In the Life - Journal Entry 25 Xiongyue Yu

In the Life: Remixing Black Gay History

 

Since in the 1950s and 1960s, television shows mostly tried not to cover sensitive topics. Because there was no discussion of bisexuality or transgenderism at the time, when gay characters were included, they appeared in stereotypical images. Gay men, for example, were "feminine" and often worked in "female" occupations. Lesbians, on the other hand, are "butch" because they presumably want to be "men. One of the goals of these portrayals is to show viewers the stereotypical identities of gays and lesbians, just as race was once typically interpreted superficially in the mainstream media.

In the In the Life episodes, there is talk of a trinity of black queer filmmakers who creatively use existing archives and sometimes invent the past where history exists to challenge the racist and homophobic historical knowledge gap. By allowing more queer identities to appear in film and television, these shows and characters collectively show that black gay men can be multifaceted individuals who can reassemble stereotypical traits and create characters that are less likely to be categorized as extreme. These changes are important and represent that acceptance and normality can be expressed for different sexualities, and even more so for Black gay men as a dual issue. Except that even in contemporary times, this battle of consciousness has still not really ended in a meaningful way.