In this dissertation I examine mainstream representations of gay men in theatre and television between 1998 and 2006 in order to reveal how these texts contain within themselves both assimilationist and queerly rebellious narrative threads. Working with popular culture scholar John Fiske's idea that hegemonic reinforcement inherently contains aspects of subordinate resistance, I counter arguments that individual plays, televisions series, or specific program episodes ultimately promote only, or vastly overwhelmingly, the idea of acceptance through assimilation or queer separatist politics. In order to reconcile issues regarding audience differences and the political economies of two significantly different media, I maintain that the majority of Broadway audiences coincide with the primary television demographic interested in and supportive of the increase in gay characters in mainstream programming and theatrical production. To this end I employ queer television scholar Ron Becker's analysis of a demographic he recognizes as socially liberal and urban-minded, namely 'SLUMPYs.' I utilize four case studies to support my argument, two plays (with discussions of production) and two television series: Richard Greenberg's Take Me Out (2003), Mois's Kaufman's The Laramie Project (2001), NBC's Will and Grace (1998 ' 2006), and Showtime's Queer as Folk (2000 ' 2005). Of these four texts, two outwardly appear more assimilationist (Take Me Out and Will and Grace), while the others seem on first glance more progressive or queer. Utilizing, foundationally, Michael Warner's 1999 The Trouble with Normal and Lisa Duggan's The Twilight of Equality?, I reveal various ways in which all my case studies provide queer points of view despite their mainstream, broad appeal. The primary areas of discussion include: establishing gay male sexual identity in the post-closet era, gay characters negotiating normative forces, the impact of publicly heterosexual actor identity on gay characters, and trends in dramatizing actual events. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Theatre in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2010. / March 4, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references. / Mary Karen Dahl, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Carrie Sandahl, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Leigh Edwards, University Representative; Krzystof Salata, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_254387 |
| Contributors | Grant, M. Shane (authoraut), Dahl, Mary Karen (professor co-directing dissertation), Sandahl, Carrie (professor co-directing dissertation), Edwards, Leigh (university representative), Salata, Krzystof (committee member), School of Theatre (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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