Abstract
This investigation examined Patricia Nell Warren's gay classic Front Runner as a queer text. Queer theory has been traditionally applied to heterosexual contexts and texts to demonstrate similarities between gay behavior and heteronormative behavior. This investigation applied queer theory to Front Runner to determine what, if anything is queer about being a gay Olympic-level runner. While there is much in Front Runner that relates to American gay culture in the 1970s, this investigation focused on the running passages in Front Runner to assess the effect of applying queer theory to a queer novel. The investigation found that some passages were consistent with heteronormative athletic portrayals, while other passages emphasized the gay protagonist as tough and competitive, as if to establish a hetero-normative machismo for the protagonist. Other passages were simply typical of hetero-normative sport literature.
Highlights
Front Runner holds a contradictory place in gay literature today
Other gay critiques find it difficult to identify with the Olympic class runners featured in Front Runner: “The Front Runner’s heroic masculine characters...are not the faggots that most of us know” [2]
As Reference [3] shows queer theory has co-evolved over time with gay/gender studies and methods
Summary
Front Runner holds a contradictory place in gay literature today. Many gay men regard Front Runner as the first breakthrough validation of love-seeking gay behavior, others find it jaded or out of date [1]. Other gay critiques find it difficult to identify with the Olympic class runners featured in Front Runner: “The Front Runner’s heroic masculine characters...are not the faggots that most of us know” [2]. The stark contrast among the different perspectives may in part reflect the complicated and evolutionary nature of gay [homosexual] studies and queer theory. Queer theory has co-evolved with qualitative research [3]. Gay or homosexual research was interested in the phenomenon of homosexuality as a subject of study. Researchers sought to objectively study the homosexual as an aberrant social phenomenon.
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