Straightening Out (the Politics of) Same-Sex Parenting: Representing Gay Families in US Print News Stories and Photographs

Abstract

This essay argues for the hegemonic function of verbal and visual mass mediated representations of gay families and identifies particular rhetorical strategies of those representations. Specifically, a quantitative increase in visibility of same-sex parents and their children in mainstream U.S. news stories and photographs published from 2004 through 2005 does not translate to unmitigated progress. Rather, homophobic, (hetero)sexist, and heteronormative constructions are repeated, overall putting forth the site, and the literal sight, of a heterosexual child as a synecdoche and social test for gay familial life. This study fills a gap in research on representations of homosexuality in mass media and has implications for the gay and lesbian movement in today's current socio-political climate.

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