Social Semiotics

ISSN: 1035-0330 (Print) 1470-1219 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/csos20

Becoming the homovoyeur: consuming

homosexual representation in Queer as Folk

Sheri L. Manuel

To cite this article: Sheri L. Manuel (2009) Becoming the homovoyeur: consuming
homosexual representation in Queer as Folk , Social Semiotics, 19:3, 275-291, DOI:
10.1080/10350330903072656

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330903072656

Published online: 21 Sep 2009.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 1704

View related articles

Citing articles: 1 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=csos20
Social Semiotics
Vol. 19, No. 3, September 2009, 275
291

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Becoming the homovoyeur: consuming homosexual representation
in Queer as Folk
Sheri L. Manuel*

Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John’s, NL, Canada

(Received 1 May 2008; final version received 14 October 2008)

Gay and lesbian representations in television programming have changed

drastically in the past few years with the introduction of shows such as The L
Word and Queer as Folk. The number of heterosexuals watching queered
television has also increased, leaving us wondering how we can interpret their
growing numbers as cultural consumers of queer portrayals. This article infuses
cultural and queer studies with sociology, proposing that straight viewers of
the television program Queer as Folk become ‘‘homovoyeurs’’ through their
consumption of queer imagery as spectacle and entertainment. Through a
semiotic reading, I also suggest that queer television programming
while
opening up symbolic spaces for cross-sexual identity consumption
still leaves
intact barriers to meaningful interaction and dialogue across the homosexual/
heterosexual identity boundary.
Keywords: sexual identities; television representation; homovoyeurism; symbolic
spaces; cultural consumption

Introduction
Up until the late 1990s, representations of queer folk in North American mainstream
media was often ancillary to a heterosexist agenda that viewed homosexuality as a
threat to traditional mores in sexuality (Keller 2005), something to be apologized for
(Dow 2001), or used as comic relief (Gamson 1998). Heterosexism conferred an
importance in traditional representations of relationships predicated on male
female
unions and reproduction, giving the illusion that ‘‘legitimate,’’ and therefore publicly
recognized, relationships were always heterosexual (see Keller 2005). Representations
of homosexuality in entertainment-based programming was portrayed as unproble-
matic so long as it did not challenge a heteronormative ideal of representing
‘‘normal’’ straight relationships (Gamson 1998; Dow 2001). Rich (2003) contends
that western social life is dedicated to compulsory heterosexuality, whereby
individuals are presumed heterosexual unless otherwise specified. Television is one
medium where heterosexuality is automatically presumed; representations of the
sexual Other, however, fall under a heteronormative discourse of stereotypes that
create boundaries and oppositions in the normal versus the abnormal (see Gamson
1998; Holbert 2005; Summers 2005; Keller 2005).

*Email: stormagus@gmail.com
ISSN 1035-0330 print/1470-1219 online
# 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/10350330903072656
http://www.informaworld.com
276 S.L. Manuel

Common representations of sexuality are constrained by standardized imposi-

tions of form (see Bourdieu 1991) and politics surrounding taste (Arthurs 2004;
Sender 2003). Impositions and politics also work to distinguish social and
hierarchical functions between sexual identities (see Laumann et al. 1994). Binaries
of homosexuality/heterosexuality are continuously produced and reproduced for the
consumption of a viewing audience. Writers and producers of television programs
are empowered in their ability to utilize television as a medium to disseminate
traditional ideologies and ways of viewing sexual and gendered Others (Dornfeld
1998); whereas homosexuality has often been portrayed as incompatible with
heterosexual mores, and thus a danger to codes of gendered conduct (Butler
1993). For example, Altman (1982) points out that stereotypes of the male gay have
been replete in images of powerlessness tied to cultural beliefs surrounding
effeminacy. In contrast, images of lesbians have been couched in butch representa-
tions, extolling a female threat to masculine power and status (Rich 2003).
Furthermore, previous to programs such as Ellen, Queer as Folk (QAF) and The
L Word, representations often failed to portray gays and lesbians as main characters,
little less as sexually active. The homosexual has regularly been depicted as the
peripheral ‘‘lone’’ queer destined for a lifetime of partnerless, abject loneliness
contrasted against blissful heterosexual coupledom (Altman 1982). Mainstream
television programming in North America retains a status quo in what is acceptable
for public consumption when it comes to sexualized bodies, and whose sexuality is
expressed. In contrast, QAF has played a major part in some of the new ways media
has begun to portray homosexuality. The program claims to offer a new typology of
signification and radical discourse in the ‘‘modern’’ homosexual. Moreover, because
television offers its viewers a way of relating to the world through its transmission of
ideologies and attitudes, new representations offer new translations.
This article asks: what does a sexualized homosexual representation mean, and
how could the audience be shaped by this new imagery? The following offers one of
the many possible readings of QAF: I propose that the overtly sexualized
homosexual creates a new possibility in the straight-identified viewing audience
with the homovoyeur; that the program challenges the use of symbolic public spaces;
and while furthering discourse surrounding the illusion of a normalized sexual
binary, it does so without removing barriers for meaningful dialogue across a homo/
hetero divide.

Methodology
Foucault (1978 [1990], 11) posits that sex and sexuality is put into public discourse as a
way of knowing something, controlling both its interpretation and its future practice.
Knowing something and putting knowledge into words, as descriptors, acts as power.
Sex, sexuality, and sexualized bodies become objects dominated by those invested in it,
such as mainstream media. The dissemination of knowledge leads to (mistaken) beliefs
and socially constructed (mis)representations forwarded as objective truths. However,
mainstream media can also be used as a contested space to challenge ‘‘truths’’ and
negotiate power imbalances. It can be differentially utilized to offer alternative
representations of marginalized identities, and alter the meanings surrounding them.
Thus, mainstream media can be queered, whereby portrayals are directed to queer
audiences as ‘‘authentic’’ over straight, ‘‘inauthentic’’ (stereotyped) representations
 Social Semiotics 277

(Summers 2005). For example, programs such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which
debuted in 2003, have intentionally challenged negative stereotypes in order to dispel
myths surrounding gays as a threat to heterosexuality and traditional mores, and
homosexuals as powerless (Hart 2004).
Drawing on suggestions made by Cowan (2002), Fiske and Hartley (1978) and
Dornfeld (1998) in how to approach a content analysis of television programming,
exploration entailed seeking out and reading both the manifest and latent meanings
inscribed within the program. A semiotic reading is under-girded by discourse
analysis; applied to codes (signs and signifiers); and inferential meanings derived by
drawing from existing queer and sociological perspectives within a North American
cultural context. In this, manifest and latent symbols are interpreted for corresponding
signifiers, and what representational signs may mean to North American viewers.
QAF was chosen as the medium of study because it represents a program that is
both public and widely available to a large variety of demographics reachable by cable
television. First launched in 1999 in the United Kingdom on Channel Four, it was
quickly taken up and revamped for a North American audience in 2000, shown on
Showtime in the USA and Showcase in Canada. The US version of the program has
since been aired in 10 European countries, four countries in Latin America, in
Australia, and in one Middle Eastern country,1 with fan pages, blogs and forums still
active two years after the program’s formal finale. Lasting a total of five seasons and 83
episodes, QAF coincided with further, radical homosexual-based programs such as
The L Word directed at a predominantly minority audience (Munt 2000; Shiller 2003).
Of the central tenets of reading television, Fiske and Hartley (1978) and Cowan
(2002) propose a semiotics of visual imagery as well as language, infusing both into a
decoding of underlying meanings. We can propose an inferential reading, one that is
bound to the conventions and standards of the surrounding culture to utilize
Foucault’s (1978 [1990]) theory of discourse as power. Bourdieu (1991) cites that
censorship imposes proprieties of form which constrain expressions of the dominated
toward silence, or toward outspokenness. Because prior representations portrayed
homosexuality as predominantly asexual, investigation assumed that the newly
sexualized homosexual in QAF acts as a prime example of Bourdieu’s outspokenness,
and Summers’ (2005) queering of the mainstream.
Fiske and Hartley (1978) inform that there are preferred readings of television’s
codes, and, because the television medium does not lend itself to easy quantitative
deduction (Cowan 2002; Dornfeld 1998), a discursive approach was adapted to this
reading whereby subcultural customs were drawn from to make an inferential
reading of the program’s representations of queer culture. Manifest content denoted
the easily-observed components of the program, such as locations utilized, material
wealth implied, and attire worn by characters. Latent content denoted that which
was not easily observed; the emotions and attitudes generated by, for example, verbal
intonation, statements made, and choice of accompanying music. Groupings of
manifest and latent typologies were not created as distinctive categories, but were
read together as semiotic; looking for connections between the signifier (manifest)
and the signified (latent). Prominent examples were drawn from the program that
illustrated the creation of new representations that could be applied to a new style of
audience observer (the homovoyeur), those that lent themselves to understanding the
program as use of symbolic space, and, lastly, contributed to discussion surrounding
the ‘‘normal gay’’ (see Berzon 2001; Bell and Binnie 2000).
278 S.L. Manuel

Discursive analysis sought to not only explain symbols found in the program, but
also describe the subculture or lifestyle it portrayed, and relate it back to its cultural
origins in reference to queer theory literature (see Altman 1982). Data collection
involved observing the full five years of the US version of QAF; a total of 83
episodes, each 48 minutes long. Episodes were watched in DVD format, excluding
commercials and advertised sponsors.2 Each episode, drawing along a linear
continuum in a dramatic, ‘‘soap opera’’ format, was searched for producer codes,
and further made inferential decodings from these codes. Codes denote the symbolic
intentions of the writers and producers of the program, or the ‘‘text’’ of the plotline
that can be ‘‘read’’ as manifest. Dornfeld (1998) explains that producers and writers
of television programs are constrained by the pre-existing expectations of their
audiences who are informed by surrounding cultural and social mores. Because QAF
was initially marketed to a predominantly minority audience of gays, lesbians, and
other queer and questioning individuals (Munt 2000; Shiller 2003), it was presumed
that messages would be tailored to a collective, perhaps political, interest. Moreover,
because the survival of the program was dependent upon audience enjoyment, it was
also expected that it would appeal as entertainment, structured with comedy and
characters that audience members could potentially relate to with less attention given
to militant-appearing politics that may alienate a heterosexual, if not homophobic,
audience (Gauntlett and Hill 1999; Altman 1982).
Decoding QAF necessitated inferring potential interpretations of the show. This
researcher being the only observer, and thus the only reader, necessitated that
potential interpretations were decidedly from a literary contextual basis that drew
upon existing sources of literature from both queer studies and sociology. The
following analysis does not claim to be within a tradition of queer/cultural studies,
nor solidly within any one sociological perspective. Instead, it makes pragmatic use
of Stein and Plummer’s (1993 [1996]) suggestion for an integration of both into one
framework of investigation. A large literature on queer representations already exists,
as well as a plethora of sociological theories to choose from in a reading of QAF. This
analysis draws from both literatures to offer the following reading. Lastly, while this
analysis reflects upon earlier work on QAF undertaken by Munt (2000), it is read
from this writer’s own cultural position within a large urban center in North
America.

Homovoyeurism
Herman (2005, 19) notes that ‘‘inherently apolitical and essentialist understanding[s]
of sexuality, again [distance] heterosexual viewers from any potential danger of
identification.’’ In other words, mainstream television programs do not allow for
cross-boundary identification between sexualities. Television is a cultural commodity,
offering a stockpile of resources for observing and consuming the world. Programs
are riddled with expectations of socially appropriate messages that do not usually
allow for group boundaries to be easily traversed. Viewers watch the lives of others
with the television functioning as a safe barrier between themselves and the subject.
The television is a tool to invade the lives of others, making public spectacle those lives
of the observed while the observer is kept ‘‘private’’ from meaningful interpersonal
interaction between themself and the sexualized Other.
 Social Semiotics 279

Viewers become voyeurs because they escape this one-to-one interaction. In this,
the television as an object of consumption is also a symbolic barricade between
social actors by prohibiting contact. Blumenthal (1954) contends that inanimate
objects become symbolic through cultural use, and that objects become cultural
when symbolic ideas are communicated through them in reciprocal fashion. The
television as a symbolic object, and programs that depict the sexual Other for a
predominantly heterosexual audience, also reflect a delineation of groups, while
promoting covert observation at the same time.
Mainstream media as a symbolic tool holds power to inform the voyeur of social
attitudes reinforced through display (see also Allan 2001; Gamson 1998; Summers
2005). Viewers of QAF engage through fantasy with eroticized queer folk who have
been put on televised display. This is similar to Keller’s (2005) study of lesbian pulp
novels in the 1950s and 1960s; finding that homosexuality packaged and sold to a
predominantly heterosexual male readership was found titillating to immerse
themselves within the lives of sexual Others. Although overt sexuality of the Other
was reduced to mere mention of legs and breasts, it was in the act of the gaze and the
imagined sexuality (read fantasy) of the Other that readers remained largely attracted
to lesbian depictions.
Representations of gays and lesbians in the mainstream from the 1950s through
the 1970s in North America were replete with images of the ‘‘sissy’’ gay and
‘‘masculine’’ lesbian, affirming cultural values in the definition of ‘‘good’’ men or
women (Summers 2005; see also Hart 2004). Ascribed characteristics of gays and
lesbians portrayed them as gender-confused, abnormal, or even sick. The popular
1991 film Basic Instinct acts as such an example, with the two female protagonists
a
lesbian, and a bisexual
depicted as sexy, yet murderous psychopaths. The USA is
‘‘saved’’ from their murderous rampage with intervention of the heterosexual male
hero. Thus, the ‘‘healthy’’ social order is presumably protected from the gay threat or
‘‘queer monster’’ coded into these homosexual portrayals (see Summers 2005, 173).
The difference between previous mainstream representations of queer folks and
new portrayals is found in whom these representations are directed toward, and
ultimately who gains power over those representations. As Summers (2005) and Dow
(2001) point out, visibility of queers being open about their sexuality transforms
representations, and also public discourse surrounding what being queer means to
the viewer. Visibility signals a negotiation of power between heterosexual and
homosexual representation within the media, and bridges the divide between the
private/invisible and public/dominant (also see Attwood 2005).
Indeed, QAF is different from its representational predecessors in that it
graphically portrays gay and lesbian sexuality not for consumption by straights, but
for consumption by other queer folk (Shiller 2003). Graphic sexuality is politically
strategic in so far as empowering queer sex; relegating it not to silence and invisibility,
but to the foreground as a desired object. In its uninhibited and uncensored
characterizations, it stimulates the symbolic consumption of homosexual sex through
homoerotic voyeurism of what was previously invisible in the mainstream. In essence,
gay and lesbian bodies are made consumable and consumed by the program’s viewer:
the homovoyeur.
Gay and lesbian bodies are now eroticized to a degree like never before on North
American public television, illustrated by lesbian full-frontal nudity in the first
season, joined by full-frontal nudity of the male gay by the second season. And this
280 S.L. Manuel

has undoubtedly piqued the interest of heterosexual viewers. Shiller (2003, 3) notes
that QAF ’s popularity amongst straight women may be attributed to a reversal of the
gaze, a ‘‘gender meltdown,’’ writing that ‘‘femininity and masculinity, associated with
‘appropriate’ sexual identification and desire, is suddenly attached to culturally
inappropriate male and female bodies.’’ Women desire to become Justin making out
with Brian, and empathize with Michael’s unrequited love. Men within QAF have
become the objects of the
typically male
gaze, objectified and lusted after. In this,
QAF goes beyond the expectations of the viewer by providing an atypical visual
representation that is processual, evolving (see Altman 1982), and pushes the limits
of ‘‘taste’’ and ‘‘form’’ (Arthurs 2004) in homosexual representation. Gay and
lesbian sexuality invites the straight homovoyeur to watch, if not perhaps question,
their own erotic desires.
QAF opens its first of two pilot episodes with the Michael Novotny character
enticing the viewer to watch, proclaiming that:
The thing you need to know is: it’s all about sex. It’s true. In fact, they say that men
think about sex every twenty-eight seconds. ‘‘Course, that’s straight men. For gay men,
that’s every nine. You can be at the supermarket, or the laundromat, or buying a
fabulous shirt when suddenly you find yourself checking out some hot guy, hotter than
the one you saw last weekend, or went home with the night before. Which explains why
we’re all at Babylon at one in the morning instead of at home, in bed. But who wants to
be at home in bed, especially alone? When you can be here, knowing at any moment you
might see him, the most beautiful man that ever lived. That is, until tomorrow night.
(Episode 1, Season 1)

Novotny primes the basis of the program. The homovoyeur is presented within the
first five minutes with undulating ‘‘perfect’’-bodied men on the dance floor of
Babylon. The male form is made into a sensualized object vicariously consumed
through the program’s main antagonist, Brian Kinney. The homovoyeur is also
quickly introduced to the rest of the main characters: Ted Schmidt as the hapless,
average-looking accountant; and Emmett Honeycutt, described as a ‘‘queen.’’
Within 15 minutes of observing highly-sexed, half-clad bodies gyrating on the dance
floor to 1980s pop music, a sneak peak of Babylon’s backroom with groaning men in
the throngs of sexual ecstasy, the homovoyeur is shuttled outside into the character
of Justin Taylor, an underage ‘‘boy toy’’ seeking to express his own sexual desires.
And, of course, within 20 minutes Kinney and Taylor are locked in a passionate
embrace to the sound of Divine’s ‘‘You Think You’re a Man,’’ an anthem
synonymous with queer sexual consumption.
Homovoyeurism can also be likened to what Kuhn (1985, 71) refers to as a ‘‘view
behind’’ the subject, or a ‘‘voyeuristic view’’ of the character that suggests pleasure is
taken in the very activity of the gaze. The homovoyeur is enticed to ‘‘become’’ any of
the characters, or to simply remain the outside observer. With secret observation, the
homovoyeur engages with characters through the television as a mediating
instrument (Fiske and Hartley 1978; Archer 2003). Television can also be seen as
a tool of storytelling; the audience formulates their personal narratives based upon
those represented by characters they admire, aspire to become, or position as
opposite. QAF’s viewers consume cultural ideologies that are produced and
reproduced via programming that they find enjoyable, titillating, or familiar
(Gauntlett and Hill 1999).
 Social Semiotics 281

The homovoyeur is also empowered in this relationship, in that they can

formulate attitudes and consume ideologies without intervention by outside agents.
This is not to imply that the homovoyeur is a free, unrestrained actor. Drawing on
the work of Bourdieu (1991) we may propose that the homovoyeur is constrained by
the attitudes given them by surrounding culture
political or religious alignment,
and personal histories. The messages and attitudes embodied by the homovoyeur are
dependent upon their orientating group, the collective ideologies of the habitus
dispositions the homovoyeur relates to as familiar. The homovoyeur can insist on
embodying previous hostilities toward the observed (Altman 1982), or can allow
themselves to be influenced positively by the representations encountered as a
decisive maneuver outside their originating habitus.
What makes QAF inviting to the homovoyeur is that it offers a choice of images
and attitudes available to be consumed, and a myriad way to look at masculinities and
gender as perpetually evolving and processual. The homovoyeur may identify along
intersecting lines of sexual orientation, gender, social constraints/privileges, or class to
name but a few. Or the homovoyeur may escape into a fantasy role, imagining
themself as the Other to whom they have no identification whatsoever. Gender lines
and roles are blurred in QAF, illustrating a recent tendency in programming featuring
queer-identified leading roles. Attwood’s (2005) study of British ‘‘lifestyle’’ home-
improvement programs featuring gay stars points to a new, hybridized masculinity
with the ‘‘new lad.’’ Expert interior designers and providers of DIY solutions to
decorating problems cross the boundary between the private (women’s domain) and
the public (men’s sphere). This ‘‘new lad’’ blurs the distinction between macho
masculinity and the ‘‘dandy.’’ Masculinities have become objects of consumer culture
to be chosen from. QAF is no different in selling gay and lesbian sexuality, class and
taste with the newly coveted homosexual; from Kinney’s hedonistic lifestyle and
disposable income, to Melanie Marcus’ high-status legal profession. The status of
being queer is increased within new representations of the worthy, ‘‘good,’’ and greatly
desired.
While a conceptualization of a homovoyeur implies that viewers connect with
program characters outside an interactive, one-on-one dialog, Gauntlett and Hill
(1999) contend television programs carry the ability to influence audiences through
the messages delivered. Blumenthal (1954) proposes that culture relates to the
symbolic ideas provided; symbolic objects and materials are transformed through the
imposition of new ideologies. Thus, the program’s symbolic ideologies must be
captivating and contemporary for the audience, even if on a superficial level to
maximize viewer enjoyment, and therefore their continued engagement (Gauntlett
and Hill 1999). Television programs centered in portraying homosexuals as main
characters, such as QAF and The L Word, for example, offer appealing representations
to garner an audience for program survival.
Shiller (2003) points out that the Canadian Nielsen ratings at the end of the first
season portrayed 52% of viewers to be straight women. Although the North American
version was not produced to appeal to a predominantly straight audience, the high
number of straight women watching could be attributed to the sex appeal of the
characters. Thus, the entertainment program must be ‘‘sexy’’ to capture attention;
characters and plot must be presented in such a way as to elicit the impulse to watch.
Moreover, messages must conform to the pre-set codes and standards of the existing
culture in some nominal way to be effective in desiring capabilities (Fiske and Hartley
282 S.L. Manuel

1978; Bourdieu 1991). This is especially salient if new representations deviate from the
status quo.
The audience, in turn, engages with the characters in the privacy of their own
home through the provision of ‘‘commonsense’’ cultural symbols linked to new
images. QAF’s apparent ability to achieve this, with a full five years of production,
and Canadian requests for the production of a sixth season, signals this appeal to an
audience who desires to engage in homovoyeurism. While the homovoyeur is
provided with stereotypes of homosexual culture including promiscuity, dance
culture and hyper-masculinized bodies (Altman 1982), it is met with blatant, feel-
good, overt sexuality.

Symbolic spaces
Television is symbolic of public space, disseminating messages and ideas (Blumenthal
1954) across a multiplicity of social demographics, cultures, and subcultures. QAF’s
representation of the sexualized queer stakes claim over representation in public
discourse, sending a message about the ownership of television as a public space. In
such, QAF functions as a form of cultural capital for relating viewers (Ward 2003).
Politically, the television as a public medium has been a hurdle to overcome in
homosexual visibility. McLuhan (1994) refers to media as the message; the message
of the medium always contains yet another medium embedded within it, and
introduces into public discourse a new set of human associations. QAF is strategic in
this respect, by introducing into the public content that was previously made
invisible: homosexual sexuality and the privileging of heterosexuality in the media.
Symbolic spaces also connote labeling processes that set apart homosexual from
heterosexual, and gay from lesbian. Berzon (2001) claims that, for a positive gay and
lesbian identity to emerge in public, labels of identity must be self-applied. QAF
employs a hierarchy of characters within the queer space, allowing for a manifest
semiotic reading. For example, we find that lesbian characters were often referred to
as ‘‘dykes’’ and ‘‘fag hags.’’ The ‘‘dyke’’ is empowered, ascribed with masculine
characteristics of confidence and self-assurance, while the ‘‘fag hag’’ is derogatory,
implying a following of male gay norms as the ‘‘hanger-on,’’ and used as a way to
express subordinate/superordinate differences between the two. The ‘‘fag hag’’ is also
used in jest, a playful bantering between gays toward lesbians in the form of sibling
rivalry. Male characters vacillate between ‘‘fag,’’ ‘‘queen,’’ ‘‘nelly,’’ ‘‘pussy boy,’’
‘‘top,’’ or ‘‘bottom.’’ ‘‘Fag’’ and ‘‘top’’ twist the power of the derogatory into a
positive self-label of domination, while ‘‘bottom,’’ ‘‘queen,’’ ‘‘pussy boy’’ and ‘‘nelly’’
often refer to an empowered subservience, poking fun at the notion of heterosexual
‘‘female’’ role-taking with penetration by an antagonist.
Young gay males are referred to as ‘‘twinks’’ or ‘‘twinkies,’’ a symbolic title of
youth, inexperience, and naiveté. An entire hierarchy of experience/inexperience,
dominant/passive emerges within the subculture given, and also clearly sets homo-
sexual existence against what it is not: ‘‘breeders’’ or ‘‘straights.’’ Most salient in the
use of labels is how they are twisted back on themselves. The use of lexicon to state
homosexual positions is juxtaposed against ‘‘breeders’’ and ‘‘straights’’ as derogatory
terms, hinting at anger, and also setting up a reverse hierarchy where the queer can be
proud of what they are not. This rhetoric creates a differential world with degrees of
separation between homosexual and heterosexual, reifying homo/hetero binaries and
 Social Semiotics 283

oppositions (Bernstein 1997; Johnson 2004; Khayatt 2002). Valocchi (2005) contends
that different institutional settings can be appropriated to recreate the meanings of
identities (labels) in such a way as to create a positive representation. In other words,
self-labeling allows for a collective identity, and as Holliday (1999) points out, one to
which the voyeur can relate with comfort, or the straight audience can compare
themselves against to formulate their own sense of self. A multitude of homosexual
identities are portrayed on QAF, what Bravmann (1996) would refer to as a ‘‘fractured’’
postmodern identity. Queer folks of various socio-economic backgrounds and sexes
come together on the show, from financially struggling (Emmett Honeycutt) to
‘‘housewife’’ (Lindsay Peterson) to Attorney (Melanie Marcus). A fracturing-off of
individuals are mobilized together under the label of queer, creating what Bourdieu
(1980) refers to as a ‘‘homology of oppositions’’ that co-exist together to create the
whole as a symbolic community.
Identity is embedded within sexuality on QAF, as Munt (2000) points out in the
UK version; characters are read through their sexuality. Characters also distinguish
themselves from others through their homosexuality as a social status. Relations
between oppositions are verbally expressed in a number of ways throughout, from
questioning monogamy and claiming promiscuity as a superior form of managing
relationships (see also Altman 1982), rejection of marriage and weddings, to
altogether blatant statements that provoke the heterosexual Other. Kinney’s
statement illustrates:
There are only two kinds of straight people in this world. The kind that hate you to your
face, and the kind that hate you behind your back. (Episode 1, Season 2)

What is most instrumental about the above statement is how it speaks to the straight
homovoyeur. It challenges their reasons for watching. Is the straight homovoyeur
watching for the delight in spectacle? Is the straight homovoyeur watching because
they are supportive of a diverse television atmosphere? Furthermore, the statement
acts as a device to twist the object of contempt back onto the heterosexual, pointedly
referring to straights as the target of scorn. The hetero-homovoyeur is made to feel
guilty and ashamed, deflecting shame and guilt associated with being queer back at
the viewer, and in this, the medium provides the sexual Other with power.
Power negotiation is also illustrated though a counter-discursive typology of
heterosexuality premised on a homo/hetero dichotomy. The viewer is encouraged to
see that every heterosexual stereotype surrounding homosexuality is a typology of hate
and discrimination, and Kinney makes it clear that relations across the homo/hetero
boundary are couched in covert/overt intolerance. This is political in that it sets up a
symbolic space of struggle across binaries where Kinney behaves as the moderator. For
example, we are shown Melanie and Lindsey’s battle over same-sex parental rights,
and by the fifth season their decisive move to a more tolerant, liberal environment to
raise their children: Canada. Indeed, QAF shifts in storyline from comedy drama to
dedicating more attention to social movement politics by the final season.
Addressing more social issues as the series progresses, QAF includes the
introduction of HIV-positive character Ben Bruckner in Season Two in a relationship
with Michael, who is HIV-negative, and later James ‘‘Hunter’’ Montgomery as HIV-
positive in Season Four. In the same season we also lose Vic Grassi to complications
from AIDS, a reality faced by gay communities since the mid-1980s. As the viewer
284 S.L. Manuel

grows with the characters across the series, the loss of one to HIV/AIDS is a potent
message about the loss of a loved one, and continued battles over the status and
treatment of gay men living with HIV (Sember 2003). Issues surrounding body image
and drug addiction are also raised across characters, and in the final season we are
presented with the effects of discriminating policies with ‘‘Proposition 14.’’ Mirroring
Canadian and US political battles (see Warner 2002), QAF ’s Proposition 14 addresses
struggles for same-sex marriage, adoption, and families of choice.
QAF became an avenue for political consciousness-raising in Canada and the
USA through the use of comedy drama. For example, in the USA the Defense of
Marriage Act in 1996 upheld heterosexist ideals of marriage pertaining to one man
and one woman, eventually overturned by several states. In the Canadian context,
the passing of Bill C-38 in 2005, the Civil Marriage Act, allowed for legal recognition
and rights pertaining to same-sex couples (see Rayside 1998, 2008; Warner 2002;
Adam 1995). Rights-based battles are fought on the premise that structures privilege
only heterosexual relationships. Indeed, the play on the very title of the program,
Queer as Folk, states that nothing is queerer than human nature, and nothing is more
queer than social structures that define human rights upon something so arbitrary as
sexuality.
Looking at television as a contested social space, we can draw from Bourdieu
(1998)
who contends that social space(s) constitute fields of power. Each space is
contested through relational understandings of what that space means. Television
exists as a social space where meanings over group identities and respective behaviors
attributed to each group are challenged in relation to each other. Bourdieu (1998, 32)
exclaims that: ‘‘all societies appear as social spaces, that is, as structures of
differences that can only be understood by constructing the generative principle
which objectively grounds those differences.’’ Kinney’s overt statement and QAF ’s
treatment of structural traditions as heteronormative (monogamous relationships,
marriage) provide the object conditions in which to view sexual difference within
public discourse.
QAF ’s expropriation of public space is also made visible through the potent
American metaphor of liberty, reflected in the program’s rainbow district. Although
filmed in Toronto’s rainbow district at Church and Wellesley Streets, the area is
transformed into Liberty Street, set in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where characters are
liberated in their sexuality through association with others of familiarity. This
metaphor is tied closely to US political notions of democracy and freedom. Liberty
Street, therefore, is an appropriation upon this metaphor
an etching-out
of space
both geographically and metaphorically within the larger American culture to reflect
a freedom of existence.
Blasius (1992) tells us that, because no model of what constitutes queer living
exists, prototypes have been carved out and adapted from dominant heterosexual
culture to act as a basis for ‘‘alternative lifestyles.’’ Individuals and groups will
struggle to modify and alter the surrounding structures for their own gain and claims
(Bourdieu 1980). This is exemplified in the idea of queer ‘‘spaces’’ (Chisholm 2005;
Blasius 1992), ‘‘identity locations’’ (Butler 1993), and ‘‘geographies’’ (Blasius 1992;
Sember 2003). These places permit for apportioned queered ‘‘living’’ locations,
institutions and services that are modeled on, and borrow from, the dominant culture,
but cater to the queer. Spaces are ‘‘queered’’ in so far as they are recreated and
 Social Semiotics 285

redesigned for a queer demographic and used as means of negotiating community

membership.
Queer geographies, or ‘‘rainbow villages,’’ found in larger urban centers reinforce
the concept of liberation from heterosexist structures. Aside from delineating
television space as a queered location, QAF mirrors a liberating of geographical
space that has been a very real method of creating a sense of virtual community (also
see Seidman 2004). Liberty Street denotes a metaphorical, geographical environment
where queer identities converge and define the boundaries, further articulated
through interpersonal relations at the Liberty Diner. Liberty is also transformed into
a place that can be visited through fantasy by the observing homovoyeur.
Liberty also metaphorically denotes the ‘‘coming out’’ of the ‘‘closet’’ (Seidman
2004). Accordingly, we can read Liberty Street as a signifier, a symbolic space where
queer identities reign. Munt (2000), writing on the pride/shame dichotomies present
in the UK version of QAF, points out that the program allowed for a televised display
of pride, an un-closeting of homosexual silence. In the US version, the homovoyeur
becomes the witness to the ‘‘secret’’ of homosexuality in the Foucaultian (1978
[1990]) sense of confession as liberation. The homovoyeur becomes witness to such
coming-out confessions as Taylor unabashedly exclaims to his mother and
psychiatrist: ‘‘I love cock. I love sucking cock. I love being fucked by cock’’
(Episode 4, Season 1). Taylor rejects shame, and he is not ashamed to publicly
announce his confession.

Discussion: QAF as an agent of normalization?

The question remains of whether QAF functions to normalize homosexuality within
a predominantly heterosexual medium. If normalization is incurred by the visibility
of any homosexual characterization in mainstream television programming, then the
objective has been met repeatedly with shows such as Ellen, Roseanne, Will and
Grace, and Bob and Rose, to name but a few. However, mainstreaming and
normalization cannot be conflated as one and the same. We have been provided
with various representations of a homosexual character since the advent of cinema
(Summers 2005); what mainstreaming asks then, is what is an ‘‘honest’’ representa-
tion of homosexuality? Does the mainstreamed queer not embody as many
stereotypes as the mainstream heterosexual, just in opposition? If the point of
visibility, in essence, is a mainstreaming of homosexuality into public discourse,
centered on pointing out differences from the predominant culture, then is the
stereotyped homosexual not a mainstreamed one already? QAF, in its reproduction
of boundaries between ‘‘us’’ and ‘‘them’’ (Dornfeld 1998), makes mainstream the
dichotomies between sexualities both covertly, such as in symbolic geographical
space, and overtly through vocabulary, such as references to heterosexuals as
‘‘breeders’’ (QAF, Episode 1, Season 1). By delineating spaces geographically and
behaviorally, QAF depicts and reifies the boundaries and borders of the mainstream
through its own representations of sexuality as the marker of difference.
Indeed, representations of homosexuals thus far have been comedic, circus and,
for the most part, asexual, which QAF both supports and undermines through its use
of drag queens, dance-club spectacle, and graphic sex scenes. QAF manages to
position homosexual sexuality outside the typically mundane and banal, encoura-
ging queer characters’ sexual desires within a mainstream context: the television.
286 S.L. Manuel

Herman (2005) points out that television messages of homosexuality are accepted
only in so far as they conform to the pre-set codes and standards of the culture, and
QAF does not deny its homovoyeurs their desire for the stereotypical. However, what
does not conform are the graphic displays of sexuality that are an intrinsic structural
component to the program, whether it is Kinney’s steady stream of men in his loft, or
Peterson and Marcus satisfying each other on the living room couch. QAF, perhaps,
in its vivid portrayal goes beyond the ‘‘normal,’’ but perhaps it also creates a new
standard for normal at the same time.
With the impossibility of presenting an image that encompasses all sexual lives,
the best that can be done is a multi-dimensional portrayal of homosexuality, which
QAF provides. Viewers are supplied with the Schmidt and Honeycutt characters that
fret, in that they cannot achieve the musculature and build of the idealized ‘‘macho’’
gay (see Altman 1982). Schmidt, the introverted accountant with a love of opera and
naı̈veté concerning relationships and trust, is juxtaposed against Honeycutt, the
‘‘drama queen/nelly type’’ who works in clothing sales. Viewers are also conferred
with the now unemployed, former chef, Grassi, who is forced to deal with the social
and economic ramifications of HIV/AIDS and the lacking support from a
discriminating social system. And in contrast to Grassi, viewers are provided with
the Bruckner character, a highly ‘‘functioning’’ carrier of HIV who is also an
academic, a professional who could be you or me. Normality, based on bodily
controls, ideals and disease is not akin to only homosexuals, but anyone inclusive of
heterosexuals, a reality that transcends sexualities and socio-economic backgrounds.
By representing an array from the multitude of ways that homosexual identity could
be portrayed, QAF places squarely the lives of the queer within a framework of
anyone. In short, everyone is queer, and being queer should not be problematic.
Alternately, if normalization of homosexuality denotes equal television repre-
sentation and symbolized social status akin to that of the heterosexual counterpart,
then the goal is far from reached in North America. This is reflected in Vaid’s (1996),
4) comment that: ‘‘We are at once marginal and mainstream, at once assimilated and
irreconcilably queer.’’ The queer, for Vaid, yearns for mainstream status as relief
from vilification, loathing, and dis-integration. Television programs such as QAF act
as both a tool of normalization, and a tool against it. Vaid (1996) contends that
television and the media have given the illusion of equality, but not one centered in
reality with the relief from daily discrimination. Gamson (1998) points out that
television’s focus on the circus aspects of queer community is a disservice to the
masses. QAF reminds us of this with Novotny’s ‘‘passing’’ as straight at the Big Q
(the resemblance to both Wal-Mart and Zellers are astounding) where he worked as
a district manager. Novotny’s passing illustrates the hidden aspects of homosexuality
in the name of appearing ‘‘normal.’’ Decoded, this portrayal posits that normal-
ization has not been achieved inside or outside the sphere of North American reality.
QAF further questions what the concept of normal means, and if normal entails
adhering to traditional doctrines of lifestyle and interaction. For example, Debbie
Novotny, who insists that she just wants her gay son to ‘‘have a normal life and be
happy,’’ consistently confronts us. Michael Novotny strives, yet fails repeatedly, to
live up to this expectation, finding that happiness is not in a monogamous gay
relationship, while envious of the sexual liberties of his best friend, Kinney. Novotny
is imposed upon by his straight mother, given a model of heterosexuality that is not
easy to obey within the dictates of a ‘‘promiscuous queer subculture’’ made explicit
 Social Semiotics 287

within the program text. Kinney, in contrast, exclaims ‘‘What the fuck is normal,
anyway?’’, challenging the status quo of straight relationships for their assumed
normality.
Indeed the title of the program, Queer as Folk, can also be read for its
normalization aspects. Having two different meanings
gay as people, or weird like
other people
this dual meaning posits the message that the queer are people as well,
deserving of the same rights and protections of heterosexuals. Alternately, the
opposite meaning denotes that all people are weird, that in essence no one, regardless
of their sexuality, falls under the tenets of normalcy. Normality is subject to
interpretation, lacking a concrete definition even in heterosexual relations. To
illustrate, Debbie Novotny’s own dating and impregnation by a drag-queen
performer resulting in the conception of Michael challenges the appearances of
presumably normal heterosexual relationships and reproduction. Thus, the concept
of normal as questioned, challenged, and rebuked points to the arbitrary and
abstract nature of it as a social fact, as something that can be objectively known.
Foucault (1978 [1990]) defines normal as the regulations and standards of sexual
practice imposed upon the dominated. To be normalized by Foucault’s definition is
in assimilation of sexual norms, not the liberation of the sexual transgression thrust
into the public domain. Normal conveys conformity to a set of standards, a set of
possible narrative stories to formulate a life around (Gauntlett and Hill 1999). QAF
shows the viewer that television standards are fabricated; drawing on the multiplicity
of relationships that anyone could find themselves in, gay or straight. Viewers are
offered the Peterson and Marcus characters that struggle to hold their relationship
together for their children. Unrequited love occurs between Novotny and Kinney, as
an additional love triangle emerges involving a third character, Taylor. While QAF
carries the hallmarks of any good soap opera to garner viewers, it nonetheless
portrays the wearisome trials and tribulations that could occur during anyone’s
lifetime.
It is also important to note that the writers and producers of QAF ignore
homosexuals of color, various ethnicities and cultural backgrounds, bisexuals,
transgender and transsexual peoples except as a means of ridicule and comic relief.
Villainy has been displaced from white, middle-class lesbians and gays onto further
delineated Others. Munt (2000) points out that in the UK version of the program
antagonists were overwhelmingly portrayed as Black. In attempting to normalize one
sect of lesbian and gay as white, QAF succeeded in demarcating further groups to
direct public animosity toward.
The program encodes a message that white gays or lesbians are not the public
enemy, ethnic homosexual Otherness is. Viewers are also encouraged to treat
transgenderism and transvestitism as an embarrassment. The introduction of the
Divina Devore character as Novotny’s biological father in ‘‘drag’’ illustrates denial of
the Other as authentic. Once Devore is ‘‘outed’’ as Novotny’s biological father, the
Novotny family turns back to the previous, fabricated narrative that Michael’s father
was killed in Vietnam two weeks after his birth. Devore’s transvestitism is rejected,
encoding her non-normative gender performances as illegitimate. This treatment of
trans individuals positions them as adversarial to gendered dichotomies (Kuhn
1985), a highly political subject that QAF fails to deal with in terms of transgender
and transsexual in any meaningful way other than to promote deleterious attitudes.
Fiske and Hartley (1978, 17) proclaim ‘‘television structures and presents its picture
288 S.L. Manuel

of reality [that] can go a long way towards helping us understand the way in which
our society works.’’ We can propose, then, that this representation buttresses
discursive attitudes surrounding dissent from gendered boundaries, providing the
viewer with what they have come to expect.
Foucault tells us that (mis)representation alters what can be known about a
demographical sexuality, imparting power and control over groups as the dominated,
subordinated to dominant discourse. This is illustrated in season one where the
viewer is presented with the stereotype of the Japanese courtesan who services
Honeycutt, but his demands for payment are lost in translation. We also fail to see
non-white gays and lesbians frequenting the Liberty Diner, strolling Liberty Street, or
being cruised in the baths. Apparently the notion of ‘‘Liberty’’ and the metaphor of
its promise for sexual liberation from heteronormative oppression do not apply to
everyone.
Fiske and Hartley (1978) claim that racial minorities are treated more favorably
in television, signaling a liberal desire for integration within the predominantly white
media. However, Black, Asian, Aboriginal, and other queers of color and nationality
are not presented outside the scant representation on Babylon’s dance floor, and
certainly not as prominent characters in the plot fraternizing with main characters.
Munt (2000) also points out in her examination of the UK version that dominant
discourses surrounding non-normative sexualities are twisted into threat and
criminality outside whiteness. Discourse is recreated to include white homosexuality
as non-threatening, turning hostilities toward a threatening Otherness in the North
American version. Even the portrayal of Lindsay Peterson as the ‘‘pretentious’’
WASP3 coupled with Melanie Marcus as the disenfranchised daughter of a Jewish
family still adheres to white, middle-class appearances of ‘‘ethnically appropriate’’
relationships.
In five years of the series, QAF has not led to a complete normalization of
homosexuality in the everyday; but it has at least opened discourse on how sex and
sexuality can be known. Sexuality as pleasure, desire, as a liberated way of knowing
the self, has opened avenues for continued televised discourse, by, for example,
opening the channels for more programs such as The L Word. But perhaps
normalization is dependent upon the interpretations of the homovoyeur. QAF was
devised to appeal to a minority audience, which by the second year of airing had
garnered over two million viewers in the United Kingdom alone (Munt 2000).
Mirroring British reception of the program, in North America it also appealed to a
predominantly gay, lesbian, and straight female audience. But what of straight
males? Perhaps normalization is measured in the number of heterosexual men (male
homovoyeurs) that are willing to admit viewing? Perhaps normal equates to interest
across genders and sexualities? If straight male resistance to admission of watching is
an indication of non-normalization into the mainstream, we are provided a value in
which to measure decreased animosity and hostility and normalization over time
with future disclosure.

A final word
Arthurs (2004) points out that analysis of homosexual representation in television is
deficient, and the present investigation of QAF has aimed to add to this literature,
albeit in a cursory way. However, the analysis of QAF offered here also points to the
 Social Semiotics 289

fact that much more is required that delves into the multiplicity of representations
and diverse interpretations that create a postmodern typology of the fractured queer
identity in all its incarnations and images in mainstream television media. This
article has offered a way to interpret the publicly sexualized homosexual through a
vision that sees the audience as engaging with characters as acts of homovoyeurism.
It has also offered a semiotic reading of the symbols and codes found throughout the
program’s five seasons, drawing on the concept of symbolic spaces and the portrayal
of queer geographies to include a liberation of television spaces, and a negotiation of
power over them. It remains debatable, however, if this program has the overall effect
of acting as an agent of normalization.
While we may be able to concede that homosexuality has been represented to
some degree consistently across the years, what also persists across time is the battle
over what representations mean. Gamson (1998) points out that social movement
representatives have disassociated from television representation, citing that reifica-
tion of the carnivalesque gives movement players a poor reputation of ‘‘trashiness’’
and ‘‘circus.’’ However, framing theorists have pointed out that media representation
and public interest work together in a reciprocal arrangement (Gamson and
Wolfsfeld 1993; Benford and Snow 2000; Cohn and Gallagher 1984; Jordan 1993),
thus denoting the potential future importance of analyzing QAF and other queered
programming for their importance to objectives and goals of the North American
social movement. It could contend with the social movement aspects of its messages
and encodings, for example, by comparing the motivations of the program’s writers
and producers with the aspirations of both liberationist and rights-based social
movement strains. Questions we may ask involve: how does a heterogeneous
representation help the goals of the social movement? Have movement representa-
tives rekindled their focus in using mainstream television as a tool of tolerance in the
five years of the program’s running? In short, we need to ask what changing
mainstream representations of homosexuality provide in services to a gay and lesbian
civil rights agenda.

Acknowledgement
Thanks to Dr Michael Atkinson (McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario) for his encourage-
ment and comments in the process of this analysis. Thanks also to Tony Berto, PhD candidate
(University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario) for his conceptualization of symbolic barricades and
help with this article.

Notes
1. The US version was later aired in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Greece,
Slovenia, Spain, the Netherlands, France, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Australia and Israel.
2. In Canada, episodes by the final season were extended to 70 minutes to accommodate for
the high volume of corporate sponsors and product commercials. Further analysis of QAF’s
impact on viewership could potentially be read through this corporate support, and
discursively analyzed as a matter of selling queer culture and ‘‘taste’’ as products to be
consumed (see Sender 2003; Hart 2004).
3. The term ‘‘WASP’’ stands as an acronym for elitist white Anglo-Saxon Protestants derived
in 1950s North America. Contemporarily, the term refers more ambiguously to individuals
who are white North Americans of upper-middle-class to upper-class status. The Lindsay
Peterson character was described within the program as a WASP due to her socio-economic
status, and having been raised in a family ‘‘with money.’’
290 S.L. Manuel

Notes on contributor
Sheri L. Manuel is currently a PhD student in sociology at Memorial University of
Newfoundland. Her research surrounds social movement strategies within the areas of
sexualities and gender studies, in particular focusing on framing strategies of self and identity
as a symbolically negotiated process between individual and networking organizations. She
holds research funding from Memorial University of Newfoundland and is currently working
on her dissertation in sexualities and gender.

References
Adam, Barry. 1995. The rise of a gay and lesbian movement. New York: Twayne.
Allan, James. 2001. Imagining an intercultural nation: A moment in Canadian queer cinema.
In In a queer country: Gay and lesbian studies in the Canadian context, ed. Terry Goldie, 138

159. Vancouver, BC: Arsenal Pulp Press.
Altman, Dennis. 1982. The homosexualization of America: The Americanization of the
homosexual. New York: St Martin’s Press.
Archer, Margaret S. 2003. Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge, UK:
University of Cambridge Press.
Arthurs, Jane 2004. Television and sexuality: Regulation and the politics of taste. New York:
Open University Press.
Attwood, Feona. 2005. Inside out: Men on the ‘‘home front’’. Journal of Consumer Culture 5:
87
107.
Bell, David, and Jon Binnie. 2000. The sexual citizen: Queer politics and beyond. Cambridge:
Polity Press.
Benford, Robert D., and David A. Snow. 2000. Framing processes and social movements: An
overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology 26: 611
39.
Bernstein, Mary. 1997. Celebration and suppression: The strategic uses of identity by the
lesbian and gay movement. The American Journal of Sociology 103: 531
65.
Berzon, Betty. 2001. Developing a positive gay and lesbian identity. In Positively gay: New
approaches to gay and lesbian life, ed. Betty Berzon, 18
31. 3rd ed. Toronto: Celestial Arts.
Blasius, Mark. 1992. An ethos of lesbian and gay existence. Political Theory 20: 642
71.
Blumenthal, Albert. 1954. An inductive study of the nature of culture. Social Forces 33:
113
21.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1980. The logic of practice. Trans. Richard Nice. Oxford: Blackwell Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. Language and symbolic power. Ed. John B. Thompson. Trans. Gino
Raymond and Matthew Adamson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1998. Practical reason: On the theory of action. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
Bravmann, Scott. 1996. Postmodernism and queer identities. Queer theory/sociology. Ed. Steven
Seidman, 333
361. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of ‘‘sex’’. New York:
Routledge.
Chisholm, Dianne. 2005. Queer constellations: Subcultural space in the wake of the city.
London: University of Minnesota.
Cohn, Steven F., and James E. Gallagher. 1984. Gay movements and legal change: Some
aspects of the dynamics of a social problem. Social Problems 32: 72
86.
Cowan, Gloria. 2002. Content analysis of visual materials. Handbook for conducting research on
human sexuality. Ed. Michael W. Wiederman and Bernard E. Whitley. London: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
Dornfeld, Barry. 1998. Producing public television, producing public culture. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Dow, Bonnie. 2001. Ellen, television, and the politics of gay and lesbian visibility. Critical
Studies in Media Communication 18: 123
40.
Fiske, John, and John Hartley. 1978. Reading television. London: Methuen & Co.
Foucault, Michel. 1978 [1990]. The history of sexuality: Volume one: An introduction. Trans.
Robert Hurley. New York: Random House.
 Social Semiotics 291

Gamson, Joshua. 1998. Publicity traps: Television talk shows and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender visibility. Sexualities 1: 11
41.
Gamson, William A., and Gadi Wolfsfeld. 1993. Movements and media as interacting systems.
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 528: 114
25.
Gauntlett, David, and Annette Hill. 1999. TV living: Television, culture and everyday life. New
York: Routledge.
Hart, Kylo-Patrick R. 2004. We’re here, we’re queer
and we’re better than you: The
representational superiority of gay men to heterosexuals on ‘‘Queer Eye for the Straight
Guy’’. The Journal of Men’s Studies 3: 241
53.
Herman, Didi. 2005. I’m gay: Declarations, desire, and coming out on prime-time television.
Sexualities 8: 7
29.
Holbert, Lance R. 2005. A typology for the study of entertainment television and politics.
American Behavioral Scientist 49: 436
53.
Holliday, Ruth. 1999. The comfort of identity. Sexualities 2: 475
91.
Johnson, Paul. 2004. Haunting heterosexuality: The homo/het binary and intimate love.
Sexualities 7: 183
200.
Jordan, Donald L. 1993. Newpaper effects on policy preferences. The Public Opinion Quarterly
57: 191
204.
Keller, Yvonne. 2005. Ad/normal looking. Feminist Media Studies 5: 177
95.
Khayatt, Didi. 2002. Toward a queer identity. Sexualities 5: 487
501.
Kuhn, Annette. 1985. The power of the image: Essays on representation and sexuality. Boston:
Routledge.
Laumann, Edward, O., John H. Gagnon, Robert T. Michael, and Stuart Michaels. 1994. The
social organization of sexuality: Sexual practices in the United States. London: University of
Chicago.
McLuhan, Marshall. 1994. Understanding media: The extensions of man. Cambridge, MA:
MIT.
Munt, Sally R. 2000. Shame/pride dichotomies in Queer as Folk. Textual Practice 14: 531
46.
Rayside, David. 1998. On the fringe: Gays and lesbians in politics. London: Cornell University.
Rayside, David. 2008. Queer inclusions, continental divisions: Public recognition of sexual
diversity in Canada and the United States. Toronto: University of Toronto.
Rich, Adrienne. 2003. Compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence. Journal of Women’s
History 15: 1
23.
Seidman, Steven. 2004. Beyond the closet: The transformation of gay and lesbian life. London:
Routledge.
Sember, Robert. 2003. In the shadow of the object: Sexual memory in the AIDS epidemic.
Space and Culture 6: 214
34.
Sender, Katherine. 2003. Sex sells: Sex, taste, and class in commercial gay and lesbian media.
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 9: 331
65.
Shiller, Romy. 2003. The show was never written for straight women. So why is Queer as Folk
making women wet? Fab: The Gay Scene Magazine 213, April 10: 3
6.
Stein, Arlene, and Ken Plummer. [1993] 1996. I can’t even think straight: Queer theory and the
missing revolution in sociology. In Queer theory/sociology, ed. Steven Seidman, 129
144.
Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Summers, Claude J., ed. 2005. The queer encyclopedia of film and television. San Francisco, CA:
Cleis.
Vaid, Urvashi. 1996. Virtual equality: The mainstreaming of gay and lesbian liberation. New
York: Anchor.
Valocchi, Stephen. 2005. Not yet queer enough: The lessons of queer theory for the sociology
of gender and sexuality. Gender and Society 19: 750
70.
Ward, Jane. 2003. Producing ‘‘pride’’ in West Hollywood: A queer cultural capital for queers
with cultural capital. Sexualities 6: 65
94.
Warner, Tom. 2002. Never going back: A history of queer activism in Canada. London:
University of Toronto Press.