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The Quest for Inclusion: Israeli Gay Men's Perceptions of Gay Actors
on the Public Stage1
Kama, A. (2002). The Quest for Inclusion: Jewish-Israeli Gay Men's Perceptions of Gays in the
Media. Feminist Media Studies, 2(2), 195-212.
Sub-culture members' reception of their representations
For the past thirty years the theoretical debate and empirical research on power relations
between dominant and subordinated segments of society and how they are depicted,
(re)produced, or reflected in the public sphere have been burgeoning. One of the persistent
findings across time and diverse media, genres, and cultural arenas attests to the operating
mechanism by which certain sub-cultures are excluded from the public sphere (Cedric Clark,
1969; Gail Dines and Jean Humez, 1995; Bradley Greenberg, 1980). George Gerbner and Larry
Gross (1972, 1976) argue that representation in the fictional world symbolizes existence in the
social reality, while absence means symbolic annihilation. Sub-cultures' invisibility works to
safeguard their inferiority and marginality in the real world. The hierarchy of power relations is
maintained, inter alia, by the cultivation of the visibility of the powerful on the expense of
others. The latter's position is kept at bay both in the real and symbolic worlds. Annihilation is
implemented by elimination of the powerless from the symbolic world. This can be
conceptualized quantitatively, yet, it is also achieved by sophisticated, covert, and cunning
means. Qualitative symbolic annihilation refers to the ways the powerless are portrayed when
they do appear on the public stage, particularly as grotesque, pathetic, or otherwise flawed
stereotypes (Richard Dyer, 1993; Tessa E. Perkins, 1979).
Gay men's media representations have also been charted during the past twenty-five years.
Similar trajectories of gay men's symbolic annihilation were found in various media (Edward
Alwood, 1996; Peter Nardi, 1997; Frank Pearce, 1973; Vito Russo, 1987; Kath Weston, 1995).
The only exploration into the Israeli cultural arena was carried out by the author (Amit Kama,
2000a, 2000b), where I argued that two rather distinct eras distinguish the Israeli case: the era of
silence and the present period of increasing visibility. Whereas until the late 1980s the Israeli
public sphere was devoid of gay men unless they were convicted of sexual molesting of boys, as
of the early 1990s growing numbers of fictional as well as public gays play on the public stage.
Many studies have analyzed media representations of various sub-cultures. They attempted
to uncover and isolate the components that constitute stereotypes in order to achieve a political
objective: If we can identify the ways images are constructed, we may contribute to their change
and eventual demise. Nevertheless, the debate over representations should be qualified. Many of
these studies evolved out of a theoretical premise, which presupposes that meaning is inherent
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in the text (Klaus Jensen, 1991). Cultural studies cum feminist approaches have changed the
argument in favor of perspectives that claim that meaning is manufactured via continuous
negotiations among cultural institutions, texts, and audiences situated in socio-historical
circumstances. In other words, whereas traditional researchers were mainly interested in images
per se, more and more voices are heard that call for research to examine how 'real' people and
images interact. Instead of merely looking at texts, we should be focusing on the social work
that is actually carried out by media consumers (Christine Geraghty, 1996; Tania Modleski,
1984). Ien Ang (1996a, 1996b) claims that consumers interpret texts in modes that correlate
with their life situations and these are affected by the products of their interpretive practices.
Indeed, there is a correspondence between consumers' social situation, their sense-making
practices, and the latter's implementation in their life fabric.
The question that motivated the present study was: How do sub-culture members make sense
of the (mis)presentations of their identity? While media consumers who belong to the powerful
echelons see their images in the media on a regular basis, marginalized consumers are enforced
to see their images as they were produced by and for the majority (Larry Gross, 1998). Bradley
Greenberg and Jeffrey Brand (1994) conclude that there is a dire want of research on the
ramifications of the textual analyses in the context of sub-culture members' lives. The quest for
understanding what actually takes place at the moment of contact between text and
disenfranchised reader characterizes the second wave of feminist media studies. After the
initiation of the first wave of research into the question of representations per se (Gay Tuchman,
Arlene Daniels and James Benet, 1978), feminists have been critically examining how meanings
are construed by audience members (Dorothy Hobson, 1982; Janice Radway, 1984; Lana
Rakow, 1986). Yet, so far, apart from studies dealing with women, only a few scholars
responded to these challenges in different sub-cultural contexts (Jacqueline Bobo, 1995), the
majority of whom concentrated on the functions of the media in the socialization of ethnic or
racial minorities (Marsh Liss, 1981; Storman, 1986). To a great extent, the question how subculture members experience their representations remains an unanswered empirical and
theoretical invitation.
Gay men constitute a unique sub-culture2: Whereas mediated messages are but one
component of a complex structure of unmediated messages within gendered, ethnic, racial, or
other sub-cultures, until the gay individual is re-socialized into the gay world and becomes an
initiated member (Barry Dank, 1979; Peter Davies, 1992; Evelyn Hooker, 1965), his sources of
unmediated knowledge are limited. The neophyte gay man (Richard Troiden, 1993) is
embedded in a social matrix in which other gay men are usually neither visible nor accessible.
Unlike other sub-culture members who have easy access to primary socialization agents similar
to themselves, gay neophytes need to heavily rely on the public discourse in their struggles to
construct their identity (Alfred Kielwasser and Michelle Wolf, 1992). The gay individual may
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uncritically adopt the mediated image—if it exists at all—because he lacks direct contact with
other gay men before he enters and joins their world (Fred Fejes and Kevin Petrich, 1993).
Notwithstanding the accumulation of knowledge derived from textual analyses (Corey
Creekmur and Alexander Doty, 1995; Larry Gross and James Woods, 1999), there seems to be a
lack of reception studies in the context of gay audiences. Gross (1994) underscores the vital
need to keep track of gay representations, yet researchers must endeavor to analyze gay
consumers' patterns of engagement with these images. The challenge to understand the readers'
standpoint remains largely unanswered to date. The present research aims at helping covering
this empirical gap and was motivated by two goals: (1) Examination of gay men as media
consumers. More precisely: How socio-historical and psychological positionings of gay men
shape their media engagement patterns? (2) Integration of the human totality of the media
consumer. Since existing audience work illustrates the pervasiveness of media in our lives and
culture, media researchers should engage the whole life of their subjects (Amanda Lotz, 2000).
The trend in media studies is nevertheless to conceptualize the audience as an aggregate of
socio-demographic variables and a cluster of media behaviors. The complex human whole is
ignored (Sonia Livingstone, 1998). Instead of asking what the meanings of texts are or what
their readers do with them, researchers should ask how the products of the processes of sensemaking are situated and understood as integral parts of persons' routine practices. In order to
achieve these goals, I employed a rather novel methodology.
Life stories
Life stories are a social practice of a meaningful rendering of the self to others and consist of
events and experiences through which a person has become who s/he is. They offer a coherent
sense of identity by which narrators communicate how they are to be judged and evaluated
(Charlotte Linde, 1993). The object of study is a narrator who conducts a dialogue not only with
the researcher, but mostly with herself, her past experiences, current positionality and identity,
and so on (Ken Plummer, 1995). Remembrance of things past is a reconstruction of real events
subjectively shaped by present perspectives and situation (Peter Nardi, David Sanders and Judd
Marmor, 1994). Life stories are not a mere cluster of dates, facts, or incidents, but a selective
unfolding of events and experiences that have played a crucial or meaningful role in the
narrator's life (Robert Atkinson, 1998; Daniel Bertaux, 1981; Conseilo Corradi, 1991; Ruth
Finnegan, 1997). Life stories also contain information about the social and material realities
outside one's personal life (Pertti Alasuutari, 1997), and reflect socio-historical developments
that took place during the narrator's life course (Herbert Rubin and Irene Rubin, 1995).
The employment of life stories as a research method emerged in the 1930s at the Chicago
School where they had a brief flurry of use, and then by and large disappeared until the 1980s,
when they were implemented in sociological studies (Daniel Bertaux and Daniel Kohli, 1984;
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Barbara Laslett, 1999). In the field of media studies except for a handful of studies (Amy
Aidman and Tamar Ginossar, 1998; Kevin Barnhurst, 1998; Jerome Bourdon, 1992) it is far
from being prevalent. Although several autobiographical accounts were published by gay men
in recent years (cf. Hall Carpenter Archives, 1989; Patrick Merla, 1996; Nardi et al., 1994),
these memoirs rarely – if at all – focus directly or explicitly or pay any attention to the media
and their roles in the narrators' lives.
Forty-five Jewish-Israeli3 gay men volunteered to unfold their life stories. Following the
methodological paradigm, they were not randomly sampled but recruited via ads in newspapers,
the Internet, gay venues and public events, and snowballing. Among them were public gays and
activists in gay organizations as well as men who shun the gay world and refrain from coming
out in non-gay situations (Joseph Harry, 1993). The age, educational, and occupational
distributions were relatively wide4 (see Harry, 1986). In accordance with the theoretical and
methodological premises, I did not conduct any statistical tests. However, impressionistically
speaking, there emerged no obvious differences among the interviewees along sociodemographic lines (in particular no generational distinctions were noticeable). All in all, the
commonalties among the interviewees (particularly, their views on the media) exceed sociodemographic disparities. Contrary to what is reported in the literature (e.g., Sean O'Neil, 1981),
the latter were rather insignificant, thus I consider all interviewees en masse.
A caveat is in order: The following conclusions emanate from the distinct ways these gay
men are situated in present-day Israeli circumstances and should not be generalized into a
distinct social group. Such generalization may be wrongly construed as expressing universal, ahistorical, and/or essentialist homosexual entity.
The interviews were conducted between September, 1998 and September, 1999. All
commenced with a standard request: "Tell me your life story". My intention was to elicit
spontaneous autobiographies (Jerome Bruner, 1990); therefore the interviewee was not assisted
with any structural scheme. My plan was to draw conclusions about the narrator's various
communication patterns according to their perceived, subjective, and relative importance. It was
essential to obtain details as they were processed and conceptualized independently of the
research. In order to achieve this aim, I was careful not to employ a pre-figured protocol.
Focused questions were asked when relevant topics were spontaneously brought up.
All interviews were recorded and transcribed. The main ideas were then distilled via a
thematization process (Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss, 1967). The intention was to see what
parts of the narrators' lives were of relevant importance to the study (Margaret Kearney, Sheigla
Murphy and Marsha Rosenbaum, 1994). During this process the I did not know toward what
ends I was driving and what the possible themes might have been. They revealed themselves to
me while maintaining a high level of reflexivity. In order to corroborate and illustrate my
conclusions, the next chapters include citations from the life stories. Translations adhere as
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closely to the colloquial Hebrew as was achievable. No effort was made to correct the authentic
discourse.
The forty-five autobiographies revealed a kaleidoscopic wealth of information. Indeed,
there were many discussions of a wide array of texts, genres, and electronic as well as printed
media both domestically-produced and foreign. However, I will concentrate now on only those
utterances that are relevant to the dialogues these men conduct with gay figures who participate
in the public sphere. It should be accentuated that all references to the media – most of these
were articulated in toto, that is, by saying "the Media" without a particular signified – were
brought up spontaneously during the unfolding of the interviewees' life stories. Several themes
were prominent in the present context: (1) A deep-rooted eagerness for mediated images to
reflect a 'normalized' human being is manifested in imaginary mimesis; (2) ascribing a decisive
role in representing the entire gay community to public gay figures (read: tokenism); and (3) an
aversion to the common cultural mechanism of reductio ad absurdum of gay men and portraying
them as mere caricatures.
Imaginary mimesis and stereotypes
One of the most salient themes distilled from the collected life stories in the context of the
dialogues gay audience members maintain with mediated discourse was the question of
constructing a proper gay image. An overriding theme among the interviewees was the
observation that an image is a reflection—regardless of being accurate or biased—of some gay
individual. They expressed a belief that the symbolic representation is supposed to be identical
to a real or ideal human being, as if the media are but a mirror reflecting nature. The mediated
text is seen to imitate nature via artistic means (Erich Auerbach, 1968[1946]). This is the basic
assumption on which the rest of the following findings are grounded. The majority of the
interviewees conveyed explicit or implicit expectations for a mimetic representation
characterized by a high degree of verisimilitude. And, yet, the sought-after reality is but a
conjured perfect world. In spite of their longing for a realistic representation, this realism does
not reflect contemporary social reality, but their own wishes or figments of imagination. I wish
to propose the term Imaginary Mimesis to characterize this unique trend. Unlike some oft-cited
informants (Ang, 1985; Modleski, 1984; Radway, 1984), the current interviewees perceived
their representations as referential. They did not see these images as a pleasurable fantasy, but
attributed to them political authority. Mediated images are perceived to be agents of social
change; therefore, their longed-for re-formation necessarily means a better social reality in the
future.
Some interviewees deemed the world of the media a veritable mirror of unmediated reality.
They claimed that mediated texts should reflect social existence. Nevertheless, this reality is not
actually the one we live in, but more a utopic territory where social homophobia and cultural
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heterosexism have been nullified. Nir, a 20-year old soldier, approached texts as if they were
slices of life, so to speak. He expected to find an optimistic symbolic reality, onto which he
projected his dreams for proper gay figures who enjoy biased-free relationships with their social
environs. In other words, Nir expected the text to be simultaneously a reflection of his existence
and a utopic site where a perfect world is materialized:
There are so few movies about gay men, so show us a gay couple who is happy together, that
they do not leave each other after three months. Show us gay men who are not sick with
AIDS . . . . That they have light at home. That the movie is not dark and grayish . . . . Yes, you
need to see the good aspects, because you don't have it in other places . . . . Take, for
instance, the gay couple in Florentin [a popular Israeli TV series whose two protagonists,
producer, and director are all gay]. You finally feel good with yourself. Here we are
represented in a different way. A way that I'd like to see my own life.
Sa'ar, another 20-y.o. soldier, also wished to find in the symbolic reality a reflection of a
'normal' existence he would have liked to adopt. The text is expected to be mimetic to some
imaginary reality; but, after all, it reflects nothing but Sa'ar's own subjective perceptions:
The movie [Afflicted, produced in Israel in 1983] was very gloomy. . . It is very sad, very
unreal. At least, not according to my own life, the way I see it now. My life is not… My life is
more lively, happier, more positive . . . . I think that the movie was done from a very
monochromatic perspective, and my life is more colorful.
The principal concept that constituted a common denominator among all interviewees was
'normal'. Due to brevity constraints I will not delve into the complex theoretical and ideological
conceptualizations of what constitutes "normal" (Cf. Michael Warner, 1999). Let it suffice that
the term was repeatedly employed by the interviewees, who were not reflexive about its
complex meanings. "Normal" may be often construed as heterosexual, but this is not inevitably
its only denotation. The ontological distress felt by gay men who are excluded from 'normal'
society and coerced into a subordinated position was manifested in their lived experiences,
among which were their media reception behaviors. The predominant pattern of interpretation
of gay representations was based on an examination of the similarity or difference between the
media image and a 'normal' ideal, which was more often than not defined according to
hegemonic criteria. The ultimate image that is yearned for is that of a 'normal' gay man, who is a
person equal in various respects to non-gay persons: Above all, a man situated at the heart of
consensual society.
Zohar, another 20-y.o. soldier, has been yearning for a non-stereotypical image of "a human
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homo".
Many interviewees aspired to blend into mainstream society. Barak, a 30-y.o. graduate
student, accentuated his expectation that gay images should minimize the perceived differences
between gay men and the rest of society. The epitome of good representation is grounded in a
prerequisite to eliminate sexual orientation as a pretext for differential coverage and symbolic
construction. Barak's ideas emanate from an ideology according to which there is a model of a
"regular" human being. The gay image should be constructed along its standard. That is why
Barak expects to find in the media "same-sex couples [who are] like regular couples." Naftali, a 41y.o accountant who has not come out to anyone but his sexual partners, posited too that the
media are not looking "for human stories", that is, stories "of a couple who lives in… Stories like
from everyday life . . . . A story about normal people who, let's say, are… an ordinary part of society,
also from the employment point of view."
Johann and Ronny were interviewed together and unfolded their life stories in tandem.
Johann, a 49-y.o. hi-tech executive, immigrated to Israel several years previously, and is
fiercely critical of the common representations of gay men that are nothing but "sensational."
Ronny, a 53-y.o. interior designer, explained: "As the things are brought up in the newspapers,
the journalists modify . . . . They usually are looking for scoops, sensations. This is how they sell the
paper better." Furthermore,
they viewed the media as a cruel tyrant whose objective is to curb
gay men and represent them as an unnatural phenomenon or freaks. Johann: "I know that a lot
of stories of this kind are very, very interesting for a lot of people . . . . And I’m not interested in
that. I’m not... I don’t want to be an animal in a cage that is looked at." Finally,
both men were
troubled by another aspect of gay representations; namely, tokenism, which refers to a
phenomenon where sub-culture members who appear in the media are perceived to represent
their entire social group, as if they were their sub-culture's representative. The token figure is
informally appointed as a community spokesperson (Mark Orbe, 1998). For instance, Ronny
and Johann were apprehensive lest the television audience automatically generalize from some
"gay people who were obsessed with the beach and the gym and how they look" to the whole gay
community, and indirectly to them, as well.
Many interviewees offered their definition of the concept of stereotype: An image that does
not adhere to the culturally received normative model. In other words, a portrayal of a gay man
who is not "like everybody else" or not "normal" constitutes a stereotype. The media are said to
employ various methods to portray gay men: reducing the total human being into his sexual
orientation, mistaking sexual orientation for gender identity—read: sexual inversion (i.e. the
belief that gay men are feminine, which is as old as homosexual practice itself and is a
mechanism by which society excludes men who dare collapse the division of genders [Anthony
Coxon, 1996])—ignoring normative features (e.g. same-sex couples), implementing a
grotesque comic relief, and the like. Sa'ar contrasted "the transsexuals" with "the more
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conventional crowds."
He opposed the media's common tendency to represent the latter by
foregrounding the former. Indeed, most of the interviewees concurred that the familiar gay
image is still suffused with negative, homophobic elements. Yoram, a 29-y.o. medical doctor
whose life-partner is a leading gay activist, used words that imply rats: "The newspaper articles
that deal with gay men who emerge in the dark, and the news items that [assert that] gay men creep
out of their holes at night."
Yoram also thought that "gay men – it is still a curiosity."
What is the required type of a gay man whom the media are supposed to portray? Yoram
implicitly answered this question by stressing the need to exhibit the normative side of gay
men: To show, for instance, a gay man as one "who lives with his spouse." That is, to maximize
the similarities among people and minimize the differences that result from differential sexual
orientations. Yoram also expected the media to distinguish between gay men and transsexuals,
and to emphasize gay men's "normality" in order "to deconstruct all sorts of stigma." He
celebrated television texts that were subversive by constructing fictional gay characters who
were devoid of outdated characteristics of flamboyance and effeminacy, but,
in principle, the treatment is… yes, a curiosity . . . . The pictures always focus on the
transgenders [sic.] and the drag queens. Not that I have any problem with them. I love drag
and all. But, you know, it is always the pictures that they will show. It will always be a dancing
drag. I have no problem with that, but the so-called normal homosexuality doesn't get any
expression.
Bo'az, a 34-y.o. administrator, argued that there was a high level of correspondence between
the media institutional demands for fast and cheap thrills and the gay community. He criticized
his peers who collaborate with the establishment in order to satisfy voyeuristic needs; and,
hence, do not collapse the familiar laughable image:
We are still a cool curiosity. We are still a nice color. We are still a nice, entertaining, and
beautiful color. We still succeed in making ourselves a joke.
Adi, a 40-y.o. cook with no formal education and who was until recently married to a
woman, thought that the media's overall treatment of gay issues was "very sympathetic". Yet,
there still exists a trend to depict gay men as objects of ridicule. Gay men still constitute a comic
relief even today and in spite of their advancement into Israeli mainstream society. Television
maintains and reproduces the cultural construction of gay men as derisive objects of mockery.
Laughter on their expense neutralizes their inherent threat on the hegemonic social order. Zohar,
too, emphasized the use of gay fictional characters for comic relief:
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We were sitting the entire family and watching Three's Company. There was this effeminate
guy. And you understand that they laugh at the homosexual stereotype . . . . It always was like
this. Always the TV series with the effeminate character who always made you snicker and… I
don't know exactly how to put it, but the one at whom you actually laugh.
Yuval is a 35-y.o. computer programmer who painstakingly safeguards his homosexual
identity. His bitter complaint encapsulates ideas expressed by other interviewees:
It would be interesting for me to see like normal things. Normal life stories. I mean, in many
or a lot of the movies they present a man dying of AIDS or some extreme characters. Drag
queens . . . . It may not interest anybody, but, anyways, you can always find some plot, some
story. There are many love stories, regular life stories, in the movies of the straight world.
Only in the gay ones I never saw anything like it . . . . I never saw a movie that would make me
feel like 'Wow! Finally there is something that is not an X-rated movie, and it is not a movie
about social deviation with murder'. Why is it always like this?!
To sum up, many interviewees implicitly argued that a symbolic mechanism, which
(re)produces the construction of gay men as ridiculous objects of scorn, is generated by the
media. These men asserted that the media maintain and exacerbate grotesque dimensions of the
gay image: Gay men are frequently presented in the media as a comic relief, thereby
neutralizing their potential threat to the status quo. Media practitioners are perceived to avoid
complex representations of gay men who do not conform to the received biased prejudice,
because they do not make an effort to overcome the cultural construction of homosexuals,
primarily the sexual inversion that typifies them. Homosexuality is widely recognized to be a
problem of gender identity, thus the equation homosexual=transsexual is deeply rooted. It is
also probable that for many media practitioners the option to focus on what Yosi, a 38-y.o.
computer analyst who was married to a woman until recently, called "gay men who are salt of the
earth"
is not feasible for they are not identified at all. Their homophobic schema affects their
cognitive faculties in such a way that those gay men who do not look gay are filtered out.
Public gay figures
The term public gay was coined by John Lee (1977) to signify gay persons who actively
participate in the pubic sphere and whose homosexuality is a vital part of their identity. These men
conceive of their public activity as a crucial component in the endeavors for abolition of
homophobia and heterosexism. In my research I found that most narrators (a few of whom were
themselves public figures) referred to public gay men and mentioned the roles they played in their
own experiences. Their first function was to be an object of identification and/or imitation; namely,
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role models. The significance of gay men's appearance in the symbolic realm is mostly derived
from their invisibility in the social reality. Many individuals look up to the public gay man as if he
were a tutor from whom they can learn how to behave and who to be. Thanks to the very fact of his
being there, he implicitly charts viable patterns of behavior and identity formation. In this context
the para-social interaction (Donald Horton and Richard Wohl, 1979[1956]) between an audience
member and a public gay man is of paramount importance (see also Gross, 1996). This is sevenfold
relevant in the case of a neophyte who has not yet been socialized into the gay world, and since he
has no direct contact with other gay men has rely on mediated representations.
Yoram, who is himself a public gay man, reported that the turning point in the formation of his
identity took place following the trend of growing numbers of public gay men in recent years in
Israel. He conveyed his erstwhile yearning for a proper gay role model. Up until the late 1980s, the
only person who identified as homosexual in the Israeli public arena was a notorious transvestite
prostitute nicknamed Zalman-Shoshy; and "aside from him there simply was nothing. And… I always
thought of myself as… What is going on here? I am probably the only one!"
In other words, Yoram did
not perceive any public gay men with whom he could identify and by whom he could have learned
that being gay did not necessarily mean to exist in the illegal, uncanny periphery of society. Only
when he was exposed to other types of public gay men did he deduce that it was possible to form a
gay identity, which is neither odious nor hideous. When university Prof. Uzi Even came out on
television in 1993, Yoram could articulate a new image: "If a professor can [come out], so can I . . . .
I always yearned for role models, and the fact that there were none simply drove me crazy. A fact that
all gay men seemed to me to be in the margins and all. It was horrible."
Zalman-Shoshy's singular visibility constituted an obstacle for Yuval, as well:
I think that in the social awareness . . . what was considered to be homosexual was ZalmanShoshy . . . . And it raised many question marks and blurred feelings. You feel something, but
you don't know how to define yourself in your mind . . . . I think that during this time the
AIDS thing started . . . and Rock Hudson, the symbol of machismo and masculinity and all.
Suddenly, you are exposed and understand that as a matter of fact… like I said, it is not only
what I thought before.
The public gay men Yuval mentioned stand for two opposing conceptions of homosexuality:
One reinforces the sexually invert stereotype and the other challenges it. Mediated representations
that comply with heteronormative ideology impede the processes of gay identity formation because
they mean that one is doomed to personify everything his culture abhors. When less stereotypical
gay men inhabit the public stage, the neophyte can draw conclusions about a less demeaning future
that lies ahead of him. Rock Hudson, as a metonym, assisted Yuval in his struggles to break down
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and relinquish internalized prejudices. Exposure to a new breed of gay men who do not conform to
received, traditional standards is advantageous and beneficial precisely because they are perceived
to be role models, with whom one can identify without risking his ontological security.
Aharon, a 35-y.o. hairdresser, qualified the extent of the public gay figure's influence. There is
some ambivalence in his words concerning public exposure: On the one hand, the public figure
serves as an object of tutoring and identification; but, on the other hand, the very act of coming out
in the public sphere alienates him from those who are unwilling or unable to disclose their
homosexuality even in restricted social circles. To paraphrase Aharon, they have "confidence and
legitimacy,"
I have no confidence that disclosure would not cost too much.
In spite of the overall admiration for public gay figures, a few narrators found a disheartening
and intimidating chasm between the public gay's self-assured pose and the average gay individual
who routinely deals with a dire necessity to keep his secret secure. This chasm estranges the public
man to whom a halo of admiration is ascribed, all the while distancing him from the social reality
of those who dare not follow in his steps. The public gay man is, in these cases, perceived as an
exceptional member of the gay community: Standing on a pedestal, he cannot function as a role
model.
The public figure's second role is being a source of consolation, solace, and relief for his peers.
Nonstereotypical visibility and presence in the public sphere are exceedingly important for the gay
man who feels as if his being is negated by symbolically annihilating processes. The gay man who
looks at the public discourse as if it were a mirror reflecting social reality, but finds out that his
image is not reflected or is being distorted, feels insignificant or negated. In contrast, when he sees
a less distorted image reflected, it enables him to realize that his identity is valid. The public figure
constitutes, then, a metaphorical prop on which he feels he can rely and from whom he can draw
mental resources to keep on struggling with exclusionary mechanisms he faces on a daily basis.
Aharon put it succinctly: "I am not alone." Furthermore, for the individual who exists far from
social power hubs, the visibility of other gay men is empowering. Their participation in the public
sphere is perceived to be close to these centers of authority. Amnon, a 25-y.o. undergraduate
student, unfolded a heartbreaking life story, including suicidal thoughts and anguish. In this gloomy
context, a public lesbian played an acutely significant emotional role. Her participation in a
television show vicariously communicated a raison d'etre for him: "It was as if… It strengthened
me. I don't know, it did something that I knew that she existed, that she is active."
The third role is related to non-gay audiences. The interviewees cultivated spontaneous theories
about powerful media impact. They argued that representation induces comprehensive effects on
the construction of social reality. Consequently, the public gay figure is perceived to be an agent of
and for social action and change. First, each and every public gay man is a sort of an ambassador of
the gay community to the non-gay world. The interviewees believe that public gay figures are truly
perceived by non-gays to be spokesmen for all other gay men. Therefore, anything they utter, the
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way they look, behave, and so on may be ascribed to all their peers. Yosi was concerned by the
likelihood that any gay man presented by the media is a kind of extension of himself. He was
anxious lest he would be characterized by men "with pink hair", and hence his identity would be
discredited. The flawed portrayal of gay men by the media has concrete ramifications for other gay
men, who fear that their tactics of presentation of self may thus be spoiled.
In order for social change to take place public gay men should be 'right' according to the
interviewees' subjective criteria that accentuate coalescence into mainstream society. They
articulated time and again that public figures and certainly fictional dramatis personae should be
judged against an ideal prototype, which almost invariably embodies consensual normative traits
cherished in contemporary Israeli culture. Its emblematic construction reflects an ideology of
integration par excellence: The ideal type's gay identity and homosexuality are minimized
concurrently with maximization of hegemonic qualities. Whereas the despised homosexual
stereotype reduces the gay human being into a mere personification of a deviant sexual orientation,
the treasured ideal image incorporates a human totality.
Adam, a 23-y.o. farmer who lives in a kibbutz, juxtaposed "the effeminate, provocative, sexual"
image with "gay men who behave in the regular way." Adam believes that public gay men constitute a
standard by which he and his peers are evaluated by non-gay others. Therefore, he was deeply
concerned about the negative implications of a particular public gay man who "represented the
most negative side of the homosexuals… For me, it is important how the straight society sees our
society… I prefer the gay men who behave in the regular way… Gay men who wear jeans and T-shirts."
Public gay figures are perceived to play an eminent role as social change agents. Moshiko, a
66-y.o. shop-keeper who lately lost his life-partner of 23 years, thinks that the current trend of
relative tolerance in Israeli society towards gay men is the fruit of concrete examinations of
received prejudices. Thanks to a new generation of public figures, non-gay people can empirically
tackle their stereotypes. Social change, thus, is feasible because non-gay individuals are able to
repudiate traditional attitudes against the backdrop of the new gay actors. Moshiko:
All in all, they [non-gays] saw that among us are wonderful people and shitty ones, just like in
any other society. We are not different from others . . . . So, slowly society became very, very
enlightened, the media, television. You see a different world of which we weren't aware.
Finally, Assaf, an 18-y.o. high-school pupil, voiced a pessimistic view:
When I tell a straight person that I'm gay, he immediately comes with some stigma, with
some thought: 'What? Really? You are gay? But you don't walk like that, and you don't sound
like…' . . . . This is the stigma following things that are seen in the media. And… yes, I am
bothered by it, because I am immediately connected to this business. Because I know a lot of
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men who are not this stigma. Most gay men I know are not in the stigma [sic] . . . . When you
get a whole wave of messages of this sort, and then like a small flickering of Uzi Even, so
which will leave more impression? That which is colorful or a regular human being?
For Assaf, the growing numbers of public gay men "who are not in the stigma" are nothing but a
tiny drop in "a whole wave" of stereotypes. He interprets mediated texts in a manner that attributes
superior quantity and importance to the "colorful" images versus nonstereotypical ones. The former
pulverizes the potential influence of the latter. Assaf's argument was corroborated by homophobic
statements he has been hearing often in his interpersonal communications, and which, he said, were
grounded in mediated discourse. He concluded: "This is a stigma that includes me." The stigmatized
images in the symbolic reality may spoil gay men's self-identity.
Yearning for normal representations
Sexual practice between men has been considered dangerous throughout history in Western
cultures. In order to eliminate its inherent threat on the fabric of moral, healthy, and upright
society, many symbolic as well as physical punishments were institutionalized. Banishment into
the mute and invisible social periphery is chief in the struggles to eradicate those men who dare
challenge the supposedly-natural order. Consequently, the gay individual looks at himself and
his material, social, and symbolic worlds through a schema that is a product of these social
pressures and that affects his interactions with various systems. By and large, gay men's
invisibility in social worlds and symbolic reality leaves the gay individual with only a handful
of images of people like him with whom he may identify or from whom he can adopt relevant
patterns of behavior. Not only does he feel excluded, negated, and muted, but the anxiety one
feels about labeling himself as gay and the apprehension lest this fact be known to others shape
his media consumption patterns and interpretation modes of the public discourse.
Symbolic annihilation can be interpreted as negation of one's self. Therefore, visibility and
presence in mediated texts are immensely prized assets. Gay consumers perceive public images
as sources of emotional comfort and as behavioral models. However, the current mediated texts
are far from ideal: Homophobia still lurks. Hence, the discussion of gay representations as was
presented in the forty-five life stories was split into two dichotomous components. The men
who participated in my study were resolute in their attitudes toward two types of
representations: The traditional homosexual who is either grotesque, evil, and/or miserable
versus gay men who fit into normative ideology and practices. The latter are seen as normal
men whose existence is depicted to be integral to society at large. They do not constitute a
social problem that need to be taken care of or resolved. To be sure, 'normal' is what gay men
seek not only in mediated discourse but in their own existence, as well.
Socio-historical processes that have positioned gay men at the inferior pole of the binary
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opposition 'hetero-homo' coerce them to view themselves from a difficult standpoint, that is,
from the place of a pariah or Other. The metaphor that best describes the gay individual's
ontological positioning is life in the borderland (Gloria Anzaldua, 1987), where he is a nomad
wandering between territories in none of which he feels fully at home. This phenomenon is
particularly striking today, in the face of relative tolerance and growing presence in the public
sphere. Being (ab)normal is a site of inner struggle that accompanies the gay individual
throughout his life course. No wonder the cardinal question with which he grapples is: Who am
I? Where am I situated along the continuum of normal-abnormal? This inner struggle echoes the
external fight for inclusion in normal social territory. Consequently, gay men who reside in the
borderland conceptualize their world in binary terms. Nearly every reference to themselves,
their identity, their social environs, and the symbolic realm is grounded in binary oppositions: I–
Them, Gay–Nongay, Normal–Abnormal.
Indeed, many gay men feel that they are relegated to a liminal or in-between ontological
position: They wish to abandon the abnormal periphery, yet are not accepted as full members of
society. In response to heteronormative pressures, they nevertheless express a yearning to be
included within the 'normal' social fabric and not be marked as 'Other'. This counter-reaction
emanates from a mighty need to belong while renouncing the existence in the social fringes.
Being in the consensual social center is perceived to be not only respectful and proper, but to
alleviate the prices one pays when situated in the borderland. Indeed, the lion's share of the
interviewees expressed their wish to be embraced by 'normal' society. In the context of media
reception patterns, they were adamant in their opposition to the general trend of reductio ad
absurdum of their complex human totality into a mere incarnation of their sexual orientation.
Their ubiquitous attitude was that the correct gay images should reflect some ideal prototype
that conforms to the dominant value system. In other words, they expressed a desire for gay
representations to mirror an ideal reality. This phenomenon, which I termed "imaginary
mimesis", is manifested in the following coveted mechanism of portrayal: Gay actors on the
public stage should incarnate a 'normal' human being. As yet, this is not applicable to the social
reality in which we live. Current political, legal, and societal circumstances corroborate the
fantasy element of this mimesis. Furthermore, the interviewees asserted that the media are all
too powerful: Mediated texts are perceived to be potent agents of social change or stasis.
Consequently, constructing proper gay images is seen to be conducive for social change. These
ideal images may eventually trigger or accelerate gay men's integration into mainstream society.
Although the current conclusions refer to a social group demarcated by a single variable, I
assume they may be pertinent to other sub-cultures. Other groups that experience social
subordination, cultural exclusion, and symbolic annihilation are likely to employ similar
patterns of media reception. The question whether other stigmata that spoil identities affect
patterns of engagement with mediated images proposes an empirical challenge.
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Notes
1
This paper is derived from my Ph.D. dissertation written under Dr. Dafna Lemish's
guidance. I wish to express my gratitude and appreciation for her academic contributions as
well as her moral and emotional support. I am indebted to Prof. Kevin G. Barnhurst and two
anonymous referees who read a draft of this paper and offered instructive comments.
2
I chose to research gay men due to an epistemic and methodological rationale (Kama, 2000c).
Still, it does not mean that all or none of the statements made about men are invalid for
lesbians.
3
Since this was not meant to be an inter-cultural exploration, Arabic speakers were not
approached to take part in the research. Generally speaking, Israeli-Arabs and Palestinians do
not share the same cultural arenas with Hebrew-speaking Jews.
4
The "sample" was rather heterogeneous: the youngest interviewee was 16 years old, the oldest
72. About 40% live in or around the big city of Tel Aviv, the rest reside around the country
(mainly in towns). About half of the interviewees have some academic education, a third
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graduated from secondary schools, the rest had lower levels of schooling. The lion's share
were secular with only four semi-religious and no Orthodox Jews.
Amit Kama (Ph.D., 2001) is a lecturer at the Dept. of Sociology, Political Science and
Communication at the Open University of Israel. His interests encompass life stories as an
empirical method, interpretation patterns of mediated and interpersonal communications, and
the ways in which these processes contribute to the construction of self. He has been active in
struggles for gay rights in Israel since 1982. Email: amitka@oumail.openu.ac.il
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