In recent years, particularly after the 2004 presidential elections in the United States, sexuality has become an increasingly charged location for political articulation.  Often not centered in traditional identity politics, such articulations actively use sexuality to accentuate or reinforce institutional, socio-political, and economic norms.  Primarily centered in what intellectuals such as Michael Warner, Lisa Duggan, Wendy Brown, and Judith Butler see as a disturbing unity between neoliberal and neoconservative ideologies, political discourse has retained traditional public/private emphases while simultaneously relying on the breakdown of such binaries for much of their currency.  Mass media have of course played a large role in this process, as the “gay fad” becomes a multi-billion dollar industry with such shows as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Will and Grace.  However, because the rhetoric involved relies on both the division between “public” and “private” and its breakdown, it becomes simultaneously easier and more important to locate instances of instability and discursive flux.  Through a historical genealogy of sexuality in television, followed by specific case study analyses of V for Vendetta, South Park, and the vampire film, this panel will chart various ways in which sexuality is developed, used to destabilize or reinscribe the dominant, and is ultimately a site through which representation and political action are negotiated.

Society for Cinema and Media Studies National Conference, Chicago 3/11/2007 2:15-4:00 pm