The Influence of Dominant Ideologies on Media Constructions of LGBTQ Identities (2023)
Underrepresented minorities are most often included in media representations the moment they are regarded as an untapped market. Advertisements are media motivated by capitalistic desire that which incorporate characteristics of a particular demographic in order to construct relatable identities that are then marketed to those consumers. The identities of LGBTQ people constructed in media have served as the primary source of social knowledge regarding this demographic, and therefore portray the dominant social attitudes toward LGBTQ people relative to the time at which the media emerge(1). The printed advertisement for TV-TS(2) published in Gay Community News in 1988 marketed a transvestite-transexual contact service to LGBTQ people by constructing the identities of consumers specifically included in the “crossdressing, transsexualism, transgenderism” demographic. Through specific visual details, framing, and linguistic choices, the identities constructed in this advertisement reveal the lack of visibility experienced by LGBTQ people during the 20th century as a result of their deviation from the dominant heterosexual culture. This advertisement also proves that the increase in consumption of media driven by capitalism affords marginalized demographics, such as LGBTQ people, inclusion in media representation, conditional that such representations are motivated by capitalism and subliminally uphold the dominant social ideologies at that time(1).
The visual component of the advertisement is simplistic, yet illustrates the invisibility of LGBTQ people in both media representations and in public spaces during the 20th century. This component features a character donning painted nails and seen wearing high heels, stockings, and a bracelet while reaching toward a telephone to insinuate that they are calling the contact service. The specific details incorporated in the character’s depiction portray the character as hyper-feminine, and serve as the only visual contribution to the overall constructed identity. These details exaggerate the character’s gender expression to place a conspicuous emphasis on femininity, a trait commonly attributed to LGBTQ people during the time of this advertisement’s circulation(3). In this way, the advertisement demonstrates how constructed identities of LGBTQ people in media have been limited, problematic, and stereotypical portrayals that which reflect the dominant social knowledge of LGBTQ people. Moreover, this hyper-feminine character illustrates how incorporating stereotypes in the construction of LGBTQ identities results in predominantly one-dimensional characters that which confine all LGBTQ people and experiences to one identity(1).
In addition to the use of stereotypes, the framing of the visual component aides in conveying the invisibility of LGBTQ people in media representation at that time. The framing allows the full length of the character’s legs and one forearm to be visible, however, all other aspects of the character’s body fall out of frame. This choice makes it impossible to determine the character’s full identity, demonstrating how even the visibly constructed LGBTQ identities found in media representations conveyed the social invisibility experienced by LGBTQ people at that time. Additionally, this framing limits the scope of representation conveyed by the character to a “particular categor[y] of identity” that is “not reflective of the spectrum of transgender identities”(4). While this character serves to represent LGBTQ people who express feminine gender identities, the lack of additional characters depicting other forms of gender expression reveals the oversimplification of LGBTQ identities in media. This framing also reinforces dominant heteronormative gender expressions because the inability to perceive the character’s face and body allows for the portrayal of a feminine character whose gender expression cannot possibly be perceived as conflicting with their anatomy.
The deliberate detail and framing choices used to depict the unidentifiable character bear the same connotations of secrecy and privacy attributed to the lives of LGBTQ people during the 20th century. At that time, culturally central concepts like the private and public social spheres were organized to maintain heterosexuality as the uninterrogated social normative. Through this organization, heterosexual couples were granted the freedom to display affection in the public sphere whereas homosexual couples were only permitted to display affection freely in the private sphere(5). Despite the target consumer of the TV-TS advertisement being those who identify as transgender, transsexual, and crossdressers, all LGBTQ people at that moment in time were expected to operate under the same restrictions of expression in the public sphere as people who identified as homosexual. In concealing the character’s complete identity, the advertisement depicts the way LGBTQ people were not permitted to be fully visible in the public sphere.
These sentiments are built upon further through the language choices made in the textual component of the advertisement. In an attempt to grab the attention of the target demographic, the visual is coupled with a headline directly asking consumers if they are “all dressed up” with “nowhere to go.” The use of the phrase “nowhere to go” in the headline reveals the lack of safe, public spaces for LGBTQ people while simultaneously conveying the social constraints responsible for the necessity of a contact service. Therefore, in framing the contact service as a “somewhere to go” for LGBTQ people, the advertisement demonstrates the way LGBTQ people were forced to express their identities in a private sphere due to the intolerance of their expression in the public sphere. TV-TS then prefaces the service description by referring to the service as “exciting” in an effort to appeal to LGBTQ people, yet through this preface, the restraints of the dominant heterosexual culture that which the service exploits for profit is concealed. As highlighted by Sharon Marcus, the social restraints experienced by people confined to the private social sphere can also serve as the basis for the cultivation of new and more public social experiences(6). With that in mind, not only is TV-TS marketing a private and safe space, but they also market the prospect of connecting and interacting with other LGBTQ people who have been forced into private lives.
The description goes on to describe TV-TS as an “exciting world of uninhibited personality expression,” however, the language choices employed here once more reveal the negative constraints imposed on LGBTQ people as result of the dominant heterosexual culture. The first few words in the description subliminally evoke a connection to the white male patriarch in a similar way to that of the film Paris Is Burning, which evokes the same connection without making it visible in the film(3). In particular, the use of the descriptor “uninhibited” to express how TV-TS provides freedom in what is then referred to as “personality expression” indicates that this specific freedom is otherwise inhibited by the society in which the advertisement circulated. Additionally, presenting TV-TS as a “world” positions the contact service as a privatized space that exists separate from the public. This same underlying message is conveyed by a review from the New Yorker about Paris Is Burning, in which the critic states the film offered a “sympathetic observation of a specialized, private world”(3). The use of “world” in both the TV-TS advertisement and the film review to describe spaces inhabited by LGBTQ people at that time reveals the way in which LGBTQ people were excluded from public spaces and could only express themselves in separate, private spaces. The connotations of separation and privacy associated with all the aforementioned language choices also show how TV-TS itself functions as a private sphere in which LGBTQ people are allowed the same freedom and safety to express their identities that heterosexual people are allowed in public spaces.
All in all, the TV-TS advertisement printed in 1988 constructs identities of LGBTQ people that have been strongly influenced by the dominant ideologies of the 20th century. Through the framing and depiction of a featured character, the advertisement subliminally reveals the invisibility of LGBTQ people in both media representations and the public sphere. Furthermore, the stereotypical characteristics used to depict the character convey the attitudes about LGBTQ identities held by the dominant heterosexual culture at that time. Specific linguistic choices also work to indicate the forced privatization and separation from the public sphere endured by LGBTQ people during the 20th century.
Sources
(1) Lauren B. McInroy and Shelley L. Craig, “Perspectives of LGBTQ Emerging Adults on the Depiction and Impact of LGBTQ Media Representation,” Journal of Youth Studies 20, no. 1 (2016): pp. 33-42, https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2016.1184243.
(2) "All dressed up and nowhere to go?." Advertisement. 1988. Digital Transgender Archive, https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/h128nf057
(3) Bell Hooks, Reel to Real: Race, Class and Sex at the Movies (New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 283.
(4) Lauren B. McInroy and Shelley L. Craig, “Transgender Representation in Offline and Online Media: LGBTQ Youth Perspectives,” Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 25, no. 6 (Sept. 2015): pp. 610-611.
(5) Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Tendencies (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 9.
(6) Sharon Marcus, “Queer Theory for Everyone: A Review Essay,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 31, no. 1 (2005): pp. 191-218, https://doi.org/10.1086/432743, pp. 207.