Sexuality

Sexuality

Theorist ANDY MEDHURST (1998) claims that sexuality disrupt representation claims, like those made by Dyer (“How we are seen determines in part how we are treated; how we treat others on how we see them; such seeing comes from representation” Dyer, 1993), because in the REAL world you cannot ‘see’ sexuality. Unless someone tells you they are homosexual you have no way of knowing. 

In the media there are loads of stereotypical views on sexuality, the key example of these are, gay men being queer and camp, and lesbian women being butch, or a "dyke." Andy Medhurst argued that the stereotypes of gay people are typically done to make the heterosexual viewers, feel more safe, strong and superior, as they believe they are "normal." 

In TV drama, or films the typical gay person's story line involves them coming out, or about them having a hard time about being gay. Overall in TV drama, there are a lot of stereotypes and comments about gay people. There are magnified which relates to Medhurst's theory, of things in the media being magnified for the audiences views. 

“This is why stereotypes of sexuality strive so vigorously to create two, polarized sexualities, hetro and straight, and to insist with such obsessive reductiveness that people who belong to those poles are easily identifiable – hence the recurring presence across media texts of the screaming queen and his female equivalent the butch dyke.”

The video of Ben Mitchell from Eastenders, is a great example of how gay people are portrayed in the media, although Ben almost breaks the idea of gay men being queer and scream queens, he appears to be more tough and hard like the typical straight man, however his boyfriend is the perfect example of the typical gay man you would see in the media. 

“Stereotyping becomes ideological the moment it stops being simply a method of description and becomes a vehicle for values: the image of the screaming queen does not just mean ‘all gay men are like that’, it means ‘all gay men are like that and aren’t they awful’, which in turn means ‘and they are awful because the are not like us.”

Another good example is Orange is the New Black, OITNB shows the typical "lipstick lesbian" with a more butch woman, together in prison. It shows them together and blows up the whole image of gay people being together, showing the stereotypical views. 

The other video shows the stereotypical view of a character called Boo From OITNB. Boo fits into the stereotypical view of a lesbian, showing her with short hair, dressed manly, with a masculine attitude. This would support Andy Medhurst's view on how the media grabs something and magnifies it to make it a huge issue. 













Practice of essay on sexuality: 

In the clip, it shows Christian a character from Eastenders, being the stereotypical gay character. He's well dressed and looks well looked after, like he looks after himself with a tight white shirt making his muscels stand out, the way he presents himself he has a camp attitude to him, his posture also gives off the impression he's gay. This would support Andy Medhurst's theory of the media magnifying stereotypes and certain topics.