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108 Chapter 4 The Affordable, Multicultural Politics of Gay Chic Sometimes, I just gotta have my gays around me. —Openly straight comedian Kathy Griffin on her HBO comedy special, 1996 In this chapter I augment the industry-focused analysis offered in chapter 3 by asking why certain straight viewers might have found gay-themed television appealing. Gay material wasn’t only useful for network executives, I argue, but also for many viewers for whom watching prime-time TV with a gay twist spoke to specific political values and offered some a convenient way to establish a “hip” identity. It was convenient because, as a cultural category, homosexuality fit so comfortably with the socially liberal, fiscally conservative politics many “sophisticated,” well-educated, and upscale Americans found resonant in the neoliberal political climate of the 1990s. It is certainly important not to conflate the industry’s conception of its slumpy audience with the lived experiences of real viewers; such conceptions are (in the case of U.S. network television) shaped by the economic imperatives of an advertising-based medium, vague assumptions by marketers and media executives, and an imprecise ratings system. Nevertheless, such notions do change in response to social change, and network executives’ notion of a “hip” 18-to-49 target demographic did, if in distorted ways, reflect the shifting attitudes and identities of many Americans.1 More precisely, it reflected the sensibilities of many of the upscale and upwardly mobile baby boomers and Generation Xers whose centrist politics built Clinton’s moderate middle, whose unprecedented levels of college education drove the postindustrial information economy, and whose incomes helped fuel everything from the bull market to the popularity of L.A. Eyeworks. Throughout much of the 1990s, then, network executives were interested in creating programs that would appeal to such viewers.2 Below, I map out the intersection of various discourses (about multiculturalism , the gay market, fiscal conservatism, and racial politics) in order to theorize why some viewers may have enjoyed gay-themed television in the Becker_Ch04_Pgs-108-135.qxd 10/30/2005 10:58 AM Page 108 The Affordable, Multicultural Politics of Gay Chic 109 1990s.3 Doing so will help us better understand how some straight Americans likely experienced and responded to straight panic. As argued earlier, social conservatives, the Christian Right, and the Pentagon reacted to growing fears about the seemingly unstable line between the majority and its minorities, right and wrong, and straight and gay with a reactionary nativism, the reassertion of Judeo-Christian values, and “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Social liberals, on the other hand, were encouraged to celebrate the very politics of difference and sexual identity that could be so unsettling to their majoritarian naïveté and privilege.Trying to find a way to be straight in a culture where being gay wasn’t bad wasn’t simple. The emergence of gay and lesbian chic and the increase of gay-themed programming serve as entry points for conceptualizing the political sensibilities and cultural tastes of cosmopolitan, gay-friendly Straight America—a category that is no doubt related to but can never simply be equated with the “hip,” upscale professionals networks had in mind. In turn, exploring the dynamics of such attitudes can help us theorize the meanings and pleasure some viewers may have experienced in watching primetime television in the gay 1990s. I first conceptualized the shifting cultural politics of certain Americans in the mid-1990s when gay-themed television first became an identifiable programming trend. By the end of the decade, some observers began to herald the emergence of a new social class. Conservative cultural satirist David Brooks and regional planner Richard Florida, each working from different perspectives and towards very different ends described a group that would certainly dovetail well with the “hip,” young, urban, professionals the networks targeted with much of their programming in the 1990s. Brooks’ and Florida’s observations provide a helpful context for theorizing the sensibilities and social mores of some of gay-themed TV’s target audience. I then augment that broad portrait by examining how multiculturalism and the political correctness debates of the early 1990s dovetailed smoothly with the decade’s strengthening neoliberalism and, in doing so, laid the groundwork for what I argue is a hallmark of what could be called a slumpy sensibility—a socially liberal, fiscally conservative political position. As multiculturalist discourses gained wider circulation in corporate boardrooms, on college campuses, and across popular culture, maintaining an appearance, at least, of social...

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