Session Three: Panel 6 - Love, Sexuality and Popular Culture

Vampire Love: The Second Sex Negotiates the 21st Century (Bonnie Mann) Stephanie Meyer\u27s Twilight series seems to have an entire generation of adolescent girls fantasizing about being carried off by bloodsucking men. How are feminist moms, concerned therapists, committed teachers, and thoughtful young women to understand such a phenomenon? Is Bella really as boring, untalented, and dependent as she seems? Is the vampire world feminist? How might Mary Pipher (Reviving Ophelia), Lynn Phillips (Flirting with Danger), and Simone de Beauvoir (The Second Sex) help us understand the cultural tensions Meyer\u27s books have tapped into? Gay Sex and Aliens! How the Press frames Russell T Davies’ “Torchwood.” (Maria Boyd) This paper examines the hegemonic, heterosexist discourse of popular online and print media in reviews of the BBC television program Torchwood. The program has been described by the BBC Press Office as “a sci-fi, crime thriller for adults” Over the course of the first two seasons, Torchwood dealt with such issues as rape, child abuse, capital punishment, suicide, torture as an interrogation technique, and animal cruelty. However, a discourse analysis of 109 reviews of the Season 1 and Season 2 premiere episodes reveals that TV critics are more concerned with the depictions of bisexuality among the principal characters on Torchwood. The reviews highlight the same-sex interactions depicted on the show utilizing sensationalist, assimilationist, or condemnatory language. The hegemonic, heterosexist language used by TV critics covering Torchwood has framed the program in such a way that it limits audience’s ability to make meaning of the text themselves. Soap Operas and Civil Rights: Guiding Light\u27s Otalia (Lisa Szefel) In one of the most conservative, sentimental, and endangered genres one of the most subversive storylines emerged. The last year of one of the last soap operas on television, Guiding Light, saw two middle-aged women fall in love with each other. With each beat Executive Producer Ellen Wheeler and head writer Jill Lorie Hurst sought to overturn stereotypes about gays regarding faith and family, community and children. The popularity of the couple whose shippername is “Otalia” led to a global fan base and a popular fan site, Big Purple Dreams, which now serves as a portal for confession, creativity, enthusiasm, and activism. This paper will explore the use of a popular culture medium and technologies, such as message boards, Twitter, and web-based series to explore innovative avenues through which civil rights for gay Americans is being advanced