Milena Olkhovetsky, Period 5, 05/14/2021, Day B

Milena Olkhovetsky

Period 5

05/14/2021

Day B

Modern Mythology 2021


Socio-political Consciousness

What are your thoughts and feelings about issues of inequity, oppression, and/or power?

“Interview with a Vampire”, our class’s most recent work is definitely an interesting one, actually it’s the only piece of vampire literature that I seemed to have enjoyed reading. However, as a queer person with a passion for sociology and pop culture, I couldn’t shake one thing from my mind. This book, as great as it is, is a poster child for the fetishization of gay men in media. Now in no way am I calling Anne Rice homophobic here. She is purely using an established paradigm to portray a certain quality in her vampires, that quality being brooding, dark, or mysterious. Often times homo eroticism falls into this category but why is that? We can think about the time period during which she was writing this book when answering this question. When you think of the 1970s what often comes to mind? Most people would say sex, drugs, and rock&roll. It’s what the decade was known for, especially its sexual revolution. As for media at the time, women felt much more comfortable expressing their sexuality, and media catering towards the female gaze became more mainstream. Hence the production of media with mysterious protagonists. Women found this attractive and it opened up a new target demographic. Homo eroticism was only included in this trope because it served as another question to make the protagonist attractive. “This man is conventionally attractive and is intriguing in a way that piques sexual interest, why is he not surrounded by women?” “He is not aggressive like most men and cares about the people who surround him, why does he not have a female romantic interest?” This mystery is often milked as long as possible until it is revealed that said character is actually gay. Usually, this reveal happens in the form of a sexual encounter, rarely a mutually understanding relationship. These sexual encounters are often written or portrayed in a way that is delicate and passionate. This isn’t without reason. This was the sex that women at the time craved and were deprived of because most heterosexual encounters primarily focused on male pleasure. Now taking that into account you show a woman who is usually not satisfied by her partner, sex that pleases both parties. Of course, this will interest her. Especially because men were the subject of these encounters, women began to idolize this kind of man. This perpetuated the idea that sexual encounters that women desired were only possible between gay men. So as a result what do homosexual relationships become in popular media? They are no longer perceived as people like you and me who can love in so many different ways. They become cash cows. Makes you think twice about the popular phrase “Why are all the good guys taken or gay?”. This was not a matter of framing LGBTQ+ individuals in a positive light or encouraging public acceptance of queer relationships. Rather attracting a larger female audience in order to make more money.

How do you reflect critically on your own beliefs, assumptions, values, and experiences, and how these can influence your perception of self and others?

Today we still struggle with LGBTQ representation on screen and in the writing room. Usually, whenever a gay character is introduced they aren’t written by a gay person, resulting in a gross misrepresentation that relies on stereotypes or tokenization. And representation truly is important, yet it’s so hard to explain why to someone who doesn’t struggle with this issue. As for me, the sheer joy I get from seeing a character on screen or on paper who I can relate to is astronomical. It reassures me and many others like me that our experiences are valid. Oftentimes people form their opinions about others based on how they see them represented in media. That’s why it’s crucial for people to be represented correctly, and that means being represented as people and not sex objects.