Introduction

The initial charge and excitement that we felt about putting together an issue devoted to exploring subculture and deviance in film and television overshadowed the complexity of such an undertaking. As we drafted the call for papers and speculated (in some cases even fantasized) about the submissions we would receive in response, nagging questions began to darken the doorstep of our endeavor. What is a subculture? What is deviance?

The simplicity of those questions masks the complexity of their answers. At the very least we could agree that a subculture is a community that is not a part of or accepted by the mainstream and deviance is activity that goes against mainstream mores, laws, and/or conventions. What is more, we hoped to address the idea that notions of subcultures and deviance did not only have to relate to representations of individuals or groups but could certainly be applied to production processes. So, while devoting a fair amount of space to the analysis of representations in film and television, this issue also considers deviant filmmaking techniques. A brief outline of this issue's content illustrates not only the breadth of ideas on what constitutes a subculture or what is deviant but also the variety of analytic techniques and theoretical approaches currently being used to study them in film and television.

In an effort to provide at least a modicum of grounding for this issue's theme, we decided to round up for an online chat a few people who research these very concepts. The first installment of this issue is a conversation with sociologists of law and criminology Bill Chambliss and Aaron Doyle and media scholar Jimmie Reeves. They chatted online with us about academic and common definitions of deviance as well as how the actual behaviors labeled as deviant shift over time—and debated to what extent media may play a role in "mainstreaming" formerly deviant behavior. The participants also discussed the political and economic factors that affect what behaviors are labeled deviant and how deviance is represented in the media, in particular around issues of crime and punishment (i.e., who is cast as a criminal, when is crime and/or violence glorified, and when is it punished).

From here we move into the territory of sexuality and, more specifically, the role of gay characters within blaxploitation films. The "blaxploitation" or "soul cinema" era of American filmmaking introduced a large number of filmed representations that proved highly problematic along multiple axes of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality. Through analysis of several of soul cinema's most recognizable films in "Beyond the Black Macho: Queer Blaxploitation," Joe Wlodarz illuminates the manner in which portrayals of homosexual characters can yield unexpected cultural and political results. Among the most visible of the nearly standardized character types of these films were those that portrayed varying aspects of homosexuality. These characters are far from being predictable or simple foils for the sexually charged hypermasculinity often expressed by protagonists. Instead, these flamboyant homosexual characters serve narrative functions that can render the definitions of black male sexual identity in a manner more complex and nuanced than a quick reading might suggest.

Staying within gay culture, the shift of our focus moves from an analysis of fictitious representation of black gay male sexuality to nonfiction production and representation of lesbian sexuality. In "Lesbian 'Making-of' Documentaries and the Production of Lesbian Sex," Kelly Hankin examines two films that document the making of lesbian-made, lesbian-themed feature films. Hankin begins by noting the current vogue for detailed, behind-the-scenes, "making-of" projects, citing also the popularity of "reality television" as part of the same trend. Hankin sees differences, however, between mainstream making-of documentaries and the two lesbian-themed documentaries—The Making of Bar Girls and Moments: The Making of Claire of the Moon—in which she is interested. In particular, she argues that these documentaries focus especially on the production of lesbian sex. In her analysis, the lesbian film set functions not only as a space for the production...