CMCL-C 203: Gender, Sexuality, and the Media
(Topic: Introduction to Queer Representations in Popular U.S. Cinema)
Class Number: 15300

MW, 9:30 AM-10:45 AM, Location: TBA
Required film screenings Tu, 7:00 PM -10:30 PM

Meets with GNDR-G 205

Fulfills COLL S&H Requirement

Instructor: Mary L. Gray
E-Mail: mLg@indiana.edu
Office: Mottier Hall 214
Phone: 855-4379

This course will introduce students to the history of “queer”
representations of sexuality and gender as they are entwined and
encoded in popular cinema in the United States. We will examine how
constructs of queer behavior and body type are later transformed
into modern notions of naturalized identity. We will also
interrogate commonly held and frequently unquestioned assumptions
about race, class, nationality, and ability that are associated with
queer representations. Students will carefully study the traces of
gender and sexual norms as they have been constructed in the arch of
mainstream U.S. cinema from the turn of the 20th century to the
present. Using the lens of critical media and cultural studies
approaches, students will learn to read select examples from this
history towards understanding the broader political economies and
cultural contexts that shaped contemporary understandings of
sexuality and gender. Students will also learn to analyze how past
political and economic inequalities in the culture industries might
structure our current sense of what it means to be a sexual and
gendered person, especially what it means to be “normal”
and/or “queer.”

•Because this is a 200-level course, it will provide an introduction
and survey of current scholarship in the field.

•Course will be a mixture of lecture, small group discussion, and
required weekly film screenings; attendance will be taken daily and
count towards final course evaluation.

•Authors studied will include Richard Barrios, Harry Benshoff,
Alexander Doty, Richard Dyer, Sean Griffin, Lisa Henderson, Judith
Halberstam, B. Ruby Rich, and Vito Russo.

•Continues themes and ideas presented in C205: Introduction to
Communication and Culture.

•Designed to improve students’ abilities to critically examine the
representation of sexuality and gender in the media and its
relationship to social discourses addressing these topics—
particularly as they relate to the notions of “queerness” in late
modernity.

•Assignments will include regular written reading responses;
individual and group presentations with an associated paper
approximately 3-5 pages in length; a mid-term; and a comprehensive
take-home final.