Book Review	Book Reviews Archive

Putting Out: The Essential Publishing Resource Guide for Gay and Lesbian Writers
Edisol W. Dotson
Cleis Books
How to order Gay Macho: The Life and Death of the Gay Clone
Martin P. Levine
Michael S. Kimmel, editor
New York University Press
How to order Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity
Joshua Gamson
University of Chicago Press
How to order

In the recent past, queer people had almost no presence on television. With the invention and propagation of tabloid talk shows such as "Jerry Springer," "Jenny Jones," "Oprah," and "Geraldo," those outside the sexual mainstream are in living rooms across America every day. Often these appearances are rambunctious, ugly, and exploitative-- the "action" of the show predicated upon homophobic responses from the audience. This has caused most gay media watchers to question the worth of the endeavor: at what price visibility? This view is startlingly revised in Joshua Gamson's Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconforminity (University of Chicago Press, cloth, 290 pages, $25.99), an analysis of how tabloid TV may be the best-- well, certainly the most grassrootsly engaging-- visibility sex outsiders have ever garnered.

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Gamson takes a look at the plethora of emotional slash-and-burn television talk shows that feature a feeding frenzy of interpersonal warfare: "Women Who Dated Transvestites Without Knowing It." "Men Who Slept With Their Lesbian Sisters' Lovers," etc. These shows frequently invite the sexually marginal to appear-- often in contexts that portray them as freakish or unstable.

Most gay media-watchers accuse these shows of exploitation, but Gamson argues what may seem that way is really a leveling experience for viewers, who identify with the guests' "bizarre behavior." By making the extreme "normal," Gamson argues, tabloid talk shows actually reduce anti-gay feeling rather then promote it. Using surveys, news analysis, interviews with talk show hosts, and "expert" gay guests such as Marge Garber and Ann Norththrop (and readings of the shows themselves), Gamson argues that this endless yelling, bickering, and outright display of homophobia-- so different from the pre-packaged, insincere tolerance that passes for discourse in much of the media-- gives rise to real discussions about how people really feel.

Joshua Gamson's provocative theory illustrates how complex and contradictory our relationship to popular culture can be. Gamson also broadens his argument by raising important issues of race and class-- there is a large demographic difference between "Donahue" and "Geraldo." He delves as well into the details of how shows are conceived, pitched, and sold. This allows him to place issues of sexuality, eroticism, and gender in a larger cultural framework. The power of Gamson's book is not simply his sophisticated analysis, but his ability to make us rethink and reexamine not only our relationship to tabloid TV, but to the many uses and abuses of popular culture in our everyday lives.

Stalking the wild clone

Before his death in 1993 from AIDS, Martin P. Levine was becoming a prominent sociologist of gay male life in the US. Gay Macho: The Life and Death of the Gay Clone (New York University Press, paper, 251 pages, $22) is a collection of his writings and research (edited by colleague Michael S. Kimmel) that remained unpublished at his death. Traditionally anthropological and ethnographic studies have centered around close-knit village life. Almost within the tradition, Levine's work centers on gay life in New York's Greenwich Village, specifically the West Village, the birthplace of so much gay culture.

Using accepted academic methods, Levine examines how gay men live, how they see themselves, and-- most importantly-- how they began dealing with AIDS at the outbreak of the epidemic. Because this is a collection of previously published articles, Levine's conclusions are, if not contradictory, not slick and pre-ordained. Rather than hurting, these disconnects make the book more provocative.

Gay Macho charts how Levine's own views change over the years-- the essays were written from the late 1970s to the late 1980s-- and furthers insight into both the man and his work. Readable, smart, and always provocative, Gay Macho challenges both homosexual and heterosexual preconceptions of what it meant to be a gay man living in the gay subculture in the 1970s and 80s.

Book of writing

Gay and lesbian culture remains heavily dependent on the printed word, with relatively few representations of gay people on television or in films; that is why books, magazines, and newspapers are still the more prominent and important of reaching the broader queer community. Putting Out: The Essential Publishing Resource Guide for Gay and Lesbian Writers (Cleis Books, paper, 145 pages, $14.95), Edisol W. Dotson's now-classic resource volume-- now in its fourth edition-- remains the best guide around for how to get into print.

While filled with useful tips about presenting and submitting manuscripts, the real meat of Dotson's book are the up-to-date listings of every gay and lesbian publication in the US, along with detailed information of what they are looking for, how they expect it to be submitted, and how much they pay. Dotson covers book publishers as well, and this edition has a new section that deals with how to publish on the Internet. Informative, easy to read, and comprehensive, Putting Out is an essential tool for anyone who is-- or wants to be-- a gay or lesbian writer.

Author Profile:  Michael Bronski
	Michael Bronski is the author of Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility and The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom. He writes frequently on sex, books, movies, and culture, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Email:	mabronski@aol.com