User:JEC86/Major Assignment 5

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[edit] Are Will & Grace Having Premarital Sex?

An individual: someone with the ability to think on their own and become separate from the mass culture. Do these so called individuals actually exist in our society? Seldom will you encounter them and you can send your Thank You cards to the media; more specifically to your television stations and networks. Today’s media has a profound effect on people’s lives. These effects range from trivial matters such as the brand of underwear you purchase to cover your hinny to the way you think about diversity in our society. The media is a social construct used to enforce the normative, which is reflective of those in power: the Caucasian, heterosexual, middle class, Catholic men. Those that partake in the norm embody the American dream and can alter it at any given time. Even if I became white overnight (with the help of Michael Jackson) I still would not be heterosexual. This is the norm. Today’s media paints one specific portrait, and it does not include Adam and Steve or Anna and Eve. In America, gays are not allowed to marry (with the exception of Massachusetts) but they are allowed to entertain under strict guidelines that enforce heterosexism. A prime example is Will & Grace; one of the first popular television shows featuring a homosexual as a main character that was practically married to a woman: Grace. This ‘gay’ show enforced heterosexism by creating a friendship between a man and a woman that was so close its reviews conveyed audiences interpreting their friendship as marriage.

The context of my research is heterosexism as a normative in American society: (:)Heterosexuality, then, combined the erotic desire for sexual (:)difference with the evolutionary elaboration of that desire into love; this (:)combination was absolutely essential both for status as a normal modern and (:)for the existence of civilized social order. In this construction we can see the (:)collapse of sexual and racial normality into one another such that following the (:)guidelines for married love could testify to one’s commitment to nation, race, and (:)civilization. (Carter 98)

Therefore, people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or questioning are abnormal and as a result marginalized in our society. When a norm is constructed in any society, everything else becomes the “other” in an effort to maintain the power of one particular group. “In American society, we frequently refer to heterosexuality as something that is naturally occurring, overlooking the myriad ways we have learned how to practice heterosexuality, have given meaning to it, and allow it to organize the division of labor and distribution of wealth”(Ingraham 1). Ingraham stresses what many Americans neglect to realize, that is, the social construction of heterosexism. Heterosexism is not something that is natural, it’s a set of rules we abide by because these rules have been established at the top of our social hierarchy. As Ingraham explains, “…we pose heterosexuality as the good, normal, and natural form of sexual expression and frame it in opposition to its socially constructed opposite, homosexuality, a term that was not coined until the turn of the twentieth century” (Ingraham 2). Heterosexism has established standards for falling in love and sexually expressing oneself: Heterosexuality is the key site of intersection between gender and sexuality, and one that reveals the interconnections between sexual and nonsexual aspects of social life. As an institution, heterosexuality includes nonsexual elements implicated in ordering wider gender relations and ordered by them. As I have noted elsewhere, it entails who washes the sheets as well as what goes on between them. (Ingraham 18)

Heterosexism involves sexual relations between men and women. This very relationship serves as the foundation for gender differences between men and women. This justifies men receiving higher wages than women in our society. What Ingraham is suggesting is that heterosexism must be maintained as a normative because without heterosexism, gender differences would eventually diminish and a state of complete equality would be in full demand. If other sexual orientations become part of the norm, the social rules would begin to shift away from the Caucasian, heterosexual, Catholic man.

Along with heterosexism comes many privileges. Among these privileges is marriage. Marriage is an institution that provides 1,049 benefits for heterosexual couples. The following are benefits provided directly from the government: entitlement to spouse’s pension, bereavement leave, sick leave to care for spouse, tax breaks, immigration, and medical decisions regarding spouse. The following are some benefits provided by the states: child custody, automatic inheritance, domestic violence protection, property rights, insurance breaks and burial determination. These are a mere twelve of the hundreds of benefits granted to heterosexual couples but denied to gays.

The content is Will & Grace. This sitcom aired on NBC from 1998 to 2006. It included four main characters; two of whom were gay. The show has won sixteen Emmys and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award numerous times. Will & Grace was the first major show to hit television with a gay theme after Ellen Degeneres. What is interesting is how much or how little the show actually reflects the gay community in the U.S. For instance, the character of Will reflects the ‘normal man’ than it does the gay male. Will is an upper-middle class Caucasian man that hosts poker parties in his home, which he shares with a woman. Will & Grace has made way for other television series such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy but the producers and directors did so under heterosexism guidelines. This seems to be the reason that the sitcom became so popular and accepted.

The media is television and everything that it encompasses. Television is part of life. You’ll find at least one television in practically every American home. Television is reflective of the normative including heterosexism. Americans are given the option of hundred of channels, yet only a handful are devoted to people of color, and none to the gay community: “And so the more “heterosexuality” talked about itself, the less whiteness had to say” (Carter 98). It must be reiterated that this is done to enforce the normative which again, is reflecting those in power in American society. The unrealistic media portrayal of life in the United States is the main cause for the marginalization of these groups and the unequal treatment they receive. In relations to the way gays are adversely perceived, Hollywood films began the stigma: “Hollywood overwhelmingly framed “the homosexual problem” as a personal tragedy, as a tale of individual sickness and deviance. The social drama in these films revolves around the danger that the homosexual presents to children, families, moral values, and the very national integrity of America” (Ingra 41). This was the media’s response to the gays coming out in the mid to late 1900s because they did not reflect the norm and therefore were a threat to heterosexuality. This marked the stage for hate towards the gay community because Americans were led to believe that gays would corrupt their daily lives and family. In creating adverse attitudes towards the gay community, the media had as much responsibility as it does in its propaganda on the War on Iraq; created to justify a U.S. invasion and search for more power in oil supply.

The cultural text for this research is the episode of Will & Grace titled, “The Truth about Will and Dogs”. This episode was written by David Kohan and directed by James Burrows. Its original airdate was December 15, 1998. This episode is one of the many episodes that present Will and Grace as a married couple. It begins with Will referring to Grace as “Sweetie” and Grace bringing Will some food while he is at work. It then features Will & Grace playing a game of Taboo with four other friends. The teams consist of couples with the exception of Will and Grace but this is not clearly illustrated. The two actual couples begin to discuss their new dogs and Will and Grace begin to argue about not being ready to have a dog. The game also happens to be won by Will and Grace with a score that greatly exceeds their opponents suggesting how close their relationship is. Shortly after this scene, Grace is accompanied by Jack and Karen (the other two main characters) to a shelter for dogs. Jack and Karen recommend that Grace get a dog but she continues to tell them that she is unable to make the decision without Will, as if they were married. As Karen tries to convince Grace she says, “Take me and Stan for instance…” using her own marriage to make suggestions regarding the relationship between Will and Grace. Eventually Grace decides to get a dog and later brings him home (Will and Grace live together) and this sparks an argument between Will and Grace. The dog remains with them and is treated like a child. After a day at the park, Will complains to Grace about the way she treated the dog, “I don’t think you should yell at him in front of his friends.” This conversation leads to the care of the dog while they are work. Grace suggests Doggy Daycare. This again makes the dog seem like a child, Doggy Daycare becoming the translation for children’s daycare. Will refused to place the dog in daycare arguing that it is unfair for the dog, so he suggests that Grace stay home with the dog. Traditional marriages consist of the man working outside the home and earning an income while the wife stays home to look after the children and take care of the house. Through his lines suggesting that Grace should stay home with the dog, heterosexism is being enforced because staying at home is what wives do in a traditional American marriage. Will and Grace then appear as a divorced couple, but a couple nevertheless when she says, “I’m gonna want him every other weekend and holidays”.

Later on in this episode, Will and Grace discuss how having the dog has been making it difficult for them to spend quality time with one another. I must emphasize the word quality because Will and Grace appear inseparable. They are always together and in close proximity whether at home or in a car. This is evident when Graces say, “On the car ride home, I noticed you had puppy breath”. In this scene, they decide to leave their dog with babysitter to go watch a movie because again, they haven’t had time for one another. Before their departure to the movies, Will reminds the babysitters that the vet’s number is on the fridge, enforcing the metaphor of the dog being a child, which in our society is a product of a marriage between a man and a woman. Their parental role with the dog is also shown when both Will and Grace admit to being ashamed of fighting in front of the dog. This is also important in conveying heterosexism because parental roles are socially constructed as being father and mother as opposed to a father and a father. The close relationship of Will and Grace allows us the audience to envision this because it’s a friendship between a man and a woman.

In the end, viewers of Will & Grace are not accepting the gay community by watching the sitcom. The audience is simply being entertained. The main reason the sitcom is watched by the mass audience is because despite the sexual orientations of two of the main characters, one of them lives with and has an extremely close relationship with a woman, so close that reviewers of the show as well as other characters of the sitcom refer to Will & Grace as a couple in a sexless marriage. Americans can ‘tolerate’ the gay community but not when so-called traditional values are brought to question such as marriage. Gay marriage has been an ongoing battle for years now and thus far only one state has legalized gay marriage. The implications are obvious, Americans do not support gay marriage. Will & Grace has made room for a few more sitcoms to hit the airway but it has not made room for gays in traditions (norms) that keep certain people in power. Will & Grace, through the character of Jack (a stereotypical feminine gay) sold the gay as a commodity for entertainment; not as a person of equal status.

The function of a sitcom like Will & Grace was to make for a slow and comfortable transition into American homes through television. The problem lies in having to enforce heterosexism to allow for this to occur and in doing so neglecting many aspects of the gay community. In bringing this heterosexism to light, and how an Emmy award winning ‘gay sitcom’ is actually more heterosexual than gay, then maybe people can begin to actually accept the GLBTQ community. Once accepted, equality will come with much more ease, such as the right to marry and ensure “equal treatment for all” as stated by the constitution. (:)(:)(:)(:)(:)Never before in all this country’s history of civil rights battles over marriage, never before amid all the discrepancies from state to state over who can marry whom and whether to permit divorce, never before has a president proposed to rewrite the federal constitution so as to end the discussion or take the decision away from the states, lawmakers, and the courts. (Wolfson 157)

It is this very discussion that needs to continue; but a discussion that truly reflects the gay community and exposes heterosexism.