Lucien Hilaire

La culture gay contemporaine met en avant des personnalités médiatiques souvent dénommées "icônes gay". Souvent des femmes, souvent hétérosexuelles, que représentent ces images du désir gay ? Comment se fait-il qu'un public homosexuel masculin érigent au rang d'icônes ces figures si particulières du genre et de la sexualité ? Pour répondre à ces questions, il a paru opportun de confronter les théories psychanalytiques de Freud et Lacan aux écrits de Cultural Studies sur la culture gay. À partir de là, il est apparu que la construction de l'iconicité gay dans la culture capitaliste contemporaine s'inscrivait :
- d'une part, dans une réappropriation queer de la culture populaire hétérosexuelle, et en particulier un goût pour les figures maternelles subversives face à la fonction phallique ;
- d'autre part, dans une esthétique parodique de la souffrance dite "camp", incarnée par une féminité excessive.
En se penchant sur des cas spécifiques d'icônes gay (Madonna, Lady Gaga, Judy Garland, Britney Spears, entre autres) ainsi que des œuvres littéraires et cinématographiques ("Œdipe roi", "Médée", "8 femmes", entre autres), cette étude interroge également la dimension politique de la culture gay : en quoi l'iconicité gay participe-t-elle au néolibéralisme ainsi qu'à l'homonationalisme du XXIe siècle ?

Oftentimes, the speech of young American women is presented by mainstream media in a negative light. The three linguistic patterns which are most often discussed as part of young women's speech are : uses of like as a discourse marker, uptalk (a high-rising intonation in statements) and vocal fry (also known as creaky voice). Popular opinion seems to agree that the representations of young women in popular culture using such linguistic devices is the reason behind their relatively recent popularity. In order to investigate the veracity of those beliefs, this paper first addresses the issue of girls in American pop culture. More specifically, we are interested in the linguistic construction of girl identity in pop culture beyond factors of age and gender. Issues of race, financial status and sexuality are addressed, as well as the omnipresent notion of privilege in the representation of girlhood are also discussed. In the second chapter, some of the literature on each linguistic pattern is reviewed so as to clarify potential misconceptions about how, why and by whom those devices are used. Lastly, we analyse the results of an experiment conducted with ten native speakers of Californian English about the presence of discursive like, uptalk and vocal fry in their speech. It appears that popular opinion on the three linguistic patterns may not not accurate, mainly because many other factors appear to influence their usage beyond age and gender. On a sociocultural level, the language of girlhood in the US seems to voice the identity crisis of a perpetually infantilised community of practice.