A Queer Eye for Capitalism

A Queer Eye for Capitalism
Author: Yarma Velázquez Vargas
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2010-06-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1443823015

This study uses critical discourse analysis to conduct an examination of the reality television program Queer Eye. The goal is to help understand the manner in which the representations of queer culture in the show reinforce the binaries of sex, gender and sexuality. By investigating the evolution of Queer Eye this study provides insights into American popular culture’s understanding and depiction of sexual difference and evidences the strong link between these representations and the commercial interests of the producers. In the show Queer Eye, the male guests sell access to their lives for a makeover and in the process they are indoctrinated into new patterns of consumption. The identity of both the five main characters and the guest character is represented as a reflection of their aesthetic choices, and audiences are exposed to numerous product placements and advertising messages. In encouraging materialism, the show transforms the term queer into a commodity sign and redefines masculinity as represented through wealth and accumulation. Moreover, consistent with the stereotypical representation of gay males in American culture the queerness of the Fab is depicted as asexual and a form of aestheticism.

Queer Werewolves Destroy Capitalism

Queer Werewolves Destroy Capitalism
Author: MJ Lyons
Publisher: Microcosm Publishing
Total Pages: 108
Release: 2021-05-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1648410065

Sexy, capitalism-defying adventures take you around the galaxy in this debut collection of five high-heat erotic short stories by MJ Lyons. A pack of werewolves tear through downtown Toronto to protest cruel treatment of workers, led by a werewolf & witch couple who are equally passionate about the cause and each other. From charnel landscapes to queer utopias, from the crepuscular cruising grounds of 19th century Paris to the urban werewolf hunting grounds of 21st century Toronto, from the tender to the consentacled, these tales of unapologetically queer, unabashedly smutty speculative fiction will thrill, titillate, and delight. A male/male erotic short story collection from Microcosm’s Queering Consent series.

Capitalism and Disability

Capitalism and Disability
Author: Marta Russell
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2019-08-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1608467163

Spread out over many years and many different publications, the late author and activist Marta Russell wrote a number of groundbreaking and insightful essays on the nature of disability and oppression under capitalism. In this volume, Russell’s various essays are brought together in one place in order to provide a useful and expansive resource to those interested in better understanding the ways in which the modern phenomenon of disability is shaped by capitalist economic and social relations. The essays range in analysis from the theoretical to the topical, including but not limited to: the emergence of disability as a “human category” rooted in the rise of industrial capitalism and the transformation of the conditions of work, family, and society corresponding thereto; a critique of the shortcomings of a purely “civil rights approach” to addressing the persistence of disability oppression in the economic sphere, with a particular focus on the legacy of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; an examination of the changing position of disabled people within the overall system of capitalist production utilizing the Marxist economic concepts of the reserve army of the unemployed, the labor theory of value, and the exploitation of wage-labor; the effects of neoliberal capitalist policies on the living conditions and social position of disabled people as it pertains to welfare, income assistance, health care, and other social security programs; imperialism and war as a factor in the further oppression and immiseration of disabled people within the United States and globally; and the need to build unity against the divisive tendencies which hide the common economic interest shared between disabled people and the often highly-exploited direct care workers who provide services to the former.

Crip Theory

Crip Theory
Author: Robert McRuer
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2006-06
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 081475712X

McRuer makes a case that queer and disabled identities, politics, and cultural logics are inexorably intertwined, and that queer and disability theory need one another. Crip theory makes clear that no cultural analysis is complete without attention to the politics of bodily ability and 'alternative corporealities'.

Acid Communism

Acid Communism
Author: Mark Fisher
Publisher: Pattern Books
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2020-09-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

A short zine collecting an introduction to the concept by Matt Colquhoun that appeared in 'krisis journal for contemporary philosophy Issue 2, 2018: Marx from the Margins' and the unfinished introduction to the unfinished book on Acid Communism that Mark Fisher was working on before his death in 2017. "In this way ‘Acid’ is desire, as corrosive and denaturalising multiplicity, flowing through the multiplicities of communism itself to create alinguistic feedback loops; an ideological accelerator through which the new and previously unknown might be found in the politics we mistakenly think we already know, reinstantiating a politics to come." —Matt Colquhoun

Bad Gays

Bad Gays
Author: Huw Lemmey
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2023-05-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1839763280

An unconventional history of homosexuality We all remember Oscar Wilde, but who speaks for Bosie? What about those ‘bad gays’ whose unexemplary lives reveal more than we might expect? Many popular histories seek to establish homosexual heroes, pioneers, and martyrs but, as Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller argue, the past is filled with queer people whose sexualities and dastardly deeds have been overlooked despite their being informative and instructive. Based on the hugely popular podcast series of the same name, Bad Gays asks what we can learn about LGBTQ+ history, sexuality and identity through its villains, failures, and baddies. With characters such as the Emperor Hadrian, anthropologist Margaret Mead and notorious gangster Ronnie Kray, the authors tell the story of how the figure of the white gay man was born, and how he failed. They examine a cast of kings, fascist thugs, artists and debauched bon viveurs. Imperial-era figures Lawrence of Arabia and Roger Casement get a look-in, as do FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover, lawyer Roy Cohn, and architect Philip Johnson. Together these amazing life stories expand and challenge mainstream assumptions about sexual identity: showing that homosexuality itself was an idea that emerged in the nineteenth century, one central to major historical events. Bad Gays is a passionate argument for rethinking gay politics beyond questions of identity, compelling readers to search for solidarity across boundaries.

Transgender Marxism

Transgender Marxism
Author: Jules Joanne Gleeson
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-05-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780745341651

Transgender Marxism is the first volume of its kind, offering a provocative and groundbreaking synthesis of transgender studies and Marxist theory.Reflecting on the relations between gender and labour, it shows how these linked phenomena structure antagonisms in particular social and historical situations. While no one is spared gendered conditioning, the contributors argue that transgender people nonetheless face particular pressures, oppressions and state persecution. The collection makes a particular contribution to Marxist feminism and social reproduction theory, through both personal and analytic examinations of the social activity demanded of trans people around the world.Exploring trans lives and movements through a Marxist lens, the book also assesses the particular experience of surviving as trans in light of the totality of gendered experience under capitalism. Twinning Marxism with other schools of thought - including psychoanalysis, phenomenology and Butlerian performativity - Transgender Marxism ultimately offers an insight into transgender experience, and an exciting renewal of Marxist theory itself.

The Queer Art of Failure

The Queer Art of Failure
Author: Jack Halberstam
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2011-09-19
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0822350459

DIVProminent queer theorist offers a "low theory" of culture knowledge drawn from popular texts and films./div

The New Queer Aesthetic on Television

The New Queer Aesthetic on Television
Author: James R. Keller
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2014-11-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1476609071

Television is awash with newly embraced gay and lesbian themes that have crossed over into the collective pop culture of America. Dramas like Queer As Folk and The L Word, comedies like Will & Grace,and even reality shows including the popular Queer Eye for the Straight Guy signify a new commercial acceptance of homosexuality that has never been seen before in the United States. However, the increasing exposure has prompted critics to argue that the gay and lesbian representation on television is oversimplified and is rife with one-dimensional characters. Ultimately, the viewers will decide the future of homosexuality and homosexual characters on television. The text offers essays that explore such topics as the politics of representation and the clash of progressive and regressive social agendas in television and the emphasis on the search for a space for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and the transgendered within the mainstream media. The book contains criticisms of characters in such shows as Six Feet Under, Queer As Folk, Friends and Ellen.