Queer- Scratching the surface or changing the paint?

After reading this week’s articles on gender and sexuality I found myself somewhat disappointed at the superficial engagement with queer issues. Modleski’s article discusses Kiss of the Spiderwoman, claiming that, “Molina’s exaggeration of the feminine – his simulation of womanhood, derived from emulating film heroines, realizes an ideal of femininity as mas(s)querade: the homosexual ‘queen’ as exemplar of the hyperreal” (51). This idea of Molina’s character made me think of performativity in relation to gender as well as sexuality. It is more than apparent that media constantly reinforces ideas of femininity, womanhood, masculinity, etc. When it comes to the representation of queerness, queer characters are often “hyperreal” functioning not as real people but warped caricatures. “Just think of the line-up—the butch dyke and the camp qwueen, the lesbian vampire and the sadistic queer, the predatory schoolmistress and the neurotic faggot, and all the rest. The amount of hatred, fear, ridicule and disgust packed into those images is unmistakable” (Dyer 297). The historically predominant modes of depicting LGBT representations in media have been nothing more than drastic stereotypes making them less human by inundating them with grotesque amounts of negativity. It is unfortunate that LGBT persons do not have control over the way they are represented in media. What is striking is that in this time of popular consumption of queerness in media is that it is moving in the same way as the popular consumption of feminism. “Companies draw on the language of ‘Girl Power’ as though to bestow on their products a sense of dynamism, modernity and innovation. Such post-feminist strategies allow for the expansion of the ‘teen girl’ global market on the basis of reinvention of the category of youthful womanhood” (McRobbie 533). The adoption of feminist language shifted the way feminism in society has been perceived providing the opportunity to claim that society has moved into a post-feminist era. Currently the way in which LGBT issues have been represented allow companies to move queerness into the same vein as feminism, utilizing queer language to promote consumerism. What happens when the media starts claiming that there is no more homophobia?