The Battle Over Marriage: Gay Rights Activism Through the Media (14 page)

being ostracized by their community. (This fear still legitimately exists, since in 34 states one can be fired for being gay or lesbian; in 44 states one can be fired for being transgender.) In any case, the refusal of editors, reporters, and perhaps even the couples themselves to be identified in the vast majority of news stories appears contrary to journalistic norms. In addition, the anonymity contradicts the seemingly very public
visual
exposure of their marriage and family to national news audiences (Landau, 2009, p. 87). This treatment most likely has less to do with privacy concerns and more to do with how couples were used in stories, as background b-roll in almost a “zoo people” fashion, as objects on display rather than as the substantive subject of a news report.

As previously indicated, gays and lesbians were certainly not absent from news reports on gay marriage. On the contrary, systematic content analysis of network news during this time period showcased how gay and lesbian

people were visually resonant in same-sex-marriage coverage, appearing in 92.5 percent of the stories. However, while these couples were visually reso-s

nant, they remained mostly silent, their voices and perspectives not heard.

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In fact, of the 244 couples who appeared in broadcast news stories (as the l

central feature of a shot), only 20.5 percent were given the opportunity to LC

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speak at all. Even those select few who were cited spent the majority of their on-air time in silent b-roll (on average 23 seconds) as opposed to speaking (9 seconds).

This discrepancy between the speaking and non-speaking roles (Roberts,

1975) of marginalized groups in news coverage is not unique to the coverage of gay civil rights issues. Previous research has shown how historically marginalized communities are often visually present in television news stories even when they are not granted the power to speak. For example, television news coverage of the black community may afford African Americans a great deal of visual prominence, often in the form of a mug shot or video of a suspect being handcuffed or restrained by a police officer. However, rarely are they given the opportunity to speak or offer their own interpretation of events (Entman, 1992; Owens, 2008; Poindexter, Smith & Heider, 2003). More than 30 years ago, Roberts (1975) identified this discrepancy between the speaking and non-speaking news appearances of people of color and concluded that

although African-Americans could be seen in television news stories, they were rarely heard. Problematically, we might “expect” this discrepancy to be evident in coverage in which gays are criminalized and victimized (e.g., stories about bath houses, coverage of AIDS, etc.); however, the relative silence of gay and lesbian citizens continues even in the reporting of gay civil rights issues (Barnhurst 2003; Liebler et al., 2009).

This pattern persists in newsmagazine reporting as well. Early coverage

presented images of gay and lesbian couples, or crowds of protesters, without identifying them or citing them as sources in the story. The August 25, 2003, edition of
U.S. News & World Report,
headlined “Gays Force the Issue,”

featured a crowd of unidentified, presumably gay, lesbian and allied people clapping and embracing in celebration of the Supreme Court’s overturn of Texas anti-sodomy laws (Gilgoff, 2003). Similarly, in a later edition,
U.S. News

& World Report
prominently features a gay male couple and, further in the magazine spread, a lesbian couple holding their toddler son during what

appears to be their wedding ceremonies. Neither couple is named, cited, or identified; instead the caption reads vaguely and anonymously, “They do.

Thousands of same-sex couples are getting married in San Francisco” (Gilgoff, 2004). The close-up shot of longtime activists Mol y McKay and Davina Kotulski in
Newsweek
does not identify the activists by name, but instead writes, “In California, a couple marks a win.” Likewise, the February 24, 2004, issue of
Newsweek
featured a photograph of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, an activist couple who had been together since the 1950s and were married in June 2008. The caption does not identify the couple, explain the significance s

of the women, or cite them in the story, but rather reads, “A marriage in San n

Francisco” (Breslau, 2004).

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General y speaking, then, this analysis has shown that the marriage equality movement was represented by hundreds of nameless, sometimes face-

less, and often voiceless gay and lesbian couples who appeared in long lines wrapped around city blocks waiting to obtain marriage licenses. As chapter 2 indicated, these were hardly the kinds of images gay marriage advocates preferred. Most gay activists feared that “straight” news audiences would disconnect from images of masses of couples, looking more like a “rock

concert” or “Mardi Gras” than a wedding, and sought to foreground stories of individual couples and their private ceremonies.

Alternately, in some news photographs individual couples were featured

embracing during their ceremony, surrounded by supportive onlookers, but were not named, identified, or cited in the story. Despite the overall anonymity and relative silence of couples in the news—in particular “in-depth,”

lengthier news segments—news producers “introduced” audiences to a gay

or lesbian couple or family. Newspaper reports, too, were much more likely to include the names of couples featured in photographs and cite them in the stories themselves. When gay and lesbian couples were featured, not just as visual ornaments but as the central focus of a news story, it provided the opportunity to interrogate the verbal and visual discursive strategies employed to normalize same-sex relationships and families.

The “Untraditional” Traditional Family:

Mainstreaming Gay Marriage

While most same-sex couples who emerged in the mainstream news re-

mained unidentified, some feature stories focused on a couple’s meeting, falling in love, eventual decision to marry, and their marriage ceremony.

When gay couples were prominently featured in these kinds of stories, they had to meet certain prerequisites. These poster couples weren’t considered scary or threatening, audiences were assured, so long as they subscribed to conventional ideological norms and often heterosexist notions of partnering, monogamy, marriage, family, and parenting.

Overwhelmingly, when print and broadcast newsmagazines introduced

audiences to gay marrieds in this time period, the pair was almost always an older Caucasian lesbian couple in their 50s or 60s who had been together for anywhere from 15 to 25 years. We meet them in their homes, usually in their kitchen (the culturally inscribed domestic space), surrounded by their children and family members. When they are not being interviewed, the b-s

roll footage includes them engaged in “normal” mundane domestic activities: n

preparing meals, eating and talking at the dinner table, and walking the dog l

around the block.

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For example, the
60 Minutes
episode that aired on March 10, 2004, titled

“Marry Me!” (Hewitt, 2004) goes to great lengths to present the face of gay marriage as one that is palatable to a mainstream heteronormative audience, being careful to set this couple of choice apart from gays and lesbians who live out their “alternative lifestyles.” About eight minutes into the
60 Minutes
investigation on the issue of gay marriage, we meet Carol and Kay, an English teacher and a poet, who appear to be in their late 50s or early 60s. Reporter Bob Simon tells us that the couple has been together 25 years. Viewers hear their emotional story about waiting in the rain in a long line to obtain a marriage license. As they talk, a still photo of their ceremony appears on the screen; it simply shows the couple facing each other, holding hands. News producers juxtapose the image of Carol and Kay with a black-and-white still photograph of another couple married at San Francisco’s city hall: Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio. As the photo of Monroe and DiMaggio cues the

viewer to the dysfunctional, drugged-out, and all-too-short marriage of the famous Hollywood couple, the audience is assured that “Carol and Kay’s

marriage will last longer” than that of their heterosexual counterpart. As the reporter narrates the story of their ceremony, b-roll images show Carol and Kay preparing a meal, sitting at the kitchen table with their family, and showing their grandchildren a slide show of their wedding on the computer.

In stark contrast to the storyline of Carol and Kay, news producers create a juxtaposition of images to show how the couple’s suburban family life is markedly different from stereotypical depictions of “gay life”—wild, sexual y explicit, urban, youthful, alternative, and transgressive. Leaving suburbia, news crews transport the audience to the Castro, a famously gay neighborhood in San Francisco, often thought of as the capital of the gay liberation movement. The camera pans several faceless, anonymous couples, predominantly male, their backs to us, the camera focusing only on their lower torsos as they hold hands. We see medium-length shots of men in stereotypically gay urban wear—fitted jeans; too-tight, shrunken, ripped T-shirts; and leather jackets. Bob Simon’s voiceover tells viewers: “You can’t do a story on gays in San Francisco without visiting the Castro, the city’s overwhelmingly gay neighborhood. Not every gay person in the Castro was ready to take the

plunge into marriage; many preferred their alternative lifestyles. But most said they were ready to fight for the right to marry.”

In another rupture, news audiences are presented with the b-roll footage of what appears to be a gay pride parade of a bygone era—though we’re not told what year, or even what decade, it is taking place. The camera focuses in on a close-up shot of hands clapping and a crowd of people cheering against s

a background of colorful balloons and rainbow flags. In the next shot, drag n

queens with exposed body and facial hair, dressed in spaghetti-strap lingerie l

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with lace, colorful boas draped around their necks, and long hair. They take on a performative stance toward the camera as they dance down the middle of the street. A prominent banner reads “Proud Strong United,” followed by a group of protesters marching through the streets holding rainbow flags, cheering, and chanting. The audio that accompanies these images is loud

and pronounced, filled with music, clapping, shouting, and street noises.

Reporter Bob Simon’s voice-over invokes stereotypes of gay promiscuity as he tells audiences, “A few decades ago, marriage was as far from the minds of gays as celibacy. Hardly a person in this parade gave it a thought.”

After this brief visit to the urban center of the Castro, the camera returns us to the suburbs—as Simon says, back to “the home of Carol and Kay and

their untraditional, traditional family.” Sitting across from the two women, he says, “The fact is that today polls show that most Americans do not believe in gay marriage; they believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman. What can the two of you say to convince these Americans

. . . ?” He is interrupted by Kay, who employs universalizing discourses to convince audiences that their relationship is nothing different from anyone else’s: “Simply more exposure to faces like ours, ordinary lives like ours.

Seeing this—seeing this on television in their own home, and seeing that we just flat don’t look scary and that we’re really not more interesting than they are will make the difference and should make the difference.” The

segment ends with Carol inviting TV viewers to just come by for dinner,

in an apparent attempt to have viewers witness for themselves how normal and nonthreatening their family is.

These same discourses stand out in another prime-time news program:

the February 24, 2004,
Nightline
episode that visits couples in order to find out “what exactly has changed” since the state of Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriages (Sievers, 2004, February 24). Both poster couples featured in the segment—Dave Wilson and Rob Compton, and Hil ary and Julie

Goodridge—were plaintiffs in the
Goodridge
case. They are interviewed in their home, in their kitchen and at their dining room table, symbols of the home’s domesticity. B-roll of the couples preparing meals—warming spaghetti sauce and boiling water—also serve as markers of class. Both couples boast modern, stylish, contemporary kitchens with stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, and recessed lighting.

Their representations and talk of marriage speak to the discursive strategies that gay and lesbian couples relied on to define the institution of marriage, either as a package of rights or as the ultimate expression of love and com-s

mitment. As chapter 2 demonstrates, these definitional strategies represented n

a core divide within the movement. Those who wanted to talk about equal-

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ity, reflecting a civil rights discourse, felt that love language was distracting, LC

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