Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture

Softcover volume, measuring approximately 6" x 9", shows light shelfwear. Binding is sound. Pages are clean and bright. xix/146 pages. "In "Making Things Perfectly Queer," Alexander Doty argues that films, television, and other forms of mass culture consistently elicit a wide range of queer responses, and suggests a framework for interpreting mass culture that stands as a corrective for many standard cultural approaches. By examining star images like Jack Benny and Pee-Wee Herman, women-centered sitcoms like "Laverne and Shirley" and "Designing Women," film directors like George Cukor and Dorothy Azner, and genres like the musical, Doty demonstrates how popular culture can be interpreted from a queer perspective. Ultimately, he suggests that queerness, not straightness, just might be the most pervasive sexual dynamic at work in mass culture production and reception.".