In his 2004 essay “Is Gay Marriage Anti-Black?” Kenyon Farrow asks the provocative, yet necessarily critical question – “is gay marriage a Black/White issue?” (Farrow). Farrow poses this question not in order to denounce same-sex marriage as an institution, but to insight a particularly timely frame of critique. How does marriage as in institution and symbol of status gain and lose relevance across communities, temporalities, and culture? Furthermore how are conceptualizations of progress deeply determined by the context of one’s lived experience and positionality to a community? By working through some of the questions generated by Farrow’s critique, we seek to identify, at least preliminarily, how answers to these questions might be synthesized through a carefully studied critique of queer representations in media.

Observing contemporary trends in media can often create windows that allow researchers to better understand conceptualizations of culture, class, race, sexuality, and gender as they are reproduced and performed in a given society.  Furthermore, analyzing media that highlights themes of sexuality and gender through the lens of race and class can provide us with concrete information as to exactly how these categories are reproduced and, in many cases (certainly ours), marketed in the context of a capitalist matrix of domination. Through our analysis on this site, we hope to unpack some of the implications of trends and interrogate a number of sources that depict queerness and queer characters of different backgrounds in a variety of settings.

In order to better understand some aspects how queer people have been represented in media over the beginning of the 21st Century, we will examine visual media – particularly popular film, television, and Broadway performance – for the sake of identifying certain trends and archetypes that we find prevalent and, ultimately, to draw concrete distinctions regarding how queer white people and queer people of color are depicted differently across media. In this review, we have considered 4 sources that depict queer protagonists: GBF (2013), Faking It (2014 – 2016), Moonlight (2016), and RENT (1996). We hope to consider these sources primarily in terms of how they value marriage, socioeconomic status, and performance of gender.

In order to provide additional context to the discourse we are hoping to develop, we have fount pertinent in examine Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” campaign in the context of our inquiry. We believe “It Gets Better” helps to establish aspects of popular depictions of white queerness that we hope to examine and question.

It Gets Better (2010)

Launched in 2010 and now an international organization, Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” project was launched as an inspirational message to queer teens who face bullying, discrimination, and feelings of helplessness. Savage recounts that he started the project after learning of the suicide of Tyler Clementi and other gay kids (Puar). As the project picked up steam, celebrities, politicians, and everyday queer adults added their voices and their stories to the growing online collection; even President Obama created an “It Gets Better” video condemning bullying. Yet the campaign leaves a lot to be desired; “critics note that queer people of colour, trans, genderqueer and gender nonconforming youth, and lesbians have not been inspirationally hailed by [the project] in the same way as white gay male liberals” (Puar).

One predominant critique revolves around Savage’s own subject position as an abled, monied, white, cis man who is also gay– a subject position whose experiences preclude those of trans, poor, POC, disabled, and non-man embodiments and is “a mandate to fold into urban, neoliberal gay enclaves” which already privileges bodies like Savages’ (Puar). The assimilationist politics of the videos and the use of gay kids’ suicides “highlighting an exceptional class of aspirational gay citizens at the expense of others” that Savage employs further discourages dissent and diversity in order to paint the gay community (and queer futurity) as a monolith of white acceptability and a sense of achieving some mythic normalcy.

This is not to say that the employment of digital medias in the creation of uplifting and supportive communities is useless, and indeed such medias can be used to create support networks, not saying that it gets better but recognizing that for many, it doesn’t get better. There is more power, we argue, in the elimination of such “narrow versions of what it means to be gay, and what it means to be bullied, that for those who cannot identify with it but are nevertheless still targeted” as are depicted in the It Gets Better Campaign (Puar).

GBF (2013)

“Social warfare erupts when three high school clique queens battle for supremacy: drama diva Caprice, Mormon princess ‘Shley and blonde fashionista Fawcett. When unassuming Tanner is outted, he finds himself cast as the hottest new teen-girl accessory: The Gay Best Friend. The clique queens immediately pounce and makeover Tanner into their ideal arm candy, forcing him to choose between popularity and the true friends – including his own B.F.F. Brent – that he’s leaving behind” (IMDB).

GBF is about Tanner learning more about himself and what he wants as he learns more about his “role” as an outed gay man in his high school. Since he is a white man from an upper-class family he does not have to worry about facing classism and/or racism, allowing him to focus on his future marriage (maybe).

“Look, uh, thanks, everyone, for making me king of this gay prom. […] I don’t want to be king of the gay prom or be a gay best friend or get gay-married. I just want to go to prom, be a friend, and get married, maybe. You all see me more as an object or a symbol. I guess I’ve been guilty of that myself. I used my friends as shields to hide behind. I had friends who cared about me, whether I was gay or whatever…” (GBF, 2013)

As Essig notes in “Marry Me?” “by convincing couples that diamonds are both necessary an valuable, DeBeers managed to create and $11 Billion market in selling engagement rings” (Essig 7). Political economies such as these raise questions surrounding who can access the social rituals that surround marriage and how the practice of these rituals changes the role marriage plays in different communal contexts. In the case of “GBF” marriage is normalized and values in a way that is exceedingly focused on the white experience of dating. The progression depicted in Tanner’s speech at the end of the film normalizes the financially taxing rituals of prom, proposal, and marriage as viable objectives for Tanner that are not necessarily considered a luxury. In an actual case that Essig references, a teen from Arizona purchased a trip to Hawaii for his partner as an aspect of his “promposal” (Essig 32). Though this is far from the norm, cases such as these are indicators about who is expected to be participating in a particular ritual or space. In the case of GBF, it seems that that person is predominantly, white, wealthy, and passing as either male or female.

Faking It (2014 – 2016)

“After numerous attempts of trying to be popular, two best friends decide to fake being lesbians. They are launched into instant celebrity status. Seduced by their newfound fame, Karma and Amy decide to keep up their romantic ruse; but Amy has more than popularity on her mind as she falls for Karma” (IMDB).

“In her interview Laverene Cox discusses the diverse representation of LGBTQ characters within Faking it and this is true. The show features a gay male character, a gay trans man, an intersex character who identifies as a girl, a girl constantly questioning her sexuality, etc. The characters are not racially or financially diverse though, allowing them to focus on mundane ideological rituals like prom.

http://www.mtv.com/video-clips/c2f1ay/faking-it-behind-the-episode-with-laverne-cox

“Rent is a rock musical with music, lyrics and book by Jonathan Larson,[1] loosely based on Giacomo Puccini‘s opera La Bohème. It tells the story of a group of impoverished young artists struggling to survive and create a life in New York City‘s East Village in the thriving days of Bohemian Alphabet City, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS.” – Wikipedia

“In this musical, set at the dawn of the 1990s, a group of New Yorkers struggle with their careers, love lives and the effects of the AIDS epidemic on their community. Mark (Anthony Rapp), an aspiring filmmaker, and Roger (Adam Pascal), an HIV-positive musician, scramble for money to pay rent to their landlord and former roommate, Benny (Taye Diggs). Meanwhile, their friend Tom (Jesse L. Martin), a professor, has fallen for Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia), who is slowly dying of AIDS” – Google

Rent’s themes of togetherness, living for the present, dealing with social stigma and uncertain futures, and of the pursuit of bohemian abandon set a milestone for the depiction of queer characters in mainstream media. Released in 1996 as a musical and in 2005 as a movie, Jonathan Larson’s magnum opus is still one of the most diverse and varied (created) snapshots of queer life noted today. Featuring many queer characters, HIV+ characters, characters of color, and poor characters, their interactions give insight into not only media portrayals of queer people who fall outside of the acceptable mold of white, abled, upper-middle class gays. In fact, the characters all fairly radically and vocally oppose the politics of assimilation [and subsequently gentrification] into the ‘yuppie’ lifestyle of their ex-friend and ex-flatmate Benny, who sold out in their eyes by marrying rich and trying to raze the very building in which they all used to live and which Benny now owns.

CLIP OF THE PHONE CALL WITH BENNY CAN GO HERE/OR CLIP FROM 2005 MOVIE “YOU’LL SEE”

LA VIE BOHEME- THE CAST EXPRESSES THEIR DISGUST WITH BENNY https://youtu.be/Lo8CmwIKiDw?t=3915

(And reprise https://youtu.be/Lo8CmwIKiDw?t=4597)

Benny is one representation of hegemonic and hierarchical power who transgresses the queer and carnival ethic of  “free and familiar attitude […] over all values, thoughts, phenomena, and things (Nogee).” He has effectively assimilated into an upper class, heterosexual, capitalist lifestyle and abandoned his ethics and friends- essentially spitting in the face of the antiassimilationist ‘bohemians’ who arguably all live quite queerly, regardless of sexuality.

The nonnormative couples in the movie/musical, Angel and Collins, and Joanne and Maureen, are varied depictions of queer and interracial couples, yet race is never explicitly addressed in either relationship. In fact, “interracial relationships are unquestioned,” within the framework of Rent, and “for all the problems that these couples have,” (even the straight couple Roger and Mimi) “their racial differences is not one of them,” yet the racialized characters and politics are clearly mapped onto the very fibre of the production’s essence– the dynamics and believability of the movie/musical simply does not function with an all white cast (Sebesta). It has been attempted, to no great success. Angel and Collins undoubtedly have the most “steady, giving, tender” love of any couple in the production, yet they are considered to be the most transgressive couple because of Angel’s gender and presentation as well as because of both parties’ HIV positive status (Sebesta). Angel is, depending on the version, either genderqueer, a drag queen, or transgender (cast members often alternate between he/him and she/her pronouns within a single production), is queer, HIV positive, and Latinx while Collins is a black, gay HIV positive man. Within the world of Alphabet City, however, where the bohemians thrive, “Angel’s disguise is completely unquestioned […] signaling to mainstream audience what is normative and what is not” (Sebesta)

Yet arguably because of this, neither ever addresses the possibility of marriage or desire to otherwise assimilate. This refusal can be elucidated through the Kenyon Farrow article “Is Gay Marriage Anti-Black?” as well as the medical status of both characters. Farrow argues that, yes, gay marriage is anti-black. Gay marriage, while touted as proof of ‘progress’ in contemporary times, is still an overwhelmingly white movement, and this is because the class, racial, and acceptability politics of marriage often exclude people of color from the beginning, and “the Black family, heterosexual, same-sex or otherwise, is always portrayed as dysfunctional” (Farrow). Yet Angel and Collins create the most healthy couple of the ‘family’ that the characters create, exemplified in “I’ll Cover You” :

[BOTH]

I think they meant it when they said you can’t buy love

Now I know you can rent it

A new lease you are my love, on life

All my life

I’ve longed to discover

Something as true as this is

[COLLINS]

So with a thousand sweet kisses,I’ll cover you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUY_st9c-QA

Yet more touching still, is the reprise following Angel’s death. Collins sings as a eulogy a reprise of ‘I’ll Cover You” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYVM9q_rHXQ ) which quickly became the most salient and memorable moment in the movie/musical. The language of home and shelter is seen more of a mutual exchange of emotional, sexual, and gender labor rather than any subscription to institutional norms of marriage which do not “address [one’s] most critical needs as a black gay man to be able to walk down the streets of [one’s] community with [one’s] lover”(Farrow).

Given as an explanation of why gay marriage is anti-black, Farrow posits that “Given the current white heteronormative constructions of family and how the institutions of marriage and nuclear families have been used against Black people, I do think that to support same-sex marriage is in fact, anti-Black (I also believe the institution of marriage to be historically anti-woman, and don’t support it for those reasons as well).” The bohemians of Rent also eschew hegemonic “manifestations of sexual relationships, racial alliances, and gendered identities in Rent” and as such eschew marriage politics, which is why it is particularly heinous to them that Benny has not only become ‘yuppie scum’ but has married into yuppiedom.

Video of “Life Support” –

However, another glaringly obvious reason for the ways in which the characters of Rent disdain marriage is that they don’t know if they’ll live long enough to make marriage worth the effort– Roger, Mimi, Angel, and Collins all have AIDs, and although “homosexuality is celebrated,” the life support meetings which some of the characters attend underscore the temporality of life and love, and drive home the mentality of surviving another day which precludes any fantasy of marriage:

[ALL]

There’s only us

There’s only this …

[ALL]

Forget regret or life is yours to miss

[GORDON]

Excuse me Paul — I’m having a problem with this

This credo — My T-cells are low —

I regret that news, okay?

Look – I find some of what you teach suspect

Because I’m used to relying on intellect

But I try to open up to what I don’t know

Because reason says I should have died

Three years ago

[ALL]

No other road

No other way

No day but today

As we juxtapose the themes and characters depicted in “RENT” with those represented in “GBF” and “Faking It,” we are struck by the lack of focus on marriage or many of the rituals that normatively precede it. As Farrow hints at in “Is Gay Marriage Anti-Black?” the institution of marriage rests on certain performances of gender, in many cases that of white-contructed masculinity (Farrow). In “RENT,” characters do not have the ability to focus on marriage, as it is maid distant and infeasible by one’s HIV/AIDS status, poverty, and performance of gender. These comparisons highlight the truth behind the analyses of Essig, Spade and Willse, and Farrow as we apply them to there popular pieces. Marriage increasingly seems to be problematized by the degree of access that people have to it which, in the case of RENT, is not a significant degree.

Moonlight (2016)

“A young, African-American, gay man deals with his dysfunctional home life and comes of age in Miami during the “War on Drugs” era. The story of his struggle to find himself is told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love while grappling with his own sexuality” (IMDB).

Chiron, the main character in Moonlight never seems to have marriage on his mind as a Black gay man living in America. As a child he seems more focused on running away from bullies and boiling hot water for his baths when his mom is not home to help. As a teen he still attempts to avoid beating from the bullies, navigating an unhealthy relationship with his mother, and dealing with his first sexual experience he has had ever let alone with another man. As an adult he has not had another sexual experience with another man, instead focusing on “building himself from the ground up. Building himself hard” (Moonlight). With the challenges Chrion was forced onto him since his childhood, marriage equality does not seem to be an issue on his mind.

In conclusion, we’ve found a broad gulf between representations of queerness in predominantly white-produced media and representations of queerness of media produced by people of color. Many of the most predominant differences that we identified in our analysis include a substantial difference in the way marriage is portrayed and talked about, representations of class and socioeconomic status, and the types of “acceptable” queerness that are depicted throughout our primary sources. For some clarification as to why this is, we look, again, to the scholarship of Farrow and Spade and Willse.

Marriage, as these scholars depict it is not only a tool of capitalist social oppression that exists primarily to enforce subordinance to the state and compulsory cisheterosexuality (Spade & Willse), but it is also a highly radicalized mechanism, having enforced the economy of racism for centuries prior to the American Civil War and, more recently, having further marginalized black people in the structure and execution of the marriage equality movement (Farrow). Though these analyses are particularly useful when considering different conceptualizations and valuations of marriage across communities, there are still some essential questions to be asked. Namely, what are the options for making popularized gay liberation movements more inclusive and less dependent on assimilation into hegemonic systems of power that have historically served to exclude the non-white and non-wealthy?

In regards to the role that socioeconomic status plays in the representations of queerness, we find it pertinent, again, to consider marriage. Though, in many instances, marriage might expand the socioeconomic opportunity of partners, it is also often an economically inviable option to poorer couples in a way that we view to be socially significant. As Essig points out in her unpublished chapter “Marry Me?” averages in proposal planning along run “between $5000 and $50,000” USD (Essig 11). The culture of marriage and proposal itself, as we reviewed briefly in our introduction, traces its lineage to corporate marketing ploys, as in the case DeBeers, which created the ritual of proposal as a marketing tactic to sell diamonds (Essig 5). Keeping these cultural histories in mind, we must ask how poor queer people of color can exist and participate in these systems in any way that preserves their personhood.

We agree, furthermore, with Essig, Spade and Willse’s analysis of marriage as a tool for reproducing performances of gender. Indeed, with the exception of a small handful of characters depicted in “Faking It,” most queer characters depicted in the white-produced media we viewed pass as clearly male or female. Ambiguity is not represented. Though this may not initially seem to be a violent depiction of queerness, when one takes into account the degree to which marriage in these sources is idealized, it becomes clear that a byproduct of these depictions is the erasure of people who do not pass as a determinate or “acceptable” gender even when they are depicted as gender fluid or intersex gender.

These conclusions beg for more than a change in the way queer, trans, and intersex people are depicted in popular media – as, indeed, representations in Moonlight and RENT seem far more inclusive and less dependent on mechanisms of hegemonic power and assimilationist practices – and seek to establish a more vigorous practical discourse on how queer liberation and the representations of queerness can seek to refute and deconstruct the systems that create “otherness” to begin with.

Works Cited –

Essig, Laurie. “Chapter 3: Marry Me.?” Handout. Middlebury College. Middlebury, Vt. 2017. Print.

“Behind The Episode With Laverne Cox – Faking It.” MTV. MTV, 14 Oct. 14. Web. 01 May 2017.

“Faking It | Official Trailer (Season 1) | MTV” Youtube, uploaded by MTV, 18 Mar 2014.

“Faking It (TV Series 2014–2016).” IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 01 May 2017.

G.B.F. Dir. Darren Stein. By George Northy. Perf. Michael J. Willet, Paul Iacono, and Sasha Pieterse.  2013. Netflix.

“G.B.F. Official Trailer 1 (2014)” – Natasha Lyonne, Evanna Lynch Movie HD” Youtube, uploaded by Movieclips Trailers, 13 Dec 2013.

“G.B.F. (2013).” IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 01 May 2017.

Ingraham, Chrys. “Chapter 2: The Wedding-Industrial Complex.” White Weddings. New York: Routledge, 2016. 25-75. Print.

Moonlight. Dir. Barry Jenkins. By Tarell Alvin McCraney. Prod. Adele Romanski, Jeremy Kleiner, and Dede Gardner. Perf. Trevante Rhodes, Alex R. Hibbert, and Ashton Sanders. A24. 2016. Amazon Video.

“Moonlight | Official Trailer HD | A24” Youtube, uploaded by A24, 11 Aug 2016.

“‘Moonlight’ Writer Tarell Alvin McCraney Still Struggles With Childhood Vulnerabilities.” WBUR. WBUR, 09 Feb. 2017. Web. 01 May 2017.

“Moonlight (2016).” IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 01 May 2017.

Polikoff, Nancy D. “Introduction.” Beyond (straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families under the Law. Boston: Beacon, 2008. 1-10. Print.

Puar, Jasbir. “In The Wake of It Gets Better.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 16 Nov. 2010. Web. 02 May 2017.

Spade, Dean and Craig Willse. “Marriage Will Never Set Us Free.” Organizing Upgrade. Organizing Upgrade, 6 Sept. 2013. Web. 01 May 2017.