Making Out in the Mainstream: GLAAD and the Politics of Respectability

Making Out in the Mainstream is the first full-length study of LGBT media activism, revealing the daily struggle to reconcile economic and professional pressures with conflicting personal, organizational, and political priorities. Documenting the rise and evolution of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), Vincent Doyle presents a nuanced perspective on the complexity, contradictions, and ambivalences of advancing social causes through popular media. Based on participant observation, in-depth interviews, and archival research carried out at GLAAD's New York and Los Angeles offices from 2000 to 2001, Making Out in the Mainstream analyzes the GLAAD Media Awards and the organization's responses to controversial public figures such as Dr Laura Schlessinger and Eminem, and programs such as Queer as Folk. Doyle argues that the earlier political strategy of coming out to the mainstream, intended to dismantle closeted life and create a mass movement, has been supplanted by the market-oriented "making out" in the mainstream, which privileges respectable images of homosexuality in the pursuit of political and economic gain. He shows how this emphasis on respectability clashes with the development of a diverse movement that campaigns for greater inclusion and he offers a sophisticated appeal for more complicated understandings of assimilation and anti-normalization. Painting a complex portrait of a prominent gay and lesbian organization during a period of rapid social change, Making Out in the Mainstream reveals not only the limitations of "mainstreaming," but also its political possibilities.

About the Author :
Vincent Doyle is assistant professor of media and cultural studies at IE University.

Review :
"Vincent Doyle follows in the analytic footsteps of queer critical theorists such as Lisa Duggan, Lauren Berlant, and Michael Warner in his focused critique of neoliberalism as the structuring force underpinning the "mainstreaming" strategies of LGBTQ media activist group GLAAD … he provides a compelling, if cutting, account of how GLAAD navigated the normative culture of the American media system to make queer people "respectable" subjects and, in doing so, shored up their institutional credentials at the cost of reinforcing the marginalization of those LGBTQ people who fell outside the White, middle-class, normatively gendered, and conservatively sexed mainstream." International Journal of Communication "There are few groups so prominent in the LGBT mainstream as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. ln this historical and ethnographic study of the organization, Vincent Doyle plugged into GLAAD at just the right time to witness the mechanics of a long-term political shift. Doyle's unprecedented access to the inner workings of a mainstream gay rights organization makes for fascinating reading." - Quill & Quire "If you're interested in the debate over where [LGBTQ+] priorities should lie, Vincent Doyle's book is for you. It looks at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation's history, focusing on 2000 and 2001, when Doyle did an extensive field study. It's "This vitally important book…is invaluable to students because it not only details the evolution of the highly visible GLAAD and media activism but also confirms that LGBT activism remains fluid. Highly recommended." Choice "Doyle has already delivered one of the most thought-provoking books of 2016." Bay Area Reporter "Making Out in the Mainstream is an important and valuable book that makes a notable contribution to our knowledge of media activism and to the history of the LGBT movement at a time of rapid societal change." - Larry Gross, University of Southern California