Pop Culture Freaks Summary

Kidd, Dustin. 2014. “Not that There’s Anything Wrong with That: Sexuality Perspectives.” Pp. 129-163 in Pop Culture Freaks: Identity, Mass Media, and Society. Boulder: Westview Press.

Kidd expands on society’s sexual perspectives in mass media and illuminates the stress pushed towards the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender population. He outlines sexuality as one of many influences on the ways we interpret the culture we consume. He supposes that popular culture has five major social roles: generating basic social norms, producing social boundaries, producing rituals that generate social solidarity, generating modernization, and generating social progress. He pays particular attention to Emilie Durkeim and connects his sociological

perspective on suicide rates to the understanding of social boundaries and the mechanisms that we use to construct them. He outlines the “It Gets Better” project and magnifies a gay suicidal teenager, Jamey, who influenced Lady Gaga and Barack Obama. He develops on sexual demographics in television and how they rarely account for bisexual characters. He expands on other sociologists such as Margaret Cooper and Kristina Dzara (2010) and their thoughts on Facebook as a form of public identity construction—providing LGBTQ tormentors with the tools to keep them hidden away. However, Kidd has no statistics on the mass media’s effect on suicides in other teenagers, besides Jamey. He could make this work stronger by drawing conclusions to the impact on suicide rates. Nevertheless, Kidd offers a valuable source for this essay. The chapter helps to shape the argument that the influences sexuality has on the way we interpret our consumed culture. The conclusion can be made that although one social movement may have affected some LGBTQ youths, the cultural norm cannot be changed with a couple of Youtube videos. This source proves the argument that the cultural norm cannot be easily changed.

Goltz, Dustin B. 2013. "It Gets Better: Queer Futures, Critical Frustrations, and Radical Potentials." Critical Studies in Media Communication 30(2):135-151.

Goltz starts this article by signifying that the “It Gets Better” campaign was developed to offer hope and outreach to alienated queer youths in crisis through personalized YouTube messages. It was launched in respond to several widely reported lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and/or queer (LGBTQ) youth suicides (Goltz 2013: 140-6). Goltz argues that the “It Gets Better” campaign challenges totalizing logics that associate the future with queer punishment and misery, rejecting suicide as the only escape from inevitable pain (Goltz 2013: 145). He states that for queers in the future, “It Gets Better” enacts a mediated form of Band-Aid, while continually expanding the possible significations for the symbol of "better” (Goltz 2013: 148). He works with and through queer criticisms of “It Gets Better” to embrace and extend the focuses and contradictory potentials of the project. Goltz brings forward an article that defends the idea the “It Gets Better” campaign simply puts hope into the future for LGBTQ youths, but is not a cure to their potential struggles. This source is vital to whether a connection between the launch of “It Gets Better” campaign links to a decrease in suicides and/or LGBTQ youths becoming more comfortable in their skin. However, Goltz gave an excessive amount of reference and sources to back up his work, so proving him wrong would be a struggle. The following information gives the idea that the “It Gets Better” campaign might have not to be a success. This argument proves that the “It Gets Better” campaign caused more controversy than decreases in suicides and/or lack of sexual identity in LGBTQ youths.

Shneer, David and Caryn Aviv. 2006. “We’re Here, We’re Queer, Now What?” Pp. 245-262 in American Queer, Now and Then. London: Paradigm Publishers.

In this chapter, Shneer and Aviv highlight the visibility of queerness as one of the most important changes over the past 100 years (Shneer and Aviv 2006: 245-7).

They mention the transition of “the closet,” as being a place in which people could not see you, to becoming a metaphor over the last two decades of the twentieth century used for queers who face a lack of sexual identity. Shneer and Aviv bring together two conflicting ideas of the American view of queerness: the ideas of the past, and the present. They state as queerness became more visible, people finally had the choice of living multiple lives, or integrating one’s lives and spaces (Shneer and Aviv 2006: 245). They highlight another change in the past twenty years as the clash between being queer and studying queerness (Shneer and Aviv 2006: 246-7). They argue that the active and visible contests over power among American queers show that queers now occupy an important place in our culture. They expand on the fact that queerness, real, and performed, is everywhere (Shneer and Aviv 2006: 248). This source shows the transformation in American culture of the acceptance of queerness. It makes an extremely critical resource by providing evidence of the changes in culture throughout the last two decades. Having the information that queerness is becoming more accepted in culture links to a higher percentage of LGBTQ youths becoming comfortable with their sexual identity. However, compared to the other sources, this

source lacks detail. It opposes the argument that although culture is increasing their acceptance levels for LGBTQ, the “It Gets Better” campaign was not a vital motivation to do so. This source may contradict the idea of American cultural having trouble accepting the queer population, however, but this source is not as comprehensive as the others and could be used to challenge the other sources to make the original arguments stronger.
Asakura, Kenta and Shelley L. Craig. 2014. "'it Gets Better' ... but how? Exploring Resilience Development in the Accounts of LGBTQ Adults." Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 24(3):253-266

Asakura and Craig analyze videos posted for the “It Gets Better” campaign and come to the conclusion that, despite the campaign’s evidence, life does not automatically get better for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth.

They develop four main themes surrounding their finds: leaving aggressive social environments, facing 'coming out' in meaningful ways, remembering the social environment, and turning challenges into opportunities and strengths (Askura and Craig 2014: 254-5). Asakura and Craig confirm that life did not automatically get better for these participants. They conclude, “future activism and media campaigns should incorporate stories on how LGBTQ people’s lives are getting better and focus on how we as a society can make it better for today’s LGBTQ youths” (Askura and Craig 2014: 265). Asakura and Craig cover detailed information and exceptional insight to whether or not the “It Gets Better” campaign has had an impact on LGBTQ youths. In comparison to Kidd’s “Not that There’s Anything Wrong with That: Sexuality Perspectives,” this article gives personal quotes on suicide instead of just insight. This source perceives the argument that life does not automatically get better for LGBTQ youth after watching an inspirational “It Gets Better” campaign video. However, the question still hangs whether or not the “It Gets Better” campaign has provided enough strength and motivation to decrease the overall amount of LGBTQ youth

suicides.