Abstract
The trite cliché “We are what we eat” applies directly to the steady stream of images and texts we consume daily via the screens in our lives. Through our phones, computers, tablets, and televisions, we are bingeing our way through a steady diet of information about who we are and what we should be, much of it unhealthy, stereotypical, preying on individual insecurities, and based on product consumption. The negative impact of these images is particularly strong for the queer—gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans—individuals. Media theorists and scholars have long argued, beginning with the popularization of television in the 1940s, that our experiences with and consumption of what is fed to us through our screens has a profound effect on how we see/define ourselves and the world. This book applies those theories and philosophies to the digital texts today in a keen analysis of a specific population: lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. The primary question answered in these chapters is “How and why are representations of queer identity in the digital age shaping who we are as gay, lesbian, bi, trans, queer people?” The answers are vexing in that the digital media, which purports to open up the world with access to all kinds of information and knowledge, ultimately serves to distort and limit in very negative ways how we perceive, embody, perform queer identity. The dynamics of various media shaping our worldview and sense of self is not unique, but typical. The problem, however, is that with the digital age, what we consume is more restrictive than ever.
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Notes
- 1.
LGBT refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual/transgender. The word “queer” needs some explanation. I use the term “queer” to identify individuals and groups who are resisting gender, sexuality, and sex binaries mandated by the culture. Queer, in this book, is used as an all-encompassing word for LGBT and other people who feel a part of this community due to their gender, sex, or expression of sexuality. Although many scholars would argue that “queer” should only be applied to people who are deliberately disrupting these binaries in political ways, I argue that we are still living in a time where the act of identifying oneself as gay, lesbian, trans, bisexual, intersex, or other is still a political act. Therefore, anyone who identifies as part of that group is part of the larger community of queer. The word “queer” is also a way to reclaim a derogatory term and use it to gather groups of people together in ways that identify a community of similar experiences. The umbrella word “queer” allows for various identities surrounding sex/gender/sexuality that are not included in the LGBT acronym, such as those who identify as intersex, pansexual, or genderqueer, among others.
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Siebler, K. (2016). Introduction: LGBT Identity and Selling Queer. In: Learning Queer Identity in the Digital Age. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59950-6_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59950-6_1
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