From this
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEl
UaDumoOY

25. • To this
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvI
NLBeRPQM

26. • And this
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG
Nwu-O7rJ8

27. Is this progress?
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football
/25661228

28. Finally
• Where does all of this leave
representation and collective identity?