Queer in America

sex, the media, and the closets of power

1st ed.
  • 5.0 (1 rating) ·
  • 2 Want to read
  • 1 Have read

My Reading Lists:

Create a new list

Check-In

×Close
Add an optional check-in date. Check-in dates are used to track yearly reading goals.
Today

  • 5.0 (1 rating) ·
  • 2 Want to read
  • 1 Have read

Buy this book

Last edited by MARC Bot
July 23, 2024 | History

Queer in America

sex, the media, and the closets of power

1st ed.
  • 5.0 (1 rating) ·
  • 2 Want to read
  • 1 Have read

What's it like to be queer in America? Ask Michelangelo Signorile. Called a "sissy" and a "faggot" while growing up in the working-class Italian-Catholic neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Staten Island, he is one of the new breed of lesbians and gay men who decided to bash back. Signorile's signature upper-case invective expressed the anger of a generation in his columns in OutWeek magazine. Queer in America is his story - and the story of a new gay generation that is taking on the American institution known as the "closet."

Signorile first came to the media's attention in March 1990, when Time magazine coined the term outing - revealing the homosexuality of public figures. Queer in America is about the enormous controversy that ensued when Signorile reported on the life of deceased multi-millionaire Malcolm Forbes. It is about how, as the author sees it, the media has covered up, and continues to cover up, the truth about lesbian and gay public figures. It is about what Signorile contends is an unconscious conspiracy to keep all homosexuals locked in the closet. Here too is the story behind the expose Signorile wrote for The Advocate in 1991 in which he revealed that then-Assistant Secretary of Defense Pete Williams is gay. The story was the Fort Sumter of the gays-in-the-military debate: It drew the battle lines, defining the issue from then on as one of governmental hypocrisy. The story also forever changed the way outing was viewed by straights and gays alike.

But Queer in America is not so much about outing as it is about the closet - the men and women who are forced into it and those who are forced out of it, those who hide within it and those who escape from its destructive clutches. Here are the actors, the casting agents, the studio moguls, the legislators, the editors, the columnists, the government officials, the lobbyists, the congressional staffers, and their painful, often anger-provoking, and occasionally triumphant stories. Through hundreds of interviews with those in and out of the closet, Signorile shows how forces within three American power centers - New York, Washington, D.C., and Hollywood - keep in place what amounts to the conspiracy of the closet, allowing homophobia to continue unabated in the halls of Congress, the studios of Hollywood, and the newspapers and magazines that chronicle our culture. Signorile focuses on the insidious combination of the closet and power: how closeted gays in power, he argues, effectively oppress not only themselves but all those lesbians and gay men who work for them as well as the millions over whom they wield influence.

Queer in America is also about the future, about a time when queer activism will be implemented with the touch of a computer key. Signorile takes a look at the companies of Silicon Valley - Apple, Microsoft, Quark - dominated by out-of-the-closet gays and touting enlightened anti-discrimination policies and domestic partnership benefits, and he shows how high technology will be put toward breaking down the institution of the closet in the coming years.

Finally, Signorile offers a no-nonsense Queer Manifesto for the nineties for all of those who are determined to dismantle the closet forever. Queer in America takes us on a journey inside the American closet, throws it open, and fixes it so that it will never shut again

Publish Date
Publisher
Random House
Language
English
Pages
378

Buy this book

Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: Queer in America
Queer in America: sex, the media, and the closets of power
2003, University of Wisconsin Press
in English
Cover of: Queer in America
Queer in America
November 13, 1995, Random House Value Publishing
Hardcover in English
Cover of: Queer in America
Queer in America: sex, the media, and the closets of power
1994, Anchor Books
in English
Cover of: Queer in America
Queer in America: sex, the media, and the closets of power
1994, Abacus
in English
Cover of: Queer in America
Queer in America: sex, the media, and the closets of power
1993, Random House
in English
Cover of: Queer in America
Queer in America: sex, the media, and the closets of power
1993, Random House
in English - 1st ed.
Cover of: Queer in America
Queer in America: sex, the media, and the closets of power
Publish date unknown, University of Wisconsin Press

Add another edition?

Book Details


Edition Notes

Includes index.

Published in
New York

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
305.9/0664
Library of Congress
HQ76.8.U5 S57 1993, HQ76.8.U5S57 1993

The Physical Object

Pagination
xix, 378 p.;
Number of pages
378

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL1746176M
Internet Archive
queerinamericase00sign_0
ISBN 10
067941309X
LCCN
92056847
OCLC/WorldCat
27174217
Library Thing
25792
Goodreads
1453287

Links outside Open Library

Community Reviews (0)

Feedback?
No community reviews have been submitted for this work.

History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON / OPDS | Wikipedia citation
July 23, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
July 29, 2023 Edited by Erraticonteuse Edited without comment.
March 8, 2023 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
December 4, 2022 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
April 1, 2008 Created by an anonymous user Imported from Scriblio MARC record