Queer Media Images: LGBT Perspectives presents fifteen chapters that address how the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered communities are depicted in the media. This collection focuses on how the LGBT community has been silenced or given voice through the media. Through a study of queer media images, this book scrutinizes LGBT media representations and how these representations contribute to a dialogue about civil rights for this marginalized community. While the communication discipline has been open to the LGBT community, there has been an absence of published research and a marginalizing or tokenizing of the queer voice. Through a study of media representations, this unique collection provides a snapshot into the issues surrounding LGBT identity during a time when the Defense of Marriage Act is called into question and explores what it means to study images through a queer lens.

Jane Campbell is professor of English at Purdue University Calumet.Theresa Carilli is professor of Communication at Purdue University Calumet.

IntroductionJane Campbell and Theresa CarilliQUEER IMAGESChapter 1: Focus on the SpongeBob: The Representational Politics of James DobsonJason ZingsheimChapter 2: The Complex Relationship Between (and within) the Suppressed and the Empowered: Contradiction and LGBT Portrayals onThe L WordJennifer Guthrie, Adrianne Kunkel and K. Nicole HladkyChapter 3: Comic Corrections towards a Family Perfection: (Re)ReadingQueer as Folk andWill and GraceRachel E. SilvermanChapter 4: Revisiting The Celluloid ClosetJane Campbell and Theresa CarilliChapter 5: ToGleeor not toGlee: Exploring the Empowering Voice of theGleeMovement.Lori MontalbanoPERFORMANCES OF SEXUALITY AND GENDERChapter 6: A Pregnant Pause, a Transgender Look: Thomas Beatie in the Maternity PoseKristin NorwoodChapter 7: The Rhetoric of Sexual Experimentation: A Critical Examination of Katy Perrys I Kissed a GirlBrittani Hidahl and Richard D. BeselChapter 8: Queer Male TV Commentators: Kinjo-no-Obasan in Advanced CapitalismKimiko AkitaLIVING IN THE MARGINSChapter 9: The Construction of Queer and the Conferring of Voice: Empowering and Disempowering Portrayals of Transgenderism onTransGenerationK. Nicole HladkyChapter 10: Born This Way: Biology and Sexuality in Lady Gagas Pro-LGBT MediaShannon WeberChapter 11: First But (Nearly) Forgotten: Why You Know Milk but not KozachenkoBruce DrushelQUEER ISSUESChapter 12: Is she a man? Is she a transvestite?: Critiquing the Coverage of Intersex AthletesRick Kenney and Kimiko AkitaChapter 13: The Commercial Closet: How Gay-Specific Media and the Images of the Closet Erases the LGBT Community from the Mainstream GazeKristin ComeforoChapter 14: Should We Stop Believin?:Gleeand The Culture of Essentialist Identity DiscourseJohn Wolf and Valarie SchweisbergerChapter 15: The plays the thing: Representations of heteronormative sexuality in a popular childrens TV sitcomZoe Kenney