Sexuality

Theorist ANDY MEDHURST (1998) claims that sexuality disrupt representation claims, like those made by Dyer (“How we are seen determines in part how we are treated; how we treat others on how we see them; such seeing comes from representation” Dyer, 1993), because in the REAL world you cannot ‘see’ sexuality. Unless someone tells you they are homosexual you have no way of knowing.However, in the media stereotypes are used to explore ideological positions about sexuality. “Films and television comedies are full of images of gay men as effeminate screaming queens…It chooses that aspect of gay male behaviour (SELECTION), inflates it into the defining male characteristic of male homosexuality (MAGNIFICATION), then establish it as the most easily recognizable image (REDUCTION).”“This is why stereotypes of sexuality strive so vigorously to create two, polarized sexualities, hetro and straight, and to insist with such obsessive reductiveness that people who belong to those poles are easily identifiable – hence the recurring presence across media texts of the screaming queen and his female equivalent the butch dyke.”

Stereotypical lesbian

Stereotypical gay male

Star Trek is a film that actually breaks the stereotypes. Gay characters storylines tend to only revolve around their sexuality, but in Star Trek they publicise on the male character's sexuality by simply showing a shot of him holding hands with a male- they don't make a big deal about it, and don't use him as a stereotype of a gay man. 

Practice Essay

How is sexuality portrayed in the extract of Eastenders through:

Camera work

Mise-en-scene

Sound

& editing

In this particular extract of Eastenders, the two homosexual males both support and disrupt Andy Medhurst's (1988) "queer" theories. I will now explore this idea in more detail, go into depth on the camera work, mise-en-scene, sound and editing.

This scene begins with a medium close up of the openly gay male, with his future lover walking in through the door in the background. The openly gay males breaks Andy Medhurt's theory that states how gay males are seen as the "screaming queen"- in Eastenders he is portrayed as butch, which more so supports Gauntlett's of how males in general are portrayed in film. The other male character supports Medhurst's theories more so, but goes against his stat