Dr. Sara DiazWGST 280: Gender, Sexuality, and Popular CultureGonzaga University

Hetero Barbie?

Object Analysis Blog

• Last autobiography due tonight!

• Pick and artifact you love!

• Prompt on blackboard.• First post is focused on detailed description• Preliminary textual analysis • Preliminary thoughts about political economy

and media effects.

Object Analysis Blog• 600 word minimum

• Written feedback, no grade until end.• Loose points for lateness, not responding to the prompt.

• Develop thinking for final paper.

• The POINT is to evolve in your thinking. It’s okay to change your mind about your analysis.

• BUT, you can’t change your object!

Non-normative Sexualities

• Social Constructions of Gender, Class, Race• Sexuality – Normative Sexuality →

Beyonce• Today• Non-normative sexualities• Oppositional “Queer” readings• Tomorrow: • Orange is the New Black → Resistant?

Historical LGBT Tropes

• Tortured/Tragic/Suicidal/Dead Homosexual• Sympathetic Victim (Bullying/bashing, HIV)• Sexual/Gender Deviant Villain• Homosexual Predator (lusting after

straight people)• Humorous Campy Sidekick• Trans women of color as prostitutes•Working class butch as “wannabe”

Rapid Changes: Marriage

Mass. Marriage DecisionEllen Came Out

2014 (Gallup): • 38% of Americans say homosexuality is morally wrong • SS-marriage legal in 31 States and 10 tribes• 55% of Americans say it should be legal• 63% of Americans say SS-couples should be allowed to legally adopt

Media Normalization

• Example of how media is normative:•Media may play a role in shifting society

towards tolerance and acceptance.• Can create new stereotypes.

Some New LGBT Tropes

• The Gay/Lesbian•Badass• The “Straight

Acting” Gay/Lesbian•Parenthood•Coming Out

“Queering” Texts

• History of terrible representation• LGBT people developed a tradition of

oppositional reading practices• Reading between the lines• Imagining themselves into the text

• “Queering”: Emphasizing oppositional readings in relation to norms of gender and sexuality

Preferred Readings

•What is the preferred reading of Barbie?• Construction of Barbie’s body?• Codes of Gender?

•What inferential sexisms, heterosexisms, racisms, and classisms are embedded in the preferred reading of Barbie?

Oppositional Readings

• How does Rogers “Queer” Barbie?

• What specific elements of the text does she point to to support her argument?

• What does her oppositional reading of Barbie tell us about the social construction of gender and sexuality?

• How might her oppositional reading reinforce elements of the preferred meaning of Barbie?