Feeling Normal: Sexuality and Media Criticism in the Digital Age

by F. Hollis Griffin

Overview

The explosion of cable networks, cinema distributors, and mobile media companies explicitly designed for sexual minorities in the contemporary moment has made media culture a major factor in what it feels like to be a queer person. F. Hollis Griffin demonstrates how cities offer a way of thinking about that phenomenon. By examining urban centers in tandem with advertiser-supported newspapers, New Queer Cinema and B-movies, queer-targeted television, and mobile apps, Griffin illustrates how new forms of LGBT media are less "new" than we often believe. He connects cities and LGBT media through the experiences they can make available to people, which Griffin articulates as feelings, emotions, and affects. He illuminates how the limitations of these experiences—while not universally accessible, nor necessarily empowering—are often the very reasons why people find them compelling and desirable.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253024558
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	01/09/2017
Pages:	202
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

F. Hollis Griffin is Assistant Professor of Queer Studies and Communication at Denison University where he teaches and conducts research on media studies, cultural theory, and the politics of identity and desire. He has published research in Cinema Journal, Television & New Media, Popular Communication, Quarterly Review of Film & Video, Journal of Popular Film & Television, and the anthology The Companion to Reality Television.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Cities as Affective Convergences
2. The Aesthetics of Banality After New Queer Cinema
3. Commodity Activism and Corporate Synergy on Cable TV
4. Toward an Actually Queer Criticism of Television
5. Wanting Something Online
Afterword: #LoveWins
Selected Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

"As a guide to emerging queer media of our new century, Hollis Griffin is funny, generous, passionate, and lucid.  Whether he's explaining Grindr's memes or the gayborhoods of Chicago, cable travel programs or online networks, Griffin discovers how it feels to be queer in the digital age."

Amy Villarejo

As a guide to emerging queer media of our new century, Hollis Griffin is funny, generous, passionate, and lucid.  Whether he's explaining Grindr's memes or the gayborhoods of Chicago, cable travel programs or online networks, Griffin discovers how it feels to be queer in the digital age.

Amy Villarejo]]>

As a guide to emerging queer media of our new century, Hollis Griffin is funny, generous, passionate, and lucid.  Whether he's explaining Grindr's memes or the gayborhoods of Chicago, cable travel programs or online networks, Griffin discovers how it feels to be queer in the digital age.

Editorial Reviews

There are certain scholars and critics who have a knack for combining a theoretically rich analysis of a varied archive with a distinctive voice. Griffin is one of those. While never lacking in rigor or scholarly address, the book does have moments of genuine humor, when it is clear that Griffin understands the ironic posture that many queer people take toward the media that they consume. As such, Feeling Normal, while scholarly in outlook and perspective, is actually a pleasure to read.

Information

"

There are certain scholars and critics who have a knack for combining a theoretically rich analysis of a varied archive with a distinctive voice. Griffin is one of those. While never lacking in rigor or scholarly address, the book does have moments of genuine humor, when it is clear that Griffin understands the ironic posture that many queer people take toward the media that they consume. As such, Feeling Normal, while scholarly in outlook and perspective, is actually a pleasure to read.

"

Information

"Overall, Feeling Normal provides an important addition to the existing scholarship in the field. This book will serve those interested in cultural studies, media studies, and LGBTQ studies well."—Critical Studies in Media Communication

"Offers a piercing examination of modern identity politics focused on relationships among new forms of media consumption and marketplaces, urban centers, and the experiences of sexual minorities. ... Feeling Normal is a must-read for scholars and students in queer studies and communication, media studies, film studies, and sociology."—Choice Reviews

"Altogether, Griffin's analysis provides a pathway for understanding how gay and lesbian media, including films like Elena Undone, can make LGBTQ people feel normal. Furthermore, he underlines the importance of these feelings for identifying media's discursive role in constructing the boundaries of gay and lesbian citizenship."—Mobile Media & Communication

"Griffin offers a compelling analysis of how sexual desire and identity are created, circulated, and consumed in contemporary media culture... [The book] provides an important addition to the existing scholarship in the field. "—Critical Studies in Media Communication

"There are certain scholars and critics who have a knack for combining a theoretically rich analysis of a varied archive with a distinctive voice. Griffin is one of those. While never lacking in rigor or scholarly address, the book does have moments of genuine humor, when it is clear that Griffin understands the ironic posture that many queer people take toward the media that they consume. As such, Feeling Normal, while scholarly in outlook and perspective, is actually a pleasure to read."—Information, Communication, & Society

"As a guide to emerging queer media of our new century, Hollis Griffin is funny, generous, passionate, and lucid.  Whether he's explaining Grindr's memes or the gayborhoods of Chicago, cable travel programs or online networks, Griffin discovers how it feels to be queer in the digital age."—Amy Villarejo, Author of Ethereal Queer: Television, Historicity, Desire

From the Publisher

"Altogether, Griffin's analysis provides a pathway for understanding how gay and lesbian media, including films like Elena Undone, can make LGBTQ people feel normal. Furthermore, he underlines the importance of these feelings for identifying media's discursive role in constructing the boundaries of gay and lesbian citizenship."

Mobile Media & Communication

Overall, Feeling Normal provides an important addition to the existing scholarship in the field. This book will serve those interested in cultural studies, media studies, and LGBTQ studies well.

Critical Studies in Media Communication

"Offers a piercing examination of modern identity politics focused on relationships among new forms of media consumption and marketplaces, urban centers, and the experiences of sexual minorities. ... Feeling Normal is a must-read for scholars and students in queer studies and communication, media studies, film studies, and sociology."

Choice Reviews