Talk:Queer media and entertainment

Queer Representation in Music and Radio Addition Proposal
As part of my group I plan on contributing information about the queer representation in music and on the radio. This will mostly focus on queer representation in hip-hop but will touch on other genres as well, such as pop music. I have multiple sources that will help me contribute to this page. Considering this page has absolutely no information, I will be providing as much information as possible.

With this source I will add information about the focus music culture has placed on the heteronormative, urban, white males and how anything seen as promotion non-heterosexual relationships or sexual styles has been omitted from the music scene. It will provide ideas on how we can integrate queer theories into music and develop a more "flexible approach to queer collective formations."

This source will help me add information regarding the relationship between queer sexuality and hip-hop. This looks into Me'Shell Ndegeocello's rise to popularity and how it became an important moment for queer Black women and looks into the complexities and contradictions of "hip-hop feminism."

This source will give me information about Queer Radio. It will give me information about the rise of gay and lesbian radio, its success and failures and its impact on the queer community. It will detail the struggles the LGBT community faced regarding financial support and the countless hours spent to provide listeners access to issues and programing that were otherwise not available.

This article will also give me information about the queer community and its relationship with hip-hop. It will look into the tension between the two due to the hyper-masculine black identity associated with hip-hop, and the reasons for the recent embrace of queer- influenced clothing styles and music by the hip-hop culture. It will also look into the discrimination individuals associated with "queer-style" face in hip-hop.

These articles will all give me necessary information to add to this queer media page. I will be able to discuss the rise of queer radio and the discrimination queer individuals have faced in the music world, especially in hip-hop.

Media Representation of Asexuality Addition Proposal
As part of our addition to the nearly empty Wikipedia page, I am going to discuss how asexuality is represented in the media, if at all. Asexuality is often a topic that does not get addressed, especially within media because it is viewed as having to show the absence of something. When it is represented or showcased, it is often surrounded by tropes such as medicalization. It is not viewed often as a viable orientation. I will do my part to queer the Wikipedia space by describing how asexuality is represented and attempt to provide reasoning for why it often is not.

Non-binary Representation in Media Addition Proposal
For my part in the project, I will be discussing the presence (or almost complete lack thereof) of non-binary gender identified individuals in the media.

This source is the Ruby Rose video that is, as far as I can discover through quite extensive searching, the only significant depiction of a person with non-binary gender in the media. Posted on YouTube in mid-July of this year, the video has already had 1.78 million views on YouTube, and there was a Buzzfeed article written about the video, both of which went viral. Enke, A. Finn. “The Education of Little Cis: Cisgender and the Discipline of Opposing.” The Transgender Studies Reader 2. Ed. Stryker, Susan and Aren Z. Aizura..NY: Routledge, 2013.

This source is a theoretical article from the field of Transgender Studies. It addresses the fluid nature of gender, and how identity terms such as “transgender” and “cisgender” are not useful, because of the constraining nature of medically defined norms of gender, which render all gendered subjects non-normative, and thus, fluidly inhabiting both transgender and cisgender spaces simultaneously.

Using Judith Butler’s conceptualization of gender as performative, and her theory of gender performativity, we can understand that repeated instances of a concept, in this case, non-binary gender, in a similar way, lend legibility and coherence to that concept. Since there is an almost complete lack of repetition or multiple productions of non-binary gender in the media, there is no sense of coherence of non-binary gender in the media, which causes it to be rendered invisible.

My contribution will consist of a theoretical analysis of why there are almost no representations of non-binary gender in the media, and why this absence of examples perpetuates the media-based invisibility of non-binary gender.

Queer and Non-normative Representations on Television Addition Proposal
I will focus on queer representation on television and subsequent political and social effects. My section will be written in a historical timeline presentation starting from representation of minorities on television (ie the Cosby Show, Different Strokes, etc) and their subsequent political effects, to interracial relationships, and then eventually LGBT characters and themes on television. I’ll discuss how these things are presented, their limitations, how they’ve changed the effects that these queer characters and themes. Historically, what is presented on mainstream television transcends into the zeitgeist, and therefore, has an effect politically, especially in American politics. From there, I will discuss additionally what cable outlets and nontraditional television has done to the queer television platform, and how it’s changed how these types of characters are represented and presented to the masses.

My goals are to outline how queer representation started, how it’s changed, and what effects these things played in mainstream politics and society.

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