“The Whole World’s Gone Gay!”: Gay Identity, Queer Culture, and The Simpsons

Abstract

Before the “queer vogue” of recent years, there was a decided lack of visibility for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and queer individuals in the media landscape; the visibility that did exist largely comprised long-standing stereotypes and negative portrayals.2 Of course, this did not mean that there was a lack of concern about gay identity and the queering of American culture. For example, during the late 1980s, the mainstream news media periodically reported, in both positive and negative ways, on the continuing AIDS crisis and on issues such as gay adoption, domestic partnerships, and military service for gays and les-bians.3 At the same time that gay and lesbian lives were becoming a larger part of the national conversation, queer identity was becoming a more integral part of mass media at the fringes of the mainstream. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, independent films studios were producing an array of films that candidly explored the queer experience, inadvertently launching what B. Ruby Rich would infamously label the “New Queer Cinema.” The commercial success of these films led Hollywood to follow suit, and within a few short years, the studios were also producing films with queer subject matter.4 Additionally, queer phenomena such as drag performance and “vogueing” crossed over into the mainstream via the work of artists such as k. d. lang and Madonna, whose hit single “Vogue” (1990) and accompanying video (directed by David Fincher) did much to popularize the formerly subcultural practice. On network television, by the mid-1990s, gay-themed episodes and references to homosexuality were also plentiful, as Ron Becker points out in Gay TV and Straight America (2006), his analysis of America’s “obsession” with gayness in the 1990s.KeywordsAmerican CultureHate CrimeDomestic PartnershipMedia LandscapeQueer IdentityThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.