Book Review	Book Reviews Archive

All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America
Suzanna Danuta Walters
University of Chicago Press
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Once upon a time homo was a dirty little secret. Not any more. Lord Alfred Douglas may have felt that queerness was the love that once dare not speak its name, but would never have imagined it would end up dancing at Disneyland or used to market Absolut. Oscar Wilde got in trouble for pushing the envelope when he took working-class lads to posh hotels and left stained sheets the next morning. But one wonders what he would have thought about Will and Grace, although clearly the kids from Kids, Bully, and L.I.E. would probably be more to his taste. And undoubtedly he would have loved Big Gay Al from South Park, because, well, who wouldn't? Gay is everywhere which is sort of fun if only because it is a Southern Baptist's worst dreams come true. But hey, with Ellen back on television can the Rapture be far behind?

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Suzanna Danta Walters has written a comprehensive survey of gay and lesbian visibility in popular culture. She is good at documenting (and, in a world that has such short media memory) reminding us about past national visibility, such as an important 1967 "CBS Reports" with Mike Wallace that drew so heavily upon every anti-gay stereotype that it now looks like camp, But Walters strength is on the post-AIDS era where gay characters and themes appear everywhere: "The West Wing," "Law and Order," "Oz," "Ally McBeal," and "Queer as Folk."

But this is no simple minded celebration of "We are everywhere" as one might expect from consumer-obsessed Advocate or Out. Despite her delight in discovering all of these queer images, she also has serious concerns. Is all this visibility a sign of acceptance or just a move to accommodation and assimilation? Is the creation a "gay chic" just a profitable niche-market? These are not new questions-- gay liberationists in the early 1970s bemoaned the "mainstreaming" of gay culture and images and even argued that "visibility" should not be equated with liberation-- but Walters addresses them with intelligence and aplomb.

Most of Walters' readings are on the mark: in the Roseanne episode on gay marriage the emphasis is far more on Dan and Roseanne coming to terms with their homophobia than about homosexuality per se. Her readings on Ally McBeal are also very good. But as much as she enjoys these manifestations of queer popular culture, she is also wary. Little of the new extensive queer visibility, she contends at the beginning of her book, reflects the actual lives of gay people. But by the end, Walters expresses begrudging appreciation for the possibilities of pop culture to express queerness.

Author Profile:  Michael Bronski
	Michael Bronski is the author of Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility and The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom. He writes frequently on sex, books, movies, and culture, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Email:	mabronski@aol.com