Making Out in the Mainstream: GLAAD and the Politics of Respectability

by Vincent Doyle

Making Out in the Mainstream is the first full-length study of LGBT media activism, revealing the daily struggle to reconcile economic and professional pressures with conflicting personal, organizational, and political priorities. Documenting the rise and evolution of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), Vincent Doyle presents a nuanced perspective on the complexity, contradictions, and ambivalences of advancing social causes through popular media. Based on participant observation, in-depth interviews, and archival research carried out at GLAAD’s New York and Los Angeles offices from 2000 to 2001, Making Out in the Mainstream analyzes the GLAAD Media Awards and the organization’s responses to controversial public figures such as Dr Laura Schlessinger and Eminem, and programs such as Queer as Folk. Doyle argues that the earlier political strategy of coming out to the mainstream, intended to dismantle closeted life and create a mass movement, has been supplanted by the market-oriented "making out" in the mainstream, which privileges respectable images of homosexuality in the pursuit of political and economic gain. He shows how this emphasis on respectability clashes with the development of a diverse movement that campaigns for greater inclusion and he offers a sophisticated appeal for more complicated understandings of assimilation and anti-normalization. Painting a complex portrait of a prominent gay and lesbian organization during a period of rapid social change, Making Out in the Mainstream reveals not only the limitations of “mainstreaming,” but also its political possibilities.

Genres: History, Queer, Nonfiction, LGBT

302 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2016

Reviews

[Marsha Altman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book on the history of GLAAD and its major early battles by an anthropologist who studied the organization very closely for years.

[Sarah Schulman]

Too bad this sizzling expose of GLAAD is so pricey (Canadian import). This is a condemnation of GLAAD(Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and the corporatization of LGBT Media Activism. The author names names and has the facts, and it is DAMNING.

Vincent Doyle shows how specific leaders who came directly from corporate culture, who had personal ambivalences about sexuality, and who had never been in grassroots activist communities, sidelined the queer community and instead made access to Hollywood and Corporate Media their purpose and goal. Ouch.

[Wendell Hennan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An in depth history of GLAAD and its activities and leadership. The impact of political leadership versus media experienced leaders and the successes achieved from single issue campaigns, (Dr. Laura Schlessinger). Eye opening with regard to the number of LGBTQ people in exectuive positions, Apple, Time Warner and on and on, not to belittle the efforts of countless people working diligently in the mainstream. GLAAD taught media that “there is a price to pay for defamation and companies who advertise on defamatory programs won’t get away with that kind of crap.” Finally, “When you are different and people hate you for it, this is what you do : first you get your foot in the door by getting as similar as possible, then and only then - when your one little difference is finally accepted - can you start dragging in your other peculiarities one by one.”