University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Advocacy of public interest content in corporate entertainment media

(USC Thesis Other)

Advocacy of public interest content in corporate entertainment media

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content

ADVOCACY OF PUBLIC INTEREST CONTENT IN

CORPORATE ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA

by

Eleanor Grace Morrison

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(COMMUNICATION)

August 2010

Copyright 2010 Eleanor Grace Morrison
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures iv

Abstract v

Chapter 1: Intro to Hollywood Advocacy 1
Public Health Advocacy and Marginalized Group Advocacy 2
Level of Controversy 3
Ease of Issue Integration 3
Sweeps Coverage 4
Institutional Support 4
“Facts” and Goals 5
Censorship Accusations (and Realities?) 6
Types of Marginalized Group Advocacy 7
Existing Research on Hollywood Advocates 9

Chapter 2: Why Do Advocates Care? 17
Academic Approaches 20
Cultivation and Reality Construction 20
Elaboration Likelihood Model 23
Parasocial Interaction 24
Uses and Gratifications 26
Social Cognitive Theory 28
Summary of Academic Approaches 30
Current Entertainment Environment 31
Non-Academic Realities 34
Public and Private Interests in Media 35

Chapter 3: Advocate Goals 40
Who influences goal selection and prioritization? 40
Advocacy Workers 40
Funders 41
Constituents 43
Unchallenged and Challenged Goal Narratives 44
Unchallenged: HHS 45
Challenged: GLAAD 47
Explicit and Implicit Goals 51

Chapter 4: Current Advocacy Methods 56
Carrot and Stick Advocacy 56
GLAAD: High and Low Profile Sticks 63
The Ultimate Carrot: Awards Programs 71
What’s Really In It for the Industry? 73

iii
Direct and Indirect Advocacy 78
Direct Contact: Industry Comes to the Advocates 78
Direct Contact: Advocates Go to the Industry 81
Indirect Contact 86
“Non-Advocacy” Advocacy 89

Chapter 5: Hollywood Advocates as Producers 96
Production Studies 96
Case Study: GLAAD and All My Children 103
Minority Producers at the Table 106
Minority Producers for a Minority Audience 111
Impact and Limits of Minority Co-Production 116
Summary 127
Chapter 5 Endnotes 129

Chapter 6: Moving Forward 131
GLAAD 132
Pursue: Better Use of Awards 134
Pursue: More Research 136
Pursue: Better Use of the Internet 144
Pursue: More Support for Entertainment Media Team in General 150
Do Not Pursue: Producer Diversity Advocacy 152
The Bigger Picture 154
Needing and Finding Resources 154
Changes in Media and Social Environment 161
Global Possibilities 164
Conclusion 166

References 169

Appendices:
Appendix A: Methods 189
Appendix B: Sample TV Gayed Listing 209
Appendix C: Sample Staff Listing 214

iv
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Image production flowchart proposed by Katz 105

Figure 2: Suggested alteration to Katz’s model 115

v
ABSTRACT
This study investigates the current status of “Hollywood lobbyists,” the people who work
to influence entertainment media content in a prosocial manner. The primary focus is
upon the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), an advocacy
organization where the author conducted a year-long ethnography. Additional data
gathering included interviews with advocates working on other issues, attending a variety
of events related to advocacy work, and regular consultation of industry publications.
Hollywood, Health & Society, a giant in the current Hollywood advocacy scene, is often
referenced as a point of comparison. This dissertation presents theory and industry based
reasons that advocates are driven to the work that they do, and argues that these
advocates present a necessary embodiment of public interest concerns within everyday
production operations. The argument is also made that although many of these advocates
would not label themselves as advocates or lobbyists or producers, they are in fact all of
these. This project explores advocacy goal selection, internal and external conflict over
those goals, and differences between explicit and implicit goals pursued. Carrot and stick
advocacy is discussed, as well as how the use of each has changed over past decades.
Examples of direct advocacy, indirect advocacy, and “non-advocacy” advocacy are
offered. Finally, suggestions are made for possible alterations to advocacy practice both
within GLAAD and in the broader Hollywood advocacy scene.

1
CHAPTER 1: INTRO TO HOLLYWOOD ADVOCACY
We have absolutely no control. So why do we bother? We bother because the
Hollywood entertainment industry is the most powerful in the world. The top-
rated show reaches 84 million people worldwide. So here these shows reach from
20-80 million viewers at a time, globally, in countries around the world. It’s such
a powerful vehicle. Plus, their writers are some of the most talented in the world.
Some of them are brilliant. And that’s why we all get hooked into television. And
so what we know is if we get it right, if we get the health message right, if we’re
able to support them in getting it right, it has so much more impact than any little
campaign we could design and deliver, because we’ll never have the funding or
the access to do what they do. And so we see value. And the cost of running our
little program is so small. We have a small staff, five people. Tiny program,
huge impact.
- Sandra de Castro Buffington, Hollywood, Health & Society

Media advocacy groups attempt to “bring nonbusiness concerns into the workings
of the system” (Streeter, 2000, p. 79). They may be concerned with one or all of a range
of media – news, marketing, new media, the children’s market, entertainment, and so on.
Of specific interest in this book are the advocates that focus more narrowly on that final
option, entertainment media. These professionals have been referred to in many ways:
“Hollywood lobbyists” by Montgomery (1989), “pressure groups” by Gitlin (1983/2000),
“special interest groups” by Bielby and Bielby (1994), and “advocacy groups” by Suman
and Rossman (2000). These groups utilize a range of insider and outsider practices --
working with the industry in a consultative, cooperative, encouraging capacity, and/or
attacking it for perceived missteps, demanding changes, boycotting advertisers, and even
attempting legislative action.
The groups’ advocacy activities, constituencies, and partnerships vary. Some do
research on media content and/or effects to back up their advocacy endeavors, but others
do not. Some “groups” are really solo individuals, while others work in a true group
setting. Some hold events bestowing honors upon those in the industry seen as presenting
2
the “right” kinds of characters and storylines, while others do not. All rely heavily on
networking to gain access and influence with industry professionals. The public may be
perceived as a direct audience that can be encouraged to act on certain action alerts, or it
might be only an indirect audience served via the media work conducted. Funders are
another party to consider, serving as either a sponsor to pre-existing and continuing
activities or as a guide to the direction work should take in the future. Groups may have
strong, weak, or no ties to academia. Hollywood, Health & Society, for instance, is a
health advocacy group based at the University of Southern California’s Norman Lear
Center, and has helped further the domestic literature on what is known in academia as
“entertainment-education” (see Singhal, Cody, Rogers, & Sabido, 2004).
Public Health Advocacy and Marginalized Group Advocacy
Hollywood lobbyist groups have a wide range of content concerns, even including
the representation of science on screen, but they most often fall into one of two
categories. One kind of group, exemplified by Hollywood, Health & Society, seeks to
get accurate health information placed into programs. The other, exemplified by the
Entertainment Media division of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation,
encourages the programs and networks to include more and better representations of
people in a particular marginalized group. While both types of groups are working to
influence the content in entertainment programs in a manner seen as “prosocial” to those
doing the advocacy work -- and thus there are valuable lessons that could be drawn from
looking to the practices of one in order to better the other -- there are also a few notable
differences that should be acknowledged. The following comments all have exceptions
and contradictory nuances, but are offered as an attempt to identify broader patterns.
3
Level of Controversy
First and foremost is the difference in the level of potential difficulty or
controversy involved. Granted, health advocacy is neither easy nor uncontested. Health-
related groups must continue to battle the perception that the insertion of their content
will make a show boring by bringing an educational tone. An oft-repeated bit of
advocacy lore is Hollywood honcho Sam Goldwyn declaring, “If you want to send a
message, use Western Union.” This kind of industry thinking often applies to any
prosocial message, regardless of specific content or angle. And health content can be just
as contested and touchy as minority issues. This may apply to issues with religious
undertones, such as contraception, or even seemingly straightforward topics like autism
and vaccines, when people disagree over which scientists are right or wrong in their facts
(Allen, 2008). However, there are reasons dealing with health issues within the
entertainment industry may be considered relatively easier and less contested than
dealing with marginalized groups.
Ease of Issue Integration
In general, identity group advocates are seeking lasting character representation,
while health issue advocates have a focus that trends more transient: storylines.
Certainly, health advocates would prefer a lengthy story arc, but in practice few
storylines survive beyond one episode, and the writers and producers know this. Present
a network show with the recommendation of a long-term investment versus a likely
short-term investment, and it becomes clear which type of advocates may find
influencing entertainment programs a relatively easier task. Similarly, when it comes to
potential successes, openings are less frequent for marginalized group advocates. Shows
4
will always need to generate new storylines, but are not often looking for new series
regular characters. Because of this, minority group advocates have a bigger need to
create a certain level of awareness in the industry as a whole, as the decisions that most
impact their bottom-line goal are more often made when a show is just a seedling in need
of a green light for further development [and then for placement on the season schedule].
Sweeps Coverage
Whether health storylines or minority representations are at stake, if the subject is
contested by the public (think: teenage contraception or lesbian romance), the time
investment from a show is likely to be shorter term, possibly sweeps material. Both
kinds of advocates may worry about misrepresentation in such circumstances; however
sweeps coverage presents a different kind of problem for each type of advocate. While a
show may play up the controversy around a particular health issue, the actual health facts
involved will more often than not be presented accurately if an advocate is consulted.
For contested minority group advocates, the controversy to be played up is the very
identity that advocates would like to be non-controversial. Take, for instance, a character
“going bi” for an episode, and how shows use this “scandalous” material to pull viewers.
In this way, sweeps coverage is more antithetical to the purpose of minority group
advocates than health issue advocates, by de-normalizing the identities the advocates
would like to normalize.
Institutional Support
Health advocacy also wins more institutional support, earning more funding from
government agencies, and receiving more interest in the academic literature. This may be
because health advocacy seeks measurable change, while minority groups are not about
5
achieving a particular behavior in their audience so much as a more general ‘hearts and
minds’ victory. Behavior in line with such newly open-mindedness would be great, but is
not the primary goal. Funders may be drawn to the hard behavior and measurable results
angle of health advocacy, or they may see it as a practicality of working to directly assist
the majority rather than a minority, to work toward benefiting the quality of life of many
rather than the [relatively] few. Alternatively, it may be that health simply appears to be
more of a concrete reality, whereas group representations are admittedly more fuzzy,
more soft and undefined.
“Facts” and Goals
Indeed, advocating for minority groups may be harder simply because questions
of definition are harder. It is not as easy to define a varied population held together by
one sole commonality (race, sexuality, gender) as is it to define a health condition’s
symptoms and suspected means of prevention. Both kinds of Hollywood advocates want
to increase awareness, but of what? Compare these questions: What is the accurate way
to represent a lesbian character? What is the accurate way to represent tuberculosis?
Groups of people are difficult if not impossible to define; meaning that advocacy on their
behalves is also difficult. Health advocates may not always have all of the facts, may not
always be sure what specifically causes a particular condition, but they know that the
goal is to prevent and educate and change behavior, and there is a set of relatively agreed-
upon facts with which to start. But what are the facts with which minority group
advocates have to work? Are minorities essentially different from the majority, or
essentially the same? The obvious answer is that they are essentially the same, but there
is usually an important nuance to that – they’re of the same value as other social groups,
6
have the same human capabilities, but they probably have or want the option of a
different culture. In other words, they want acceptance but not necessarily mainstreaming
and assimilation. How can advocates deal with that nuance in entertainment advocacy, or
can they? Should they prioritize characters that are completely the same as anyone else
except for that one fact of their identity, or prioritize characters that live their minority
group in a visible, cultural way, to thus make that particular culture more accepted?
Forget trying to find the facts, what is the goal? In short, minority group advocates carry
the baggage of representing a multifaceted community of real, live people, while health
advocates have the fortune of being one position removed from that, representing
conditions that impact real, live people, but not usually needing to treat those particular
people as constituents.
Censorship Accusations (and Realities?)
Finally, those who advocate for marginalized groups are more likely to be
accused of censorship, which – regardless of the accuracy – is an unpleasant complaint to
fence, for image reasons if nothing else. To what extent should a group of people be able
to define what they find as offensive and inoffensive terms of reference to that group? To
what extent should they be able to say media producers should and should not use those
words? And when is it appropriate to speak up? Take, for example, the use of a
derogatory term by a villain in a film. Does that make it ok, because it’s proof of his
badness? But how many audience members will understand that? And what if the bad
guy turns out to be a good guy later on? These are the exact questions that came up when
GLAAD was deciding how to respond to a few lines of dialogue in a 2008 film. These
questions get even messier in the realm of comedy (both satire and non-satire), where
7
having a sense of humor would be good for advocates for interpersonal purposes, but
difficult to execute while staying true to the goals of their work. One comedic film, for
instance, raised concern with a particular Hollywood advocate due to its questionable
trailers, causing another advocate to strongly advise that person that the film should be
screened before any actions were taken. Context is crucial for comedy, and the studio
responded to the advocate’s request for a screener by insisting that the film was “an equal
opportunity offender.” But does that matter? Health advocates often do not empathize
with these kinds of issues, not having to deal with the defamation concerns central to
marginalized group advocacy. Indeed, some rather heated exchanges (and cold brush-
offs) have occurred within the advocacy community over the appropriateness of pursuing
anti-defamation advocacy work, and whether or not scriptwriters should be able to use
whatever language they want.
Types of Marginalized Group Advocacy
There are not just differences between health and group advocates, but also
important differences among the kinds of marginalized groups that are represented in
advocacy efforts. The physically challenged and ethnic/racial minorities are generally
understood as deserving of fair treatment, even if producers hide behind market-based
excuses for not incorporating more such characters. In other words, while talk is cheap,
there is still a certain level of talk, and a widely accepted understanding of a need for
better and/or more representation. Women, on the other hand, are often popularly
presumed to be equals on-screen, despite continued issues regarding quality of
representations (Smith & Granados, 2009). Likely because of the widespread
presumption of sufficient equality, no doubt tied intimately to our present era of
8
postfeminism, it appears difficult to rally or sustain support for a female-focused
advocacy group; recent attempts, including a group backed by Geena Davis, have fallen
into inactivity. Finally, there are groups that are not perceived as deserving of equality
by all of the public, such as gays and Muslims. These groups must lobby for
representation while navigating unreliable levels of political and social support. Gays
actually have quite a history of advocacy within Hollywood (Gitlin, 1983/2000;
Montgomery, 1989), yet despite industry ties remain a political hot button. Muslims are
more of the new kids on the block, wading into unknown waters amidst occasional
accusations of white-washing terrorism. The website for the newest and most focused
Muslim resource group declares, “Muslims on Screen and Television aims to inform the
public debate, not advance a political agenda” (mostresource.org, 2009). What, exactly,
is the difference? Is informing the public debate in this way not a political agenda?
This last type of group, those supportive of contested representations, faces an
implicit question that is far less frequently encountered by other types of advocacy
groups: is content lobbying for such groups propaganda? That depends upon the
definition of propaganda. At its core, is it not about power over thought being held in the
hands of an elite person or persons? Content lobbying, though accomplished through
networking with the elite, is conducted by outsiders trying to pass as insiders, outsiders
representing interests not satisfactorily addressed in the market approach to media
production. To what extent does such an arrangement deserve a fearful response? When
media are spoken of as conveying values and knowledge to the people, it is described as a
“gloomy view” (Hesmondhalgh, 2006, p. 176), often with the focus kept on the potential
for bad. Can there not be propaganda for good? Any positive or negative evaluation,
9
however, is admittedly a value judgment. While it certainly seems good to me that
homophobia may be reduced through the efforts of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against
Defamation, not everyone out there would agree. People generally are not going to
accuse Hollywood, Health & Society of engaging in propaganda – even if that is
technically what the organization is doing.
Yet whether entertainment content advocacy is good or bad, it exists, and it
contributes – in however minor a way – to the media goods viewed (and not viewed) by
the public. It merits a closer, current look.
Existing Research on Hollywood Advocates
The best known work on advocacy groups is unquestionably Montgomery’s
(1989) Target: Prime Time. This extensive work profiles Hollywood lobbyists during the
1970s and 1980s, including battles over abortion on Maude, gay representation on
Marcus Welby, M.D., and Black representation on Beulah Land. Shortly after
Montgomery’s endeavor, Shefner and Rogers (1992) presented a conference paper
reviewing Hollywood lobbyist practices. Their paper focused attention on lobbyists
concerned with alcoholism, the environment, and teen pregnancy, omitting discussion of
advocacy done on behalf of more contested issues or minority groups.
There have also been a few tangential investigations, where interest groups come
up but are not the central concern. Turow’s (1989) history of medical television dramas
incorporates details about the influence of the American Medical Association and others
in the medical industry, as has been mentioned earlier. Hendershot’s (1998) exploration
of censorship and regulation in children’s television includes extended discussion of
10
Action for Children’s Television (ACT), “the first prominent activist group to focus on
children’s television” (p. 64).
A small number of publications have been written by and/or for those invested in
content lobbying, often offering implicit or explicit goal-oriented best practice tips.
Authors included in this group: Vicki Beck (2004), former director of Hollywood, Health
& Society; Deborah Glik (in Glik, Berkanovic, Stone, Ibarra, Jones, Rosen, Schreibman,
Gordon, Minassian, & Richardes, 1998), Director of the UCLA Health and Media
Research Group; and Jay Winsten (Winsten & DeJong, 2001), Director of the Harvard
School of Public Health's Center for Health Communication, and of the Center’s
aforementioned Harvard Alcohol Project. Reports for the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation (Brailsford & Goodman, 2006) and the Norman Lear Center (Shaivitz, 2003)
are explicitly written for potential practitioners, aiming to provide them with strategies
for success as reported by current practitioners. With the exception of two paragraphs in
the Shaivitz (2003) piece -- a brief descriptive overview of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance
Against Defamation (GLAAD) -- the preceding papers and reports do not discuss
minority group advocacy.
A collection of articles edited by Suman and Rossman (2000) offers a much
needed balance to the dominance of health advocacy in Hollywood lobbyist publications.
In this, although public health is represented (Fox, 2000; Winsten, 2000), reflections are
also provided by advocates associated with the Catholic League for Religious and Civil
Rights (Donahue, 2000), GLAAD (Horn, 2000), Media Action Network for Asian
Americans (Aoki, 2000), ACT (Charren, 2000), and the Christian Film and Television
Commission (Baehr, 2000). More recently, one of the key figures involved in a new
11
Muslim resource group, Cynthia Schneider (2008; Schneider & Nelson, 2008) has
offered a few reflections on the suggested direction for goal setting and achievement
specific to that endeavor. Her promotion of cultural advocacy is similar to the tone of a
piece written by Davidson and Valentini (1992) about gay advocacy, although
Schneider’s comments are made early in the trajectory of her particular project, while the
latter is presented as a reflection on GLAAD strategies several years after the group’s
1985 founding.
The Suman and Rossman (2000) collection also provides perspectives on
advocacy groups by lawyers (Gardner, 2000; Heinke & Tremain, 2000) and television
industry professionals (Altieri, 2000; Chetwynd, 2000; Schneider, 2000), as well as
scholars. The academic chapters discuss network gatekeeping practices (Curtin, 2000b),
the legal and political conceptualization of advocacy groups (Streeter, 2000), hostile
versus cooperative strategies (Rossman, 2000), possible consequences of audience
fragmentation for advocacy strategy (Pekurny, 2000), and the danger of advocacy groups
stifling public debate (Suman, 2000).
The chapter by Rossman (2000) offers the only ethnographic contribution to the
Hollywood advocacy literature. Conducted approximately ten hours per week over the
course of six months in 1998-1999 (personal correspondence, 2009), Rossman’s
participant-observation at GLAAD’s Los Angeles office – the base for its interaction with
Hollywood – provides readers with a full account of the range of relevant practices
utilized by the group at that point in time. The fieldwork is supported by interviews with
other practitioners and content analyses of advocates’ publications, with all data used to
discuss advocates’ range of strategic action options. While a valuable contribution, the
12
constraints of being a single chapter in length leave the reader wondering what topics are
left in the margins. Notably, Doyle (2005; 2007; 2008) has offered a far more in-depth
ethnographic reflection on GLAAD practices based on extensive time in the field from
2000-2001. Doyle’s work incorporates struggles over identity definition and the
community legitimation of representative institutions, issues central to LGBT/Q politics.
While providing important context and detail, his contributions are overwhelming
concerned with GLAAD as an overall organization, of which its Hollywood advocacy is
in fact a relatively small part.
Montgomery’s effort remains the most detailed, integrated exploration of the
Hollywood advocacy community, despite being over twenty years old. That age in mind,
however, Target: Prime Time (1989) must now be seen as a historical point of reference
for Hollywood advocacy, rather than a go-to reference for current concerns. Players have
changed, strategy has changed, and new technologies have impacted both daily work
processes and the trajectory of content produced. In the past twenty years, cultural
industries have grown into global conglomerates, no longer secondary to the “real”
economy (Hesmondhalgh, 2007). Although mass markets have not disappeared, the
lucrative potential of niche markets has been realized. In what Curtin and Streeter (2001)
term the neo-network era, “elaborate circuits of cultural production, distribution, and
reception” (p. 232) have replaced the anchor of a “three-network economy” (p. 232).
The Suman and Rossman (2000) volume is thus an important update to the
scholarly literature, particularly valuable for its breadth of topics and professional
perspectives. Unlike the practitioner-authored and practitioner-targeted literature, which
focuses almost exclusively on health advocacy, Suman and Rossman (2000) include
13
minority group concerns as well. In this way, the book -- Rossman’s chapter in particular
-- follows in the footsteps of Montgomery (1989), who devoted particular attention to gay
advocacy as conducted by the Gay Activist Alliance and its splinter group, the National
Gay Task Force. At the same time, 2000 is a full decade ago, making the data from the
Suman and Rossman book more than a decade old. Even incorporating the Hollywood
advocacy content from Doyle’s (2005; 2007; 2008) broader ethnography, scholarly
evaluations from the Hollywood advocacy field – that are not delivered by or for people
personally invested in the practice – are from no later than 2001.
The passage of just a few years especially matters for minority group
representatives, whose position within the industry is necessarily connected to broader
trends of social and political change. What might the election of a Black president mean
for those hoping for more Black representations in primetime? Or, given Montgomery,
Rossman, and Doyle’s coverage of gay-relevant advocacy, let us consider how the
landscape for those advocates has changed. LGBT representations on television have
developed significantly. Will & Grace debuted in 1998, but it was 2005 before Will
received a kiss from a date. All My Children’s Bianca Montgomery became daytime’s
first central lesbian character when she came out in late 2000, making history again in
daytime’s first same-sex kiss in 2003. In 2008, Bianca was granted a fiancée, with whom
she started a family and then married in early 2009 in daytime’s first same-sex marriage.
Early 2009 also brought the first scenes suggestive of sex for daytime’s first prominent
same-sex male couple, Noah and Luke on As the World Turns. Daytime’s first
transgender character, Zoe on All My Children, arrived in 2006, followed by primetime’s
series regular transwoman Alexis on Ugly Betty in 2007. Increased attention to niche
14
markets brought landmark program Queer as Folk in 2000 and The L Word in 2004, each
on premium cable channel Showtime. LGBT-centric network Logo launched in 2005,
and was given expanded distribution in late 2006. Recall that it was just 1997 when
Ellen DeGeneres announced, “Yep, I’m Gay” on the cover of Time, soon thereafter
seeing her show cancelled. She now headlines an extraordinarily popular talk show in
which she gushes over slideshows of her wedding to actress Portia de Rossi and scolds
anti-gay politicians to enthusiastic audience applause, although some in the gay activist
community still say she is “not gay enough.” Gay visibility in the political realm has
similarly risen, with homosexuality decriminalized in 2003 under Lawrence v. Texas, and
same-sex marriage legalized in Massachusetts in 2003, Connecticut and California in
2008, and Iowa and Vermont in 2009. At the same time, the ballot passage of
Proposition 8 in California, which overturned that state’s legalization of same-sex
marriage, and the federal hate crimes bill still awaiting Senate approval indicate that
LGBT advocacy continues to be a socially contested endeavor.
What issues are current in the advocacy community? There are certainly issues
that seem to reappear throughout the history of Hollywood content advocacy. For
instance, the same issues Turow (1989) spoke of in Playing Doctor – in which guidance
from the medical institution is seen to impact the content on-screen in a potentially
uncritical manner – are echoed thirty years later in a recent popular press article on the
relationship between Hollywood, Health & Society and ER (Belluck, 2009). However,
the aforementioned changing dynamics of the industry beg revisitation of advocacy
practices. Also, recall Curtin and Streeter’s (2001) suggestion of working toward “a
more robust and diverse media environment” (p. 244) by taking small steps within the
15
system that exists. One of their actionable suggestions was to build brand-like alliances,
better network linkages that are accessible to a broad audience. They focus this idea
upon making politically progressive media products more visible to interested audiences,
but the instinct to build prosocially-motivated brands with intelligibility and accessibility
to the niche audience of interest could just as well apply to content advocates’ need to
more cohesively present themselves to the media producers. “Helping citizens make
connections between offerings in the cultural marketplace” (Curtin & Streeter, 2001, p.
245) need not only apply to the media consumer, but could assist those involved in the
media production process, as well. To what extent are any such alliances sought, needed,
already established and/or supported (or not)?
Building upon the substantive groundwork laid by Montgomery, Rossman, and
Doyle, I seek to provide an updated look into LGBT advocacy practices and more general
advocacy community concerns in the Hollywood of 2008-2009. Having lived within
GLAAD’s Entertainment Media team for 30 hours per week over one calendar year,
spending 1500 hours as a participant-observer active in daily, weekly activities, I aim to
provide a unique reflection on everyday realities, everyday strategies, everyday setbacks,
everyday triumphs, and everyday decisions currently missing from the Hollywood
advocacy literature, as well as one more data point in the history of LGBT media
advocacy. As Curtin (2000a) comments while recommending more investigations into
the everyday processes of cultural production, ethnographic work can provide “a
significant contribution to understanding the processes of collective authorship that
prevail throughout the contemporary culture industries” (p. 201). Similar to both
Montgomery (1989) and Rossman (2000), I contextualize this in-depth attention to LGBT
16
entertainment media advocacy within the larger Hollywood advocacy realm. In addition
to the organizational ethnography, I interviewed advocates for other issues and groups,
reviewed advocate websites, and attended relevant meetings, panels, and events in the
Hollywood community. At many points I paid particular attention to a behemoth in the
current advocacy community – Hollywood, Health & Society – in order to reflect upon
what a group like GLAAD could borrow from their practice, despite the differences in
subject matter. I also maintained awareness of the larger economic, industrial context
through regular review of trade publications Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, as
well as popular industry e-newsletters such as TV BizWire. For a more thorough
explanation of my methodology, see Appendix A.
Why do advocates care? What are the relevant academic theories, and what is the
established need for public interest advocates? How are advocate goals selected? What
are the challenged and unchallenged narratives offered, and explicit and implicit goals
pursued? What is carrot and stick advocacy, and how has it changed from earlier years?
What are examples of direct and indirect advocacy, and what is “non-advocacy”
advocacy? Might it be possible to conceive of advocates as media producers? And,
perhaps most importantly, what alterations to advocacy practice might be advisable as
advocacy moves forward? The following will attempt to answer these questions and
others, in an exploration of present-day Hollywood lobbyist life.
17
CHAPTER 2: WHY DO ADVOCATES CARE?
Any advocate asked why they care about entertainment media content will
quickly and confidently assert that entertainment media content affects the public’s
knowledge, behavior, and worldviews. Some of these advocates may cite research that
proves this, but many cling to a basic common sense notion of entertainment media’s
power and reach. Indeed, there is academic support for that sentiment. Additionally, on
a more structural level, there are realities of the relationship between public interest and
the industry that, in a sense, force advocates into action. This chapter will discuss these
topics, focusing on the data as related to GLAAD’s efforts.
At the 2009 GLAAD Media Awards, then-President Neil Giuliano announced the
findings of public opinion survey commissioned by GLAAD and conducted by Harris
Interactive: a remarkable 19% of respondents felt more positively about gay and lesbian
people than they did only five years prior. An additional detail: over a quarter of those
indicating positive change stated that images of gays and lesbians in entertainment media
had contributed to this shift. [The precise statistics report that television was cited by
34% of those who felt more favorably, and movies by 29% (GLAAD, Dec 2008).]
In the words of Brown and Singhal (1993), “The past 50 years of communication
theory and research have demonstrated that entertainment media have a profound and
measurable influence on the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of media users” (para. 9).
Public and academic interest in entertainment media effects largely started with concerns
over portrayals of violence, marked by the Payne Fund Studies of the 1930s (Blumer,
1933; Dale, 1935), which investigated the impact of movies on children and reinforced
already present public anxiety over violent content. As television gained prominence, the
18
U.S. government indicated the issue was of concern and a stream of research followed
(see: Sparks, Sparks, & Sparks, 2009). The primary question throughout this line of
research has been whether violent content may lead to aggression in viewers, with a
particular concern over anti-social effects on youth. Despite squabbles over methodology
and effect size, the consensus is that effects – particularly within the domains of
television and film – exist, and are found consistently (Sparks et al., 2009). Effects
research and interest in entertainment media content has expanded over time, addressing
a range of topics from attitudes toward sex to health behaviors. For instance, one study
investigated the effect of a syphilis storyline that aired on two episodes of primetime
program ER, and found increased behavioral intentions of gay men to get screened and to
tell others to get screened (Whittier, Kennedy, St. Lawrence, Seeley, & Beck, 2005).
These are each, of course, located within much larger sub-domains of effects research:
effects of representations of sex in the media (see: Harris & Barlett, 2009) and effects of
media on public health (see: Walsh-Childers & Brown, 2009).
Most noteworthy for GLAAD’s interests, effects research has demonstrated that
televised portrayals of minorities impact attitudes toward both the in-group (Dorr,
Graves, & Phelps, 1980; Graves, 1975, 1980, 1993) and the out-group (Bogatz & Ball,
1971; Dorr, Graves, & Phelps, 1980; Graves, 1975; Mays, Henderson, Seidman, &
Steiner, 1975). A review of the literature on gender representations and media effects
indicates that non-traditional representations can reduce stereotyping among viewers
(Smith & Granados, 2009), while other research indicates that stereotypic media reps can
negatively impact the self-esteem of those represented (Abeles, 1980). Summarizing
effects research on racial/ethnic stereotyping in the media, Mastro (2009) states, “when it
19
comes to effects…on majority as well as minority group members, the quality of content
is critical” (p. 332). She acknowledges that such a statement may sound very simplistic,
but insists that “it reflects the core findings in this area” (p. 332). Additionally, and of
particular relevance to GLAAD, there is the noted ability of entertainment representations
to combat resistance (Dal Cin, Zanna & Fong, 2004) and to circumnavigate selective
exposure; audience members who may not care to watch a news clip or read an article
about same-sex marriage can be influenced by fictional representations that appear in
entertainment programming. If people avoid information expected to be disagreeable,
instead seeking information aligned with their already established attitudes (Mutz, 2006),
then it makes sense that any potentially controversial issues stand to gain even more [than
non-controversial issues] by being incorporated into entertainment media. People may
know that they wish to avoid MSNBC’s liberal slant or Fox’s conservative bent, but a
scripted entertainment television show may not inspire the same avoidance.
Many in academia have developed theories or concepts that may help to more
deeply explain the influence of entertainment media. The following will not seek to offer
an exhaustive list, but rather will focus on a few select approaches, discussing their
relevance to one or both of the populations with which GLAAD is concerned: the straight
majority, and the LGBT minority. While some of the theories have relevance to both
entertainment and news media, the focus will be on their applicability to entertainment,
the way in which they support increased attention to “fluffy,” “pop,” fictional media.
Primary attention will be given to cultivation, followed by [in no particular order] the
elaboration likelihood model, parasocial interaction, uses and gratifications, and social
cognitive theory. As will become clear, these approaches have various levels of overlap
20
and conflict, but all indicate the power of entertainment media to have an impact on the
audience.
Academic Approaches
Cultivation and Reality Construction
GLAAD seeks to create an environment of LGBT acceptance, in which the
general public is encouraged to feel and behave positively toward gays, and gays are
encouraged to feel secure in their ability to live fulfilling lives. At its core, this is about
the construction of a desired reality. Four decades ago, Berger and Luckmann (1969)
discussed how our realities, as people and as societies, are socially constructed. The
media – including entertainment media – play a prominent role in that social
construction.
Cultivation, developed by Gerbner and Gross (1976) and carried on by Morgan,
Shanahan, and Signorielli (2009), is interested in how an entire system of media
messages impacts society’s view of itself. Rather than looking at a particular show or
genre, or at short-term effects, cultivation concerns itself with the broader landscape of
television content, and the trajectory that effects take over time. Although some argue
that this insufficiently accounts for different trends within various genres, this big picture
view is almost certainly a strength of the theory rather than a weakness, as it promotes
awareness of context and larger trends. GLAAD’s own work in charting all LGBT
representations on television for a number of consecutive seasons demonstrates a similar
disposition, although unfortunately no audience effects research has been conducted to
complement the content statistics.
21
According to cultivation studies, heavy viewers are more likely than light viewers
to believe that the real world is like TV. Heavy viewers are also more likely to identify
as moderate than liberal or conservative, reflecting television’s tendency to present both
sides rather than offend large parts of the audience. This is an example of
mainstreaming, where heavy viewing may override audience divergences in beliefs and
values. Significantly, light viewers are not exempt from cultivation effects, they are just
relatively less impacted. More than 25 years ago (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan & Signorielli,
1982), mainstreaming bent toward the right on political issues. A general tendency
toward the center seems to remain (Morgan et al., 2009), but particular issues may be
swayed toward more liberal ground (Saito, 2007). For instance, as relevant to GLAAD,
an increasing prevalence of ultimately gay-accepting entertainment narratives – within
which the antigay side is represented by a contentious, unlikable character – suggests a
liberalizing possibility. The moderation of liberal views could come into play with the
de-‘queer’ing of certain characters, a homo-acceptance tempered by homo-normativity.
Looking at the overall results of cultivation research, almost 6,000 findings from
97 cultivation studies since 1976, the trend is toward limited effects -- that ‘only’
approximately one percent of people’s attitudes are the result of TV viewing (Shanahan
& Morgan, 1999). Some see this as a weakness, giving too much attention to too small
effects. However, such critics are snubbing the everyday trajectory of change, as
transition happens slowly, one percent at a time. Unfortunately, second-order cultivation
effects – values, beliefs, attitudes – are studied less than first-order cultivation effects
such as estimates of probability and prevalence (Shrum, 2009). Future research must
press farther in this direction.
22
Another oft-noted weakness of cultivation is its development during a different
media age, when three broadcast networks controlled over 90% of the audience, and
niche commercial markets had yet to be discovered (Gross, 2009). The encroachment of
new media and media consumption technologies such as DVRs allow for ever more
diversification and narrowing of options (more product to choose from, and more ability
to avoid what is not of interest), and even one of cultivation’s primary scholars has
suggested the theory is “up for reassessment” (Gross, 2009, p. 67). Yet other cultivation
scholars argue that television continues to be the “primary story-teller in our society”
(Morgan et al., 2009, p. 41), and that this era of concentrated media ownership provides
reason to doubt that a proliferation of content sources means a substantially wider range
of content. Morgan et al. (2009) note that many top websites are maintained by
corporations with financial interest in large television networks, signaling that new media
may not be as much of an alternative to certain corporate-driven media visions as is often
presumed. Moreover, Nielsen (2009) reports that TV viewing is at an all-time high, with
viewers watching more than 150 hours per month at the end of 2008, and despite video
content being watched on other devices, such as mobile phones and the Internet, TV
remains king.
Shrum (2009) notes that there should be particular emphasis on accessibility as a
mechanism leading to cultivation effects, a notion that connects to concerns about
priming, particularly as related to the accessibility of stereotypes. Accessibility is
impacted by the intensity, recency and frequency of the “prime” (Roskos-Ewoldsen et al.,
2009) or “construct activation” (Shrum, 2009), and the accessibility of beliefs impacts
evaluations of objects (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). While additional research needs to be
23
done to understand the precise cognitive mechanisms underlying priming, it remains clear
that the media do act as a prime. There is evidence supporting the propositions that TV
viewing influences accessibility, and accessibility mediates the cultivation effects
(Shrum, 2009). In other words, the mental heuristics prompted by media portrayals can
influence judgments about the real world.
Contrasting with cultivation’s emphasis on the entire media system of messages,
Greenberg (1988) suggested that particularly intense single representations can “drench”
more typical representations. Referred to as the drench hypothesis, this perspective gives
hope to entertainment media advocates confronted by an environment that only rarely
offers high quality minority representations. If every single representation has the ability
to matter greatly – for better or worse – it is important that advocates are out there
encouraging producers to make them tend toward the former rather than the latter. Study
results have supported the drench hypothesis when applied to children and gender
representations (Calvery, Kotler, Zehnder, & Shockey, 2003), but additional empirical
support is needed.
Elaboration Likelihood Model
Advocacy of entertainment media has, at its core, the desire to persuade
audiences. This in mind, the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion must be
addressed. The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) suggests that persuasion can occur
whether or not people are thinking about a message, but that the possible persuasion
processes and consequences are different (Petty, Priester, & Brinol, 2002). This stands in
contrast to most cognitive models of persuasion, which do not account for persuasion that
occurs when people are not actively mentally engaging. According to ELM, when people
24
are actively thinking, persuasion goes through the central route and information is
scrutinized for merit. Alternatively, persuasion may occur via the peripheral route, in
which mental effort is not expended and superficial cues such as expert sources and/or
majority agreement can be sufficient.
Research has shown that “attitude changes based on peripheral cues tend to be
less accessible, enduring, and resistant to subsequent attacking messages than attitudes
based on careful processing of message argument” (Petty et al., 2002, p. 169), despite the
ability of peripheral persuasion to be very powerful in the short-term. At first glance, this
seems to bode poorly for entertainment narrative persuasion, as such messages are more
likely to be processed via the peripheral route, while news messages would be more
appropriate for central route processing. However, advocates must consider the messages
and audiences with whom they are dealing. For many of the people GLAAD would like
to impact, there is either little logic to be argued – instead a reliance on emotional gut
responses of right and wrong – or there is a logic that GLAAD cannot reason away, such
as a foundational commitment to an antigay religious stance. In both of these cases, the
central route is simply not an option. In other words, despite the potential risks of the
peripheral route, it should not be dismissed.
Parasocial Interaction
Parasocial interaction (Horton & Wohl, 1956) refers to “the degree to which
audience members identify with characters or with other salient characteristics of a media
program” (Sood, 2002, p. 158). Perceived realism, attraction to the media figure in
question, amount of viewing time, and viewer dependency on television have each been
seen to correlate with parasocial interaction (Giles, 2002). The three components of
25
parasocial interaction are affectively oriented parasocial interaction, behaviorally oriented
parasocial interaction, and cognitively oriented parasocial interaction. Affectively
oriented PSI is focused upon the extent that an audience member feels an identification
with a character and the character’s interests, behaviorally oriented PSI relates to the
amount that viewers actively react to the characters and content, and cognitively oriented
PSI refers to the amount that a viewer thinks about and pays attention to characters and
content (Papa, Singhal, Law, Pant, Sood, Rogers, & Shaefner-Rogers, 2000). Particularly
relevant for today’s distributed media environment, people do not have to be heavy
viewers to experience parasocial relationships (Rubin, 2009).
Parasocial interaction has a different kind of relevance for both of GLAAD’s
audiences of concern. For those whose “hearts and minds” have yet to be changed,
parasocial interaction may provide for a mediated version of Allport’s (1954) contact
hypothesis, which suggests that in-person contact with an out-group member under
particular conditions can reduce prejudice toward that group. Though the present
parasocial contact hypothesis (Schiappa, 2008) is in need of further theoretical
development and empirical testing, it is promising in its suggestion that contact with
minority characters in entertainment media can encourage the reduction of prejudice
toward that minority in real life. Additionally, if media characters can be considered
friends, we could conceptualize entertainment media representations as holding the
ability to exert social influence and peer pressure on the audience, making non-LGBT
characters important if they can be perceived as allies and friends to the LGBT
community.
26
Various studies have found evidence that parasocial relationships between
audience members and media characters facilitated behavior change (Papa et al., 2000;
Sood, 2002). Parasocial interaction helps to create a sense of audience involvement
(Sood, 2002), which may help increase the viewers’ willingness to consider the media
program’s proposed arguments or ways of thinking, making the messaging within the
program significant. According to Rubin and Perse (1987), parasocial interactions can
also lead to interpersonal discussions among audience members, which may assist in
reinforcing attitude and behavior change. Some argue that there is not enough evidence
supporting parasocial effects, yet most of these attacks are made regarding direct impact,
and can be countered with the accepted potential of indirect impact (Papa et al., 2000;
Sood, 2002).
Uses and Gratifications
Uses and gratifications (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1974) proposes an
interaction between audience members and media content, such that effects are
influenced by what a user seeks from the media and how those needs are gratified. In
other words, the focus is on “what people do with the media, instead of what the media
do to people” (Rubin, 2009, p. 168). For instance, one use of television is to learn about
the world outside of one’s own experiences (Graves, 1999). In other words, those who
do not have LGBT acquaintances may be able to look to television to teach them about
what LGBT people are like, or how non-LGBT people might respond when encountering
LGBT people. A particularly important application of uses and gratification to LGBT
representations in entertainment media involves the LGBT audience itself.
27
For LGBT people, entertainment media may be useful in developing and
validating identity, and even building connections to the local community. Gays are a
unique minority in their familial social support and general socialization into the minority
group – as Gross (2001) points out, unlike ethnic/racial minorities, gays are only very
rarely raised by those “like them,” are invisible until identified, and moreover are
“defined as controversial” (p. 13) within society. Liming (2007) talks about her own
coming out as “a process of alienation, marked by feelings of loneliness and singularity”
(p. 87), and how popular culture texts can serve to reduce this sense of alienation, provide
support for personal identity, be a tool in construction of that identity, and offer a means
to conceptualize gay culture.
While Liming (2007) takes particular interest in the use of books for these
purposes, many (arguably more) people use entertainment television in the same way.
McKee (2000), for instance, found that fictional gay images on television play a
significant role in the self-esteem of young gay men, and in their formation of gay
identity. Similarly, Gross (2001) discusses the confessional letters written by gay
viewers to actor Ryan Phillippe, who portrayed a gay youth on One Life to Live in 1992;
“a straight actor playing a gay teenager on TV seemed their best hope for support, advice,
and sometimes even friendship” (p. 218). When placed in the context of parasocial
interaction (Horton & Wohl, 1956), as discussed previously, such substitution of media
for real-life intimacy may be termed “pathological.” However, as Gross (2001) points
out, many closeted gays may not have the option of real-life social support from close
friends and family. For such LGBT persons, television representations can take on an
understandably heightened importance, and be particularly gratifying.
28
Gay media representations can also be used as opportunities for real-life
community building. Hovey (2007) talks about how Showtime’s The L Word impacted
her own social ties to the lesbian community, offering a weekly reason to gather with
other lesbian viewers:
Because of this lesbian soap opera, I have a wide circle of lesbian friends and
acquaintances that continues to grow. I hear about more lesbian events than I did
before I knew these visitors, and I recognize more and more faces when I go to
the events. (p. 161)

One noted strength of uses and gratifications is that it is more aware of audience
activity than many other approaches to the mass media, acknowledging audience choice
and the initiative taken by audience members. Unfortunately, the same fact can be cast as
a weakness, since an overemphasis on audience activity may prevent sufficient attention
to questions of production and hegemonic content. Rubin (2009) also acknowledges that
scholars need increased precision in empirical investigations of the links between
gratifications, content and effects, and that earlier academic calls to better synthesize
media uses and media effects (e.g., Windahl, 1981) might be worth heeding.
Social Cognitive Theory
Social cognitive theory is particularly interested in “the social origins of thought
and the mechanisms through which social factors exert their influence on cognitive
functioning” (Bandura, 2002, p. 123). Grounded in notions of social modeling and social
learning, it conceptualizes personal, behavioral, and environmental factors as influencing
each other to ultimately explain a particular human behavior as a combination of the
psychological and sociostructural. Social cognitive theory forms the basis of much work
within the field of entertainment-education, an arena populated by practitioners and
29
academics who are focused on “purposely designing and implementing a media message
to both entertain and educate, in order to increase audience members’ knowledge about
an educational issue, create favorable attitudes, shift social norms, and change overt
behavior” (Singhal & Rogers, 2004, p. 5).
The “social” part of “social cognitive” is an important element of the theory. It is
not just about cognitive processing, but also about interpersonal conversation. As
Bandura (2004) says, “behavior is partially regulated by the social reactions it evokes” (p.
144), and those social reactions are constituted by “the social approval and disapproval
the behavior produces in one’s interpersonal relationships” (p. 144). While this is a
strength in the way that it takes social context into account, it may make for a weakness
as applied to media influence regarding stigmatized issues. When there is stigma around
a particular media message, as is likely to happen with the issues that GLAAD deals
with, audience members that are not already on GLAAD’s side may be precisely those
who will not receive supportive feedback from their peers if starting an interpersonal
discussion. Similarly, the theory’s emphasis on self-efficacy might be of limited value
for audience members who may believe they have the power to behave differently
[toward LGBT people, for instance] but have no desire to do so. On the other hand,
GLAAD’s focused interest in the “movable middle” rather than vehement antigays may
mean that interpersonal discussions could in fact result in positive support, and, further,
that self-efficacy can be relevant for giving people the perceived power to voice their
support in potentially uncomfortable situations.

30
Summary of Academic Approaches
Academic explanations of the documented effects of entertainment media abound.
Whether looking to cultivation, the elaboration likelihood model, parasocial interaction,
uses and gratifications, social cognitive theory, or – most appropriately – considering the
way these theories may complement each other, the indication is clear: entertainment
media representations matter. Supportive LGBT representations in entertainment media
are vital to both the health of the community and acceptance of the community by the
mainstream public. According to cultivation, the frequency and pervasiveness of images
determines effects, while parasocial interaction indicates that successive viewings build
the relationship, both thus suggesting the importance of advocating for series regular
LGBT characters. Social cognitive theory and the related domain of entertainment-
education remind us that is not just about placement of content in entertainment, but how
the entertainment is designed, suggesting that advocates must attempt to keep their hand
in the daily production processes of the industry. Parasocial relationships may help
encourage the mainstream audience to absorb the message delivered by a particular show,
and may be among the features of entertainment media used to gratify certain identity and
community needs of the gay audience itself. Some scholars, such as those behind uses
and gratifications, are particularly interested in audience activity, while others, such as
those behind cultivation, point out that viewer readings are done in relation to a dominant
code. Even the uses and gratifications that have been described earlier as possible and
profitable through gay entertainment media representations are directly impacted by the
quantity, quality, and explicitness of those representations. LGBT viewers might be able
to read a primetime character as gay, but if that is not acknowledged explicitly in the text
31
it cannot provide those viewers with the same level of esteem-boosting, and cannot bring
a desired level of awareness to non-LGBT viewers; the same applies to there being very
few characters, or defamatory representations. What, then, are current audiences being
offered?
Current Entertainment Environment
The LGBT community has made many significant developments in recent years,
including within entertainment representations. To understand the leaps that have been
made in film, one need only look to Russo’s (1981) classic The Celluloid Closet,
Ehrenstein’s (1998) Open Secret, and/or Barrios’ (2003) Screened Out. For the trajectory
of gays on television, Capsuto (2000), Tropiano (2002), and Becker (2006) offer useful
accounts. GLAAD’s own annual entertainment reports have well documented the
changes in the television landscape over recent years. Bisexuals and transgender persons
have become more visible. The reliance on gay-man-straight-woman stories noted by
Allan (2007) no longer seems to be the most prominent representation of the community.
Such situations still appear, of course (such as recent debut Sophie on ABC Family), but
the trend seems to have moved toward showing gays in romantic relationships of their
own, or at least dealing with the romantic ups and downs long familiar to straight
characters. Kessler’s (2006) suggestion that there is an “avoidance of any representation
of social inequity or struggle” (p. 141) within gay representations on television, a
depoliticization to reduce threat, is now regularly rendered false; at present, at least,
writers cannot avoid dealing with the social inequity and struggle evident in the same-sex
marriage battle, not just on the daytime soaps (Bianca and Reese on All My Children), but
even on primetime (Kevin and Scotty on Brothers & Sisters).
32
However, the fight is far from over. Gay characters still tend secondary, or as
leads within an ensemble, rather than as the clear leading woman or man. Production
teams may acknowledge that a character is gay, while refusing to explicitly state that on
air. Becker (2006) notes that current gay reps are mostly white and mostly of the same
“age, general affluence, and urban sophistication” (p. 179) as the demographic targeted
by advertisers. Bruni’s (1994) observation that TV may represent gays but shy away
from showing physical intimacy largely remains accurate. Same-sex kisses may be more
frequent, but they are still newsworthy – think of the 2008 brouhaha over gay daytime
couple Noah and Luke not being allowed an on-screen kiss for over 200 days (Schafer,
2008).
Lesbians are shockingly absent from primetime (see: Snarker, 2009; Warn, 2008),
and people continue to confuse bisexuals for lesbians. Even the showrunner of Grey’s
Anatomy, days after the character explicitly stated her bisexuality on-screen, referred to
the character as a lesbian. Indeed, bisexuality tends either invisible or exaggerated.
Consider the 2003 Bravo network dating show Boy Meets Boy, in which a gay man’s
search for love was complicated by his batch of suitors being infiltrated by straight men.
As Becker (2006) points out, the series’ identification of all men as only gay or straight
eliminated any form of potential bisexuality. Tropiano (2002), covering television
representations of LGBT persons from 1954 to 2002, describes the typical bisexual
television character as typically either “sexually confused” or “a sex maniac who is trying
to get it from anyone he or she can all the time” (p. 85); although the number of bi reps
has increased, the questionable quality of those representations remains.
33
Issues of visuality continue to present problems. While gay and lesbian
characters can be immediately identified in relatively subtle ways, bisexuals and
transpersons require verbal explanation or visual exaggeration – for instance, bisexuals
sleeping around to present a visual representation of an ongoing interest in both sexes, or
speaking lustily of a variety of others to present a verbal assurance of continued
bisexuality. As Meyer (2003) points out, both bisexual and transgender persons must
“prove” their identities more, and more frequently verbalize/explain their identity if they
wish not to appear other than what they are; Meyer is referencing real people, but the
same applies to fictional characters.
One bright spot may be the increase of respectful trans representations, as that
group is riding a trend of heightened visibility during an era of LGBT sensitivity inside
the industry. This sensitivity is, of course, largely thanks to GLAAD’s efforts, as well as
to its gay advocacy forefathers and broader political trends. Yet with this visibility being
as new as it is, it is in a precarious position, meaning GLAAD’s availability and attention
to the entertainment media industry must be ongoing. Having the support of many within
the industry is a remarkable status to reach as an organization, but good industry
intentions [when they exist] do not necessarily mean good execution. For instance, the
primetime debut of animated comedy Sit Down, Shut Up on Fox heavily implied that
series regular Helen may be a transwoman, in ways that included her becoming very
stereotypically masculine (tackling football players) when going off her meds.
Gross and Woods (1999) suggest three stages of media approach to minorities:
“invisibility, stereotypes, and marginality” (p. 10). The LGBT community has left the
first stage, and now finds itself somewhere between stereotypes and marginality. The
34
title of Barnhurst’s (2007) collection Media Queered: Visibility and Its Discontents
summarizes the direction of discourse on gay representations in the media; it is now less
focused on rising “up from invisibility” (Gross, 2001), and more about questioning the
visibility that exists. Whether GLAAD is in fact adapting to this new environment, or
falling back on bean counting of characters as signs of progress, will be explored later in
this book.
Non-Academic Realities
The larger business responsibilities and trends of news and entertainment
industries provide particular motivation for advocates to focus their attention on
entertainment. When “hard” news covers GLAAD-related topics, it is typically about
political or social developments on more polarizing issues, whilst entertainment
programming can pursue more everyday, “normal” portrayals of LGBT people. The
depoliticized nature of some LGBT entertainment media content, criticized by some, is
not necessarily a bad thing, as it keeps viewers at ease while providing them with LGBT
familiarity. Additionally, news is increasingly counting “entertainment news” amongst
its top stories, as the line between the two fields blurs. The distinction, significantly, is
that news media hold a public responsibility to be accurate, while entertainment media do
not. Because of this, entertainment advocacy requires particular finesse, and subtle,
consistent advocacy, as individual writers and producers first must be convinced to care.
But with all of the documented effects of entertainment media described earlier,
shouldn’t the industry have to care? Why is there a need for entertainment media
lobbyist types? The following presents an overview of the intersection of media and the
public interest.
35
Public and Private Interests in Media
According to the trusteeship model of broadcasting communications – a model
which formed the foundational rationale for government regulation of the airwaves –
there is a limited amount of electromagnetic spectrum to be distributed, and so a
responsible mediating agency must step in to make distribution decisions on behalf of the
public. Functioning under this model, the Radio Act of 1927 made serving the ‘public
interest’ an obligation for broadcast licensees, a requirement that was extended from
radio to include technologies such as television and cable as they were developed. The
so-called Blue Book of 1946 set up specific license renewal standards to make sure that
program content was meeting the public interest standard; these included discussion of
societal issues, blocking unnecessary advertising, and serving minority interests.
Unfortunately, these guidelines were “rendered obsolete after five years because of the
economic threat [they] posed” (Zechowski, 2004, p. 1848). In 1949, the FCC’s Fairness
Doctrine established the public interest requirement that both sides of a controversial
issue be given a platform, but despite being enshrined in the Communications Act in
1959 and upheld in a 1969 Supreme Court case, it was ultimately repealed when
broadcasters in search of more advertising time claimed the doctrine to be censorship
(Zechowski, 2004).
The trusteeship model itself has been increasingly challenged as the rise of cable
has eroded the scarcity argument; the Cable Act does not even contain a public interest
requirement, only a public/educational/government (PEG) access requirement
(Zechowski, 2004). Since the deregulation of the 1980s, the guiding rationale of
broadcasting has become more overtly commercial, operating under the presumption that
36
commercial success will be indicative of public satisfaction, and thus a free commercial
telecommunications market will provide best for the public interest.
It should be noted that despite the surface appearance of corporate interests
selfishly steamrolling measures in support of the public interest throughout the regulatory
past, revisions in policy cannot be simplistically blamed on those companies [alone].
Streeter (1996), for example, argues that commercial broadcasting should not be
described as “public interest being overrun by private greed, or openness suppressed by
monopolies and centralization,” but that its regulation is “dependent on extensive and
ongoing collective activities” (p. xii), activities guided by a societal embrace of what he
terms “corporate liberalism.” Streeter describes the broadcasting arena as formed by a
“deliberate political choice to foster a consumerist, oligopolistic, for-profit electronic
media, with fundamental structures underwritten by government and stabilized by a
mixture of private and public administrative arrangements” (p. 320), deemphasizing cold
economic motivations typically attributed to the development of broadcasting in favor of
greater consideration of political and social choices.
Regardless of whether pro-market presumptions have been promoted by corporate
interests alone or guided by broader institutional and societal relationships, the veracity
of these presumptions is disputed by many concerned with public interest issues, for what
have become obvious reasons. As one Hollywood writer put it, “TV is for marketing...
They’d put on twenty-four hours of commercials if they could get away with it, but
nobody would watch. So they do the best they can – they put on a program between the
commercials, but they don’t want it to be too heavy, too provocative” (R. Cohen, quoted
in Gitlin, 1983/2000, p. 95). This makes the inclusion of intentionally prosocial content
37
difficult, as subjects tending toward the educational or too controversial are then avoided
to placate advertisers and avoid boring or offending core consumers.
Many voices argue for major changes in the media system. McChesney, for
instance, fights media conglomeration through Free Press, and in a recent volume (2007)
dramatically informs communication scholars that our society is at a “critical juncture”
where media that truly serves the public interest may be possible, depending in part on
our actions as academics. Curtin and Streeter (2001), on the other hand, suggest that we
need
…a more mature, less grandiose left approach to the politics of media. Rather
than simply focusing our energies primarily on heroic challenges to media
conglomeration or on the Byronic celebration of author genius, we should focus
our energies on…promoting a more robust and diverse media environment. (p.
244)

Among the strategies suggested under this plan is working “for the promotion of
alternative cultural resources and venues” (Curtin & Streeter, 2001, p. 244). Although
they focus this recommendation toward public broadcasting, their notion of building
better “noncommercial services” could also apply to content advocacy groups.
While the political economy perspective taken by McChesney is overwhelmingly
concerned with the media ultimately only serving the interests of an elite few, Downey
(2006) and others have argued that the underlying profit imperative can in fact allow for
the incorporation of other interests that may not complement the interests of those in
power. This is not to say that the market sufficiently provides for a diversity of voices or
that non-elite-supportive interests necessarily outweigh or outmaneuver the elite-
supportive interests, but rather that it is too simplistic to concentrate all attention on the
powerful few. For instance, is audience research a means for the industry to respond to
38
and better serve the audience, a method for the industry to construct and control the
desires/actions of the audience, or something more complex than either of those extremes
(Toynbee, 2006)? As Hesmondhalgh (2006) describes it, the cultural industries revolve
around “concentrations of power, reflecting more general concentrations of power in
society, but nevertheless limited by a number of factors” (p. 173, italics added).
Hollywood lobbyists may be among these restraining factors – or, at least, they seek to
perform that service.
-------
“Television, some may argue, is too powerful a tool to be left to a process so crass
and mindlessly competitive. But that is the commercial television system, and it
isn't likely to change.” (Cowan, 1979, p. 310)

-------
To summarize, while many people believe that the media has a responsibility to
the public, the only such legislated obligations – ignored or downplayed as they may be –
are within the news and children’s media realms. Entertainment media producers do not
have the same technical obligations to the public interest that news media have. People
interested in “holding media accountable” cannot approach entertainment producers in
the same way, as the definition of “having responsibility” is not necessarily tied to the
public interest. Instead, entertainment producers are concerned with their responsibility
to creative freedoms and the financial bottom-line. Those concerned with the promotion
of the public interest may bemoan this system all they like, but what does that ultimately
accomplish? Advocates for the public should be practical in their idealism. The question
must be: what can be done? Organized entertainment media advocacy provides a means
39
of injecting public interest concerns into the industry, bridging the practical, possible, and
ideal in an attempt to do what can be done in the name of the public good.
40
CHAPTER 3: ADVOCATE GOALS
Hollywood lobbyists seek to influence content in ways they see as prosocial -- but
what, more specifically than that, are their precise goals? I will make a few brief points
about the roles of advocacy workers, funders, and constituents as related to goal selection
and prioritization, before then looking into the internal and external conflicts (or lack
thereof) surrounding the grand narratives of advocacy goals.
Who Influences Goal Selection and Prioritization?
Advocacy Workers
Yes, of course.
Individual advocacy workers have influence over the goals pursued, and this
influence moves beyond the obvious fact that they are the face and voice interacting with
particular shows. Advocates are not self-funded. Instead, they are funded by others who
may guide goal-setting, and possibly (often) work within or for a larger organization
where they will be directed toward set goals by a board of directors. This is where the
everyday pursuit of goals can transform organizational goals into potentially different
goals-in-practice.
When there are so few workers conducting advocacy work, and limited financial
resources to conduct that work, the personal biases or goals of each person can have an
impact on what is prioritized. Decisions are constantly being made about what to deal
with and how, and while some of these decisions may be taken to higher-ups, many
inevitably are made by those lower down the hierarchy. This is not something that
happens in some sort of intentional way, an advocate consciously being selective or
biased about how she or he pursues advocacy goals, but it happens nonetheless.
41
Funders
Yes, to varying degrees.
Advocates at Hollywood, Health & Society stated unambiguously during research
interviews that the selection and prioritization of which health topics to pitch to shows is
dependent upon funders’ priorities. In practice, this has meant an expansion of what kinds
of topics will be pitched, as funding has grown from it being a CDC-backed organization
to an organization funded by multiple interests. For instance, one of the newer funders
supporting Hollywood, Health & Society seeks to promote consideration of the social
environment as contributing to health threats. When I suggested that this might mean
virtually anything could be construed as a health topic, the interviewee did not disagree,
but she also suggested that the funders assist in narrowing that broad field to a few
specific topics of interest. At the time of one interview, youth violence was of key
interest, including how “gangs [are] hanging out and parents don’t want to let their kids
out, kids can’t go out and play in the park because that’s where the gangs hang out.” The
goal was that “kids are safe and can walk to school and go to school, so they can go play
in the park so they can be healthy, and they’re not at home watching TV the whole time.”
[The irony of the end of that comment, considering the medium being utilized, was
unacknowledged.]
Funding sources might mean not just a change in topic focus, but a change in
audience focus. One of the advocates I spoke with at Hollywood, Health & Society stated
that this promotion of social contributions to health issues was meant to take
responsibility “off of the individual.” Typical public health promotion in entertainment
media is very interested in individual responsibility, so I inquired what the desired
42
audience response would be for these social contribution issues. She acknowledged that it
was “different” than other kinds of public health awareness advocacy, and said:
With California Endowment and with Gates [two new funders], our new target
audience is policy makers. So if you have a policy maker watching this episode,
policy makers who have the power to clean up these neighborhoods, or whatever,
build more parks, then yeah. And that’s something we want to do too, is like okay
we have this great episode, we’re gonna take it to Capital Hill and we’re going to
show it to them, you know, if they don’t watch the show. So we can do it that
way, too.

When asked if there were any expected deliverables for the funders [in terms of reaching
policy makers], or if getting topics on the air was seen as “good enough,” she responded:
It’s good enough, and I don’t remember the details in the grant but I think we
have a meeting up in Sacramento that we’re gonna show case clips to. And if you
think about it, not only are we targeting policy makers, if community leaders,
regular people are watching this and we can get communities to get together and
get excited about this, they can do a grassroots movement.

The average viewer is still seen as a possible target, in other words, but is not necessarily
the primary desired audience for those efforts. Indeed, I attended an event for
Hollywood, Health & Society in DC that was aimed specifically at policymakers and
overwhelmingly focused on “global health” issues. In fact, when the conversation
became less about global health, the Hollywood, Health & Society representative brought
the conversation back around to that key phrase. So while Hollywood, Health & Society
was not previously concerned with global health and marketing to policymakers, that has
now become a highly promoted goal of the organization due to funder priorities.
At GLAAD, I found a very different relationship between funders and the
entertainment advocates. Instead of frequent interaction and sizeable influence on daily
and general practices, the funders had the appearance to an average employee of being a
silent supporter. This is not to say that funders do not influence priorities, as they most
43
certainly can and do, but there is little to no direct, explicit relationship between everyday
decisions and references to what funders want. In fact, I went through the entire year on
the Entertainment Media team without ever hearing one word about what a funder would
want. This is to say that while funders can exert strong influence, the relationship is
navigated differently by every advocacy organization.
Constituents
No, surprisingly.
The “constituents” of a particular group – people nominally represented by that
group, as gays are by GLAAD – may be called upon to report “infractions” or to take
action against the shows/networks/individuals who commit them, but they typically do
not play any real role in goal selection. These constituents may actively seek to give their
input, implicitly suggesting what representations should be deemed acceptable or
unacceptable by the infractions they choose to report. However, this input is frequently
(but not always) disregarded. After looking into a complaint about a particular episode of
a crime show, GLAAD’s Entertainment Media Director decided not to pursue it,
explaining, “We get hundreds of these and we can't take them all on, and this is minor
and can be read in multiple ways so there's no saying what the intent is.” Similarly, a
constituent might make a complaint about content that the team deems impractical, such
as the e-mail sent from someone who was bothered that a program featured an anti-gay
person from a religious denomination that is generally supportive of the gay community.
Not only can we not expect all people of a certain denomination to be presented as
feeling the same, but in the same episode, that character acknowledged that others in the
denomination might feel differently, and the show found a supportive religious person to
44
counter-balance. In other words, the complaint was found to be groundless.
Alternatively, a gay viewer might write in to complain about a particular representation
on a television show, not realizing that GLAAD already consulted on that show, and thus
the reported representation is far better than it would have been otherwise. And this
finessing that happens behind the scenes often cannot be explained to the constituents, as
(a) GLAAD does not have the human resources to respond to every constituent with a
recounting of steps taken with a given show, and (b) even if they did have the time and
employee support, there is an expectation of privacy in most show consultations, such
that GLAAD would be seen to compromise ongoing relationships with shows by
detailing its script and/or character-related interactions with the writers and/or producers.
Unfortunately, these facts likely contribute to constituent dissatisfaction with the
organization, as those who are most personally invested in the cultural outcome of
GLAAD’s work are apt to feel ignored and as if GLAAD is not doing anything or not
doing enough. Indeed, the biggest issue found in a brand audit conducted in 2008 was
that people did not know what GLAAD does, and that GLAAD does not pay enough
attention to messaging itself to the gay community.
Unchallenged and Challenged Goal Narratives
In this dissertation, Hollywood advocacy groups are seen as embodying a type of
resistance to common industry practice, attempting to inject public interest
aims/information into an economically driven business. Ortner (1995) describes the need
to avoid “sanitizing politics” (p. 176) in discussions of resistant groups, observing that
internal dynamics of the resistance are often smoothed over in favor of a focus on
encounters between the resistance and those in power. Most material written on
45
Hollywood lobbyists takes each advocacy group as unitary, except when an obvious
schism occurs resulting in a new group. In Montgomery’s (1990) book, for example,
internal tensions within the Gay Activist Alliance [which led to the National Gay Task
Force being formed] are given a single sentence acknowledgement (p. 80) before then
treating both GAA and NGTF as solid entities. Acknowledging this gap in the literature,
I would like to highlight examples of the grand versus little narratives (see: Boje, 2001)
involved in advocates’ everyday work. Here I will provide a brief example of an
unchallenged grand narrative, followed by an example of a grand (official) narrative
being challenged by a little (unofficial) narrative.
Unchallenged: HHS
Hollywood, Health & Society’s stated goal is to inform the general public -- and,
as has been noted, sometimes policy makers as well -- on important health topics.
According to the advocates employed there, Hollywood, Health & Society seeks to model
behavior and convey information, changing the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and
behaviors of the audience. And yet not all of the work they do aligns with this goal
narrative. Take, for example, the frequent work that the organization does with the FOX
network show House, whose focus is on outlandish diseases that are difficult to diagnose
and often of little to no general public relevance. Similarly, some of the storylines they
have chosen to honor at their Sentinel for Health Awards seem to omit considerations of
context in favor of simple storyline accuracy. A storyline about lung cancer may be
accurate, but if the afflicted character becomes a drug dealer as a direct result of the
diagnosis, what exactly is that modeling? (AMC’s Breaking Bad was honored for
“Walt’s Lung Cancer” at the 2008 Sentinel for Health Awards.) A storyline that shows
46
an alcoholic relapsing may be accurate, but, again, what exactly is that modeling?
(NBC’s ER was honored for “Abby’s Alcohol Relapse” at the 2008 Sentinel for Health
Awards.) A show that covers many obscure medical conditions may be accurate, but
what is the relevancy to the general public? (FOX’s House was nominated for “The
Right Stuff,” an episode on a rare disease, at the 2008 Sentinel for Health Awards. The
judges noted that the show “makes it clear this is a rare disease, and not something that
the average person should worry about.”) The goal-in-practice seems to be single-minded
pursuit of factual accuracy, and not necessarily the promotion of facts useful to the public
as the grand narrative of the organization would suggest.
Despite this seeming contradiction between goal narrative and advocacy practice,
Hollywood, Health & Society faces no apparent internal or external confrontation.
Advocates working there, when pressed [by me] about House as a potential site of
conflict for organizational goals, stand true to the organization’s formal grand narrative.
At most, they might vaguely acknowledge it can be “difficult,” or joke that they hope it
does not make people become hypochondriacs, but they quickly revert to praising House
as a site of information distribution. Similarly, no loud voices from outside the
organization question this potential conflict between goals and execution, leaving the
stated organizational goals as an unchallenged grand narrative.
This makes for a marked difference between minority and health advocacy.
Health advocacy may have occasional bumps in the advocacy road, but it rarely has to
deal with the same type of passionate constituencies that minority advocates do. In
minority advocacy, there are large populations ready and waiting to voice ignored goals,
and to debate presumed facts and definitions about the community being represented.
47
Challenged: GLAAD
GLAAD’s explicit goal is to promote more accurate and inclusive media
representations of the gay and transgender community. The organization’s longstanding
emphasis on “accurate images” over “positive images” (Davidson & Valentini, 1992) has
been useful in ways both practical and political, but it requires further examination:
accurate according to whom, experienced by whom? In Gledhill’s (1997) words, “The
psychologically rounded character, so often appealed to as a kind of gold standard in
human representation, is as much a work of construction as the stereotype” (p. 337).
Those who seek to promote certain representations have their own ideologies.
There are constituencies often – not always, but often – left out of GLAAD’s
structure: anyone identifying as queer, as sexually fluid, anyone self-defining in ways
other than gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, and anyone who prefers not to identify
but is not straight. While counting up the gay and transgender characters on primetime
television for a GLAAD research report, I was informed by a show publicist that the
writers wanted two characters to be identified as “sexually fluid,” rather than lesbian or
bisexual. However, it was clear within the confines of GLAAD such vagueness would
not stand. The structure of the research report was to follow the structure of similar
preceding research reports, and did not allow for grey areas of sexuality, instead
mandating that characters be strictly identified as L, G, B, and/or T. This is GLAAD’s
organizational approach to “queer” – to basically ignore it. In a 2008 survey of
constituents, GLAAD asked respondents to self-identify in a multiple choice format, and
did not allow for any responses other than L, G, B (male), B (female), T (MTF), T
(FTM), straight (female), and straight (male).
48
GLAAD even has issues with transgender representation, even though
transgender people are technically promised better representation by GLAAD than
sexually fluid or queer people via the organization’s repeated explicit emphasis on
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons. Certainly, much good work has been done
on behalf of the trans community (see a later chapter on the All My Children Zoe
storyline). However, while trans-related groundbreaking media moments are played up
at the Media Awards, there are examples of relatively limited advocacy being conducted
on behalf of the transgender community. During 2008, Jay Leno asked Ryan Phillippe to
give him his “gayest look,” and GLAAD demanded an apology, but then David
Letterman did a Top Ten in which the #1 referred to a pregnant transman as an
androgynous freak show, and GLAAD did nothing. Even the transgender-related content
that is honored by GLAAD can be questionable, as with a clip from a popular primetime
drama that was nominated for a Media Award despite playing on the “tragic tranny”
stereotype. GLAAD also promotes very set transgender terminology when such
concretized terminology does not exist in the trans community itself.
Ultimately, GLAAD has revealed itself to be neither fully competent nor entirely
interested in representing queer and transgender populations. This may be partially
related to employment within the organization, where there are relatively few transgender
or openly queer-identified persons to be found. As explained earlier, individual
advocates will have their own conscious and subconscious biases and personal interests,
so the lack of a sufficient number of queer or transgender employees to represent the
subgroups’ self-interest may contribute to those concerns falling by the wayside. The T
community, particularly, is sometimes seen as something of a political liability by the
49
LGB population, as was evidenced during public debates about legal protections under
ENDA.
A foundational question that must be addressed by representation advocates, even
if only implicitly, is how they wish to define and display the group being represented.
What should they be lobbying for? What does “accurate” even mean? GLAAD has made
its choices, and focused its efforts around the implicit goal of appealing to the movable
middle. In other words, to those setting GLAAD’s priorities, representations should
make the LGBT community more visible, but they should also be easy to digest. The
heavy focus on terminology enforcement condenses the messy into simplistic “facts” that
are presented as uncontested in GLAAD’s Media Reference Guide for media
professionals. This general mainstreaming of difference is arguably a shortsighted
strategy, as it means that the organization is not speaking to many in the younger
generation who are more comfortable with fluid and queer identities. The organization
implicitly prioritizes the more hetero-friendly within the LGBT community, and
considers a certain strategic essentialism necessary to promote particular political ends.
This informal institutional approach to (or, rather avoidance of) more queer
populations has not gone unnoticed by people both outside and inside the organization.
When a gay-interest radio program called out GLAAD on the difference in approach to
the Letterman and Leno comments mentioned above, I was asked to step in for the
vacationing office manager to answer complaint calls. Of course, while a radio program
can help in riling up the malcontents, outsiders are happy to express their unhappiness
with little encouragement; a glance through the comments section of most blog entries
and online-accessible news articles about GLAAD’s treatment of queer or transgender
50
individuals will reveal those displeased. The internal conflict, on the other hand, is
unspoken in any official capacity, instead vented over lunches and drinks amongst
supportive company. One non-homo-normative employee expressed extreme frustration
that a key strategic person in the organization “doesn’t think genderqueer people exist.”
Similarly, a trans-identifying employee vented to me about GLAAD’s desire to present
transgender people as victims of their gender identity: “It has to be not a choice, not
because I want to or because it’s natural to be variant.” Clarifying that this was a
problem, the employee added, “if you come from that place [that transgender is not a
choice], everything you do [as an advocate] is going to be fucked up.” One employee
unhappy with the status quo succinctly explained why it is how it is, curtly stating that T
and Q people “don’t message well,” an evaluation offered not in an understanding tone
but in a very bitter, begrudging tone.
While avoiding identity-phobic queers and less easily defined transpersons may
be considered unsurprising given the goal of seeking to appeal to the mainstream,
GLAAD’s former president, Neil Giuliano has been fond of saying, “Culture doesn’t
follow politics, politics follows culture.” Is it or is it not up to GLAAD to set the
standard of inclusion and support? The explicit organizational grand narrative says yes,
but practice does not always follow, and people inside and outside the organization have
been vocal – to varying degrees – about this contradiction. In other words, unlike
Hollywood, Health & Society’s unchallenged grand narrative, GLAAD’s grand narrative
is challenged, more vocally by outsiders than insiders but certainly challenged across the
board.

51
Explicit and Implicit Goals
Whether challenged or unchallenged, the official goals of each organization are
only the explicit goal narratives, and thus only offer one piece of the driving force
underlying advocates’ everyday actions. At least as important as any explicit goal is the
central implicit goal shared by all advocates: achieve something, anything. Why are
Hollywood, Health & Society advocates so satisfied with problematic narratives? Why is
GLAAD guilty of leaving certain portions of its constituency underserved? Because, at
the end of the day, it is all about achievable goals.
The simple fact is that desires of advocacy get subsumed by realities. A few
examples:
* In backstage footage of the 2008 GLAAD Media Awards in New York, Alan
Cumming speaks frankly about his feelings regarding a PSA he did for the organization:
“It's a big organization, there's lots of people involved, board members, people you've got
to please, sometimes you can't be as forceful as you'd like to be,” then emphasizing his
point by re-stating, “for it to be on television and to be seen by people you can't be as
strong as I would probably like to be.”
* Hollywood, Health & Society does not work as much with comedies as they
would like to, because most comedy shows are “difficult” and “a harder sell” (in the
words of one advocate) when pitched with health content. Comedy writers generally do
not believe that health subjects presented informatively make for good comedy, and need
more convincing that health topics can work in their format. Certainly, they can – Scrubs
did an excellent storyline on postpartum depression, for example, and won that year’s
Sentinel for Health Award for comedy. But, in practice, not as many comedies are open
52
to consultations from advocates like Hollywood, Health & Society. Thus, when the time
comes for Sentinel for Health Award submissions, HHS advocates end up contenting
themselves with comedy genre submissions from dramedies such as Desperate
Housewives instead of pushing the comedies too hard.
* Defamatory-oriented advocates would like to be able to deal with diversifying
platforms of major network content, but an insufficient number of people to monitor that
content means that when things are edited differently and/or additional content is made
available in another medium, advocacy opportunities may be missed. In a graduate
cinema course I was taking while working at GLAAD, a classmate happened to play a
brief Internet-accessed clip from a recent episode of The Real World. In this clip, a cast
member used the word “faggot,” and the word was written out unedited on the Chyron on
bottom of the screen, whilst other offensive slang words were edited with asterisks to
acknowledge their inappropriateness. Knowing GLAAD’s firm stance on this
terminology, I casually inquired with the Entertainment Media Director if he was aware
of this particular usage. He was surprised, not by the usage, but because he thought he
had already dealt with the issue. And, in fact, he had – but only with the on-air version.
After the episode had first aired, MTV agreed to edit the word in a manner similar to the
other defamatory words before the episode went into heavy rotation the following day,
however the unaltered first version is what went up on their website. If I hadn’t
happened to view that clip randomly and report back, the online distribution of popular
MTV content would have continued to stream unedited, despite GLAAD having fought
and won the relevant battle. There simply are not enough people available to monitor
53
content as part of their job, so informal viewing becomes the less than ideal way that
some defamation advocacy work is conducted.
* Everyone likes the idea of working more with new media content not created by
major networks (YouTube webisode series, for instance). One Hollywood lobbyist,
echoing the sentiments of others, commented, “people are watching things on their iPod
or on their phone or playing video games, watching things on the internet, webisodes, so
that’s an area that we’re really trying to get into now. Yeah, that’s certainly an area we
want to expand to.” Yet this was an amorphous idea, with little in the way of explicit
plans to back it up. The reality is that few advocates put forward any time or effort
toward that arena. Why? Eyeballs must take precedence. As much as those inside the
industry worry about online content production by those outside the industry,
entertainment media remains an extremely powerful, centralized industry. Until either
the size of a new media audience rivals that of a primetime network television show,
and/or the number of funded advocates increases dramatically [such that resources no
longer must all be thrown toward areas of broadest impact], practicalities dictate new
media content remain a future-not-present concern. This is particularly true for minority
advocacy aimed at the majority audience, as health advocates seeking to influence small
at-risk populations may find more cause – and funding – to pursue niche new media
content.
* If advocacy work is all about providing shows with certain information, in this
well-networked age it seems that kind of work could be provided by advocates outside of
Los Angeles, right? No. That would be nice, but it is not an achievable goal. As rigid as
it sounds, the everyday reality is that you have to be in LA to get anything done. At one
54
point in my research, I spoke with an advocate who was attempting to influence
Hollywood from outside of California, and was experiencing terrible frustration at how
ineffective the advocacy seemed and how no one was sufficiently interested in speaking
with her. It was a painful discussion to have, as it became more and more clear that she
did not “get” the culture of Hollywood. She had once worked with Tyra Banks, and yet
struggled to remember her name, at first citing it as “Tonya.” A misstep like that in Los
Angeles would quickly flag you as out-of-touch with the cultural industry, and your
credibility as a Hollywood consultant would be gone almost immediately. Advocating
coverage of prosocial topics to Hollywood types must be done from within Hollywood
(here referencing Hollywood as both a physical and mental space). Working outside
might be achievable in theory, but not in practice.
The foundational point of all of the above examples: as an advocate without any
real power or resources in a money-driven industry, you have to understand how the
system works and function within it. Sometimes this means things are done in less than
ideal ways, sometimes this means areas of interest are left relatively untouched, but such
is life as an advocate.
But what of the existing definitions and prioritizations of “achievable” goals?
While it seems very straightforward to prioritize what is achievable, a few basic questions
must be asked.
* Is achievable being underdefined; are advocates selling themselves short by
partaking in an example of constitutive [not repressive] power…? Are advocates
presuming that they cannot achieve certain things, and thus not even trying for attainable
possibilities?
55
* Is it or is it not necessary to throw some people, some concerns under the bus in
order to achieve those primary goals? By defining the attainable downward, are
advocates unnecessarily cutting out people and concerns that they should be
representing?
* Is that goal – to achieve something/anything – good enough? Should advocates
be setting the bar higher for themselves, beyond the basic imperative to achieve
something/anything?
Answer: Achievable IS underdefined, and it is NOT necessary to throw people
under the bus, but the “achieve something, anything” implicit goal IS good enough.
The simple fact is that advocates need far more resources than they have. Without
resources, achieving something/anything has to be good enough. This need and struggle
for resources will be revisited later. First, I will review the variety of advocacy methods
utilized by “Hollywood lobbyists.”
56
CHAPTER 4: CURRENT ADVOCACY METHODS
This chapter will explore current advocacy methods in the Hollywood lobbying
community, from carrots and sticks to direct and indirect advocacy. What do advocates
have that they can offer to the industry? With so little power in the grand scheme of
Hollywood, advocates must have something to offer, and they must do it carefully. And
what, exactly, is “non-advocacy” advocacy?
Carrot and Stick Advocacy
Entertainment advocacy methods can be categorized into “carrot” and “stick”
methods (or “honey” and “vinegar,” if preferred) – actions that will make the target feel
good, and actions that might bring pain or displeasure to the targets. Carrots include
maintaining positive relationships with writers, publicists, network executives, standards
and practices departments, and others, functioning as technical consultants, providing
free advice, and giving industry awards. Sticks include inciting boycotts, starting letter
writing campaigns, threatening to challenge broadcast licenses of local stations, and any
other demonstrations of anger. As can be seen in these lists, carrots and sticks often
translate to active and reactive advocacy. Specifically, carrot methods are frequently pro-
active actions, meant to head off any problems, while all stick methods are reactive to
content already aired and/or decisions already made. There are exceptions, such as the
reactive carrot of awards shows, but the general pattern should be noted. According to
the theory of social exchange (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959), people seek to maximize
rewards and minimize costs in any relationship. In order to maintain industry
relationships, then, advocates must seek to minimize costs for the industry professionals –
unpleasant interactions, negative consequences – and maximize rewards. Reward
57
structure will be discussed later in this chapter. First, I will offer a review of carrot and
stick advocacy more broadly, and direct versus indirect means of advocacy.
Carrot and stick methods are not mutually exclusive, but advocates are often
extremely opinionated on whether or not stick methods should be used and, if so, to what
degree. Sticks used to play a bigger role than they do now, as the carrot has become a
bigger part of the pie. When a stick is used, it typically takes on less threatening forms
than in the past. Take, for instance, Mexican-American lobbyists Justicia, who (among
other hostile actions) threatened to get broadcast licenses taken away from network-
owned stations in the 1970s, whilst simultaneously trying to work with networks on
scripts (Montgomery, 1989). Similarly, people associated with the Gay Activist Alliance
– another organization that tried to work with the networks – once stormed network
headquarters (Montgomery, 1989). These militant activities would never happen now.
Instead, the trend in recent years is toward a carrot-like cooperative arrangement wherein
advocates attempt to serve as supportive consultants to the shows they wish to influence.
This usually occurs on a one-off or recurring basis, but not under any kind of official
contract. Rather, these “services” are offered free of charge in the hope that the
information and advice offered will be heeded.
It is too simplistic to say it has gone from sticks to carrots, however, as carrots
have been around for decades. For example, the advocates-as-friendly-consultants
approach was used in the past by specialized professional groups like lawyers, doctors
(Turow, 1989), teachers, and psychologists as a PR tool, and by the 1970s was being used
by minority groups. At the same time, a look at Turow’s classic Media Industries (1984)
reveals a chapter on public advocacy that is exclusively about putting pressure on
58
producers via direct threats and appealing to authorities, omitting more carrot-like
advocacy and, in so doing, indicating the relative infrequency of carrot use at that point in
time.
Sticks are not only used less frequently now, but with less intensity. This is
particularly true of advocacy power players, those who most closely resemble industry
insiders, and who function more as resources to the industry than as activists for a cause.
Consider the advocate I interviewed who relied almost exclusively on letter writing and
phone call campaigns, who believed in a focus on reactive over proactive Hollywood
advocacy, and who simultaneously bemoaned his lack of effect on targeted television
shows. Or, to look back at Justicia in the 1970s, recall what happened when it was in fact
invited to the development table and then continued its combative tactics; although it got
access and “might have been able to continue working with the networks if it had altered
its style” (Montgomery, 1989, p. 62), this access was squandered through an
unwillingness to embrace a milder tone.
Since these earlier days, there has been a general maturation of advocacy
practices, and more of an embrace of the understanding that honey indeed attracts better
than vinegar. Additionally, more content producers appear to be interested in being “PC”
(politically correct) and socially conscious than was the case in decades past. Whether
this has become a trend for personal or profit motivations, it means that there is less
reason to treat producers as enemies to be strong-armed, and more reason to attempt a
friendship of sorts. Similarly, with more minorities now inside writers’ rooms – and with
greater freedom to be vocal about their experiences than they were if/when previously in
those writers’ rooms – there are not the same kinds of industry needs for hyper-
59
aggressive activism. The political landscape is constantly (if slowly) progressing, so
advocates do not need to be as angry toward people who generally want to get it right.
Instead, there is more of a need to support those content producers, guide them, and
remind them of what should or could be done to “get it right.”
This development toward a resource model over an activist model has also
occurred because advocates see it as a way of having more continued influence in the
industry, rather than one-off interactions. Says one advocate:
You can act on a case-by-case basis, you can react on a case-by-case basis as an
advocacy group, and throw up your hands and say, “how could you,” “we’re
going to expose you,” and get somewhere with that for sure. There’s a lot to be
said for that kind of social activism, and it makes a difference. But it doesn’t
really create a conversation. What we’re trying to do is something a little more
collegial, for one thing. Not a little, a lot more collegial. And that has more of a
long-term effect rather than a case-by-case basis.

Another advocate alludes to the same sentiment:
I don’t see being punitive a way to develop a trusting relationship with a writer
that you can sort of grow over time. Us against them is not going to get it. They
have so much power, you think they’re afraid of us? Who could create fear for
them? I mean, I don’t see what that would do. (italics added)

That said, not being reactive and not using sticks does not necessarily mean that the
interaction is more than case-by-case, or, if it is more than case-by-case and there is a
“relationship,” it can sometimes appear to be a sort of rubber-stamping relationship. But
these are issues to be discussed later.
Advocacy groups’ attempt to be accepted by industry sometimes can be observed
by reviewing the list of high profile people serving as board members [when such a
board, and public listing of the board, exists]. Among the advisory board members of
Hollywood, Health, & Society, for instance:
60
- Neal Baer, Executive Producer Law & Order: SVU
- John Wells, known for ER, President of Writers Guild of America west
- VP of Current Series at NBC Entertainment
- A representative from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
- Senior VP of Current Programming at Fox
These people serve as markers of a group’s accepted-by-insiders legitimated status, and
can be of great help in gaining access to others in power. One advocate spoke to me of
hosting an industry event and not being able to get one obviously missing major player
into the room. A very high profile board member offered to write that person a letter
about it, and, while attendance was not secured, dialogue began. In this type of proactive,
carrot/honey advocacy, it is not about getting angry at people. In the words of one
advocate, it is all about having “people on your side. Cultivation. Cultivate. Cultivate
relationships. It’s 100% about relationships in this town. Cultivate. Cultivate.”
The immediate consequences of this type of advocacy are that advocates have to
tend toward playing nice, and must use quieter, less obvious manifestations of what little
power they have to shape content. In other words, they are begging for crumbs. They do
not want to tell writers what to do, because that is a big no-no when dealing with
“creative professionals” on their home turf. One advocate, discussing the way in which
Hollywood, Health, & Society started (created by the CDC), recalled that shows initially
really resented it. “They were like, I don’t want to talk to these people, this is the
government, I don’t want the government telling me what to do.” Another spoke of a
time that writers were essentially forced to work with an advocacy group by a network
executive, and how she got the sense the writers tried to “get back” at them by twisting
61
the message “in such a way that it sort of screwed us over.” And yet obviously there will
be specific suggestions the advocates want to make. It is a question of execution, a tricky
path to navigate, and generally must be done in a very submissive, enthusiastically
pleasant, non-threatening way – and even that guarantees no particular outcome. Says
one advocate:
There’s absolutely no control. You know, you have no idea which direction this
thing could take off in, and it could end up being something that you hate, that’s
really awful and has the completely opposite effect of what you intended. So
that’s, I think – it’s kind of a strange relationship we have.

Not only do many advocates tend toward playing nice, but all they do is play nice. One
advocate stated simply, when asked if his organization would ever give any kind of
criticism or negative feedback to a show, that there was “no negativity around this at all.”
Another advocate, speaking about what her reaction would be if something negative aired
in a program, even one her group had consulted on, said:
We stand back, we stand back. Because that would alienate the writers from us.
They’d be like, “Wait, you guys are supposed to help us.” You know, people ask
us all the time, “Don’t you tell them when they do a bad job?” But, again, we step
back.

The primary exception to the no-negative-feedback position of these types of advocates is
when they are mid-consultation with a show. If an advocate has been asked to consult on
something, the door has been opened to telling a show they should not be saying or doing
a particular thing they are saying or doing. But the drive to be more supportive and
pleasant than anything else is a constant force, as these advocates are perpetually terrified
of being seen as threats. Take this excerpt from one advocate, who had earlier in the
interview already stated similar sentiments, but felt compelled to re-emphasize these
points:
62
In the case that at the end they just did something completely wrong or we didn’t
consult on it and it ended up being completely wrong, we step back, hands off.
And again, it’s that very important relationship and fine line that we dance around
with the writers. They trust us to be a resource to them and nothing else. Because
they get hounded by advocacy groups left and right. You know, hate mail, and
letters from the national whatever, saying, “Oh, that was horrible.” We don’t want
to do that to them. We want to be the ones that will always be there for them,
always provide them with experts, knowledgeable experts, and that’s why it’s
worked for so many years, and that’s why we have those relationships.

Note above the way “advocacy groups” are characterized as something removed from the
speaker, something different than and almost oppositional to the speaker’s identification.
This self-re-categorization as a less threatening entity than “advocacy,” despite
conducting what by definition is advocacy work, is a subject which will be revisited in
the last section of this chapter.
Others may be a little more open to using criticism, but extraordinarily infrequent
and cautious in the execution of any such criticism. One advocate, talking about giving
negative feedback to a show, said:
When you’re telling people something they might not agree with right away, just
because someone doesn’t respond to you immediately doesn’t mean they didn’t
hear you. Sometimes you have to give the information and walk away and know it
takes a person a while to process something.

He offered the example of his group delivering a private letter to producers with their
criticisms and concerns about a particular episode, and that they dismissed the criticism
by responding that “it’s just a fictional world.” The advocacy group left it at that, did not
push further, and the show ultimately ended up doing a similar storyline that the advocate
considered much more “responsible.” Whether or not the group’s letter played a role in
that second storyline cannot be known, but the advocate believed that it did, and used that
anecdote to support his group’s approach to the stick side of advocacy.
63
GLAAD: High and Low Profile Sticks
GLAAD is a complex case. The Entertainment Media team is very cautious with
expressing criticism. However, the Entertainment Media team exists within a larger
advocacy organization more traditionally bound to a certain model of activism. Thus,
higher-ups will occasionally pull the trigger on a “Call to Action,” a stereotypic stick
method of getting enraged constituents to fire off angry e-mails/calls/letters to a particular
target. The Entertainment Media team works on its own, but senior leadership could
decide something requires a heavier hand and mandate a different response than the
Entertainment Media team might prefer. During a phone call with a writer on a high-
profile show, the writer quickly ran a joke by the Entertainment Media Director that the
Director did not really know how to take, but told the writer it was fine. The Director
later commented to me that he hoped it actually was, because if it wasn’t -- in other
words, if it aired and higher-ups saw it as a problem -- he would still have to respond, and
that would obviously be rather awkward. I witnessed just such an awkward situation
during my time at GLAAD, centered on an episode of the FX Networks show 30 Days.
The Entertainment Media team requested a screener of a 30 Days episode two
weeks before the season premiere, because the team had heard there was going to be an
episode with an anti-gay woman staying with gay men who were raising kids, and that
there was potentially bad content. It turned out, according to Damon, the Entertainment
Media Director, that it was not bad, it was just that the woman did not “take the journey,”
and came out as prejudiced as she went in. He said that perhaps that could be taken as
affirmation of her point of view, but the fact is that you cannot win over everyone, and he
64
did not think anything bad had been done on the part of the show or Morgan, the host.
Fast forward to this:
GLAAD Condemns FX Networks’ Refusal to Correct Defamatory
Misrepresentation by Anti-Gay Activist on 30 Days
media center > press releases > GLAAD Condemns FX Networks’ Refusal to
Correct Defamatory Misrepresentation by Anti-Gay Activist on 30 Days
June 23, 2008
Cerissa Cafasso Associate Director of PR & Communications (646) 871-
8011 cafasso@glaad.org
Contact: Damon Romine, Entertainment Media Director Phone: (323) 634-2012
Email: romine@glaad.org
New York, NY, June 23, 2008 - The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
(GLAAD) today urged community members to contact FX Networks to express
their concerns about a defamatory claim by an anti-gay activist that will appear,
unchallenged, in the June 24 episode of 30 Days.
30 Days, FX Networks’ original series produced by Morgan Spurlock, "examines
social issues in America by immersing individuals in a life that requires them to
see the world through another’s eyes,’" according to the show’s Web site. In
2006, the series won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Reality Program
for the "Gay/Straight" episode.
During the June 24 episode, entitled "Same Sex Parenting," Kati, a woman who
opposes gay and lesbian parents and their families, lives for 30 days with gay
parents Dennis and Thomas and their four adopted sons. The episode includes the
personal stories of kids raised by lesbian and gay parents.
Regrettably, the episode also features a defamatory statement by Peter Sprigg of
the Family Research Council, an anti-gay activist organization, who claims:
"Homosexuality is associated with higher rates of sexual promiscuity, sexually
transmitted diseases, mental illness, substance abuse, domestic violence, and child
sexual abuse, and those are all reasons for us to be concerned about placing
children into that kind of setting." While there is no credible scientific research
that backs Sprigg’s claim - and much that disputes it - the episode presents his
assertion as if it were fact and offers no credible social science experts or child
health authorities to challenge Sprigg’s assertion. Indeed, the American Academy
of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the Child Welfare League
of America, and many other child health and social services authorities who
support parenting by qualified lesbian and gay parents dispute Sprigg’s claim.
After reviewing a screener supplied by FX Networks, GLAAD and the Family
Equality Council, a national non-profit working to ensure equality for lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender families, contacted FX Networks last week,
requesting that the inaccurate claim be removed from the episode or that a
65
credible social science expert or child health authority be brought in to provide an
on-air correction. FX Networks, however, refused to remove the defamatory
content or, at minimum, address it during the course of the episode.
"This is an episode of 30 Days that GLAAD would have liked to support for its
commendable effort to share the authentic story of everyday lesbian and gay
parents and their families and the opposition they face in trying to provide a stable
and nurturing home for their children," said GLAAD Senior Director of Media
Programs Rashad Robinson. "However, FX Networks’ insistence on airing - and
refusal to correct the record on - this defamatory misrepresentation makes that
impossible. It is unacceptable that FX Networks and its parent company 20th
Century Fox would provide a platform for the inaccurate and dangerous claims of
anti-gay activists - misinformation that can put gay and lesbian parents and their
families in harm’s way."
TAKE ACTION:
GLAAD, the Family Equality Council and Children Of Lesbians And Gays
Everywhere (COLAGE) are urging their members and the community to contact
FX Networks, and 20th Century Fox, to express their concerns over providing a
platform for such an inaccurate, misleading claim by the Family Research
Council. Community members should let FX Networks know that it is
irresponsible and unacceptable to put forth such a damaging, defamatory assertion
about lesbian and gay parents, and worse, refuse to include the voices of credible
experts to dispute it. GLAAD, the Family Equality Council and COLAGE honor
the gay and lesbian parents and their children who are featured in this episode for
sharing the real stories of their lives, and especially Dennis and Thomas and their
family for opening up their home and the hearts and minds of millions through
their participation on 30 Days.
FX Networks: Nick Grad Executive Vice President of Original
Programming (310) 369-0949 ngrad@fxnetworks.com
Chuck Saftler Executive Vice President of Programming (310) 369-
0949 csaftler@fxnetworks.com
Scott Seomin Vice President of Public Relations (310) 369-
0938 scott.seomin@fxnetwork.com

What happened? The “big boss” at GLAAD (another staff member’s words) heard from
someone else that an anti-gay person was being used as an authority during the program.
Damon had not picked up on that, but the show’s decision to use “an extremist” as an
authority figure set off alarms for the GLAAD higher-ups, thus the Call to Action was
issued. This is an example of the fuzziness of the lines when defining defamation, and
66
also of the awkwardness that can be created with a show when GLAAD’s relationship to
entertainment industry is not left exclusively to the entertainment media team. After
having reassured them the show was fine, a Call to Action was issued. Does that make
that show, or any of the people at the network aware of the consultation, eager to deal
with GLAAD again? Unlikely.
Managing and maintaining industry relationships is just as crucial for GLAAD as
for other advocates, as these relationships encourage and ease future consultations. Take,
for instance, the time that an insider attached to a series spin-off contacted the
Entertainment Media Director about a gay storyline because the person had worked with
the Director during the run of the original series; positive interactions beget more positive
interactions. This is not to say that those on the Entertainment Media team do not
actively use certain sticks of their own, but their preference is to stay as low-profile as
possible.
Examples of low-profile sticks:
Ignoring network labeling of characters
One step of the research process for GLAAD’s Where We Are on TV report is to
contact network publicists seeking confirmation of the LGBT representation on their
shows. Some publicists will be cagey about identifying sexuality, saying a character's
sexuality “hasn't been explored yet,” for instance. But is there going to be a reveal or are
they just playing coy, wanting to seem as open as possible even though there is and will
be nothing to show for it? While GLAAD understands the desire to keep story-telling
possibilities open, explicit LGBT representations are important. One network wished to
confirm a character as gay, said that the writers felt that the character was gay, but we
67
would not count him because his sexuality had never been made explicit on air.
Conversely, we counted another character as bisexual that the corresponding network
would not confirm as bisexual, going by on-screen actions. However, we did not count a
character whose actions indicated bisexuality because the character was essentially the
worst stereotype of an evil, predatory bisexual, and one of the staff members responsible
for making the call about whether to include that character argued that the character was
not clearly defined by the show. (Note: The publicist for the show stated it did indeed
appear this character was bisexual, and I fought for a consistent logic of who would be
counted and not, but ultimately the character was indeed omitted from the official count.)
Inserting critiques into reports
Sometimes, critiques can be inserted subtly into research reports. Consider these
examples from GLAAD’s 2008 Where We Are on TV report:
This past year, we’ve seen some real progress from Fox towards making their
scripted programming more inclusive, which is something we’re hoping to see
from other networks like CBS. (GLAAD, Sept 2008, p. 2)

Unfortunately, ABC has announced that Rebecca Romijn’s character, Alexis, will
have reduced involvement in the new season of Ugly Betty, meaning that there
will be no series regular transgender characters on any broadcast network.
Moreover, the two existing characters are white women, leaving both transgender
people of color and transgender men unrepresented. (GLAAD, Sept 2008, p. 10)

Hollywood, Health & Society sometimes engages in the same approach. From an
interview:
Sometimes we’re subtly critical. Part of this report that we’re bringing out does
say, for example, that there’s lots of violence, you know, that 40% of the shows
had violence in them. It does say that there’s lots of food, and lots of alcohol.
We’re not heavy-handed in it, and we’re very careful in this report not to be
heavy-handed about, “You shouldn’t do that!” And we sort of praise them when
there’s anything to praise, like the fact there were a lot of sit-down meals, which
was better than fast food. So we’re just sort of descriptive, more or less, as
68
opposed to being judgmental about it. But I think people could certainly take our
data and be very judgmental with it. And I think there are other groups who are
judgmental. You know, the FCC could take more action.

Low-profile explicit disapproval
This may mean contacting a show after a defamatory or questionable episode
aired, or it may mean blogging disapproval to a small self-selecting audience without
giving any specific instructions for action. Take, for instance, the following GLAAD
blog post by the Entertainment Media Director:
Hancock's 'Homo' Blunder
By Damon Romine on July 2, 2008 3:02 PM
http://glaadorg.nexcess.net/cinequeer/2008/07/hancocks-homo-blunder.html
Will Smith + July 4th weekend = box office success. Unfortunately, the
millions of audience members who take their family to see Smith’s Hancock will
have to hear the obnoxious, drunk anti-hero utter an anti-gay slur.
At approximately 24 minutes into the film, while Jason Bateman’s PR
whiz works to rehabilitate the superhero’s tarnished image, he shows Hancock
three comic book images in an effort to inspire him. But Hancock rejects the
traditional image of costumed superheroes as he responds to each one: “Homo.
Homo in red. Norwegian homo.”
The audience is prompted to laugh and there is no response to or
retribution for Hancock’s remarks. Bateman’s character, the father of a young
son, could have easily spoken up instead of giving Hancock a pass.
Better yet, would it have changed the story if that brief interaction had
been left on the cutting room floor? No one would have missed the line if it
wasn’t there, but an unfortunate choice was made to go for the cheap gay joke. In
that moment, young gay people in the movie’s audience are put in the position of
being ridiculed by a character they are expected to regard as a hero. People go to
films to escape reality — or schoolyard taunts — not to pay ten bucks and be
ridiculed some more, especially not by someone the Los Angeles Times calls “the
most likable actor in the world.”
Rated PG-13, Hancock is being marketed to families, teens and young
adults. This film certainly presents an opportunity for parents to explain to their
kids that the usually entertaining character of Hancock is not modeling good
behavior. But let’s get real: Hancock’s use of the slur sends a problematic
message that it’s okay to discriminate using such hateful words. Every day,
people — both gay and straight — are taunted and verbally harassed in their
schools and in their communities with these kinds of words, creating an
environment that’s hostile, uncomfortable, and often unsafe. To have a heroic
69
character — and by extension actor Will Smith — use, and by implication
approve of, this kind of language is simply unacceptable.
GLAAD understands that sometimes anti-gay language shows up in
dramatic narrative to reveal a character’s true colors, or to convey a message. But
there’s a big difference between using it to highlight a character’s anti-gay
attitudes and making a cheap, unfunny shot at gay people.

But even these low-profile sticks are rarely used by the Entertainment Media
team. Relationships with industry insiders are held so sacred that even the hint of a stick
can create extreme anxiety. In the midst of the a lesbian romance storyline on Grey’s
Anatomy featuring the characters Erica Hahn and Callie Torres, I found a blurb on
Wikipedia’s Erica Hahn page that said GLAAD consultants had “expressed some
concerns over the somewhat exploitative talk of a threesome between Hahn, Torres and
Sloan.” I sent an e-mail to my supervisor asking when that had happened, as it was the
first I had heard of it, and quickly received the response: “WE NEVER EVER SAID
THAT. That is terrifying.” The use of the word “terrifying” is very telling, revealing the
degree of fear advocates live in about relationships being compromised, such that even a
groundless Wikipedia sentence about having “expressed some concerns” related to a
storyline could strike fear. Similarly, there was high frustration when the two ‘real’
women that GLAAD selected to bring into the Grey’s Anatomy writers’ room for a
consultation about their experiences with realizing sexuality late in life decided to talk
about their Grey’s consulting experience with a gay media outlet. This was a huge faux
pas, and resulted in the Entertainment Media team scrambling to repair the resulting
cracks in trust with the show.
Ultimately, despite consulting, the Hahn/Torres storyline ended up being big
disappointment, as Hahn was written off the show almost immediately after a very
70
moving coming out. Interestingly, this development was protested by the popular press
but not by GLAAD. A Washington Post write-up of the actress’s firing called the
network’s insistence that it had nothing to do with the character being a lesbian “utter
horseradish” (de Moraes, 2008, para 10). And yet the most stick that GLAAD directed
toward the show was to not nominate Grey's for a media award that year, despite the
prominent storyline being perhaps the most obvious nomination choice for the relevant
category. Incidentally, the same Washington Post article not only called out Grey’s, but
also called out GLAAD for its lack of response. The piece ended with the following
direct attack:
I know—let’s talk to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation:
“While we are disheartened that the burgeoning relationship between Callie and
Erica on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ has come to an end, the character of Callie, who has
now been identified as a lesbian by show creator Shonda Rhimes, remains and her
journey continues,” GLAAD President Neil G. Giuliano said in a statement.
“Because there are so few lesbian characters on network television, we hope that
ABC and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ will commit to further developing Callie’s character
and her relationships, and continue providing this important representation on one
of TV’s most-watched shows.”
Really? That’s the best they’ve got? (de Moraes, 2008, para 15-18)

Though the Post writer did not pick up on this, there was an additional affront about
which GLAAD also remained silent: Callie being identified by Shonda Rhimes as a
lesbian. Through that season, Callie was explicitly attracted to both sexes, and was very
much bisexual, so to term her a “lesbian” was one more source of internal frustration at
GLAAD.
Asked about the situation, one of the Entertainment Media team members had this
to say:
71
What can we do? We can’t get actors rehired. Our hands are tied. We have to
think about the future. You can't blast ABC and then turn around and honor them
or expect change from them if something goes wrong. We can’t go balls out on
everything when actual defamation did not take place. Yes, we're bummed out
(and we express that) but because we do not know for a fact that she was fired for
portraying gay, we truly cannot jump the gun. It sucks, but it is what it is.

Of course, it seems as if there is a bit of a difference between going “balls out on
everything” and not even acknowledging the rumors or how icky the situation looked.
But this is the kind of timidity upon which positive-affect advocacy relies. And this is
exactly why using Calls to Action for entertainment media issues at GLAAD is, in fact,
something of a questionable practice. In the words of an advocate not attached to
GLAAD:
I think there’s a place for the [heavy-handed] stick approach. I don’t think that it
necessarily is effective coming from the same source. In other words, it’s sort of
like having a dog; if it’s the same person that’s petting it and hitting it, the dog
gets a very mixed message and kind of might just avoid you generally. So I do
think there’s a place for the stick, [but] I think it may not be wise to try to have it
come from the people who are trying the carrot approach or the dog biscuit
approach, as it were.

Straddling the fence of activist and resource models with Hollywood types makes it
difficult to achieve the effects of a dedication to either one or the other. Unfortunately,
until and unless GLAAD confronts its identity crisis over whether it really wants to be an
activist outsider or a resource-providing insider, the mixed messages and decreased
effectiveness will continue.
The Ultimate Carrot: Awards Programs
Some advocacy groups – those with the resources to do so – give awards to
industry producers for notable entertainment media portrayals of their particular issue.
The GLAAD Media Awards and Hollywood, Health and Society’s Sentinel for Health
72
Awards are examples of this type of carrot advocacy, which is held in very high regard in
the advocacy community. One advocate insisted that such awards are “the strongest
incentive” advocates have to get writers to portray their issue of choice. She observed:
Writers are geared toward sort of competing for recognition, so they’re in a
culture where they’re used to submitting their work for peer appreciation and
review, and that’s what awards do. It seems to be very meaningful to writers. You
would think maybe it wouldn’t be, because it’s not, you know, an Oscar, or that
equivalent. But it seems to be very meaningful.

While this description of the awards as “meaningful” to recipients could be a case of
wishful thinking, it was a viewpoint taken by nearly all advocates, even those who did
not give awards. (The single exception to this was an advocate who could not afford to
give awards, and sounded engaged in a bit of self-reassurance that it would not be a
benefit to advocacy efforts.) Said another:
They do respond to awards. They love the idea of getting an award, so the idea
that one of these storylines, if they incorporate a storyline it could be nominated
for this award, and possibly win an award, that they like. So that sort of opens
them up strangely. You know, you give them a piece of glass and they feel like
they’re accomplished. And there’s a little awards show and they come.

One advocate even suggested it would be terribly difficult to conduct advocacy efforts
without an award to offer, as an obvious carrot like that can open up so many doors:
You get buy-in from the people concerned with PR for the show, and want to get
celebrities out there, you get buy-in from executives because they like getting
recognition, you get buy-in from writers who like getting awards, so you get
multiple – you’re creating an infrastructure where you have multiple
constituencies for getting a message or issue integrated into a program.

Another stated simply:
There are various ways to get your name out there, but only so many ways to get
the name to the industry. By throwing an event, they get to know who you are.

73
Not only are these awards a way to directly build, maintain and/or strengthen
relationships with industry professionals, but awards also provide indirect self-promotion
for advocates via coverage in the trades and popular press. Trades in particular can offer
valuable ‘street cred’ in the battle toward Hollywood insider status. For instance, Variety
gave tremendous coverage to the GLAAD Media Awards in its Friday, April 25, 2008
issue. Four full, huge pages were dedicated entirely to the awards, presented as seven
different stories (one general overview, one gay-focused look back at media moments of
the past year, and profiles of various nominees and honorees).
What’s Really In It for the Industry?
Getting an award at an awards show may be nice, but there has to be more on
offer, particularly given the low-profile of most advocacy group awards. Let’s get a little
more into the exact carrots advocacy groups utilize, as that is the direction things have
moved. Reward structure refers to the rewards systems motivating cultural producers
(Peterson, 1994); what is the reward structure for producers who work with Hollywood
lobbyists as content consultants? The reasons industry professionals might be open to
advocates range from more practical and basic daily needs to more symbolic intangibles,
from having research requirements met to having egos stroked.
Filling basic practical needs --- facts, stories, audience
Facts: Advocates regularly provide shows with free fact-focused consultations.
Certainly, some writers to do not care about factual accuracy, but others do prioritize this
and will phone or e-mail advocates on a frequent basis in order to find out the facts
needed to make a storyline or bit of dialogue as realistic as possible.
74
Stories: Possibly of more of interest than specific facts are the general story ideas
presented by advocates. All advocates I spoke with insisted upon the power of stories to
capture the interest of writers, emphasizing that regardless of writers’ concern for facts
they will always care about a good story. And, importantly, they are always on a search
for a good story, always needing to produce a new script. One advocate, echoing the
sentiment expressed by many others, commented, “Someone who’s really prepared with
real experience, real stories, that’s what gets the writers going.”
Audience: Advocates can provide content producers with a minor bump in
audience, at home and/or in the studio. The support of a particular advocacy group may
increase a show’s popularity among a particular niche group. This is most likely to be of
value with a brand new show. One new network show, backed by major producers and
billed as “the next big gay network comedy” (unfortunately, it never made it to air), was
looking for audience members for the taping of their pilot episode. The studio offered to
donate $18 a head to GLAAD for each person attending as part of a GLAAD group, up to
45 people. Another sitcom (one that did make it to air, but was among the first of the
network’s cancellations that season) sought out GLAAD’s audience assistance for one
episode very heavy in gay content, offering $200 for ten audience members and $400 for
twenty. The e-mail that was sent by GLAAD to possible attendees explained that the
“producers want GLAAD-loving folks to be in the audience to laugh and laugh (and
‘awww’ in the right places, too!)”
It should be noted that such instances were rare, and that service is not one I
suspect GLAAD would like to promote itself as offering, but there are various reasons
GLAAD would agree to such an arrangement. Far more important than the meager
75
money offered is the opportunity to solidify relationships with industry players involved
with network television. Also, the more gay-supportive the audience, the more engaged
they are likely to be with the gay content, providing a more enthusiastic soundtrack to the
show. In the world of television, every show is a gamble, and every network ready to
slice programs from the schedule. If a more gay-supportive, enthusiastic studio audience
might help a gay-inclusive program make the cut, then providing such an audience fits in
with GLAAD’s efforts to create a more gay-inclusive media environment.
Filling symbolic desires – reputation, rubber-stamping, professional responsibility,
personal altruism
Reputation: Working with public interest groups and receiving awards can bring
positive press and a boost to a show’s reputation. This, of course, can vary depending
upon the group in question and the show being honored. In a set of ABC press materials,
the information on one popular show included: “The series has been awarded Golden
Globe, Peabody, NAACP, ALMA and Imagen awards and earned 11 Emmy nominations,
the most for any comedy series on any network.” At that point, the show had won two
GLAAD Media Awards for outstanding comedy, yet GLAAD was not included in that
list while NAACP was. On the other hand, the same ABC press materials noted One Life
to Live’s GLAAD Media Awards as proof of its “groundbreaking exploration of social
issues,” and even offered details on the storylines honored:
“OLTL” was honored by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
(GLAAD) with the Outstanding Daytime Drama Award for this story in 1993,
and again in 2005 for the realistic portrayal of a young college student coming out
to his friends, and for Marcie Walsh’s (Kathy Brier) brother’s decision to marry
his boyfriend.

76
Awards are a big business in Hollywood, and there are many other awards to stand up
against. A job listing posted by HBO in 2008 sought an Awards Coordinator responsible
for “all HBO, Cinemax, HIP entry submissions for all award competitions, including (but
not limited to) all guild awards such as the SAG, DGA, WGA, ASC, & ACE awards, the
Peabody’s, NAACP Image Awards, Humanitas Awards, etc.” Neither the GLAAD
Media Awards nor Hollywood, Health & Society’s Sentinel for Health Awards made that
list (of course, GLAAD’s awards require no submission), though both are known by the
networks. Are there simply too many awards? Is there a saturation of the awards
market? During a discussion on this subject, one advocate said that at first she thought
so, but has found that not to be the case:
You know how it is, if someone wanted to give you an award for great work,
wouldn’t you be thrilled? If someone said there’s too many awards given for the
kind of work we do, would you feel that was true? Not unless you’d gotten like
ten awards yourself, and there are so many writers. It’s nice to get a pat on the
back, especially in an industry where you’re constantly being beat up.

Rubber-stamping: One carrot on offer -- not something that advocates generally
like to acknowledge, but most certainly exists -- is advocacy group consultation as a
“rubber stamp” for the acceptability of a particular show or storyline. One advocate, for
instance, described a network’s use of his resource services as a “cover my ass type of
project,” so that the show in question had something to point to if accused of anything
negative related to a particular storyline. He added:
I think that there are people within the [industry] organization who are concerned
about the impact that the storylines are having, however my overall experience,
and this is not just on this project, is that at the end of the day, it’s about
viewership, it’s about economics.

77
One of the members of GLAAD’s Entertainment Media team, when asked for a guess as
to what would have happened if GLAAD had expressed disapproval of a particular
storyline it had consulted on, said, “Still gone ahead, I imagine. They would've probably
adjusted very slightly.” This is an implicit acknowledgement that the show was not, in
fact, seeking true consultation, but instead seeking a stamp of approval, a way to say they
had done the right thing and run the storyline by the appropriate people.
Professional responsibility: Working with a public interest group gives industry
workers the ability to satisfy a sense of professional responsibility to the public. As
covered in an earlier section, there is a public service history behind television, but it is
both largely irrelevant to entertainment media and largely unenforced. This lack of an
official enforced dictate used to mean public service was entirely dismissed by those
working in the industry, with industry insiders openly mocked if expressing an interest in
the public good. This tone has changed in recent years, with the public interest being
seen as a popular interest to have. This speaks not to the actual interests of the people
involved, necessarily, but the business practicality and marketing ends of being able to
meet a sort of public interest quota.
Personal altruism: All of the above sounds largely jaded toward the human
interest capacity of the industry, which does exist and should be acknowledged.
Certainly, at the end of the day, it comes down to numbers and ratings and what is and is
not on the schedule. However, the people involved in these projects can and do get
personal satisfaction from working on prosocial storylines. In the words of one advocate,
“We actually do have some writers who have a conscience and really care and want to
78
factor in something that will really be of value to the public.” As another humorously put
it, “I think most people are good, except for the serial killers and stuff.”
Direct and Indirect Advocacy
Direct Contact: Industry Comes to the Advocates
The ideal advocacy interaction happens when industry professionals come to
advocates of their own volition, instead of the advocates attempting unsolicited contact.
This tends to happen more frequently with advocacy groups that are heavily fact-
oriented, namely health lobbyists. Hollywood, Health & Society, for instance, gets
constant calls from writers’ rooms, from writers looking for accurate information about a
particular disease or epidemic. This has taken cultivation over the years to be looked to
as a resource, as one Hollywood, Health & Society employee notes:
It’s more often them coming to us, and I think that is a result of the building of
relationships that has been done ever since we started. So, obviously at the
beginning there was a lot more outreach going on, but now that we have just great
relationships with shows, what happens is when a show ends those writers will go
onto other shows but they remember us, so it’s exponentially increasing our
contacts. And even if a show doesn’t end sometimes they’ll just leave and go to
another show, so we’ve built years and years worth of relationships with them so
now they come to us very often. At this point, them calling us is more often.

In this way, advocates can be treated as outsourced research teams. This is less relevant
to minority group advocacy, as discussed previously, since there are less “facts” guiding
minority representations.
When shows come to GLAAD, the calls (or e-mails) are often from publicity, and
may or may not be connected to potential consultations. One publicity representative
reached out to GLAAD but did not immediately want to consult. Instead, she wanted to
give GLAAD a heads up regarding a new character being gay, to find out what gay press
79
they should go to, request GLAAD media training for the straight actor, and inquire about
consultation availability in case they did have questions about upcoming scripts. One
publicist sent an advance notice that an upcoming episode had “substantial gay content,
very nicely done.” He was not seeking any consultation on behalf of the show, and had
no questions of any kind. Media Award consideration appeared the likely motivation.
GLAAD was also contacted by a show that it had consulted on previously, with a request
to find a “real life” gay with a professional degree who was openly gay during graduate
school, so that the actor (not the writers) could have a one-on-one with him.
Sometimes contact will be made by a show that is not seeking consultation, but
the conversation ends up turning into consultation. For instance, one network publicist
sent a note regarding “an upcoming episode of [SHOW TITLE] we think is really terrific
and would love for you to take a look at before it airs. We’d love to know what you
think.” She offered to overnight the screener for delivery the next day, approximately
three weeks before the scheduled airing. After viewing the screener, the Entertainment
Media Director e-mailed back with this response:
Thanks for sending over the episode! Overall we thought it was very good and the
script was quite supportive — you can tell someone really did their homework
and there were a lot of positive statements, particularly given the unfortunate fact
that the trans woman was the victim.

There was one exchange of dialogue that made my ears perk up when I heard so I
asked a trans staff member to watch it as well. Nick Adams is actually in charge
of Media Awards submissions so he’s well versed in good and bad television.

Nick came to me about the same exchange of dialogue, which happens approx 12
minutes in as the crew is discussing the gender of the victim.

SCRIPT AS IT'S WRITTEN:
"A transsexual?"
"Post-op, she had female sex organs."
80
"Ok, in that case, the correct term would be transgender. A transsexual has not
undergone the actual sexual-reassignment surgery."
"Whew, how do they do that?”

While not defamatory, that one line is factually inaccurate and makes the
psychologist look uninformed. It is, in fact, completely the opposite of reality.
Typically a transsexual person has completed transition with sex-reassignment
surgery. Transgender is an umbrella word that can be used in all cases (and the
only one GLAAD uses), but a transgender person may, or may not, choose to
have sex-reassignment surgery as indicated here.

Please know that GLAAD is here and always available to review scripts or scenes
before they go into production.

Interestingly, the scene is shot in a way that makes looping possible (and possibly
it has already been looped). In case that is an option at this date, here are some
possibilities:

OPTION 1:
"A transsexual?"
"Post-op, she had female sex organs."
[DELETE LINE ENTIRELY]
"Whew, how do they do that?"

OPTION 2:
"A transsexual?"
"Post-op, she had female sex organs."
[NEW LINE] "So, she had sex-reassignment surgery."
"Whew, how do they do that?"

OPTION 3 -- if they want to retain the psychologist correcting Bones'
terminology:
"A transvestite?" [Which is a word no longer used by the community, but still
familiar to a generation of Rocky Horror fans.]
"Post-op, she had female sex organs."
"Ok, in that case, the correct term would be transsexual. A transvestite does not
have sexual-reassignment surgery."
"Whew, how do they do that?"

Let me know if I can be of any further assistance on this. Again, we’re pleased
with the episode and it would be great if this line of dialogue can be corrected so
the episode is factually correct.

81
Thanks!

Damon

Note the supportive, encouraging tone, even when a script change is being requested.
Damon also manages to work in a subtle indication at the end of the first paragraph that it
would be nice if transgender characters could be regular characters rather than victims.
Additionally, he includes a reminder that GLAAD is always available to consult before
rather than after scenes are shot (and thus harder to edit). The final cut that aired featured
this edited dialogue:
"A transgender?"
"Post-op, she had female sex organs."
"So, if she had sexual-reassignment surgery, that means she would be a
transsexual."
"Whew, how do they do that?"

Direct Contact: Advocates Go to the Industry
If the industry does not come to the advocates, the advocates can approach the
industry. Some advocates pitch many different shows with high frequency, while some
are more selective in their approach. Here I will compare the differing approaches taken
by Hollywood, Health & Society and GLAAD in unsolicited targeting of entertainment
content creators, to give an example of the range of practices that may be utilized.
Hollywood, Health & Society
Hollywood, Health & Society does frequent expert pitches, trips to research
departments, an industry newsletter, and industry-targeted events. “Expert pitches” are
when an expert on a particular topic is coming into town, and HHS staff try to get shows
to invite that expert into the writers’ room for a briefing. One worker said the group aims
to do at least two or three expert briefings each month, with different shows. These
82
briefings are not just about the experts that are brought in, but also about the information
packets provided to the writers during those talks:
We take these briefing packets -- Not only do we have experts briefing and some
articles on the expert or written by the expert, but we have tip sheets. So this
[holding a sample packet] was on safer surgical practices, so we have these top
three key messages on this tip sheet, and every writer gets a packet with this tip
sheet, and the key messages. […] So if there was any interest on their part in what
the expert said, they’ve got the highlights of it in this packet.

According to staff, the success of the pitches for expert briefings is – as with any sales
pitch – all about presentation:
The way we pitch it is we try to make it sexy to them. You know, we’re not just
like, hey, we have Dr. so-and-so, he’s the director of -- We talk about emergency
preparedness and we talk about earthquakes and we try to make it relate to their
show, so in that way they can’t really say no.

Highlighting the ever-present concerns of the earlier section, the need to balance active
advocacy with a non-aggressive honeyed-up approach, one Hollywood, Health & Society
advocate emphasized the non-pushiness of these unsolicited phone calls:
Again, you know, those relationships are, you know, we don’t want to push it too
much. We just always call and remind them. It’s not like, “Hey, why didn’t you
call us?” It’s like, “Heeeey, it’s just us again, just a reminder that we’re heeeere, if
you need any help with health topics!” And then they’re like, “Oh we don’t do
public health.” That’s the number one response from cold calls. And then we say,
“Oh, but we define health really broadly.” Like, a lot of people wouldn’t think
injuries and violence and mental health, sometimes people don’t think that.
People think heart attacks and surgeries when they think health, but we define it
broadly, especially now with California Endowment, we’re dealing with social,
neighborhoods and parks, you know, that’s health. So now, that’s what we have to
stress to them. And that’s part of our pitch too, you know, we define health really
broadly. It includes everything from here to here, and they’re like, “Oh yeah,
okay.”

It is a gentle back and forth, with the advocate always cautious not to overstep, but
knowing that certain things need to be said in order to convince the show insider to let
them gain access.
83
Hollywood, Health & Society also gives what the advocates call “a dog and pony
show” to the research departments at the different networks.
We show them, look, you know, we can show the storyline caused this effect, this
attitude change, this behavior change, and we’ve done this now five six years in a
row. So the researchers are well aware that there are effects of the storylines.
Some of it gets back to the writers.

In this way, the advocates are directly approaching the networks but indirectly
approaching the writers.
The most direct pitching of the writers, requiring neither a gatekeeper at the
network nor the go-between of a research department, is the newsletter produced by HHS
and distributed by the Writers’ Guild of America on their behalf. This newsletter, aptly
titled “Real-to-Reel,” is filled with snippets of real news stories meant to be used to spark
storylines. For example, the Spring 2009 newsletter was split into three columns:
- One column of “Health Headlines” containing three news stories (e.g.,
“Financial Stress Leads to Childhood Brain Impairment”)
- One column of “Funding Agency News” containing three stories, one from each
funder (California Endowment on a city reducing obesity, CDC on emergency
response, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on fighting tuberculosis in China)
- One column of “Real People, Real Lives,” with three person/character-focused
stories (e.g., “Reunited by a Kidney,” about a divorced couple that reunited after
the ex-wife donated her kidney to her ex-husband and the two recuperated
together at their daughter’s house)
84
The newsletter includes the phone number, email and website information for
Hollywood, Health & Society, encouraging the writers to seek further information or
ideas whenever desired.
GLAAD
GLAAD does not pitch consultations in the same broad way as Hollywood,
Health & Society, does not make as regular visits to research departments, and does not
do an industry newsletter. However, GLAAD conducts more monitoring of
entertainment industry developments and the news environment, which allows it to target
pitches to specific shows if there is a suspected need. For instance, thanks to the team’s
monitoring of entertainment blogs, it was discovered that a primetime broadcast network
comedy was going to marry two lead females, at least one of whom was straight. The
teams suspected it would be a marriage-for-benefits deal, which would be a great
opportunity for correct information distribution on actual marriage benefits and state
versus federal issues. The Entertainment Media Director had me track down contact
information for the show, and pursued communication with the showrunner. It turned out
that the characters would get married for rights that it would turn out they did not have,
and the writers were generally entirely on top of all relevant issues, so in-depth
consultation with GLAAD was not needed. Similarly, when news broke about pregnant
transman Thomas Beattie, GLAAD pitched the story to television shows to help prevent
any defamation that might happen without consultation. The letter below was sent to
approximately twenty different shows, mostly legal or criminal in nature.
[SHOW TITLE]
[SHOW CONTACT PERSON]
c/o [PRODUCTION COMPANY]
85
[ADDRESS]

March 28, 2008

Dear [SHOW CONTACT PERSON],

You have probably heard the recent news of Thomas Beatie, a transgender man
who is pregnant by artificial insemination so that he and his wife – who is unable
to bear children – can have the child they always wanted.

This story is compelling, and we understand the reasons [SHOW TITLE] may
want to dramatize this man’s pregnancy for an episode. If you choose to portray
this unique storyline, we do ask that you use sensitivity and respect in portraying
the transgender community. Many transgender people never have surgery, for
example, but the media continues to categorize trans people as ‘pre-op’ or ‘post-
op’ when no operation is planned.

The community itself is grappling with understanding the complexities of Beatie's
story, so it is only natural that your writers may have questions. Should you
choose to go forward in fictionalizing this for [SHOW TITLE], GLAAD is happy
to answer your questions and help assure that trans-related terminology is not
offensive.

Enclosed are two articles covering Beatie's pregnancy, including an op/ed piece
Beatie himself wrote for The Advocate.

We look forward to working with you on this or any other gay- or transgender-
related issue in the future.

Best,

Damon Romine
Entertainment Media Director
323.634.2012
romine@glaad.org

According to one member of the Entertainment Media team, GLAAD “usually”
sends handwritten notes to congratulate people who have gotten shows picked up for the
next season. This was not done during my year with the team. When I asked why we
86
had not done that, I was told simply: “No time.” Engaging in a discussion about the
practice, I pointed out that once shows are picked up by networks the lead characters are
already set, and asked if it would be more useful to contact shows even earlier in the
process so as to encourage LGBT lead characters. The team member pointed out that it is
hard to reach people before the show is picked up, and indeed upon trying to track down
a showrunner with two shows in development, reliable Hollywood directories
WhoRepresents and the Hollywood Creative Directory could not provide current
information. Technically, the person was in HCD, but with a show that was no longer
active, so the contact listing was no longer accurate.
Indirect Contact
In addition to direct advocacy, there are indirect means of entertainment media
influence. At GLAAD, this included posting reality show casting notices on the website,
offering media training for actors, encouraging good press coverage of entertainment
media developments, responding to defamatory press coverage of entertainment media,
and chastising or supporting celebrities as deemed necessary or useful. Note that more
negative (stick-like) advocacy measures can be used when not dealing with content
producers, as there is not the same need for timidity to protect relationships.
Posting reality show casting notices happened infrequently, but occasionally these
notices would be included in the entertainment media blog as a means of encouraging
LGBT inclusion in more shows. Maybe casting directors will be open to LGBT
contestants, maybe they will not, but they can only cast people who present themselves
for casting. Also, even if the show doing the casting is seemingly straight-centric, such
as a traditional program about brides, getting submissions from LGBT persons might
87
make the producers at least consider being open to expanding the on-screen
representations.
GLAAD offers media training for a range of people who may have a need to talk
to the media – from family members of hate crime victims to gay athletes – and the
Entertainment Media team does this for actors and people appearing in reality shows.
Actors speak to the press regularly, and reality show participants speak both to media
outlets and for themselves on every episode in which they appear. So, for instance, when
hearing that a gay contestant would be appearing in a new reality program, the team
tracked him down (via MySpace!) to offer media training and GLAAD’s support.
Indeed, it is not just about encouraging representations in the media but also
encouraging press coverage of those media representations, and the “right kind” of
coverage. Gay-inclusive television content can be stretched to reach an even bigger
audience if covered in the press, and supportive press coverage may also encourage more
of those representations in the future. As an example, the team created a journalist
resource kit when Brothers & Sisters was about to air the commitment ceremony between
Kevin and Scotty, highlighting the historic nature of the characters and the ceremony, as
well as real-life facts relevant to the subject, to encourage coverage of the storyline.
There was an HTML e-mail blast of this resource sent out to the team’s entertainment
press list, to an ABC affiliate specific contact list, and to gay press contacts. This would
be a pro-active example of press outreach.
GLAAD may also need to reactively respond to defamatory press coverage about
entertainment programming. For instance, Fox News aired a segment about a
transgender contestant on America’s Next Top Model that was deemed “dehumanizing,”
88
“inaccurate,” “offensive,” and “gratuitously insulting,” according to a message circulated
to GLAAD supporters. GLAAD contacted Fox News and Us Weekly, whose editor
contributed to the on-air discussion, seeking an apology by both. The interactions with
Fox News were handled by the news team at GLAAD, while Us Weekly was initially
handled by the entertainment team before being bumped up to a senior staff member. Us
Weekly – typically a gay-friendly publication – unsurprisingly issued an apology
(although it was admittedly very tepid), while Fox News unsurprisingly did not. This
resulted in a Call to Action urging constituents to write the network and demand an
apology. The morning after this Call to Action was issued, a brief on-air apology was
given.
One of GLAAD’s Entertainment Media team members told me that “every time”
an apology is sought, the recipient of the complaint wants to know “what’s the worst we
would do, or if we want an apology from them where it would be published or how
public/private it would be.” The wording of the apology will be run by one of the team
members, and pushed further if deemed unsatisfactory, which is most likely to happen
when the recipient of the complaint does not really understand why something was
offensive. It is in times like these that constituents come in handy, as the thought of
thousands of angry e-mails can make a reticent media professional more willing to show
(or learn, or fake) sensitivity. The way in which defamation is handled also differs
depending upon the type of defamation that occurs. If it is relatively low level, such as a
generally good interview but with inappropriate use of terminology, the less senior
member of the entertainment team makes the call. For something more egregious, the
more senior member makes the call.
89
Sometimes defamatory entertainment coverage should be blamed on a celebrity of
interest making questionable statements, rather than on the media outlet covering an
issue. At the peak of his popularity, Project Runway winner Christian Siriano was
notoriously fond of using the word “tranny,” a big no-no in the GLAAD bible of
terminology rights and wrongs. GLAAD spoke with him after a particularly
inappropriate interview with Time Out New York, and obtained a statement from Siriano
for use in the press. He promised to work on curbing his use of “tranny,” and was quoted
as saying, “I completely support the fabulousness and amazing fashion inspiration that
most transgender people provide.” This received an entry on GLAAD’s Entertainment
Media blog, and minor coverage in national press outlets.
On the other end of the spectrum, GLAAD will provide a certain amount of
support to entertainment media celebrities who are doing something positive for LGBT
visibility. For instance, during the period in 2008 when same-sex marriage was allowed
in California, GLAAD’s Entertainment Media Director provided a range of support for
George Takei. Takei, an openly gay actor, did a tour of duty with a variety of press
outlets to talk about marrying his longtime partner. GLAAD conducted media training
with George and his partner, helped wrangle George and his partner during events, and
recorded televised coverage for both GLAAD’s use and George’s use. On a smaller
scale, blog entries occasionally will be written to applaud a celebrity who said or did
something LGBT-supportive.
“Non-Advocacy” Advocacy
Less use of high-profile sticks and more behind-the-scenes direct communication
with the industry means that much current advocacy work is unseen, existing under the
90
public’s radar. This is perhaps one of the most important take-aways when looking to
modern Hollywood advocacy practices. As stated earlier, these kinds of advocacy
practices have always existed, but their use has been harnessed by organizations to a
degree previously unseen. The public is used to “advocates” and “lobbyists” who
campaign, who speak loudly, who agitate for change using aggressive tactics. This is
perhaps why those attempting to influence Hollywood content today try to distance
themselves from these titles, knowing the kind of image connoted. Repeatedly,
advocates deny the label of “advocates,” despite clearly advocating for particular content,
particular issues, particular end goals.
One self-labeled “resource group” vehemently claimed that it was “not an
advocacy group; it’s not fighting for the betterment of a social community, a segment of
the community.” This man supported his argument by pointing to the group’s association
with a production company, saying it produces “films on television and now in theatres.
and they have to be good and they have to be entertaining and they have to be all the
things that programming has to be to be shown nationally in this country that’s a very
high bar,” implicitly suggesting that meant a distancing from prosocial goals. Is it not
possible to make films with the goal of betterment of a social community (e.g.,
Participant Productions)? This exemplifies the extent of rhetoric in play, some of it
conscious and strategic, some of it apparent self-delusion. One worker at Hollywood,
Health & Society flipped within 30 seconds on the subject of whether the organization
was or was not an advocacy group:
We aren’t an advocacy group, we don’t focus on a single issue and advocate for
that. We’re a service, we’re a support to the entertainment industry on a whole
range of health issues. It really depends on how you define advocacy, because
91
we’re health advocates, essentially. We’re advocating for accurate health
information.

The anxiety over whether or not the work done constituted “advocacy” reappeared at a
seemingly unrelated point of the interview. While discussing visits to writers’ rooms, she
said, “So we say we’re not an advocacy group, a single-issue advocacy group, ‘cause
we’re not, and yet every time we go we are totally prepared, and every single writer in
that room leaves with one of these packets.” Picking this apart, she has (a) suggested
[entirely unprompted by me] that an advocacy group can only be for a single-issue cause,
and (b) that being prepared [with packets for the writers] makes the group like an
“advocacy group.” Over the discussion, it became clear that she thought advocacy work
conducted in a relatively “laidback” manner means the workers should not be defined as
advocates:
But we don’t advocate in sort of the traditional sense, you know of convincing
people that this is the right thing to do. We do it in a very, I would almost call it
laidback way. We’re not laidback, but our approach is laidback. Because writers
don’t want to be told what to write, they don’t want to be pushed, they don’t want
to be running on someone else’s agenda. Forget it. And so one of the ways we’ve
built our relationships with the different writers and producers is by making it
always about their agenda. And so we’re very respectful of their agendas, and
we’re very supportive to them. But we’re always there. We get calls seven days a
week. So this model’s very different you know.

Note the start of this quote, where she says that HHS does not go around “convincing
people that this is the right thing to do,” a factually false statement offered in support of
the narrative of non-advocacy. Every single industry event held by Hollywood, Health &
Society is woven through with that exact “this is the right thing to do” message, with
repetition of data showing the audience research that proves entertainment narratives
92
have an effect, and use of supportive producers and even actors to argue that
incorporating public health information into shows is indeed “the right thing to do.”
These kind of mental gymnastics to assert non-advocacy status were found almost
across the board in the interview process. When asked what the difference was between
an advocacy group and a “resource group,” another advocate’s preferred label, that
person replied, “They [advocacy groups] have a particular agenda I would say. And it
isn’t about improving the entertainment community.” The implicit suggestion here is that
resource group exists solely to improve the entertainment community, as if that cannot be
one of the goals of an advocacy group, and as if “improving” was not a very weighted
and specifically defined word. The advocate continued:
And they [advocacy groups] are seen in a very different way by these
entertainment professionals, by guilds, by agencies, by prod companies. Film
producers are not stupid people, they’re very smart people, so they will go out to
an advocacy group and say can we -- and then you know there’s a dot dot dot but
how they express it is different than what they’re really asking for. They say can
you come help us be sure this is kosher […], can you be sure to help us make sure
this really represents the […] community, but what they’re really doing is seeking
a seal of approval so they don’t have trouble. They don’t want trouble, they want
to sell tickets. So these two institutions, the entertainment community and the
advocacy community, use each other in a certain way. They use each other. And
then an advocacy group can then hold big fundraiser, and show a five minute clip
of a national broadcast, and bring a producer in who’s very happy to be there, and
they say a few kind words, and the organization raises $500,000. That’s at its
most cynical but I must say that that does go on. So this has all got to do with the
relationship between entertainment producers and advocacy groups. So, [our]
resource group is not an advocacy group. We’re not advocating anything.

Interestingly, the group that this interviewee represents brings in producers that are “very
happy to be there” and “say a few kind words,” and the group is in the exact same
position of being used by the entertainment industry. Moreover, the group most certainly
advocates for a particular cause, increased social acceptance of a specific minority group,
93
but seems to have created a narrative for itself in which it exists inside the entertainment
industry more than a traditional “advocacy group” could, so therefore her group cannot
be an advocacy group. Buried within the interview, I found the core presumption
underlying her distinction between advocacy and resource groups; that advocacy cannot
present in a service-oriented form. When describing an “advocacy group,” she said, “it’s
not service-oriented [toward the entertainment industry], it’s serving a community.” Her
“resource group” is serving the interests of a community, too, but it is doing that by being
service-oriented.
I pushed a little further, and asked how someone in the industry would understand
what the difference is, or if they would they end up lumping “resource groups” in with
the advocacy groups. The response:
I guess that’s our job to keep that from happening. I think there’s quite a
difference. I’m one of those people who received an […] award. Over 10 years
ago. So I kind of have an inside track on how this works. I’ve been part of it. I
did a program … and [they] gave me a piece of glass, nice big thing that I’ve got
somewhere in my house, and I went down there and gave a little talk and won an
award. So that’s nice, that’s a good thing. Singling out something that otherwise
might be lost in the shuffle. So there’s a usefulness to that. I look forward to
finding ways to work with advocacy groups but I wouldn’t be confusing what this
resource group is about with an advocacy group because they’re two different
things.

This quote sets it up as if advocacy groups do awards shows and that is a difference from
resource groups, but much earlier in interview, when asked directly if the group would be
interested in getting into the awards show arena, the advocate said, “Certainly we would
do that. Sure, people need to be recognized for taking a different step.” When asked how,
if working with a particular television show, their actions would differ from those of an
advocacy group: “My interest would be to be of service to writers at the writing stage, not
94
at the production stage. Although, if they want to come in at the last minute and show us
what they got, uh, you know, we can do that.” In other words, no practical difference
could be cited. Finally, the advocate admitted, “You know, I don’t know how what we
do would be different from what anybody else does. I don’t know. I don’t know enough
about what anybody else does to say, frankly.” She then added that her group was trying
to do “something…that has to do with harnessing some of this amazing power that
television and feature film has to change hearts and minds enough to humanize a group of
people.” Is that not advocacy? Consider this next excerpt from her interview:
It all goes back to the 6 year old or 8 year old on the playground in Iowa or
something or Ohio or Nebraska or Arkansas or wherever, you’re going to get a
hard time on the playground because of…what somebody’s parent said at the
dinner table last night at a bad moment about ‘those people’ or something, it all
really goes back to that. If we can make it a little better place for people…without
that going on, and be entertaining in the process, you know, then we will have
done our job.

This stated objective seems, undeniably, to translate into advocating for something,
specifically, advocating for the greater interests of a group of people.
Goffman (1959) is well known for elaborating upon the social context of human
communication, and the ways in which people try quite hard to control the signals about
themselves that are constantly sent to observers and communication partners. In this
dramaturgical perspective, people are performers engaging in a calculated “presentation
of self,” playing a role for a particular audience. Hollywood “resource groups,” then, are
engaging in role play as “non-advocates,” despite advocating for various ends. These
advocates wrap themselves in the rhetoric of passive service to the entertainment industry
so as to not appear threatening or scare any industry workers away. What entertainment
industry professionals fear, according to one advocate, is that “you’re gonna be a policy
95
wonk, kill first amendment on them, or you’re gonna shut down their e-mailbox by
giving emails out to everybody that hates them. And you know what happens, if that
happens, they never ever feature that issue as a plot point ever, ever again.” Advocates
want to defuse that fear by distancing themselves as much as possible from that image.
Just as much as carrot and stick advocacy and direct and indirect advocacy actions, this
non-advocate self-presentation is an integral part of current advocacy methods.
96
CHAPTER 5: HOLLYWOOD ADVOCATES AS PRODUCERS
The last chapter ended with a consideration of advocates’ denial of their role as
advocates. Along the same lines, and for similar purposes, these advocates deny any
notions that they have any role as producers in the content creation process, although
from a third-party viewpoint that they are most certainly partial producers. They may be
very, very minor producers in the grand scheme of Hollywood, but they are producers
nonetheless! Whether this producer role is executed by getting certain content included,
or certain content excluded (in the words of GLAAD’s Entertainment Media Director,
“most people don't know what they are NOT seeing”), these advocates help to produce
final content. Despite working with writers on scripts, one advocate insists, “We’re not
writers, we’re not taking credit for the creative process,” immediately revealing her
motivation for that self-presentation: “As soon as you do that, who wants to work with
you?” The following chapter will consider the publicly denied producer role served by
advocates, utilizing a case study of a soap opera storyline on which GLAAD consulted.
First, a brief background on production studies will be offered, so as to contextualize this
specific argument within its academic framework.
Production Studies
In the early perspective of media studies, power was accorded “to media
producers who create and distribute media texts designed to promulgate dominant
agendas” (Askew, 2002, p. 8). The pendulum then swung to active audiences via the
reception research of cultural studies, but with critiques of this research suggesting too
much power has been bestowed upon audiences, it seems the pendulum is swinging back
– this time a bit closer to the middle than it once began. Studying production, in other
97
words, does not mean believing in a hypodermic needle model of media effects. The
audience still has an active role to play in the media interaction. As Hall (1980) has
indicated, content may be decoded in a variety of ways: from the dominant-hegemonic
position (accepting the meaning as intended by the encoder), a negotiated position (taking
some of the meaning as encoded, resisting other parts of the intended meaning), or a
contrary position (opposing all dominant code). But any reading -- all decoding and
potential for polysemous readings -- is defined in relation to the dominant coding. If all
is defined in terms of dominant coding, then regardless of how active the audience may
be, the encoding process (the production of what is taken as the dominant code) must be
studied. To fully grasp the circuit of culture (du Gay, Hall, James, Mackay, & Negus,
1997; Hall, 1997), we must understand the connections of economic, political, and social
power within the industries that “are most directly involved in the production of social
meaning” (Hesmondhalgh, 2007, p. 307). These ‘core’ cultural industries – such as
television, film, music, video games, and publishing – are not only involved in producing
social meaning, but are all caught in a heated competition for audience attention and
funds, advertising revenue, and skilled labor (Hesmondhalgh, 2007). What results from
these dynamics, and where within the system is there opportunity and means for change?
The cultural industries and their products are “complex, ambivalent and
contested” (Hesmondhalgh, 2007, p. 4), not the pessimistic, monolithic Culture Industry
proposed by Horkheimer and Adorno (1944/2000). Production must be conceptualized
“in relation to other key processes, such as cultural consumption, identity and textual
meaning” (Hesmondhalgh, 2007, p. 45, italics in original). Schatz and Perren (2004)
argue that “analysts would do well to avoid reductive assumptions about studio
98
production and the products themselves and to acknowledge the remarkable—and, in
many ways, unprecedented—complexity of current media conditions” (p. 513); further
development of the production studies field is one way to do this.
Whitney and Ettema (2006) speak of the “rediscovery” of production studies in
the 1970s, which was directed toward news media and driven largely by an interest in
understanding the relationship between media institutions and America’s experience with
Vietnam. In Deciding What’s News, Gans (1979) observed and interviewed at major
American news outlets, demonstrating the connection between work environment,
practices, values and news output. Other key publications included journal articles from
Hirsch (1972) and Tuchman (1972), as well as Tuchman’s extended work Making News
(1978) and Gitlin’s The Whole World is Watching (1980).
News media is not the only game in town for those interested in production
studies. Hollywood is an obvious cultural industry hub (Power & Scott, 2004), and has
accordingly attracted focused attention for decades. Powdermaker’s (1950) study of
Hollywood filmmakers was foundational to the entertainment side of production studies.
In Hollywood the Dream Factory: An Anthropologist Looks at the Movie-Makers (1950),
Powdermaker documented a year-long (1946-1947) ethnographic study of Hollywood
movie-makers, including producers, directors, writers, actors, and even set designers.
She argued that “Hollywood represents totalitarianism” (p. 327), and that the drive for
profit “mechanizes” creativity (p. 318), which results in formulaic, empty films being
foisted on passive audiences. As Askew (2002) points out, the similarities between
Powdermaker’s interpretation of Hollywood and the “culture industry as mass deception”
99
arguments of Horkheimer and Adorno are striking, although they never cited each other
(p. 4).
Also of note in the non-news media arena is Negus (1999), whose contribution is
an excellent production study of the music industry. Hesmondhalgh (2007) cites this
work as an example of the utility of an organizational level view for better understanding
the cultural industries. At the same time, Hesmondhalgh notes that Negus focuses on
managers rather than the “symbol creators,” Hesmondhalgh’s preferred term for artists.
Hesmondhalgh, in fact, concludes his 2007 revision of The Cultural Industries with a
plea for increased attention to the production work of symbol creators.
Indeed, there is more work yet to be done within production studies. Despite
developments, Ytreberg (2000) has noted that “within the field of mass communication
and media research…the number of studies that focus on text production…are rather
few” (p. 53), at least in comparison to reception studies. Six years after this observation,
Davies (2006) nearly identically stated: “the media studies ideological agenda…has been
much concerned with the political impact of mass media in terms of reception, but much
less concerned with issues of production and the labour involved in it” (p. 23).
In addition to media production studies being generally underdeveloped, there is
need for more attention “particularly…in the area of television fiction” (Gripsrud, 1995,
p. 21). Davies echoes this, noting that “production studies – that is, research about
people who make television programmes and how these people work – have never been a
major part of the field of television studies” (Davies, 2006, p. 21). There are, of course,
the exceptions. In the United Kingdom, Burns (1977) looked at BBC management and
the way in which employee specialization allows for multiple centers of control, Paterson
100
(1981) at the series Coronation Street, Tunstall (1993) at how television in Britain is
producer driven, and Henderson (2007) at how social issues are dealt with in British soap
production. Tulloch partnered with Alvardo (1983) to discuss the production constraints
of Doctor Who, and with Moran (1986) to contribute an ethnographic study of an
Australian soap.
Hollywood television has likewise been the site of previous studies. A former
television producer, Cantor (1971), conducted fifty-nine interviews with working
television producers about their selection and perception of program content. Gitlin’s
(1983/2000) exploration of the world of television network executives is frequently
referred to as a landmark production study for its access to those holding network power
and its topical breadth. Newcomb and Alley (1983) presented television as a producer’s
medium, meaning that the producer holds creative control [as opposed to the director’s
medium of film]. Turow (1989) offered a historical look at medical TV dramas and how
they played up the heroic status of the medical establishment – in part due to the
establishment’s involvement in the production process of the shows – often leaving out
individual and societal costs and context. D’Acci (1994) investigated the negotiation of
‘females’ and ‘femininity’ within the behind-the-scenes world of the 1980s CBS series
Cagney and Lacey. Bielby and Bielby (1994) discussed how rhetorical claims by
network television programmers are utilized to manage the introduction and evaluation of
new primetime series. Dornfeld’s (1998) ethnography of the production of a PBS
documentary spoke of the people involved struggling to balance entertainment and
information. A negotiation between producer views and presumed views of the audience
was always in play, and a liberal humanist worldview was typically legitimized. Lotz
101
(2004) reflected on how the ‘post-network’ environment impacted the development and
promotion of the cable series Any Day Now, whose producers actively sought to
encourage “social discussion about ethnic difference and racism” (p. 23). Kubey’s (2004)
Creating Television: Conversations with the People Behind 50 Years of American TV
reflected on the past, and Caldwell’s (2007) Production Culture on how Hollywood –
including both television and film – talks to and about itself.
This recent entry by Caldwell (2007) steps away from the general trend within
existing TV and film production studies, in which the emphasis is on writers, producers,
and studio and network execs, to instead discuss a wider range of “producers,” such as
“below-the-line cinematographers, editors, and gaffers” (p. 9). This expansion of focus
appears to be the most recent trend in production studies research. Mayer raises the
question of “what counts as media production,” and “who may be considered a ‘media
producer’” (2008, p. 142), acknowledging that she frequently studies “down” rather than
“up” within the production hierarchy “because, quite honestly, these workers are the ones
I have access to” (p. 144). This approach complements other scholars’ recommendations
of a greater awareness that power is not solely in the hands of the obvious few. Ytreberg
(2000), for instance, states that “collective aspects of text production” (p. 54) must be
incorporated into television production studies, noting that within U.S.-based studies
there appears to be “a slight tendency toward the rehabilitation of notions of individual
intention and creativity” (p. 54). Similarly, Davies (2006) discusses a study she
conducted with Pearson on the production of Star Trek, and how it “raised…abstract
issues of authorship” (p. 25), leading to a belief that it is misleading to call TV “an
‘industrially mass-produced’ medium” (p. 25).
102
This blurring of boundaries extends from definitions of “producer” to the
theoretical approaches taken within production studies. Hesmondhalgh (2007) wants
production researchers to move beyond the political economy versus cultural studies
division that has plagued media research, a division that he argues has legitimate tensions
but is maintained largely by stereotype and caricature from each camp toward the other.
Concerns of social identity versus policy, realism versus constructivism, entertainment
versus information, and consumption versus production are false dichotomies that do not
help the academic enterprise move forward. Hesmondhalgh (2007) backs “a particular
kind of political economy approach, informed by certain aspects of empirical sociology
of culture, communication studies and cultural studies” (p. 49), and wants this approach
to be used “to produce a framework for assessing and explaining change and continuity in
the cultural industries” (p. 49).
I appreciate Hesmondhalgh’s perspective, and hope to promote a similar
awareness within my work. From cultural studies, I take the interest in issues of identity,
questioning of authority, and the notion that everyday culture must be taken seriously --
everyday texts of television programs, and everyday existence as part of the production
process. From political economy, I take the concern with finding the place of the public
interest within a capitalist system, as well as a holistic view incorporating the economic,
institutional, cultural, political and social. That said, within this particular research
endeavor, I do not share political economy’s broad goal of “understanding…the place of
cultural production within contemporary capitalism” (Hesmondhalgh, 2007, p. 39).
Instead, I am more aligned with sociological approaches investigating the interior of the
cultural production process: first, what Hesmondhalgh (2007) terms radical media
103
sociology, which “links dynamics of power in the cultural industries with questions of
meaning – questions regarding the kinds of texts that are produced” (p. 39); second,
sociology of culture’s production of culture perspective, which makes visible the
collaborative authorship of cultural texts, often from an organizational study angle.
Bearing in mind the larger industrial community context of production and the
growing recognition of production studies directed toward non-traditional producers, my
research conceptualizes “Hollywood lobbyists” (Montgomery, 1989) as a low-status
author in the cultural production process, worthy of investigation for providing one more
piece in the collective authorship puzzle. Their location within the industry – attempting
to effect cultural change from a position of little economic power – provides an ideal
ground to draw together the aforementioned complementary aspects of both cultural
studies and political economy.
Case Study: GLAAD and All My Children
From late November 2006 to April 2007, the American daytime drama All My
Children (AMC) featured a transgender character. Introduced as the male Zarf, but later
revealed as the female Zoe, this character broke new ground for broadcast television and
for minority representation in the media. Though a small number of post-transition
transgender characters had previously appeared on broadcast television
1
, and a
transitioning transgender character was featured on Showtime’s The L Word (a premium
cable program), prior to the AMC narrative no transitioning transgender character had
ever been featured on a broadcast network program (Romine 2007; AP 2006). For five
months, then, All My Children was presenting its mainstream audience with a glimpse
into the previously unseen. GLAAD consulted on this storyline, and in the following I
104
will argue that this relationship with the show constituted that of a “minority producer”
working with a “majority producer” to create a final product. I will also go beyond this
to build upon Katz’s model of minority and majority producer relations.
As C. Lee Harrington stated, supporting the academic value of examining an All
My Children storyline in which the character Bianca came out as lesbian, daytime soaps
in the United States are “particularly resistant to depictions of ‘otherness’ of any kind”
(2003b, 207). Just as heterosexuality has traditionally been assumed in the soap opera
narrative (Fuqua 1995; Harrington 2003a, 2003b), so has gender-as-physically-born.
With media in general and soaps in particular now slowly but continuously taking steps
out of the homosexuality closet (Capsuto 2000; Gross 2001, 2005; Harrington 2003a,
2003b), gender identity becomes the next frontier. Relying on the All My Children text
itself as well as commentary by those in positions of power on the production side, this
case study aims to evaluate what such “judgments” and understandings of trans/gender
were promoted through the Zoe narrative, and how GLAAD played an integral role in
helping to shape the final product on the screen.
2

Research for this section included viewing All My Children for the duration of the
five-month storyline, as well as transcribing dialogue for later review. Additionally, over
20 media articles and press interviews related to the storyline were collected for
evaluation of the commentary provided by those involved with the production side of the
storyline, including but not limited to Megan McTavish (lead writer during the start and
majority of the storyline), Julie Hanan Carruthers (executive producer), Jeffrey Carlson
(actor portraying Zoe), and Eden Riegel (actress portraying Bianca). Finally, in-depth
discussions were conducted with Damon Romine, then Entertainment Media Director for
105
the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), in order to obtain insight
into the role played by GLAAD in advising the AMC staff.
In this paper’s “reading” of the Zoe text, attention will be divided between
considering AMC’s approach to transgender persons, and its approach to gender more
generally. Within the former, focus will go to the representational relevance for non-
transgender and transgender viewers, asking (1) how did the narrative advise on (or
avoid?) the topic of transgender acceptance for non-transgender viewers, and (2) how
might it have provided an encouraging or discouraging force for actual transgender
viewers? These questions maintain a focus on the potential “real-life” impact of the
storyline, asking the direction(s) in which a broadcast television heavyweight is
encouraging its viewers on a possibly controversial subject. This investigation ultimately
provides both support and enhancement of the majority/minority flowchart of media
image production suggested by Elihu Katz (shared by Gross 1998, 89, and 2001, 11;
shown below in Figure 1). In this model, media images of the minority created by
majority producers are only for a majority audience, an argument that will be
problematized through this examination of the Zoe storyline.
3

Figure 1. Image production flowchart proposed by Katz.
106
Next, in considering gender as presented through the transgender character, I will ask
what AMC conveyed in relation to (1) a male/female gender binary, and (2) gender and
the physical form? These questions allow for an exploration of relevant transgender and
gender theories, navigating the tension inherent in a narrative focused upon a person who
transgresses gender boundaries while at the same time adhering to them. The
examination also offers an up-to-date statement on the possibility of truly queer
representations in broadcast television, most especially when an outside “minority
producer” is involved.
Minority Producers at the Table

“I want the audience to understand this character, and understand her no matter
what their political beliefs or whatever may be. We’re not in the business of
preaching, we’re in the business of telling a story.”
- Megan McTavish (quoted in Vasquez 2006, italics added)

“I think you will feel for this character regardless of how you feel about the issue.
We’re not out to preach, we’re not out to convert anybody. This is a facet of
human experience that hasn’t been told in our medium.”
- Megan McTavish (quoted in Hudson 2006, italics added)

In order for a minority producer to gain access to the process of content creation
driven by a majority producer, that majority producer must be willing to invite them to
participate. As seen in the article extracts above, Megan McTavish, head writer of All My
Children at the start of the Zoe storyline (and through until nearly the end), was fond of
publicly promoting the notion that the inclusion of a transgender character on the
program was apolitical, which may indicate a hesitation at involving GLAAD in the
content creation. Yet an interview with executive producer Julie Hanan Carruthers hints
that this apolitical talk to the press might have been a business strategy meant to placate
conservative consumers:
107
INTERVIEWER: And why a transgender character?
CARRUTHERS: You know, “All My Children” is known for and famous for
socially conscious issues and relevant stories dealing with humanity. And in, you
know, this time that we're in when we're seeing all types of different people be
brave enough to come out as who they truly are, we felt it was something that was
on the cusp of breaking out in our society. And we wanted to be there to help
illustrate, educate, and make people emotionally connect to different types of
other people. (Conan 2006, italics added)

The connotations behind the phrasing Carruthers uses indicates an alignment with liberal
identity politics, an unquestioning belief that it is “socially conscious” to “make people
emotionally connect” with people who are “brave enough to come out as who they truly
are.” In this vein, over the course of the storyline unique public service announcements
were attached to the end of two different All My Children episodes (4/5/07 and 4/24/07),
each of which used AMC actors to publicize GLAAD as an information resource and to
tell audience members to “be an ally and a friend.”
According to GLAAD’s Entertainment Media Director, All My Children
approached GLAAD for advice when the storyline was a mere idea, seeking guidance on
how to proceed. GLAAD continued to serve as a resource for AMC on many levels –
from clarifying proper terminology to discussing a spectrum of relevant trans issues – in a
way that unavoidably contributed to story and character:
Through our conversations, we made observations – and I’ll call them revelations
here – as far as our explanation of transgender people and transgender stories and
how things happen in real life. I know that through those meetings that we had
with ABC and the writers and producers there were those ah-ha moments that
sparked new story directions or plot points. (Romine 2007)

Within the show, characters were not always supportive of identity politics, as
evident in responses to Zoe’s revelation that she is transgender. One young female
character who had previously described herself as a “fan” of Zarf – Zarf’s occupation
108
being “rock star,” in true outsized soap form – thinks it is “so cool” and assures Zoe that
her fan base is “smart” enough to understand (1/17/07), while her older brother writes off
Zoe as a “freak” (1/18/07). Yet amidst the varying levels of acceptance (easily
demonstrated in dialogue by who refers to the character with the name Zarf and pronoun
“he,” versus those that use the name Zoe and pronoun “she”), it is worth noting which
characters were selected to be most prejudiced against Zoe. Adam Chandler and his son,
JR, are hard-headed, ruthless characters, generally very low in sympathy as far as the
range of characters on the show go, and they were without question the most intolerant
toward Zoe through both words and actions. One lengthy and heated conversation
between the characters JR and Jamie (1/18/07) shows the range of reaction while
simultaneously being the first time that an extended and somewhat obvious lesson on
transgender-related facts is presented to the audience. JR calls Zarf a “perv,” “whack-
job,” and “a freak who thinks he’s a chick,” stating, “Any guy who thinks he’s a woman
is obviously messed up. Either that or he’s playing us all.” Jamie refers to Zoe as “a
transgender person” (the precise terminology suggested by GLAAD), uses the pronoun
“she,” and outspokenly defends Zoe’s right to be respected:
JR: It is a man, period.
JAMIE: But she lives as a woman. Your gender doesn’t have to be about your
body. […]
JR: Thank you for the politically correct lesson.
JAMIE: It’s real, JR. It happens.
JR: No, it’s nasty, it’s twisted, and as far as I’m concerned this Zarf guy is as sick
as they come. You know he was here last night?
JAMIE: She. When a transgender person comes out, they usually like to be called
by the correct pronoun. Zoe is a she.
JR: Since when did you join the P.C. crap of the month club?
JAMIE: Wow. Get your head out of the boardroom and the stock pages, JR, and
actually try to go to college. You’ll find that there are all types of sexual
orientation.
109
JR: Would you come off it? Tons of kids experiment in college.
JAMIE: What about when Bianca came out? You were one of the first people to
support her.
JR: That was different. Gay men, lesbians, I don’t like it, but at least I understand
it.
JAMIE: So it can’t be possible because you don’t understand. That makes perfect
sense.
JR: People are born with a sexual preference one way or another, but when a man
starts thinking he’s a woman in love with another woman that’s just freakin’
crazy.
JAMIE: Dammit, your sexual orientation and your gender are not the same thing.

Particularly noteworthy is that this conversation is not presented as two equally valid
sides debating the acceptability of trans identification. Rather, through the combination
of dialogue and audience knowledge of which character is typically more empathetic, JR
is portrayed as a rude, illogical, uninformed bigot, while Jamie plays the role of tolerance
educator. Similar to this scene, though in more of an attack rather than educate mode, is
when Bianca’s “evil stepmother” argues that her father would not have liked Bianca to be
friends with a “transvestite” (3/15/07). Bianca quickly retorts:
Zoe is not a transvestite, and unlike you my father was not a bigot. After I came
out as a lesbian, I learned really fast that intolerance comes from insecurity and
stupidity. I just didn’t expect the first stupid, insecure person in my life would be
you.

Of course, in attacking this villain-type character, Bianca’s dialogue also serves to
educate the audience about GLAAD-approved definitions of the terminology
“transgender” versus “transvestite,” and about the acceptability of transgender identity
and unacceptability of intolerance. This particular dynamic is repeated on 3/28/07 when
a client of the business at which Zoe works, Fusion, expresses unhappiness that a
transwoman is working at the company. The boss, Kendall – usually a little cold toward
110
Zoe – immediately steps up to defend her, calling the client a “narrow minded jerk” and
clarifying that Fusion will not “suck up to bigoted idiots” just to sell products.
Megan McTavish may have realized that it would be easiest for her to publicly
present the Zoe storyline as apolitical and uninvested in the promotion of any particular
viewpoint, but from the PSAs (an overt joint venture between AMC and GLAAD), the
harsh dialogue aimed at intolerant characters, the educational dialogue utilizing
terminology approved by the GLAAD Media Reference Guide, and the types of
portrayals of both tolerant and intolerant characters, it is clear that AMC was in fact
engaging in the very advocacy McTavish denied. That she did not feel comfortable
openly admitting to the positioning of the storyline appears a likely navigation around
potential audience reactance, a sign of the state of societal affairs in which directly
acknowledging a support for certain kinds of tolerance can still be deemed a risky
business move for fear of consumer alienation. In this way, to phrase in terms of Elihu
Katz’s model (Gross 1998, 89; 2001, 11), the majority producer (AMC, and at a larger
level the ABC Network) is seen to produce an image of the minority (a transgender
person) while keeping majority (non-transgender) audience members in mind both in
narrative content (encouragement of trans acceptance by non-trans) and in narrative
promotion (avoidance of majority reactance).
This producer role described, I would like to push one step further and
problematize Katz’s otherwise well-suited model, demonstrating undeniable text
attention to the minority audience, a possibility unaccounted for by Katz.

111
Minority Producers for a Minority Audience
I’m not just doing this for me. I’m doing this for anyone who thinks that because
they’re not normal their life isn’t valid or they don’t have a place in this world,
and for the people who think that different is wrong or bad, and I’m doing it
because I wish that Freddy Luper had turned on the TV years ago in Elkhart,
Indiana and seen that someone was there to tell him that he was not alone.
- Zoe, referencing her childhood identity as the male Freddy,
speaking about her decision to come out as trans on a Pine Valley
television program, AMC 4/23/07

Alongside All My Children’s overt encouragement of the audience to accept
transgender persons into society is the show’s encouragement of transgender persons to
live truly and openly in society. This occurs both within single scenes and in the story
arc as a whole, and is constantly supported by an underpinning of praise directed toward
the character.
When Zoe’s initially transphobic mother arrives in town, the AMC audience is
shown how a lack of social support can make transgender persons want to hide their true
selves, missing out on the happiness of living fully in their sensed identities. The mother
overtly pleads with Zoe to be the boy she raised, and Zoe comes close to retreating into
her previous male identity. Ultimately, Zoe asserts her female identity, and is
commended by other characters for her courage in doing so. As Bianca asks her sister in
the 3/21/07 episode, “What takes more courage than what Zoe’s done?”
One particularly emotional moment of encouragement comes when Erica,
Bianca’s mother and host of the show-within-a-show “New Beginnings,” praises Zoe on-
air after a member of her studio audience makes harsh, disparaging remarks directed at
Zoe. Suddenly put on the spot during what has otherwise been a successful interview
112
segment, Erica rises to the occasion, delivering a lengthy and sometimes tearful
monologue in praise of Zoe. An excerpt (4/24/07):
Maybe you won’t call her brave and I won’t force you to. But just look at what
she’s taking on, just to be who she is, and I’m not talking about today in front of
all of us, I’m talking about a lifetime. And Zoe wouldn’t have to do this at all, she
would not have to be public about any of this, Zoe could afford to buy an island as
big as she wanted, she could build herself a five star celebrity closet the size of
Texas, she could present herself to the world as Zarf and then sneak around and
be Zoe anytime she wanted to be. But instead she’s just laying it all out publicly,
and in the most vulnerable way possible, because she knows that there are those
out there who just want to take the first shot. So why is she doing this, why is she
putting herself in the line of fire? Because she wants to reach out to, to another
man or woman who is uncomfortable in their life, maybe even help them avoid
the line of fire. Zoe is putting herself out there because she is trying to give hope.

In this, Zoe is commended not just for having the courage to make the transition, but for
having the courage to speak out about it, suggesting not only the desirability of living life
true to one’s self, but of living life openly in order to educate and encourage others. This
subtlety of approach is particularly significant within the context of academic discourse
on transgender lives and activism. As scholar Sandy Stone comments on transgender
transitions, “although individual change is the foundation of all things, it is not the end of
all things” (1991, 299). Kate Bornstein, another guiding voice in transgender studies,
offers similar sentiments in stating that “hiding, and not proclaiming one’s transsexual
status, is an unworthy stance” (1994, 76)
4
. AMC’s positive appraisal of a transwoman
who feels a responsibility to speak openly (a responsibility stated directly by Zoe to
another character immediately before the show-within-a-show starts) can be read not just
as a positive evaluation of individual visibility but of media visibility. More directly
stated, it can be read as AMC commenting on its own choice to publicly present the Zoe
character. To borrow from Erica’s previously excerpted speech and project it upon AMC
113
itself, although the driving forces behind AMC did not need to present this storyline
(“[they] wouldn’t have to do this at all, [they] would not have to be public about any of
this”), they were interested in “reach[ing] out to, to another man or woman who is
uncomfortable in their life, maybe even help[ing] them avoid the line of fire,” “trying to
give hope.”
Indeed, the notion of Zoe as a role model for other transgender persons is in no
way restricted to the world of Pine Valley and “New Beginnings,” as indicated by Gay &
Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation staff member Andy Marra: “GLAAD really
believes strongly that this is an opportunity for transgender people to look at the show as
a role model to live open and honest lives” (quoted in Hake 2006). Importantly, Marra is
not commenting lightly, having been sent by GLAAD to work with AMC producers and
writers, and even personally appearing in an episode of AMC where “real world”
transgender persons played themselves as part of Zoe’s fictional support group, allowed
to go off a set script and share their true experiences and feelings (Hudson 2006). With
GLAAD and true transpersons in such a position of impact, able to influence the actual
content of the narrative, it is fitting that the encouragement provided by the All My
Children text would move beyond concerns of the mainstream audience to positively
support those in the audience struggling with their own gender identity.
This support and encouragement of the minority audience of transgender viewers
stays strong through the duration of the story arc. By the time Zoe leaves Pine Valley,
she has been bountifully rewarded for her much lauded courage, ultimately gaining
acceptance from most characters – including her mother – and even receiving an apology
from JR, a previously exceedingly rude character. Perhaps most significantly, when Zoe
114
– who identifies as lesbian – leaves town, she does so with Bianca, an established lesbian
character who is just as romantically interested in Zoe as Zoe is in her. As Collis (1994)
bluntly states, “TV dykes don’t have happy endings, remember?” (p. 126), making this
positive note fade out of the storyline of particular interest.
5

One cannot credit GLAAD entirely for the narrative’s sensitivity to the
transgender audience, as the ability for GLAAD to have an impact was completely reliant
upon AMC’s openness to, or, as Damon Romine phrased it, “commitment” to telling the
story “with dignity and compassion and integrity” (Romine 2007). When dealing with
Zoe’s hormone therapy, for instance, AMC called GLAAD, “wanting to speak to real
MTFs to discuss the process, and how they felt after having an injection, […] trying to be
as realistic as possible” (Romine 2007). GLAAD provided information and networked
the show with experts, but staff at AMC had to decide that they were willing to include
dialogue wherein Bianca explicitly warns Zoe about the dangers of black market drugs
and encourages her to seek professional help. This conversation, lengthy and heavy on
advice (including explicitly referencing GLAAD as a resource), certainly had little
relevance for majority audience members, as with the level of detail engaged in during
Zoe’s later meetings with her medical transition specialist.
Recalling the model of minority/majority media images offered by Elihu Katz
(discussed and visualized in Gross 1998, 2001), one notices the AMC narrative thus
transgresses the proposed pattern in which images of the minority produced by the
majority are always for the majority. Indeed, here the majority medium of a major
broadcast network television show is producing a minority media image that is at least in
part for the minority, offering a level of supportive encouragement and detailed
115
information irrelevant to a majority audience member. What are we to make of the Katz
model, then?
In one way, the model is confirmed in its original form, as it is only through the
cooperation with GLAAD (a “minority” content producer in this context) that the
minority is able to be fully conceived of and sufficiently appealed to as an audience. At
the same time, as previously acknowledged, GLAAD’s ability to function as a content
producer here is completely reliant upon the cooperation and openness of AMC. It is
appropriate, then, to look at the AMC narrative as providing a minority media image that
is created by both the majority and the minority, thus explaining the relevance of the
media image for both the majority and the minority audience. In other words, the ability
of media images to be co-produced by both a “majority” and a “minority” should be
acknowledged by a slight alteration to Katz’s media image production model (see Figure
2), providing explicit promise for inclusive and positive minority media representation.

Figure 2. Suggested alteration to Katz’s model.
Note that this stands regardless of the majority producer’s intent. For instance, it could
be easily argued that the producers of All My Children have no interest in the minority
audience and are merely appealing to GLAAD as an industry power player (see Doyle
116
2008). Putting aside the fact that this would still be AMC appealing to the minority
audience (even if only a representative of instead of the population itself), this does not
preclude the text itself from appealing to the minority population directly, and it is the
media image text with which Katz’s model is concerned rather than producer intentions.
In other words, though I have at points suggested that AMC producers had some level of
concern for minority audience members, that is not the brunt of the argument at hand.
Indeed, it may be possible that AMC producers were merely looking for a sensationalistic
storyline to attract viewers to a dying medium (Gold, 2006), and sought GLAAD’s
consultation purely for script-writing materials. Regardless of the truth behind AMC
producer intentions, the revelation here is that the AMC text itself, through the working
relationship between a majority producer (AMC) and a minority producer (GLAAD),
contained content directed at both majority and minority audience members. This is the
circumstance for which the original Katz model contains no clear provision, and for
which this adjusted model seeks to account.
Impact and Limits of Minority Co-Production
Let’s push a little further, now that we’ve covered GLAAD’s invitation to the
table and role as a minority producer, contributing to content aimed at both a majority
and minority audience. How were GLAAD’s consultations evidenced in the soap opera’s
presentation of the gender binary, and in the way the narrative dealt with the relationship
between gender and the physical form? What do these observations have to say about the
possibilities, dangers, and limits of this kind of advocate-as-producer role?
Legitimating the Gender Binary
117
In one approach to transgender studies, transpersons are seen to undermine the
gender binary by, in a sense, embodying two genders simultaneously. Blackwood
(1998), for instance, includes transgender persons under her definition of transgressive
genders, which she explains as “any gender identities…that go beyond, or violate,
gender-‘appropriate’ norms enshrined in the dominant cultural ideology” (p. 492-493).
Alternatively, a transgender person could be seen to reify a male/female gender binary
and support dominant ideology, an accusation typically lodged by those adhering to “new
queer orthodoxy” (Willox 2003, 410)
6
against transgender persons who have taken the
step of sex reassignment surgery. Though Zoe has not chosen to undergo such a surgery
– a GLAAD-led decision that will be discussed in the next section – the argument can be
made that Zoe still in fact de-queers transgender by reifying a dominant gender binary
through asserting long-standing, full, sole association with a female gender identity, and
supporting dominant ideology through the manner of her gender expression. This gender
binary seems to have been represented both because of and in spite of GLAAD’s
participation on the storyline.
In the 4/5/07 episode, Zoe is trying to explain her feelings about her identity to
her mother. Zoe recalls how sad she was to have her long hair cut off during an early
childhood trip to the barber, knowing that old women would no longer mistake her for a
girl. Zoe’s mother protests:
MOM: You were only four when you got that haircut. You couldn’t have – even
then?
ZOE: Mom, when did you first know that you were a girl?
MOM: Always.
ZOE: Always.

118
The notion of an always already association with one end of a male/female gender binary
is similarly presented in a discussion between Zoe’s mom and Josh, a character trained as
a doctor, about the possible causes of transgenderism (3/29/07):
JOSH: Zoe didn’t choose this.
MOM: Maybe not consciously.
JOSH: This might have occurred in utero, Ms. Lupur.
MOM: No, I had a very healthy pregnancy.
JOSH: Well it wouldn’t have mattered even if you hadn’t. One of the theories
suggests that the brain and the body develop at different times. Now it’s very
possible that while Zoe’s body was developing as male, she didn’t get a certain
hormone surge that should’ve changed her brain male as well. It’s all a bit
technical, but the bottom line is, Zoe’s mind, who she is in here [puts hand to
heart] is female. She’s a woman in her heart and soul and she just wants the
outside to match.

Male and female are here both essentialized and mutually exclusive. In other words, that
which could perhaps be taken as a struggle between equally valid gendered selves or two
equally constructed gendered selves – a postmodern multiplicity of selves (Gergen 1971,
1991), either way – is rather in the AMC context presented as a struggle between one
authentic self and one false self, playing into the social construction of gender which
normalizes and necessitates a choice between the two. In a media interview, Megan
McTavish responds to a question about what she learned from GLAAD’s consultations,
revealing both her approach to trans/gender and GLAAD’s significant role in forming
this “true self” representation:
For transgender people, the difficulty occurs because they’re assigned a gender at
birth that is not their true gender. Their minds and bodies aren’t together. This is
usually made clear at a very young age. A transgender person knows if they are a
boy or girl very young, but their bodies don’t match. Zarf doesn’t embrace Zoe at
first. Her parents didn’t understand that the life she has led has been one of
running, and here she is at the cusp of either destroying her true self, or
discovering her true self. (Vasquez 2006)

119
This idea of a “true self” resonates in popular transgender self-narratives (Mason-Schrock
1996), though it simultaneously raises questions of potential partial self denial when there
is a lack of resolute clarity concerning which parts of one’s self may be “false.” On
2/5/07, the following exchange of dialogue on AMC suggests such a concern:
ZOE: But is Zarf really disposable? I just toss him away?
BIANCA: You’ve lived most of your adult life as Zarf. You’re allowed to like
parts of him.
ZOE: But how do I know which parts of him are genuine? I’ve lost track of
what’s real about me. […] Zarf or Zoe, how do I choose? If I keep parts of Zarf,
is that a betrayal of Zoe? If I throw Zarf away, do I lose a true piece of myself? I
don’t know.

Similarly, on 4/4/07, amidst the turmoil of Zoe’s visiting mother still wishing Zoe to be
the son she raised instead of the woman she has become, Zoe is seen answering the door
wearing a partial face of make-up. It is as if there is an invisible line down the middle of
her face, dividing the male (and make-up free) side from the female (and make-up heavy)
side. In the context of the episode, it is meant to convey Zoe’s personal anxiety over
whether to allow herself to be the woman she feels she is or to go back to being the man
her mother wants her to be.
The belief in a body/soul mismatch, the “wrong body” trope as promoted by All
My Children, is mentioned frequently within transgender studies. On the more
disapproving end of the spectrum, Sandy Stone (1991) declares the “wrong body” notion
“a phrase whose lexicality suggests the phallocentric, binary character of gender
differentiation” which “should be examined with deepest suspicion” (p. 297). She
continues:
So long as we, whether academics, clinicians, or transsexuals, ontologize both
sexuality and transsexuality in this way, we have foreclosed the possibility of
analyzing desire and motivational complexity in a manner which adequately
120
describes the multiple contradictions of individual lived experience. We need a
deeper analytical language for transsexual theory, one which allows for the sorts
of ambiguities and polyvocalities which have already so productively informed
and enriched feminist theory. (Stone 1991, 297)

This need for a better linguistic approach to the discussion of transgender experience has
lead trans-feminist author Julia Serano (2007) to emphasize the need for clear separation
of physical sex (externally identified), “subconscious sex” (the sex with which a person
identifies mentally), and gender expression (masculinity, femininity, or a combination;
the more socially influenced construct), in order to combat what often becomes a
conflation of and/or confusion between the last two (if not all three) when using the word
“gender.”
7

Following this suggestion of the need to distinguish between “subconscious sex”
and gender expression, it seems that within the transgender context it is not the “wrong
body” idea which is the truly pressing problematic for those interested in challenging
gender ideals, but rather the underlying assumption that female identity is synonymous
with femininity. A transwoman could feel herself born in a “wrong” male body while not
simultaneously desiring to present as feminine, and thus would be challenging dominant
ideology connecting female with feminine and male with masculine. Yet in the Zoe
narrative, the “wrong body” trope is taken to its traditional binary-affirmative ends, a
feminine female born in a male body. On 2/2/07, Zoe shows up at Bianca’s apartment
with a doll that Bianca’s young daughter, Miranda, had her nanny send over. Confirming
both Zoe’s essentialized female identity and desire for the most stereotypical of feminine
desires – a “dolly” – the dialogue confirms that there is no true fluidity of gender, nor any
possibility of a separation between “subconscious sex” and gender expression:
121
ZOE: Miranda asked what I wanted in my stocking and I made her guess.
BIANCA: Yeah, she whispered in your ear. And was this –
ZOE: Oh, I wasn’t ready to announce to the world that my dream present was a
new dolly.
BIANCA: But you felt comfortable telling Miranda.
ZOE: I didn’t tell her, she already knew. Miranda knew I was a woman from the
first time she saw me.

Zoe is presented as 100% female – though born into a male body and labeled as male
until revealing the mismatch, of course – which is to unquestionably say she is feminine,
period, end of narrative story. Not only does this negate the potential of “female
masculinity” (Halberstam 1998), but it prevents any consideration of shades of gray in
the space between or outside of female and male (here referring to subconscious sex, not
physical, though intersex individuals might further compound the need for such shades of
gray) or between or outside of feminine and masculine. More pointedly, instead of
allowing for a continuum between two extremes, for graded scales of “subconscious sex”
identification (female/male) and/or of gender role enactment (feminine/masculine)
8
,
much less an even more radical vision that casts off those framing restraints entirely,
there are two discrete choices: male+masculine versus female+feminine. This creates a
televisual world in which, despite an increase in transgender visibility, truly alternative
gender positions (those who are dual-gendered, such as “two-spirit” identities in Native
communities; see Walters et al. 2006; or those who reject gendered identities entirely; see
Wilchins 1997) remain invisible.
Interestingly, GLAAD (2007) in fact separates “gender identity” from “gender
expression” in its “transgender glossary of terms,” two phrases whose definitions exactly
align with Serano’s “subconscious sex” and “gender expression.” Yet, as discussed, this
separation in possible definitions of gender did not manage to gain clarification on-air.
122
Certainly, it is logical that this choice of representation would be made in a broadcast
television narrative, echoing what Keegan et al. (2006) describe as “a bargain struck with
the forces of political and representational power – a bargain that trades in the erotic edge
of queer difference for a set of more mainstream, ‘acceptable’ televisual narratives about
the role of queerness in American society” (p. 109). If seeking to make a transgender
narrative “acceptable” to the mainstream, then, it follows that tradition would be adhered
to as closely as possible, both in gender-norming male/female identities, and in playing
into the pre-existing popular media assumption “that all trans women want to achieve
stereotypical femininity” (Serano 2007, 35).
9

This implicit matching of female+feminine to make the televisual narrative more
digestable by its audience parallels the “real world” transgender enactment of stereotypic
gender roles done (and over-done) in order to gain acceptance by “real world” audiences.
The most well-known of such audiences are medical gatekeepers (Bolin 1988), but can
even be the transgender community itself (Mason-Schrock 1996). Christopher Robinson
(2006) explains the drive toward such stereotyped enactments:
The gender identity of transsexuals as falling within the conventional binary is
speculative because the behaviors acquired for admittance into the community are
not necessarily the product of an individual’s innate desires but a visualization
tactic used to justify the social perception of their physical alteration. Attempting
to align personal conception to social perception results in highly stereotypical
behaviors in some individuals because they think that in order for society to see
them as a real man or a real woman, they have to exhibit the ideal behavior
schemas of that sex identification. (p. 189)

This is not to say, of course, that transpeople cannot genuinely have an “innate desire” for
“highly steoreotypical behaviors.” Indeed, the transgender body is a “contradictory site
in postmodernism,” as Halberstam (2005, 18) puts it, with some seeing transgender as the
123
pinnacle of gender fluidity, while others see such theorizing as negligent to many
transpersons’ strongly gendered views of themselves (see Prosser 1998). Rather, the
point is simply made that such a flawless alignment of socially expected gender roles and
the sensed sex of a transperson should be critically questioned for its presumptions,
remembering that many exist “whose understandings of self may fall out of this system”
(Valentine 2007, 64). As advocates, GLAAD led the writers toward a trans-normative
“true self” narrative, simultaneously failing to convey the many possible nuances of
gender presentation. On screen, this translated into an exaggeration of GLAAD’s own
avoidance of all but the most easily digestable LGBT representations, as the self-
censoring of the advocate combines with the constraints of the medium to simplify gray
areas away.
Gender and the Physical Form
GLAAD also helped to shape the extent to which gender (or, rather,
“subconscious sex”) was – and was not – tied into the physical embodiment of sex in the
AMC narrative. The Zoe storyline takes a clear position on this topic, one that is
unsurprisingly intertwined with the recurrent thematics of transgender encouragement
and audience acceptance. In the 1/18/07 episode of AMC, Jamie shares a story with JR
about having a male-to-female transgender person in his organic chemistry class. Jamie
speaks very highly of this woman, Samantha, who was “still going through the transition”
and never actually went through the surgery. This description reflects GLAAD’s
approach, rejecting the traditional (and criticized) medical approach that insists that a
person’s feelings of being the other sex are not legitimate unless the person feels it a
requirement that her or his embodied sex is also changed and would not be satisfied with
124
merely changing gender markers (Stone 1991, 297). The dialogue also foreshadows the
much later revelation that Zoe is not set on having sex reassignment surgery. Zoe’s
indecision is overtly discussed in the 4/13/07 episode, during a conversation between Zoe
and her female confidante, Babe:
BABE: Aren’t you going through transition?
ZOE: I don’t know how far I’ll go. I might never have a woman’s body.

Babe is immediately confused over this, so Zoe offers more details, explaining the
dangers and risks of physically transitioning:
BABE: Is that what you want, to keep your body?
ZOE: This thing that I’ve tried to break out of for all these years.
BABE: So why would you stick with something that makes you so
uncomfortable?
ZOE: Well, I’ve educated myself more on the whole process. I’ve read more
books than I can count and websites and my doctors and the support group. There
are just so many factors that I didn’t even think about. I may not respond well to
the hormones, physically or emotionally, and that’s before I even think about
surgery.

Babe remains unconvinced, allowing Zoe (i.e. the AMC writers, with GLAAD consultant
assistance) the opportunity to normalize the choice of not having sexual reassignment
surgery:
BABE: Can you still be you without the surgery?
ZOE: Oh of course. Lots of transgender people transition without the operation.
The reasons are – some are financial, and some are medical, and some are
personal. A lot of people are just happy with a new name and a new wardrobe.
BABE: And are you one of those people?
ZOE: I don’t know. There are just so many risks in surgery, so many
complications that can happen.

Babe then quickly takes the cue, providing validation and moral support:

BABE: Well even if you don’t have the surgery, it can still work with Bianca.
You are a woman. With or without the equipment.

125
As seen in the last line of dialogue above, the impetus for the conversation is Zoe’s
anxiety over whether or not to get romantically involved with Bianca, a dilemma
presented in this excerpt from the same conversation:
ZOE: If I give Bianca a chance, I’m just afraid she won’t get very much in return.
BABE: You can give just as much to Bianca as she can to you.
ZOE: Not quite. Bianca’s the only one with a woman’s body.
BABE: She knows that. She sees you.
ZOE: What if this is all she ever sees?
Significantly, this concern is driven by Zoe and dismissed not only by Babe but also by
Bianca, during a discussion on 4/11/07:
ZOE: No, no, it’s this body, this masculine body of mine, it doesn’t feel like mine.
I know I’ve used it before, but now when I look in the mirror I flinch and I turn
away and — this isn’t me, Bianca. I don’t want to come to you like this.
BIANCA: You once asked me if I was attracted to bodies or souls. I said souls.
That’s still true. I am attracted to your soul Zoe, and when I look at you, I see you.
Not clothes, not body parts, you.

This irrelevance of the physical falls under what might be called “‘new wave’
transsexualism; a disjuncture of the physical from the subjective and the social
expectations for both” (Schuh 2006, 44). Romine confirms GLAAD’s role in this choice
of representation, stating that since it is “natural” to think of a transperson as someone
who has had sex reassignment surgery, and since many shows and soaps are hospital-
based, GLAAD suspected the possibility that “it was all sort of moving towards a
surgical storyline,” and so emphasized to AMC that many people transition without the
surgery (Romine 2007).
This “new wave” presentation of Zoe thus seems to have been chosen for a very
functional purpose, tying into GLAAD’s desire for this to be an encouraging storyline for
transgender viewers, which is to say acknowledging the realities of transition difficulties
while not wanting said difficulties to prevent a transgender person from living a “true”
126
identity. In this way, the narrative is seen to try for the same objective as intersex
advocates who suggest abstaining from normalizing surgery until the subject is old
enough to make a choice (Chase 2006, 306): an acceptance of an embodiment not
traditionally socially comfortable but considered necessary for the quality of life of those
most personally impacted.
Yet social comfort concerning transgender embodiment (i.e. the general public’s
discomfort with a woman that has a penis) remains a concern, as marginalized as the
AMC narrative attempts to make it. Such a concern manifests itself in the narrative
through the concerns of Kendall, Bianca’s sister, who is worried about Zoe’s ability to
truly satisfy Bianca, in part due to what she views as Zoe’s physical shortcomings
(4/10/07):
KENDALL: Now Bianca, you can’t even have a real relationship
BIANCA: Why can’t we?
Babe: Yes they can.
KENDALL: Uh, hello, sex? You, Zoe, Zoe, you, can’t be done.
BIANCA: You are so hugely and phenomenally you. I mean, God, the stuff you
let out of your mouth. [laughs]
KENDALL: What is so funny about being celibate the rest of your life?
BIANCA: Okay, you [looks at Babe] have Zoe and me married, you [looks at
Kendall] have us in bed, can I just take her on a date first?
KENDALL: What, are you gonna shake her hand at the front door? Okay, listen,
this is very un-PC of me, I know, but you’re into the female form. Have you seen
Zoe’s shoulders?
BIANCA: I love her shoulders. I love every part of her.
KENDALL: Okay well there’s one part you’re not gonna love. Can’t exactly
ignore that part. [the rest burst into laughter]
BABE: Oh my God!
BIANCA: Do I ask you about your sex life with Zach? No! So maybe you should
just stop talking.
BABE: You know, she does, as much as I hate to say it, have a valid point. Sex is
an important part of a romantic package.

127
Though Bianca attempts to dispel her sister’s concerns, the uncomfortable question of
what a physical non-transition means to a sexual relationship with another person is never
fully answered, as the topic of conversation is quickly changed and this particularly gray
area of gender (non-)embodiment never fully revisited. Particularly within (a) an
otherwise overtly supportive narrative, and (b) a soap opera, in which sex scenes (though
muted) are integral, such a timid approach to the very real question of transperson and
trans-partner potential for satisfying sexual encounters leaves the narrative lacking. This,
of course, is perhaps only to be expected, as not only are same-sex physical relationships
in soaps traditionally lacking
10
, but prodding the matter further would stand to open a
Pandora’s box of queered sexuality narratives not yet widely acknowledged (Valentine
2003), much less deemed suitable for broadcast.
Summary
The Zoe narrative on All My Children is both strongly trans-supportive and
gender binary-normative, a combination pushed forward by GLAAD’s consultations with
the show. The overt support for transgender concerns manifests itself in such a way as to
bear both the majority and minority audience members in mind – in no small part due to
GLAAD’s role as consultant on the storyline, a model for majority/minority cooperative
media ventures.
What of the need to be invited to the table, and the constraints placed upon the
examination of more queer expressions of sexuality? Vincent Doyle's (2008) study of
GLAAD strategies takes issue with the organization's emphasis on mainstream
integration, suggesting that such an emphasis, though undoubtedly allowing access to
media decision makers, also allows “homonormative representations of gay and lesbian
128
lives to stand in for meaningful influence and potentially transformative images that
might have better reflected the lived circumstances of a wider diversity of LGBT people”
(p. 214). Doyle suggests that GLAAD reduce its “dependence on the legitimating
sanction of dominant (heterosexual) institutions” (p. 219) and acknowledges this will
“not be easy” (p. 219), but does not offer recommendations of how this might be
accomplished while still retaining GLAAD's level of influence in industry media-making.
Why not, instead of placing upon GLAAD the full responsibility of doing everything for
everyone in the very diverse LGBT world, utilize this paper's conceptualization of joint
majority/minority production to imagine an LGBT community in which GLAAD might
function as a majority producer, which in combination with less mainstreamed “minority”
LGBT producers may together present a wider range of meaningful images? Such an
imagining is not without its limitations, some more obvious than others, but it seems a
preferable alternative to asking GLAAD to reduce its dependence upon mainstream
media institutions, a dependence that is unavoidably part of the bargain when wishing to
have a seat at the media power players table. To accomplish a tangible bridging of the
divide between ideas of transgressive possibility and the facts of normative reality, those
interested in social progress must optimistically “legitimate and nurture, in those
institutions from which they have been excluded, marginalized ways of knowing,
speaking, being,” while understanding that “relocations of this sort are always concrete,
historical events, enacted by real, historical people, [and thus] they cannot challenge
every insidious duality in one fell swoop” (Bordo, 1993, 41, italics in original). We must
work with what we are given, within the institutions that exist, while reflecting frequently
on where we are, where we have come from, and how much further we have to go.
129
Chapter 5 Endnotes
1
Here I would like to emphasize my focus on trans representations in fictional narrative
texts, acknowledging the work of Joshua Gamson (1998) on trans representations in
daytime talk shows.

2
It should be emphasized that the following argument does not mean to suggest that these
are the understandings ultimately taken away by the audience members – for the audience
is another site in the cultural circuit, capable of far more than solely hegemonic readings
of texts – as that is outside the focused scope of this piece.

3
The original model includes the additional element of proportional amount of produced
content, with the most content being images of the majority produced by the majority,
then images of the minority produced by the majority, and finally the least amount of
content being images of the minority produced by the minority. That nuance of the
model is omitted here for purposes of clarity, as it is not an aspect relevant to this
particular study.

4
One reviewer notes that Stone and Bornstein are not in agreement here; Stone questions
individual visibility in itself leading to social change while Bornstein insists that social
change is fully dependent upon visibility. I connect the two here not to elide their
differences, but to demonstrate that in Stone’s questioning of the social value of silent
passing (“silence can be an extremely high price to pay for acceptance,” 1991, 299) and
in Bornstein’s valuing of visibility there is common ground to be found, territory brought
to mind in Zoe’s decision to be publicly visible and the narrative’s approbation of that
choice.

5
Of course, all cannot be purely stardust and fairytales, as Zoe’s “happy ending” is left
mostly to the imagination. Though it is heavily implied that a romantic relationship is in
the cards, and though both Zoe and Bianca do leave Pine Valley at the same time, Zoe is
leaving for London, while Bianca is leaving for Paris. Much is made over the shortness
of the distance between the two and over the characters’ mutual interest in “seeing where
things go,” but in addition to geographic separation there is a striking lack of physicality
to the budding relationship while in Pine Valley, demonstrating that even when
presenting a heavily LGBT-positive narrative, entertainment television finds it hard to
move past its historical discomfort (Collis 1994) with overt LGBT sexuality.

6
As Willox describes it, “new queer orthodoxy is based around the work of theorists such
as Judith Butler, where transsexuality might be seen as ‘not queer’ because it seems to
promote the dominant ideology of sex and gender by focusing on the need to align
psychical and physical body images, thereby reintroducing the importance of the body as
the site of authenticity” (2003, 410).

130
7
Simultaneously, it displays the polysemous nature of television (Fiske 1986) by offering
a stunning visual suggestion of the ability for more than one self to co-exist in one soul –
certainly not the desired message but a possible interpretation.]

8
These scales could be modeled in a style similar to Kinsey’s (1948) fluid scales of
homosexuality/heterosexuality.

9
It should be acknowledged that Zoe’s identity as lesbian somewhat complicates this
claim of female+feminine. Of course, as the Bianca character has proven in the years
since her outing, it may be that a lesbian identity is even more of an encouragement for
the producers to make a female character more stereotypically feminine, as Bianca is
known for functioning as a nurturing, “moral compass” (Conan 2006) character, whilst
also presenting as feminine in appearance.

10
This is not yet an outdated observation. Note the relationship between gay teenagers
Luke and Noah on As the World Turns, who experienced a kissing drought of over 200
days during 2007-2008, complete with a camera panning away immediately before a kiss
under holiday mistletoe.

131
CHAPTER 6: MOVING FORWARD
Most academic work conducted within the realm of production studies amounts to
some variation on “this is what happens and why it is bad and/or what massive industrial
shift is necessary.” It is time to move beyond the production analysis truism of
“creativity within constraints” and prod additional questions, deeper levels of concern,
more actionable paths and realistic imagined outcomes. We must aim to move beyond, to
offer suggestions for actual movement forward.
Above all else, these recommendations must be practical and grounded in reality.
One academic, whose interest was in health advocacy within Hollywood, suggested that
all Hollywood health advocates should rally around one or two specific causes: “Health
campaigners might cooperate to reduce health messages to a few important themes”
(Sherry, 2002, p. 220). There is not a mass population of general health campaigners out
waiting to be directed toward an issue. There are people interested in and invested in
particular issues. To ask certain campaigners to give up their issue of interest to work on
someone else’s is impractical. Moreover, there are funding logistics to consider –
funders, like campaigners, are often interested in particular issues rather than general
“health,” or if they are interested in health broadly speaking, they seek to impact a variety
of issues. Perhaps most obviously, the unanswered question Sherry’s suggestion inspires
is how would the “few important themes” be chosen? Which issues are undeserving of
advocacy? If anything, people tend to expand what they are focusing on in their
advocacy work -- like Hollywood, Health & Society has done with taking on global
health and environmental factors of health conditions -- not narrow their scope. And this
is all to set aside the simple matter of turf battles, as evidenced in some tension that exists
132
between Hollywood, Health & Society and more low-profile health advocates. If you
cannot even get people working on similar issues to work together, much less cede
territory, how would you get people on different issues to cede territory? This is not how
Hollywood advocacy works.
GLAAD
Looking at GLAAD, and possible paths forward, this need for practicality must
also take priority, even though there are many foundational changes that could be
suggested. For instance, I might want to recommend changes in the organizational
structure or ideology of the group, such as more diversity throughout the organization
rather than developed but ghettoized divisions (e.g., one team devoted to people of color,
one to transgender concerns), and/or for an environment that offers more explicit support
to queer-identifying and generally non-homonormative identities. Prejudice reduction
studies based in situations of high conflict have found that deemphasizing difference can
be the most successful approach in the short-term, but that it can also have significant
rebound effects (Correll, Park, & Smith, 2008). De-emphasis of difference cannot be the
only strategy; a multicultural appreciation of truly diverse populations must be better
incorporated into efforts in order to achieve lasting whole-community acceptance. Others
may not take issue with GLAAD’s homonormativity, but are eager to vilify GLAAD for
not being aggressive enough or for directing aggression at the “wrong” targets. For
example, one unhappy blogger argues, “just because Hillary Duff and some self-
appointed, humorless, keepers of truth and thought police in the LGBT ‘activist’
community have decided to make the use of ‘gay’ as a denouncing term their cause du
jour does not mean that they are correct” (Moag, 2008). The most frustrated observers
133
may even believe it is time for GLAAD “to die” as an organization (Paul, 2010). Vocal
LGBT activist and journalist Michelangelo Signorile thinks the movement is far enough
along that GLAAD does not need to be invited to the table anymore:
GLAAD’s board of directors includes veteran film producers, media executives,
entertainment attorneys, and other power players—a necessity, some may argue,
to maintain relationships with those most capable of effecting change within
Hollywood. I don’t doubt these individuals’ commitments. But while putting
insiders on the board may have been helpful in the 1990s, it seems less so in an
age when gay people are omnipresent in media and entertainment, often in
positions of great influence. From Ellen DeGeneres and Rachel Maddow to Neil
Patrick Harris and Adam Lambert himself, visibility of out gay people in media
and pop culture is at an all-time high. LGBT characters and cast members are
common in prime-time dramas like ABC’s Brothers & Sisters, daytime soaps, and
myriad reality shows. (Signorile, 2010, para. 4)

But as a minority increases in visibility, isn’t it always going to be at “an all-time high”?
He continues:
If GLAAD wants to be a real leader in quashing gay bias in the media, it must
stop taking money from the companies whose programming it scrutinizes and
must speak out quickly and forcefully when incidents occur. If GLAAD is
unwilling to do that, a new group needs to take its place, one that is Web-based
and one that will galvanize people to aggressively complain to these companies.
In many ways that’s already happening: Numerous LGBT blogs, from
Joe.My.God. and Towleroad to Pam’s House Blend, often respond faster than
GLAAD, generating pressure on news outlets and entertainment companies. But
an organized, focused effort is necessary. Media and entertainment companies
will respond to whoever generates sufficient pressure, and if that means an entity
other than GLAAD, then so be it. (Signorile, 2010, para. 12)

While Signorile’s comments might be relevant to the news media, the lessons of past and
present Hollywood advocacy – reviewed earlier in the advocacy methods chapter –
indicate that such a “forceful” method is not really appropriate for entertainment media
advocacy. A reversion to old-school pressure tactics is not the way to proceed.
Certainly, there are problems with an over-reliance on enforcing a strict
vocabulary that the community itself does not agree on, and, yes, GLAAD is a wimp
134
sometimes, and, yes, GLAAD should be more queer-friendly. But to run with any of
these arguments would be a markedly different dissertation. This one seeks to evaluate
the everyday environment of Hollywood advocacy and see what realistically can be
altered in the near-term to progress further in the long-term. GLAAD has to be
something of a wimp in a general sense to stay at the power players’ table. This is not
ideal, but it is how business is conducted. We should presume, as it is probably safe to
do, that GLAAD’s goals and tactics are not going to significantly change in the near
future. Instead, we should explore what smaller degrees of change are possible in its
advocacy execution.
Pursue: Better Use of Awards
GLAAD offers Media Awards to create positive affect between the organization
and the nominees and honorees, but it does not aggressively utilize the awards to nurture
industry relationships in the way that it could. Hollywood, Health & Society provides an
excellent example of how GLAAD could better utilize awards for advocacy purposes.
Hollywood, Health & Society uses its Sentinel for Health Awards as a way to build new
relationships with shows, as well as solidifying preexisting ones. The crucial difference is
that Hollywood, Health & Society only considers shows that submit themselves, whereas
GLAAD will consider any shows out there without the show having to do anything to be
considered.
Requiring shows to submit themselves provides Hollywood, Health & Society
with an excuse to contact shows and generally get its name and purpose out into the
industry, reaching content producers who may not have previously known about or
thought to utilize the group. HHS puts out a call for entries via a general purpose press
135
release and an e-mail sent to a huge database of writers and producers. They call every
single show about it, and if the show does not know who HHS is, a staff member
introduces the organization, explains what HHS does, and talks up the Sentinel for Health
Awards. In other words, the pitch for getting shows to submit for the award is
interwoven with constant pitching of HHS as a year-round resource. As one HHS
advocate said, “At the same time, we’re like, ‘Don’t forget, we’re here to help you, so if
you need any help at all,’” and they may use that conversation as an excuse to directly
pitch writers room briefings. HHS staff enthusiastically described the awards as “a good
way for us to get in,” because they get to converse “a lot with a lot of the entrants a lot.”
It is “an excuse to build a relationship with them.” HHS staff will also mention to the
shows they already work with that a particular storyline the show did might be a good
one to submit for award consideration. This is not only an excuse to talk more to shows,
but can serve to get shows more involved emotionally in the awards program. One HHS
team member noted that the regular shows the organization works with “get all excited
about it because they’re getting all competitive, they’re like, ‘We’re gonna win this year,
we’ve got the best HIV storyline, are you kidding me?!’”
Interestingly, conducting awards (a classic “carrot”) in this way may also provide
advocates with the opportunity to give direct, critical feedback (to use a “stick”) in a
disguised, non-aggressive way. If programs must be actively submitted, there is an
excuse to tell those programs what the reception was and what the judges thought, to
explain why it was or was not nominated and did or did not win. When shows are
evaluated without having sought consideration, as is the case with the GLAAD Awards,
sending feedback – particularly of a critical nature – would appear more unsolicited and
136
aggressive. While Hollywood, Health & Society unsurprisingly keeps the focus of its
awards consideration feedback on positive comments, the judges are also prompted to
note if there was anything harmful or damaging about the storyline. The Director of HHS
said that “in some cases,” after reviewing the comments, they might pass along the
negative comments to the writers as well, “if it’s appropriate.” Of course, even though
this is a sort of “stick” in being less than 100% positive and supportive, there are no
consequences or public ramifications for the shows, so there is still none of the real
punishment that a “stick” conveys. This low intensity makes it an ideal fit into modern
Hollywood advocacy practices.
Pursue: More Research
GLAAD has supported academic level research in the past, but as of my time
there it was no longer of interest. In 2000, for instance, GLAAD awarded three
dissertation fellowships worth $5000, meant to foster intellectual activism, and various
academic papers could once be found easily on the website, even though they were a few
years old. When I asked the Entertainment Media Director about research being
conducted by GLAAD, or the existence of any academic ties between the organization
and a university (in the style of Hollywood, Health & Society), he mentioned that
academics had worked with the organization some years back. He then clarified it was
before his time and that the organization did not seem to “get enough” out of it, and that
such research had never been mentioned in his time at the organization. An academic I
spoke with recently similarly confirmed that a lack of interest in academic research
continues at the organization, as she had attempted on multiple occasions in the preceding
months to offer her research services pro-bono to the group but was essentially ignored.
137
This is an unfortunate waste of free resources. Sandra de Castro Buffington, of
Hollywood, Health & Society, spoke appreciatively of the up to 20 University of
Southern California faculty and students who conduct various research for her
organization: “We’re really fortunate. It gives us so much more credibility, and rigor, and
results, measurable results we can share.” There is no reason GLAAD could not establish
a similar ongoing academic connection, an institutional relationship to provide credible
research for organizational purposes.
An advocate I spoke to, who was located at neither GLAAD nor HHS, spoke of
Hollywood lobbying in this way: “It’s a long hard road and it’s not easy to measure
either, you do what you can assuming it will make a difference because it’s always made
a difference in the past.” This perfectly reflects the sentiment I observed at GLAAD.
There is a presumption that entertainment media advocacy work can make a difference,
but a simultaneous understanding that change is not something easy to measure, which
then combines to create an acceptance of the status quo of no real research agenda. The
fact that Hollywood lobbying is seen as self-explanatory, and research as difficult,
silently excuses a lack of research within the Entertainment Media section of the
organization. Yet there would be valuable benefits to more content research, effects
research, and self-evaluative research.
Content Research
The only regular research that the Entertainment Media team produces is content
research tracking the number of LGBT characters on television. The Network
Responsibility Index counts the number of character appearances for the preceding
season, while the Where We Are on TV report presents a tally of series regulars and
138
recurring characters for the upcoming season. These reports are useful for increasing
GLAAD’s visibility, and are strategically released to The Hollywood Reporter over
Variety because The Hollywood Reporter is connected to Reuters, so GLAAD can pitch
The Hollywood Reporter and the Associated Press and be done. As an example of the
press these reports provide for GLAAD, the 2008 Where We Are on TV report was
heralded by over 300 international media outlets including The New York Times, The Los
Angeles Times, and CNN.
Despite these efforts, there are clear areas for growth within GLAAD’s content
research domain. The first is perhaps most obvious; the research is purely quantitative
and not qualitative. Bean counting characters as a measure of inclusivity is useful, but
must be complemented by a consideration of their quality. The reason this is not done
already is obvious: it is tremendously difficult. Qualitative work is a messy business, as
definitions of “good” and “bad” are unclear and the line between the two fuzzy. But
there must be some attempt to consider the complexity of the picture. In addition, the
actual counting of characters for these reports has its problems, including inconsistencies
in the logic guiding labels. Is it about a character’s explicit self-identification, or the
character’s behavior? At one point, a senior staff member stated that a network could not
call a character lesbian, gay or bisexual simply based on behavior (this is true for people
in the “real world” as well). However, at various points of our content evaluation of the
number of LGBT characters on TV, we engaged in that exact practice, as not all LGBT
characters have explicitly stated, “I am gay [lesbian, bisexual].” And if we were told a
character was “pansexual” or “sexually fluid,” as happened with two particular shows, we
counted them as bisexual, which was the closest category we had but not the desired
139
label. The way in which GLAAD counts characters involves a political element;
decisions about who to count as what may not be consciously political but inevitably
have that element (what “deserves” to be counted and how). If research were to be done
by outsiders based in academia, there would be a built-in reality check for GLAAD, so
that research aims could be guided by but not solely defined by organizational interests
and presumptions.
On a related note, there is some question as to the thoroughness of the research
that is typically conducted. Direct from my fieldnotes, during the time I worked on the
Where We Are on TV report:
I’ve noticed [the Entertainment Media Director] occasionally asking me if the
network told me xyz character would be back, or told me something else that I
included in the report, and I'm always saying yes, if I didn't get confirmation it
wouldn't be in the report, and at lunch today after he did that he said something to
the effect of he doesn't think it's ever been so thorough before.

Similarly, the Network Responsibility Index relies upon knowing when any LGBT
characters appear on air, yet the team does not have time to watch every hour of every
primetime television program. The team members can try to watch some programs, and
can read countless synopses, but appearances will be missed.
One additional complaint, minor compared to the above but another indication
that GLAAD’s content research may need to be professionalized, is that the final
presentation of the research often tends toward an overly positive tone. Listen in on these
blogosphere responses to the 2008 Where We Are on TV report:
- The organization's annual "Where We Are On TV" report states that LGBT
representations will account for 2.6% of all scripted characters on broadcast
television, up from 1.4% in 2005, 1.3% in 2006, and 1.1% in 2007. We're
supposed to be excited about being within the margin of error? (Popnography)

140
- When they lead off their report stating that the number of GLBT characters is at
an all time high, I think they give the networks too much credit, thereby letting
the networks (and the journalists covering their report) think that things are better
than they are. (AfterElton’s Jenson, Sept 24 2008)

Realistically, it would be tedious and unproductive to keep telling the industry, “This
needs to be better, this is awful!” One of the Entertainment Media team members found
that AfterElton blog post cited above incredibly frustrating, and said, “Hello, big picture!
No one would carry the story! No media attention!” At the same time, an overstated
optimism can make the organization look foolish. Research conducted by independent
academics with an established relationship to GLAAD could take a more even-handed
tone, allowing GLAAD to put a positive spin in its use of that data whilst transferring the
burden of negativity elsewhere.
Effects Research
GLAAD conducts no research on the effects of entertainment media
representations. Compare this to Hollywood, Health & Society, which features effects
research as a regular part of its advocacy. One Hollywood, Health & Society worker
summarizes the process:
When we get the storyline, in addition to giving them feedback, we do a complete
analysis of the health content so we know exactly what’s going to come out, and
they’ll tell us when it’s going to be broadcast, and so what we do with that
information is, we do an analysis, use that content to develop a pre and post test.
So that’s when we can measure, when we know what content will be broadcast,
we can set up a pretest, and we use SurveyMonkey, and we’ll do an assessment of
what their knowledge, attitudes, and behavior are, a week before they see the
show or the episode and then a week after.

Certainly, effects research is notoriously tricky, and gaining the kind of access described
above is difficult. Even when access is gained, the battle is far from over. A researcher
who has worked with Hollywood, Health & Society comments:
141
Occasionally they’ll give us the script ahead of time so we can formulate
questions, but a lot of times we’re guessing at what’s going to be in the script, and
it’s hard to write questions to tap something if you’re not really sure what’s going
to be in there and how they’re going to say it. You have a real general sense, and
– it’s difficult.

Additionally, effects research is of limited use with industry insiders. Says the same
researcher, referencing Bouman’s academic work (1999, 2002) in which industry insiders
are described as showy peacocks and academic researchers as slow turtles:
I love Martine Bouman speaking, she has a phrase “the turtles and the peacocks,”
and you really do feel like they feel like they’re the peacocks, they know what’s
going on, you know that kind of thing, “Oh you have numbers, you have a
national sample, but you know we have the pulse of the people.” They really do
give you the sense that, everyone once in a while you’ll get the sense that, you
know, they think that I’m Pollyanna-ish.

Notes a Hollywood, Health & Society staff member:
Writers are creative beings, and you don’t really need to show them percentages
and things. But it is nice to go back and say, “Hey, look what your episode did.”
And at the Sentinel Awards, I think it’s just another reward, to show them the
effects. In that regard, I think it’s important to share the results with them.

Indeed, despite the difficulties of conducting the research and the fact that it is of limited
use, it is still valuable. And, after all, when trying to lobby Hollywood from a position of
little to no power, everything is of limited use. Why not add more tools to the toolbox?
Offer writers one more reward at awards shows; offer shows that claim their content does
not make a difference in people’s lives the proof that it does; offer what you can. Despite
its hurdles, Hollywood, Health & Society has continued to stay involved with effects
research, having found it extremely useful in building credibility. Solid effects research
supports a solid reputation, and can create and sustain support for entertainment advocacy
efforts.
142
People are like, “Hollywood, TV, are you kidding me? It does more harm!” And
so we do a lot of research, and we prove, time and time again, that this works.

Much work remains to be done on LGBT-specific media effects. As a marker of
the amount of research still needed, in the current edition of Bryant and Oliver’s (2009)
comprehensive text Media Effects (2009), one full chapter exists on racial/ethnic
representations (Mastro, 2009) and one chapter on sex-role representations (Smith &
Granados, 2009), but there is not a single paragraph on LGBT representations. The
chapter on media priming (Roskos-Ewoldsen, Roskos-Ewoldson, & Carpentier, 2009)
contains a section on stereotype priming, but refers only to gender and racial stereotypes.
In fact, there is not a single reference to gays, lesbians, homosexuality, or sexuality in the
index; under minorities it says, “see race and ethnicity in the media,” and under
stereotyping only racial, ethnic, and gender roles are listed. And yet researchers know
that entertainment media can be used to encourage positive interactions between people
(Mares & Woodard, 2001), to reduce prejudice (Paluck & Green, 2009), and to impact
both in-group and out-group audience members. This is to say that all relevant academic
literature suggests that GLAAD-supported or GLAAD-affiliated research would find
significant effects, and that such results, particularly from an ongoing research project,
could be a tremendous benefit to the organization.
Self-Evaluative Research
GLAAD should also conduct research to evaluate utilized advocacy methods and
formulate the most effective advocacy methods. Self-tracking already takes place
throughout GLAAD, so a mindset is in place that should not make this suggestion too
143
much of a stretch. For example, an e-mail was sent around in September of 2008 to
announce the following:
BY THE NUMBERS

A quick count of the advocates and media professionals GLAAD met with and
trained from January 1, 2008 through September 1, 2008.

1,873 people received GLAAD media training to be better advocates; 154 media
trainings were conducted with local and national organizations.

1,108 meetings were held with 2,232 community advocates, from organizations
like Amigas Latinas, Asian/Pacific Island Equality Los Angeles, Black AIDS
Institute, Lambda Legal, Immigration Equality, the Federation of Gay Games,
Reconciling Ministries, and the production team of “A Jihad For Love.”

913 meetings were executed with 1,040 media professionals, at places such as the
Associated Press, ABC, Bravo, El Diario La Prensa, ESPN, Reuters, The New
York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Dallas
Voice, The Salt Lake City Tribune, Telemundo, United Methodist News Service,
Univision Radio, and the Washington Post.

270 stories—picked up at local, regional, and national media outlets—quoted
GLAAD staff; 279 stories featured GLAAD-trained spokespeople; 223 stories
were pitched by GLAAD staff; and GLAAD provided resources for 126 stories.

49 cities were visited by GLAAD team members during media trainings,
including Boston, Champaign-Urbana, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Madison,
Memphis, Philadelphia, Richmond, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Spokane,
Washington DC, and Wichita.

60 other events were held, from presentations at universities to panels at
museums, from GLAAD PSA filming to movie screenings and discussions, from
the GLAAD Media Awards to prides across the country.

Once again this exhibits GLAAD’s preference for quantitative tallying rather than much
in the way of qualitative evaluation, so that is one barrier that would still need to be
broken. But even if only quantitative tracking were to begin -- for instance, comparing
what percent of e-mails about a certain subject received responses versus what percent of
handwritten letter on a certain subject received responses -- there would be the value
144
added of some sort of feedback loop. This kind of self-evaluative research could be of
great use in prioritizing limited resources.
Pursue: Better Use of the Internet
GLAAD tries to incorporate technology into its advocacy practices, but, as with
many non-profits, is not as effective as might be desired. As one example, consider the
continual disconnection between GLAAD fellows and the rest of staff due to fellows
being placed on a separate listserv and frequently left off of major announcements.
Despite a number of fellows submitting regular complaints a wide range of higher-ups,
the listserv situation remained the same, and yet fellows were still expected to know
about information sent only to regular staff. When this much difficulty is encountered in
dealing with a superficial internal communication issue, externally directed use of
technology is likely to have a few issues, too.
The GLAAD website presents the organization as covering both more and less
than it actually does. For instance, the Arab American and Middle Eastern American
community, and the Native American and Two Spirit community are among the LGBT
community subsets supposedly represented by GLAAD according to the website, yet
there were no staff members during my time there that did work focused on either of
those communities. At the same time, nowhere does the website explain exactly what
GLAAD does with the entertainment media industry, and what services it has provided to
shows and what it could offer to content producers.
Weekly “TV Gayed listings” are compiled for online publication at GLAAD.org,
and daily blog content specific to entertainment media is posted, but other LGBT-focused
websites (namely, AfterElton and AfterEllen) already cover this material, and in more
145
depth. Coverage of gay pop culture is the primary purpose of those other sites, whereas it
is a tacked-on part of the job for those on the GLAAD Entertainment Media team. What
is to be gained by posting a blog entry about an out lesbian actress [who plays an out
character on a low-level television show] getting engaged, when it has already been
covered elsewhere? Is re-posting other LGBT-related entertainment media news the best
use of GLAAD’s minimal resources? Even when the team is not reposting news, even
when the team is contributing to some immeasurable degree to the blogosphere talk about
a new gay-interest film or television program, is there enough value added for the time
that it takes from other advocacy efforts?
That is perhaps the biggest sin of this technology mis-use: the time taken away
from other possible activities. For each weekly TV Gayed listing, every single LGBT-
inclusive show of the upcoming week had to be identified by pouring over TV Guide and
show websites. I was tasked with this responsibility for my time at GLAAD, and was
amazed at how long it took even once I had gotten well-accustomed to all of the relevant
characters and all steps of the listing process. (See Appendix B for a sample TV Gayed
weekly listing from a recent week, which is formatted in an identical manner to how the
listings were formatted in 2008.) Once the full listing was complete and formatted in a
specific manner, I e-mailed it to my supervisor, who double-checked it and gave notes,
then e-mailed it back. I completed the revisions and sent the e-mail out to the staff, then
copied the content into a website form made explicitly for these listings. The form used
to input this data required one episode to be entered at a time, with separate data fields for
show, start time, end time, network, website, explanation of LGBT interest in the show,
and even checking off whether it was a new episode or rerun. In other words, the listings
146
could not quickly be cut and paste in as a whole, but each element of each episode’s
information had to be cut and paste in, or re-typed. After the blog was introduced, I also
had to do a daily blog entry for that day’s TV Gayed listings, and set up weekend entries
to be posted when we were out of the office. All of this, when another prominent website
was already filling that need. The single possible reason for TV Gayed to exist that I
came across during my tenure: the TV Gayed webpage was the fourth most popular page
within the overall GLAAD.org website. But what does the offering of TV Gayed listings
really do toward end goals of the organization?
For whom are the aforementioned TV listings and blog postings relevant? Are
postings of weekly LGBT TV listings for people in the industry, or for the movable
middle? No, the audience for that is the gay community, which is not GLAAD’s target
audience. GLAAD’s primary audiences of concern are media industry professionals with
the power to influence the movable middle, and the movable middle itself (e.g., “Be an
ally and a friend” PSA creation). So what is GLAAD’s Entertainment Media team doing
stepping on the toes of AfterElton and AfterEllen in the first place?
As with many organizations, particularly those with any kind of political bent,
there exists at GLAAD a general imperative to blog to build the brand, a feeling that “we
need to get on that train and not be left behind.” But one could argue this kind of
blogging often does the exact opposite of building the brand, instead diluting the brand,
as the blog is not focused on media professionals. This is not to say that GLAAD could
do a blog directed at media professionals – you could never expect media professionals to
check an advocacy group blog – but rather to question a blind drive toward “technology”
if it becomes a waste of valuable resources, namely of workers’ time. Time is money,
147
and blogging takes a lot of it. Time that could be spent writing notes to show producers
is instead spent writing, editing, re-editing, posting and re-posting TV listings. Perhaps
with an excess of employees GLAAD could afford to branch out into this already-taken
domain, but, as with most nonprofits, there are not even enough employees to get the
more critical work tasks covered.
GLAAD must acknowledge that it cannot be all things to all people. A hard
listing and prioritization of goals, and of the corresponding tasks, is necessary. A general
“get everything done” approach means less effectual tasks (e.g., blogging) can become
the first things prioritized (since content must be new every day!), when in terms of
GLAAD’s goal achievement they should be last -- if they are even incorporated into
GLAAD’s work at all.
Another problem that the blogging situation reveals, hinted at in the earlier goals
section: GLAAD cannot figure out how to deal with its actual “constituents,” gay and
transgender people. There is a sense that they must be dealt with somehow, if for no
other reason to have a general community support for the organization that then validates
GLAAD’s positioning of itself as a community representative. And, to varying degrees,
this community support is needed for funding purposes as well. However, the
community simply is not of much use to GLAAD in a daily sense. GLAAD might want
to pull a nice Hispanic lesbian couple from the community to send to some Hispanic
journalists doing a piece on same-sex marriage, but the general whole of the LGBT
community – the collective voice of average individuals – is not integral to this type of
behind-the-scenes activist work. This type of advocacy is, simply, less activist, being
conducted in a you-help-me-I-help-you spirit tied inextricably to the power players table
148
at which it takes place. This is no protest environment of yesteryear, where the masses
took cues to rally together and express outrage, and it is a change which has left the
relationship between GLAAD and the community in an awkward spot.
Let’s consider that blog again. I do not wish to suggest that GLAAD’s
Entertainment Media team should abandon blogging, because there certainly can be a
purpose. The key way in which I could see the blog being a valuable contribution to
Hollywood advocacy rather than a distraction from it would be to treat the blog as a quiet
pulpit. In other words, the blog could be used to make opinion and evaluation statements
not worthy of more high profile proclamations. For example, after a television celebrity
had an incident that received coverage in the gay press as being defamatory, he attended
an event in support of the gay community, and the Entertainment Media Director posted
an open letter on the blog thanking him for attending. The Director then sent that post
around to some people, and it ultimately received minor coverage on Us Magazine’s
website and a link on People.com, as well as direct reprinting on some smaller blogs.
The celebrity called to thank the Director, and said he did not think he had deserved to be
called homophobic. This is a perfect example of the utility of a blog for a Hollywood
advocate, yet this type of use of the blog was infrequent, being far outweighed by short,
opinion-less posts on LGBT pop culture news.
GLAAD would also do well to utilize the Internet for better self-promotion and
direct communication to the industry. In the words of one [non-GLAAD] Hollywood
lobbyist, “It’s not enough to create the resource center, you have to get them to use it.
You have to figure out how to get it into the hands and minds of people.” GLAAD needs
to be doing more to get Hollywood people to use it as a resource, and better use of the
149
Internet should be a central element. Hollywood, Health & Society offers excellent
examples of how the Internet can be harnessed for Hollywood advocacy.
- Offer more information for entertainment media producers directly on the
website, including but not limited to “tip sheets.” Hollywood, Health & Society
creates tip sheets to give to writers during in-person briefings, but takes it one step
further by offering the tip sheets online. These tip sheets include basic
information, case studies for storyline generation, and additional resources.
GLAAD’s Entertainment Media team puts together resource kits for journalists
covering certain entertainment media topics/events, but what about everyday
resource kits for entertainment media producers? Tip sheets highlighting frequent
problems and/or best practices of LGBT inclusion in scripted programming could
be extraordinarily useful, especially for writers/producers who may not seek
official relationship but would look for resources [or have their staff look for
resources] online.
- Create an industry newsletter to be e-mailed and posted online. As discussed in
an earlier section on direct advocacy methods, a newsletter aimed at writers can
be a useful way of staying in touch with a large number of industry professionals.
Hollywood, Health & Society posts its Reel-to-Real newsletter online, and, with
the cooperation of the Writers’ Guild of America, gets the quarterly newsletter e-
mailed to approximately 600 writers. GLAAD should do the same.
- Request links on show websites. Hollywood, Health & Society has a
relationship with Fox’s House in which it provides the network with links to CDC
websites about the illnesses referenced in each episode for the network to then
150
post on the official show website. HHS found huge spikes in CDC site visits
during the hour the program aired, and the day after the episode aired. As Sandra
observed, “people are watching, and they’re on their laptops searching for these
topics at the same time.” This corresponds with current Nielsen research that
indicates simultaneous television viewing and Internet use is up (Szalai, 2010).
GLAAD’s requested links might not necessarily go back to GLAAD, but should
go to a topic-relevant website where an audience member can gain knowledge or
take action. For instance, if a gay youth is struggling with depression, GLAAD
should pitch the network the idea of linking to The Trevor Project from the show
website. Fostering this type of website relationship with networks, encouraging
their willingness to put links on official websites, can also be of value for
research; Hollywood, Health & Society is able to get networks to link to research
surveys from network websites, and sometimes is offered the option of placing a
few questions within network-conducted surveys.
Pursue: More Support for Entertainment Media Team in General
Establishing roots in the entertainment industry, as GLAAD has managed to do, is
only a first step. These relationships must be fostered, and there must be consistent
action – not only reactive, but proactive. Proactive interactions, working with writers and
producers during content development, are particularly important, as they keep
relationships positive. Reactive interactions, which occur when defamatory content is
aired, are important to GLAAD’s work, but harm tenuous entertainment industry
relationships when not counter-balanced. Unfortunately, the less manpower behind the
Entertainment Media division, the more the work being done must be limited to more
151
negative, reactive actions. As discussed in the section on carrot and stick advocacy, the
tenuous nature of entertainment advocacy requires that reactive advocacy (responding to
defamatory representations) be balanced or outweighed by proactive advocacy and
positive reinforcement. Moving beyond reactivity is difficult if not impossible with
insufficient manpower.
Admittedly, the economy in recent years has not been kind to anyone, least of all
non-profits. GLAAD knows this intimately, having experienced its own rounds of
layoffs like many other organizations. However, this does not have to limit the
Entertainment Media team’s capabilities. Even setting aside full-time staff hires,
volunteers and interns could be recruited for regular work. In fact, the Entertainment
Media team enjoys a certain glitz and allure that stands to make it particularly attractive
to people looking to give of their time in meaningful ways and/or gain an extra line on
their resume. Telecommuting options mean that office space may not need to be a
concern at all.
It may be easy to discount entertainment media advocacy as “fluff,” and to
prioritize hard news advocacy, but the facts of entertainment media’s influence must not
be forgotten. Moreover, study results indicate that people who prefer entertainment
media largely abandon news media (Prior, 2005), meaning that focusing too much on
news media risks leaving a portion of the population unaddressed. LGBT representations
and politics have made significant developments in recent years, thanks in part to the
cultural advocacy work of GLAAD. If wishing to ensure that the organization continues
to be a leader and the movement continues to make forward progress, strong support of
entertainment media advocacy must continue to be an integral part of this strategy. Right
152
now, looking at the number of staff dedicated to entertainment media versus news media,
the implicit priorities of the organization are clear, and they are not the priorities one
would guess when viewing the Hollywood-heavy GLAAD Media Awards. This must
change.
Do Not Pursue: Producer Diversity Advocacy
Some suggest that because of the unique hurdles faced by those seeking better
group representations, extra efforts should be made to build up the internal representation
within the industry’s power tier. For instance, women and minorities inside the networks
may be more likely to support female and minority characters, and may be most capable
of encouraging the development of “authentic” representations. GLAAD does not do
this, while some – like NAACP – do. NAACP’s Hollywood Bureau, which oversees
production of the Image Awards, explicitly includes minority employment in Hollywood
as part of its agenda. A newsletter released by the Hollywood Bureau, for instance,
included a page of four African-American “Executives to Watch” at studios, networks,
and guilds. There was also a half-page listing of the network diversity programs at ABC,
NBC, CBS, and FOX, indicating NAACP’s interest in representation behind the scenes.
This kind of interest is not found at GLAAD, which bothers some in the LGBT
community. For instance, one snippy blogosphere response to the 2008 Where We Are
on TV report included this:
Out’s favored strategy is actually to promote from within -- shows with queer
execs, creators and writing staffs tend to have smarter, more realistic queer
characters. Imagine that. (Popnography)

This commentary calls out GLAAD for not giving that particular dimension of the
struggle for entertainment media inclusion any kind of press or advocacy attention.
153
However, there are reasons for GLAAD’s de-emphasis on production-side
advocacy. Perhaps most obviously, gays have been an integral part of the entertainment
industry since the start, so in a common sense way it is a little unnecessary to advocate
for that which already exists. Additionally, GLAAD has a narrow focus on media
content. While gay journalists might mean more nuanced gay coverage in mainstream
press, GLAAD does not advocate for more gay journalists. In this same way, they would
not advocate for gay scriptwriters or showrunners.
There is also a research-based argument for not pursuing production-side diversity
advocacy. Specifically, lobbying for more producer diversity may presume too much
power with the individual when the institutional is much stronger. Research by Bleske
(1991) suggests that women and minorities do not select or edit news much differently
than white men. Michael Schudson (1995) wrote about bias as organizational and
institutional rather than individual in origin, professional culture taking precedence over
partisan practitioners. He, too, was talking about the news industry, but this approach to
bias can also apply to the entertainment industry. Gitlin (1983/2000) has noted, “it may
be doubted whether gender and color are more powerful than the formal conventions of
network television… [network TV’s] small world secretes a culture more powerful than
personal origins” (p. 156). Regulars internalize the industry’s values, and although they
may occasionally be “strong enough and inventive enough and lucid enough to break
through the old norms…usually they lack either the capacity, opportunity, or will to do
more than get by” (Gitlin, 1983/2000, p. 83). One advocate I spoke with noted, “Most
[industry] people talk about how to survive the industry not change it. I can’t tell you
154
how many depressing panels I’ve been to.” She told a story of being on the phone with
an executive:
And she’s arguing back and forth but she’s arguing with herself. “I don’t think
you can make change in the industry -- but I never backed away when I was all
hopeful!” and having this argument with herself, and she’s all “I don’t want to
argue about it,” and I’m like, “I’m not!” And I really wasn’t arguing with her, I
don’t do that.

Entertainment professionals move up by getting shows onto the season schedule (and
keeping them there), so there exists little motivation to challenge status quo by taking
risks.
This is not to say that diversity in the ranks does nothing to impact the content
viewed onscreen. It can and does. But the question here is, as it must always be, where
would GLAAD’s very limited resources most effectively be directed? For the reasons
above, I would not recommend that GLAAD pursue producer diversity advocacy.
The Bigger Picture
Needing and Finding Resources
Many aspects of the path forward for GLAAD are not unique to that organization.
Even Hollywood, Health & Society, held up in earlier sections as a potential advocacy
model, has room for improvement. Its website offers more information targeted at
entertainment producers than GLAAD’s, but it suffers from a generally unattractive
design. While HHS is strong in effects research, it has failed to conduct sufficient
general content monitoring or self-evaluative research, and has not moved past its
reliance on free academic labor to develop a more reliable program of financially
supported research. HHS smartly utilizes its awards program to develop relationships
with shows, but needs more staff to expand the capacity for direct pitching. What do all
155
of these paths forward, whether for GLAAD or others, have in common? They all need
more staff and more resources in order to happen. This need was expressed time and
time again in interviews with advocates, both implicitly and explicitly:
- “I wish we had more people, that we could constantly be calling new shows and
making those relationships. But right now, it’s just like one person right now.”

- “I think that’s the only thing, we don’t have enough people. I wish we were
bigger, so we could do more outreach to more shows, and follow-up a little bit
more.”

- “To this day they don’t really have any full time real research people who could
put together a survey. They were quickly in a position where they had to show
they were making a difference, and they didn’t and still don’t have somebody on
staff who could actually measure change, which I think is a major mistake.”

- “One of the big questions that is always asked is well how often does the stuff
you consult on end up being in the storylines? And so that’s something that I
think we need to work on a little bit more, is doing more follow-up to see exactly
what, you know, here are the notes from the consultation, okay what ended up
being in the show? I want to do that for every single consultation that we do, to
see what the results are.”

- “Well I think we’re in growth mode so we’re trying to put into the budget
someone for a new media specialist. That person can deal with all that kind of
stuff, and I can do all the TV kind of stuff, so as we keep moving on, hopefully
we’ll have more staff, and that’s the only way we’d be able to handle it.”

- “We’d like to focus more on children’s programming. We’re thinking about
getting into reality TV and cable as well. And we’re also working with Spanish
language television, but maybe Arabic language and other languages as well.”

- “It takes less energy to look around and give an award. It takes a lot of energy to
get submissions. But you’re able to impact a lot more shows that way, I think. But
that means you gotta have a staff. You can’t do it without a staff.

- “I feel like I sound so beleaguered. These things work and they can be effective
but they have to be funded enough so that you have enough staff.”

- “It’s impossible for us to watch every single show. But again, it’s like I feel like
if we were bigger, we would have that capacity. I want a copy of every episode
we consult on. I want a library of all of them. But unfortunately we just haven’t
had the manpower to do that. But I think eventually.”
156

- “I’m not fully funded to do this work. We don’t have staff dedicated to it. If we
did we could have a more comprehensive program. But it does require funding to
do it right.”

- “You know how many thousands of writers there are, and how many of us there
are? And everybody has a team of probably one or two people. It’s ludicrous. You
can’t get that much done. It takes a lot of legwork to get on a show.”

The struggle for resources is the number one obstacle to forward progress by
advocates. Securing external funding specifically for entertainment media can be
difficult when entertainment media appears so “fuzzy” to most funders and is not
sufficiently respected. This goes for the allocation of internal resources, too, when
advocates are based within a larger organization not solely dedicated to entertainment
media advocacy. For instance, even though GLAAD uses its entertainment media
involvements for much of its organizational visibility, the Entertainment Media team
comprises a very small percentage of GLAAD staff. In March 2009, only two of
GLAAD’s 55 staff members were dedicated to entertainment media. Other staff members
work on funding, sports news, local news, national news, Spanish language media, and so
on. (See Appendix C.) At another organization, the apparent success of the entertainment
media wing led to it being shut down, as the higher-ups seemed to feel that the success
meant those efforts were “no longer needed.”
Without resources, it is hard to get research, and without research, it is hard to get
the resources. The best way to start seems to be to establish connections with academics
willing to work pro-bono, as Hollywood, Health & Society has done. However,
advocates must progress from there; they cannot rely on free or nearly free labor
indefinitely, and must use that free foundation to build upwards. It is also possible that
157
volunteers could be used more, and used more effectively. Yet, obviously, these are
relatively minor steps. What more could be done?
Here’s an idea: maybe Hollywood should be paying for this. While ambitious,
perhaps overly so, I do believe this is a realistic possibility. First, why Hollywood-
funded? Because Hollywood content creators are the ones benefiting from the resource
function of these advocates. During a Congressional hearing on CDC funding,
Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin included this in his list of complaints:
The CDC has also spent over $1.7 million on a “Hollywood liaison” to advise TV
shows like E.R. and House on medical information included in their
programming, clearly an expense that should have been covered by the successful
for-profit television shows, not by our hard-earned tax dollars. (Ryan, 2007,
quoted in Weinreich, 2007)

The CDC-focused portion of this complaint, it should be noted, is arguably baseless, as
that funding is a tremendously good value. Nedra Kline Weinreich, active in the
advocacy community and a social marketing expert, has documented just how good a
value this $1.7 million was for public health communication purposes. A single 7 to 20
minute storyline in a show that Hollywood, Health & Society consulted on -- and found
knowledge, intention, and behavior effects in audience members afterward -- would cost
$4.8 million to $12.4 million in advertising time (Weinreich, 2007), and those
advertisements would likely not be as engaging or effective as issue “product placement.”
As one person connected to Hollywood, Health & Society noted:
Congress made it sound like we were doing research and sort of librarian work for
the networks. If you think about it, even if that were true, so what? I mean in
terms of getting huge sections of the general public to know the accurate
symptoms of a disease instead of the inaccurate symptoms, who cares?

158
In other words, the CDC is quite right to fund Hollywood, Health & Society, if looking to
influence public health awareness. Congressman Ryan’s idea of Hollywood-based
funding becomes far more interesting, however, when considering it as an additional
source of funding, rather than as a replacement for already-existing sources.
Imagine a Hollywood-funded resource group network. A small, informal
resource group and advocacy network already exists, the Entertainment Resource
Professionals Association (ERPA), but it amounts to little more than a monthly
networking talk, with no budget and no official membership requirements or oversight. It
also does little in the way of promotion of the group or its members; a poorly maintained
website is all the group offers, and it exists only out of the volunteer efforts of a few
motivated advocates. At one WGA event, I spoke with a writer who expressed a desire to
consult with knowledgeable people on certain topics that I knew ERPA members
covered. When I mentioned this to her, she was thrilled, and said she wished they had a
higher profile in the industry. Observed one advocate:
That’s one of those things that I find so fascinating about this, is how easy it is. if
they want to reach out they can very easily and very quickly. And that’s one of
the great things about this entertainment resource professional group, is you’ve
got a list people who know about everything from anorexia and to chemical
dependency to financial problems and all you have to do is go right there and
there's an expert. It’s just that they don’t very often.

They don’t, because, in the words of another advocate, “To actually get people to use the
resource -- no matter how good it is -- remains a matter of marketing.” Imagine ERPA
with the capacity to market itself, market its members, and provide a centralized access
point for industry professionals looking for consultations.
159
In addition to ERPA being transformed into an official central resource,
significant general funding could mean additional subject areas receiving attention. For
instance, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media – a group started that started in
2007, hosted a conference in 2008, and quickly fell off the map for lack of funding –
could be revived. The need for a female-centric advocacy group is undeniable. Women
are underrepresented in primetime, with research placing them at 34-40% of the speaking
cast (Smith & Granados, 2009). On average, they are younger than the males, more likely
to be married, less likely to be shown working, and less likely to hold positions of power
or have discernible goals (Smith & Granados, 2009). Why does this matter? Young girls
shown a cartoon with reverse-stereotyped sex roles (such as girls being sporty) scored
significantly lower on a sex-typing scale than those who were shown stereotyped (girls
bored by the outdoors) or neutral cartoons (Davidson, Yasuna, & Tower, 1979). Smith
and Granados (2009) found three other studies (Jennings-Walstedt, Geis & Brown, 1980;
Flerx, Fidler & Rogers, 1976; Johnston & Ettema, 1982) providing similar support for
nontraditional roles decreasing stereotyping. These studies span a wide age range, from
kindergarten to adult, each indicating the ability of entertainment media to increase
females’ self-efficacy and perceived range of identity options. Centralized funding of the
advocacy community could help much-needed groups like the Geena Davis Institute on
Gender in Media to stay afloat and keep working toward their goals.
Now, the real question: how could this be done? Obviously, industry-provided
financial backing of these groups could not be mandated, but it could be accomplished if
the right social pressures and PR interests coalesced. Industry support for prosocial
causes seems to be growing, and generally considered good business practice. As one of
160
countless such examples, in 2008, a variety of media enterprises offered green initiatives;
NBC Universal presented more than 100 hours of environmental issue themed content
across its various NBCU properties and websites, while FOX launched a “Green It, Mean
It,” public service campaign, wherein its TV stars listed eco-friendly tips for viewers.
Despite old Hollywood prejudices against social advocacy (recall the “If you want to
send a message, use Western Union” advice), the industry has even started rewarding
itself for sending social messages, thereby consecrating prosocial content as valuable.
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, the organization responsible for the Emmy
Awards, instated The Television Academy Honors in early 2008 to begin recognizing
“television with a conscience” (Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, 2008, para. 1).
One advocate, new to Hollywood lobbying, made this observation:
I did not know that WGA had such an active diversity department, but they do, as
well they should. Hasn’t always been, but there is now. And that’s just one
example. To find that within the big agencies, the big broadcast companies, the
big guilds-- there is a place where these kinds of efforts can be nurtured and
applied to their communities. The Writers’ Guild has thousands of members, but
how can we as a small organization with a vision reach them? If the writers guild
had no interest in diversity where would we even begin? If you think of it as a
plug and a socket, we’re holding the plug, but there’s a socket there… Going
group to group, program to program, and, surprisingly, again, a lot of these
programs have the desk to receive this kind of interest, this kind of material, this
kind of resource, they’ve already got it. The socket is in place, which makes it a
lot easier. (italics added)

A variety of Hollywood power players, in partnership with YouTube and the United
Nations, launched a $100 million film fund aimed at combating stereotypes in movies
(1/16/08 Variety, see UN film fund pdf). Richard Branson is on the board, and has
pledged his support. This is to say: the money is out there, but the advocacy community
needs to organize and think bigger.
161
Changes in Media and Social Environment
Mediascape Fragmentation
Changes in communication technologies and industries suggest that, while
professional mass communicators are very unlikely ever to become obsolete, they
are likely to become more difficult to define.
- Whitney & Ettema, 2006, p. 179

The amount of amateur and non-corporate content has increased significantly in
recent years, spurred on by consumer availability of filmmaking technologies and online
distribution methods. What does that mean for issue/group advocates? To what degree is
such content deserving or not of advocacy time and resources?
The industry itself is changing, too. Bennett and Iyengar (2008) have questioned
whether the new fragmented media environment means a return to minimal effects,
which, if true, may call into question some of the basic presumptions of cultural advocacy
via Hollywood industry. After a strong effects era in which the media was said to tell
people what topics to think about (Iyengar & Kinder, 1987) and how to think about those
topics (Iyengar, 1991), the suggestion has been made that technologies have developed in
a manner that instead means the people will tell the media what they want to think about
(Chaffee & Metzger, 2001).
Yet however minimal the effects might be argued to be relative to the era of truly
mass “mass media,” broadcast still reaches largest audience. Television, whether
streamed online or viewed on a DVR or viewed as the advertising executives would
prefer (live, on a television set), is America’s most visible entertainment medium. Schatz
and Perren (2004) note that “during the 1950s…‘watching TV’ replaced ‘going to the
movies’ as America’s preferred ritual of narrative entertainment” (p. 499), a trend that
162
continues today. In a 2008 battle over biggest film opening weekends ever, estimates put
blockbusters Spider-Man 3 and The Dark Knight at around 22 million tickets sold over
their respective opening weekends (AP, 2008). Compare that to the Nielsen top ten
broadcast programs for a recent [non-sweeps] week, which ranged from 14.5 to 24.4
million viewers per program – and these are regular programs, which bring in those
numbers every week, not just on an “opening weekend.”
Admittedly, the future of scripted programming is unclear. Take, for instance, the
ambitious Kings debuting on NBC to less viewers than watched the old Saturday Night
Live skits which ran the week prior, “giving network executives less incentive to spend
money on expensive scripted shows” (Bauder, 2009). Or, more broadly, the attempt by
NBC to replace a full hour of nightly scripted primetime with Jay Leno. Of course, other
networks defended scripted, and the Jay Leno experiment “failed,” but the attempt was an
anxiety-provoking reminder for scripted shows that their place in the industry is far from
secure.
The explosion of niche programming is yet another industry development relevant
to advocates. Do more niche options mean less of a need for advocacy? Back in 2001,
Gross reflected on the seeming unlikelihood of gay niche programming:
In the case of African Americans, television has created an entire stream of
essentially segregated programming (e.g., the sitcoms on UPN), watched by
African American audiences and nearly invisible to white Americans. Queers are
unlikely to be offered this sort of programming, so we need to push for the best
available options and images within the mainstream of entertainment fare. (pp.
257-8)

Four years later, of course, gay-centric cable network Logo premiered, and here! now
offers on-demand gay entertainment. Yet GLAAD must still “push for the best available
163
options and images within the mainstream of entertainment fare.” It is significant to the
community’s identity that gays appear in the mainstream as equals, and – most
importantly for GLAAD’s primary function – it is significant to those outside the
community that they encounter LGBT images regularly. Images on Logo and here! do
little to help sway the “hearts and minds” of those who will not tune into gay niche
programming. Despite the uncertainty of the future of network entertainment
programming, it remains the dominant means of reaching large swaths of the general
public.
Social Progress
An oft-quoted statement by Martin Luther King, Jr., offers a social change truism:
“Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” As time
passes, fortunes do change in a positive direction for minorities. When indications of
social progress appear, do advocacy practices change sufficiently to reflect the new
environment? Counterintuitively, progress can be an obstacle to further progress. As the
social landscape moves toward acceptance, there is a need to reevaluate; more social
support from the public and industry means less reason to hide what you are doing.
Additionally, the increasing availability of materials across audiences, as allowed by the
Internet and social technologies, means less ability to hide what you are doing or
maintain divergent goal-related rhetoric. In reevaluating goals, and what has been
omitted from those admitted goals due to a presumption of asking too much, it may be
realized that a more dramatic stance can be taken. Consider that one Entertainment
Media team member recently left to accept a job offer at ABC Family(!). Has GLAAD
changed its practices sufficiently to reflect an increasingly accepting environment?
164
In fact, GLAAD is adjusting, though slowly. After a long-standing organizational
emphasis on promoting “fair, accurate, and inclusive” media images, it has started openly
acknowledging its desire to be a “a culture change agent.” While this was always the
activist desire of the organization internally, external admissions of this desire were
typically directed only to the LGBT community and certain funders. So as to not scare
off the “movable middle” and those whose support may be a bit more timid, the technical
and unemotional “fair, accurate, and inclusive” was emphasized to the organization’s
broader public audience. This new emphasis on “changing hearts and minds” – in
January 2009, the website read, “Media Advocacy. Fighting Defamation. Changing
Hearts & Minds. Join GLAAD Today” – reflects a newly open acknowledgement of
social activism.
In this way, entertainment media lobbying for minorities shows hints of a
pendulum swing -- moving from hard-line activism to resource group “non-advocacy” to
exploring more openly activist intentions -- coming back toward its roots but in a less
dramatic fashion than originally embraced. To what extent this activism will be
embraced by GLAAD’s Entertainment Media team, versus simply being one more top-
down organizational strategy complicating the team’s restrained intentions, is yet to be
seen. Regardless, one component of the future of minority advocacy is clear: advocates
must respond effectively to of-the-moment social acceptance environs, and be willing to
alter practice to stay relevant.
Global Possibilities
If looking to Hollywood, Health & Society as a model of Hollywood advocacy,
one of their future-facing goals should be noted: global is the new direction. During my
165
interviews, advocates at the organization expressed interest in measuring impact of
prosocial content in US television programming on other countries, and even more so in
the prospect of providing international mentoring for advocates working in other
countries.
We already know from our impact evaluations that our work has tremendous
benefit for viewers, that by getting accurate health information into TV storylines
two-thirds of viewers report learning something new about health and one-third of
them take action on it. So we know there’s behavior change. So knowing that it’s
so powerful, there are other regions of the world that need this as much if not
more than our US viewers.

Specifically, HHS is looking to pursue the following:
I think basically to build the capacity of other people, who are familiar with their
media landscape, who know all the connections with their media folks, their
university folks, people that are connected, we just need to give them the capacity
and teach them and train them and they know how this works, they go off and do
it. We’ll kind of oversee everything, but they’re going to be the ones who are
going to do it, not us, because we don’t live there.

Particularly fascinating is how much their global expansion plans reflect GLAAD’s
domestic model more than HHS’s own:
We’re going to take our model, which works so well, and adapt it for use in other
major media markets. So, for example, in the Middle East, we’ve been invited to
establish a center for EE [entertainment education] for the Middle East region, so
we’d help them set up a program very similar to HHS. But we wouldn’t focus just
on scriptwriters. We’ll do that, so they’ll learn how to do outreach to scriptwriters,
how to maintain the kind of database we have of experts, how to prepare all this
content we prepare online and in print, but also they do a lot of work with TV
news journalists. So we’ll also adapt our model to work with TV news journalists
who are Arabic speaking. And also how to work with celebrities. because the Y
Peer Network and the UN are continuously training celebrities to serve as their
ambassadors, spokespersons on HIV/AIDS.

Outreach to scriptwriters plus added-on attention to journalists and celebrities means an
all-purpose media resource just like that offered by GLAAD to U.S.-based industry. This
is yet one more indication of the ability of these groups to learn from each other, despite
166
differing interests in public health versus minority advocacy. This is also an indication
that GLAAD and the rest of the advocacy community should – provided the right
resources, of course – begin looking outside the United States in their attempts to effect
cultural change.
Conclusion
So, what are the take-aways here?
* There are many options for achievable, realistic bettering of GLAAD’s
entertainment media advocacy practices. Some of these paths toward improvement get
their inspiration from the practices of Hollywood advocacy giant Hollywood, Health &
Society. And yes, differences exist between health and minority advocacy. These
differences, as briefly discussed in Chapter 1, include the level of controversy involved,
the ease with which issues can be integrated into scripts, the type of sweeps coverage
received, the level of institutional support, the concreteness of the “facts” involved.
Health advocates may also, as noted in Chapter 3, face less internal and external
challenges to their organizational narrative, as compared to marginalized group
advocates. However, ultimately, as hinted at in Chapter 4 and more directly explicated in
the first section of this final chapter, the operations of a public health focused advocacy
group like Hollywood, Health & Society can provide important and useful indications of
how a minority advocacy group like GLAAD might edit its procedures for maximum
efficacy.
* Power dynamics are always central, and advocates have little status -- but they
do qualify as producers in the content creation process. The friendly beggar tone of
carrot-dominated advocacy, described throughout Chapter 4, is one of many indications
167
of the miniscule amount of power advocates have in Hollywood. Indeed, the only power
advocates have is the power willingly given to them by the industry. As outsiders trying
not only to look like they belong inside, but to impact the decisions and creations of those
on the inside, many advocates find themselves living in a state of perpetual paranoia. At
least half of my interviewees repeated a desire for anonymity, or even wished to be
completely off the record, fearing that even disguised data would not be sufficient safety.
The only excerpt I will use from my most guarded advocate evidences this insecurity:
There are things I don’t feel comfortable having anybody else know about. I’m
happy to talk to you about it but I don’t want any of that included. Just about
everything that I’m saying I have questions about having it included. Just because
I work under the radar, I don’t like to be a public person, I feel the best way things
can be accomplished is through relationships, and I don’t want people to read
about the relationships I have with them. As a matter of fact, I don’t know why I
agree so much to talk to people. I want to be helpful, but I don’t like disclosing
any kind of information about what I’m doing… It works the same way it works
in every other industry, it’s all about relationships with other people and so that’s
why I don’t like to talk about it. Because I think your success relies on whether
people like you and whether you have good relationships with other people,
whether people feel they can trust you.

That said, as revealed in Chapter 5, Hollywood advocates most certainly can be seen as a
type of Hollywood producer. They may not be the “majority” producer on a given work,
but they can influence content to a point that they must – even if only here, in this
analysis – be acknowledged for the role that they play. Given the tentativeness described
above, it is certainly unlikely (if not an absolute impossibility) that advocates would ever
vocally embrace this role themselves – except maybe to funders, behind closed doors. On
that note…
* There are ways to develop Hollywood advocacy further, to make it more
effective and a better representative for public interest concerns, but the advocacy
168
community needs more funder buy-in. Goals, like those discussed in Chapter 3, cannot be
pushed further without the money to do so. As seen in Chapter 4, carrot advocacy
requires more developing of relationships, more walking of fine lines and knocking on
doors and omnipresence in the community, than does the occasional shouting of the stick
advocacy of the past. This, too, requires financial support. Moreover, as one advocate
said, funders have to understand that “you can’t fund change over three years, it doesn’t
work that way.” This must be a sustained effort. This is all particularly true if there is
any interest in expanding to the global scene, as discussed in the previous section of this
chapter.
And, finally, what may be the most important point of all:
* Entertainment media advocacy must be valued more for the public service it
provides. Recall the facts laid out in Chapter 2. The influence entertainment media has
on our lives is both astounding and proven, and the industry needs outsiders to provide
constant reminders of public interest considerations. Hollywood is undeniably a money-
driven business, and that will not change, so fantastical notions of industry reorganization
should be de-prioritized and attainable means of influencing insiders should be pursued.
Hollywood advocates of today maintain an identity that exists both inside and outside the
power structures of the business, and by doing so manage to give a voice to concerns that
might otherwise go ignored or be dealt with clumsily – and this voice actually gets heard.
For this, Hollywood lobbyists should be respected for their role in the process, and the
lobbyist community fostered into the most effective and efficient state possible.
169
REFERENCES
Abeles, R. P. (1980). Beyond violence and children. In S. B. Whithey & R. P. Abeles
(Eds.), Television and social behavior: Beyond violence and children. Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Adler, P. A., & Adler, P. (2003). The reluctant respondent. In J. A. Holstein & J. F.
Gubrium (Eds.), Inside interviewing. London: Sage.

Allan, J. (2007). And baby makes three… Gay men, straight women, and the parental
imperative in film and television. In K. G. Barnhurst (Ed.), Media queered:
Visibility and its discontents (pp. 57-72). New York: Peter Lang.

Allen, A. (2008, January 30). Can vaccines cause autism? Eli Stone's questionable
medicine. Slate. Available at http://www.slate.com/id/2183041/

Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Altieri, C. (2000). Advocacy groups confront CBS: Problems or opportunities? In M.
Suman & G. Rossman (Eds.), Advocacy groups and the entertainment industry
(pp. 125-130). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Aoki, G. (2000). Strategies of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans. In M.
Suman & G. Rossman (Eds.), Advocacy groups and the entertainment industry
(pp. 29-36). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Askew, K. (2002). Introduction. In K. Askew & R. R. Wilk (Ed.), The anthropology of
media (pp. 1-13). Oxford: Blackwell.

Associated Press (2006). Soap's sex-changing character a first. Available from
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/27/tv.soap.transgender.ap/index.ht
ml.

Associated Press (2008). 'Dark Knight' sets weekend record with $155.34M.
http://www.theinsider.com/news/1078691__Dark_Knight_sets_weekend_record_
with_155.34M

Baehr, T. (2000). How church advocacy groups fostered the golden age of Hollywood. In
M. Suman & G. Rossman (Eds.), Advocacy groups and the entertainment industry
(pp. 37-42). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Bandura, A. J. (2002). Social cognitive theory of mass communication. In Bryant, J. & D.
Zillmann (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 121-153).
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

170
Bandura, A. (2004). Health promotion by social cognitive means. Health Education &
Behavior, 31, 143-164.

Barnhurst, K. G. (2007). Media queered: Visibility and its discontents. New York: Peter
Lang.

Barrios, R. (2003). Screened out. New York: Routledge.

Bauder, D. (2009, March 17). NBC finds how difficult being fourth really is. The
Associated Press. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2009/03/17/AR2009031702600.html

Beck, V. (2004). Working with daytime and prime-time television shows in the United
States to promote health. In A. Singhal, M. J. Cody, E. M. Rogers, & M. Sabido
(Eds.), Entertainment-education and social change: History, research, and
practice (pp. 207-224). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Becker, R. (2006). Gay TV and straight America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press.

Belluck, P. (2009, Apr 5). A made-up hospital that offered real medicine. The New York
Times. Available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/weekinreview/05belluck.html

Bennett, W. L., & Iyengar, S. (2008). A New Era of Minimal Effects? The Changing
Foundations of Political Communication. Journal of Communication, 58(4), 707-
731.

Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1969). Social construction of reality. London: Penguin
Press.

Bielby, W. T., & Bielby, D. D. (1994). "All hits are flukes": Institutionalized decision
making and the rhetoric of network prime-time program development. The
American Journal of Sociology, 99(5), 1287-1313.

Blackwood, E. (1998). Tombois in West Sumatra: Constructing Masculinity and Erotic
Desire. Cultural Anthropology 13 (4):491-452.

Blumler, H. (1933). The movies and conduct. New York: Macmillan.

Bogatz, G. A., & Ball, S. (1971). The second year of Sesame Street: A continuing
evaluation. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

Boje, D. M. (2001). Narrative methods for organizational and communication research.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
171

Bolin, A. (1988). In search of Eve: Transsexual rites of passage. South Hadley, Mass.:
Bergin and Garvey.

Bordo, S. (1993). Unbearable weight: Feminism, Western culture, and the body.
Berkeley: UC Press.

Bornstein, K. (1994). Gender outlaw: on men, women, and the rest of us. New York:
Routledge.

Bouman, M. (1999). The Turtle and the Peacock: The entertainment-education strategy
on television. The Netherlands: Wageningen Agricultural University.

Bouman, M. (2002). Turtles and Peacocks: Collaboration in entertainment-education
television. Communication Theory, 12 (2), 225-244.

Brailsford, K., & Goodman, A. (2006). Working with Hollywood to deliver your message
to millions. Report for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Available at
www.rwjf.org.

Brown, W. J., & Singhal, A. (1993). Ethical considerations of promoting prosocial
messages through the popular media. Journal of Popular Film & Television, 21
(3), 92-100.

Bruni, F. (1994/1999). Culture stays screen-shy of showing the gay kiss. In L. Gross & J.
D. Woods (Eds.), The Columbia reader on lesbians and gay men in media,
society, and politics (pp. 327-329). New York: Columbia University Press.

Bryant, J., & Oliver, M. B. (2009). Media effects: Advances in theory and research. New
York: Routledge.

Burgess, R. G. (1991). Sponsors, gatekeepers, members, and friends: Access in
educational settings. In W. B. Shaffir & R. A. Stebbins (Eds.), Experiencing
fieldwork: An inside view of qualitative research (pp. 43-52). Newbury Park, CA:
Sage.

Burns, T. (1977). The BBC: Public institution and private world. London: Macmillan.

Calás, M. B., & Smircich, L. (2003). To be done with progress and other heretical
thoughts for organization and management studies. In E. Locke (Ed.),
Postmodernism and management: Pros, cons, and the alternative (pp. 29-56).
Amsterdam: JAI.

Caldwell, J. T. (2007). Production culture: Industrial reflexivity and critical practice in
film/television. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
172

Calvery, S. L., Kotler, J. A., Zehnder, S. M., & Shockey, E. M. (2003). Gender
stereotyping in children’s reports about educational and informational television
programs. Media Psychology, 5, 139-162.

Cantor, M. G. (1971). The Hollywood TV producer. New York: Basic Books.

Capsuto, S. (2000). Alternate channels: The uncensored story of gay and lesbian images
on radio and television. New York: Ballantine Books.

Charren, P. (2000). Principles for effective advocacy from the founder of Action for
Children’s Television. In M. Suman & G. Rossman (Eds.), Advocacy groups and
the entertainment industry (pp. 9-12). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Chase, C. 2006. Hermaphrodites with Attitude: Mapping the Emergence of Intersex
Political Activism. In The transgender studies reader, edited by S. Stryker and S.
Whittle. New York: Routledge.

Chetwynd, L. (2000). Television and pressure groups: Balancing the bland. In M. Suman
& G. Rossman (Eds.), Advocacy groups and the entertainment industry (pp. 139-
144). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Clifford, J. (1986). On ethnographic allegory. In J. Clifford & G. E. Marcus (Eds.), The
poetics and politics of representation (pp. 98-121). Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press.

Collins, P. (1998). Negotiating selves: Reflections on ‘unstructured’ interviewing.
Sociological Research Online, 3(3).

Collis, R. (1994). Screened Out: Lesbians and Television. In Daring to dissent: lesbian
culture from margin to mainstream, edited by L. Gibbs. London: Cassell.

Conan, N. (2006). Transgendered Character on Soap Opera: National Public Radio.
Radio Program.

Correll, J., Park, B., & Smith, J. A. (2008). Colorblind and multicultural prejudice
reduction strategies in high-conflict situations. Group Processes & Intergroup
Relations, 11(4), 471-491.

Cowan, G. (1979). See no evil: The backstage battle over sex and violence on television.
New York: Simon and Schuster.

Curtin, M. (2000a). A review of Producing Public Television. American Ethnologist,
27(1), 200-202.

173
Curtin, M. (2000b). Gatekeeping in the neo-network era. In M. Suman & G. Rossman
(Eds.), Advocacy groups and the entertainment industry (pp. 65-76). Westport,
CT: Praeger.

Curtin, M., & Streeter, T. (2001). Media. In R. Maxwell (Ed.), Culture works: The
political economy of culture (pp. 225-249). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press.

D’Acci, J. (1994). Defining women: Television and the case of Cagney and Lacey.
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina.

Dal Cin, S., Zanna, M. P., & Fong, G. T. (2004). Narrative persuasion and overcoming
resistance. In E. S. Knowles & J. A. Linn (Eds.), Resistance and Persuasion (pp.
175-191). Mahway, NJ: Erlbaum.

Dale, E. (1935). The content of motion pictures. New York: Macmillan.

Davidson, C. J., & Valentini, M. G. (1992). Cultural advocacy: A non-legal approach to
fighting defamation of lesbians and gays. Law and Sexuality, 2, 103-129.

Davidson, E. S., Yasuna, A., & Tower, A. (1979). The effects of television cartoons on
sex-role stereotyping in young girls. Child Development, 50, 597-600.

Davies, M. M. (2006). Production studies. Critical Studies in Television, 1 (1), 21-30.

de Moraes, L. (2008, Nov 7). Grey’s Lesbian Doc Fails the ‘Chemistry’ Test. The
Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110603733.html

Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). The discipline and practice of qualitative
research. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of
qualitative research (pp. 1-32). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Donohue, W. A. (2000). A Catholic look at the entertainment industry. In M. Suman &
G. Rossman (Eds.), Advocacy groups and the entertainment industry (pp. 19-22).
Westport, CT: Praeger.

Dornfeld, B. (1998). Producing public television, producing public culture. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.

Dorr, A., Graves, S. B., & Phelps, A. (1980). Television literacy for young children.
Journal of Communication, 24, 130-137.

Dow, B. (1996). Prime-time feminism: television, media culture, and the women's
movement since 1970. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
174

Downey, J. (2006). The media industries: Do ownership, size and internationalization
matter? In D. Hesmondhalgh (Ed.), Media production (pp. 7-47). New York: The
Open University.

Doyle, V. (2005). The visibility professionals: The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against
Defamation and the cultural politics of mainstreaming. Doctoral dissertation for
University of Massachusetts Amherst. Available at
http://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3193896

Doyle, V. (2007). Insiders-outsiders: Dr. Laura and the contest for cultural authority in
LGBT media activism. In K. G. Barnhurst (Ed.), Media queered: Visibility and its
discontents (pp. 89-106). New York: Peter Lang.

Doyle, V. (2008). “But Joan! You’re my daughter!” The Gay and Lesbian Alliance
Against Defamation and the politics of amnesia. Radical History Review, 100, 209-
221.

du Gay, P., Hall, S., James, L., Mackay, H., & Negus, K. (1997). Doing cultural studies:
The story of the Sony Walkman. London: Sage.

Ehrenstein, D. (1998). Open secret. New York: William Morrow.

Eisenberg, E. M., & Riley, P. (2001). Organizational culture. In F. M. Jablin & L. L.
Putnam (Eds.), The new handbook of organizational communication (pp. 291-
322). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Erlandson, D. A., Harris, E. L., Skipper, B. L., & Allen, S. D. (1993). Doing naturalistic
inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Fairman, M. (2009, Feb 3). All Things 'Nuke'. Advocate.com. Accessible at (Feb 10
2009): http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid72247.asp

Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention, and behavior: An
introduction to theory and research. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Fiske, J. (1986). Television: Polysemy and Popularity. Critical Studies in Mass
Communication 3 (4):391-408.

Flerx, V. C., Fidler, D. S., & Rogers, R. W. (1976). Sex role stereotypes: Developmental
aspects and early intervention. Child Development, 47, 998-1007.

Fox, I. S. (2000). Using soap operas to confront the world’s population problem. In M.
Suman & G. Rossman (Eds.), Advocacy groups and the entertainment industry
(pp. 13-19). Westport, CT: Praeger.

175
Fuqua, J. V. (1995). ‘There’s a queer in my soap!’ The homophobia / AIDS storyline of
One Life to Live. In To be continued… Soap operas around the world, edited by
R. C. Allen. London: Routledge.

Gamson, J. (1998). Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Gans, H. (1976) Personal journal: B. On the methods used in this study. In M. Patricia
Golden (Ed.), The research experience (pp. 49-59). Itasca, IL: F. E. Peacock.

Gans, H. (1979). Deciding what’s news: A study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly
News, Newsweek, and Time. New York: Pantheon.

Gardner, M. R. (2000). Public policy advocacy: Truant independent producers in a
federal city fixated on a “values agenda.” In M. Suman & G. Rossman (Eds.),
Advocacy groups and the entertainment industry (pp. 53-64). Westport, CT:
Praeger.

Gerbner, G. & Gross, L. (1976). Living with television: The violence profile. Journal of
Communication, 26(2), 173-199.

Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Morgan, M., & Signorielli, N. (1982). Charting the mainstream:
Television’s contributions to political orientations. Journal of Communication,
32(2), 100-127.

Gergen, K. J. (1971). The concept of self. New York: Holt.

Gergen, K. J. (1991). The saturated self: dilemmas of identity in contemporary life. New
York: Basic Books.

Giles, D. (2002). Parasocial interaction: A review of the literature and a model for future
research. Media Psychology, 4, 279-305.

Gitlin, T. (1980). The whole world is watching: The role of the news media in the making
and unmaking of the New Left. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Gitlin, T. (1983/2000). Inside prime time. Los Angeles: University of California Press.

GLAAD. (2007). Transgender Glossary of Terms. Available from
http://glaad.org/media/guide/transfocus.php.

GLAAD (2008, September 23). Where We Are on TV. 13
th
Annual report. Available at
http://www.glaad.org/Document.Doc?id=24

176
GLAAD (2008, December 2). Poll shows majorities of U.S. adults favor legal protections
for gay and transgender Americans. Press release. Available at
http://www.glaad.org/media/release_detail.php?id=4842

Gledhill, C. (1997). Genre and gender: The case of soap opera. In Representation:
Cultural representations and signifying practices (pp. 337-386). London: Sage.

Glik, D., Berkanovic, E., Stone, K., Ibarra, L., Jones, M. C., Rosen, B., Schreibman, M.,
Gordon, L., Minassian, L., & Richardes, D. (1998). Health education goes
Hollywood: Working with prime-time and daytime entertainment television for
immunization promotion. Journal of Health Communication, 3(3), 263-283.

Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin.

Gold, M. (2006). All My Children tackles transgender issues. Los Angeles Times.
Available from http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/la-ca-
trans24dec24,0,1888585.story?coll=cl-tv-features

Graves, S. B. (1975). Racial diversity in children’s television: Its impact on racial
attitudes and stated program preferences. Doctoral dissertation. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University.

Graves, S. B. (1980). Psychological effects of Black portrayals on television. In S. B.
Withey & R. P. Abeles (Eds.), Television and social behavior: Beyond violence
and children (pp. 259-289). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Graves, S. B. (1993). Television, the portrayal of African Americans and the
development of children’s attitudes. In G. Berry & J. K. Asamen (Eds.), Children
and television: Images in a changing sociocultural world (pp. 179-190). Newbury
Park, CA: Sage.

Graves, S. B. (1999). Television and prejudice reduction: When does television as a
vicarious experience make a difference? Journal of Social Issues, 55(4), 707-725.

Greenberg, B. (1988). Some uncommon television images and the drench hypothesis. In
S. Oskamp (Ed.), Television as a social issue: Applied social psychology (pp. 88–
102). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Gripsrud, J. (1995). The Dynasty years: Hollywood television and critical media studies.
New York: Routledge.

Gross, L. (1998). Minorities, majorities and the media. In Media, ritual, and identity,
edited by T. Liebes and J. Curran. New York: Routledge.

177
Gross, L. (2001). Up from invisibility: Lesbians, gay men, and the media in America.
New York: Columbia University Press.

Gross, L. (2005). The past and the future of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender
studies. Journal of Communication 55 (3):508–528.

Gross, L. (2009). My media studies: Cultivation to participation. Television & New
Media, 10(1), 66-68.

Gross, L., & Woods, J. D. (1999). Introduction. In L. Gross & J. D. Woods (Eds.), The
Columbia reader on lesbians and gay men in media, society, and politics (pp.
327-329). New York: Columbia University Press.

Hake, R. (2006). Gender Identity Comes Out of the Closet in NYC. New York: New York
Public Radio (WNYC). Radio Program.

Halberstam, J. (1998). Female masculinity. Durham: Duke University Press.

Halberstam, J. (2005). In a queer time and place: transgender bodies, subcultural lives,
Sexual cultures. New York: New York University Press.

Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P. Willis (Eds.),
Culture, media, language. London: Hutchinson.

Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices.
London: Sage.

Harrington, C. L. (2003a). Homosexuality on All My Children: Transforming the daytime
landscape. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 47 (2):216-235.

Harrington, C. L. (2003b). Lesbian(s) on daytime television: The Bianca narrative on All
My Children. Feminist Media Studies 3 (2):207-228.

Harris, R. J., & Barlett, C. P. (2009). Effects of sex in the media. In J. Bryant & M. B.
Oliver (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 304-324). New
York: Routledge.

Heinke, R. S., & Tremain, M. H. (2000). Influencing media content through the legal
system: A less than perfect solution for advocacy groups. In M. Suman & G.
Rossman (Eds.), Advocacy groups and the entertainment industry (pp. 43-52).
Westport, CT: Praeger.

Hendershot, H. (1998). Saturday morning censors. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

178
Henderson, L. (2007). Social issues in television fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press.

Hesmondhalgh, D. (2006). Production and media analysis. In D. Hesmondhalgh (Ed.),
Media production (pp. 173-177). New York: The Open University.

Hesmondhalgh, D. (2007). The cultural industries. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Hirsch, P. M. (1972). Processing fads and fashions: An organization-set analysis of
cultural industry systems. American Journal of Sociology, 77, 639-659.

Holstein, J. A., and Gubrium, J. F. (1995). The active interview. London: Sage.

Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (1944/2000). The culture industry: Enlightenment as
mass deception (J. Cumming, Trans.). In C. Calhoun, J. Gerteis, J. Moody, S.
Pfaff, & I. Virk (Eds.), Classical sociological theory (pp. 386-389) Malden, MA:
Blackwell.

Horn, W. (2000). The proactive strategy of GLAAD. In M. Suman & G. Rossman (Eds.),
Advocacy groups and the entertainment industry (pp. 23-28). Westport, CT:
Praeger.

Horton, D., & Wohl, R. (1956). Mass communication and para-social interaction:
Observation on intimacy at a distance. Psychiatry, 19, 188-211.

Hovey, J. (2007). Queer change agents. In K. G. Barnhurst (Ed.), Media queered:
Visibility and its discontents (pp. 161-164). New York: Peter Lang.

Hudson, Z. (2006). Trans drama: Media watchdogs monitor trans character on All My
Children. Available from http://www.sovo.com/2006/12-
8/view/actionalert/action.cfm.

Jennings-Walstedt, J., Geis, F. L., & Brown, V. (1980). Influence of television
commercials on women’s self-confidence and independent judgment. Journal of
Personality & Social Psychology, 38, 203-210.

Jenson, M. (2008, September 24). Not so glad about GLAAD’s report on gay visibility.
AfterElton. Accessed Sept 24 2008 at
http://www.afterelton.com/blog/michaeljensen/not-so-glad-about-glaads-report

Johnson, J. C., and Weller, S. C. (2002). Elicitation techniques for interviewing. In J. F.
Gubrium and J. A. Holstein (Eds.), Handbook of interview research. London:
Sage.

179
Johnson, N. (2000). A millenarian view of artists and audiences. In M. Suman & G.
Rossman (Eds.), Advocacy groups and the entertainment industry (pp. 145-157).
Westport, CT: Praeger.

Johnston, J., & Ettema, J. S. (1982). Positive images: Breaking stereotypes with
children’s television. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Jones, J. P. (2005). Entertaining politics: New political television and civic culture.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Juris, J. S. (2008). Networking futures: The movements against corporate globalization.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Katz, E., Blumler, J. G., & Gurevitch, M. (1974). Utilization of mass communication by
the individual. In J. G. Blumler & E. Katz (Eds.), The uses of mass
communications: Current perspectives on gratifications research (pp. 19-32).
Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Keegan, C. 2006. Household Remedies: New Narratives of Queer Containment in the
Television Movie. Journal of Lesbian Studies 10 (1-2):107-123.

Kessler, K. (2006). Politics of the sitcom formula: Friends, Mad About You, and the
Sapphic second banana. In J. R. Keller & L. Stratyner (Eds.), The new queer
aesthetic on television (pp. 130-146). Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Kinsey, A. C., W. B. Pomeroy, and C. E. Martin. (1948). Sexual behavior in the human
male. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co.

Kubey, R. (2004). Creating television: Conversations with the people behind 50 years of
American TV. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Kunda, G. (2000). Foreword. In M. Rosen, Turning words, spinning worlds (pp. ix-xi).
Amsterdam: Harwood.

Liming, S. (2007). “Reading for it”: Lesbian readers constructing culture and identity
through textual experience. In T. Peele (Ed.), Queer popular culture (pp. 85-102).
New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lotz, A. D. (2004). Textual (im)possibilities in the U.S. post-network era: negotiating
production and promotion processes on Lifetime’s Any Day Now. Critical
Studies in Media Communication, 21(1), 22-43.

Mahon, M. (2000). The visible evidence of cultural producers. Annual Review of
Anthropology, 29, 467-92.

180
Mares, M. L., & Woodard, E. H. (2001). Prosocial effects on children's social
interactions. In D. G. Singer & J. L. Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children and the
media (pp. 183-206). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Martin, J. (1990). Deconstructing organizational taboos: The suppression of gender
conflict in organizations. Organization Science, 1(4), 339-359.

Martin, J. (1992). Cultures in organizations: Three perspectives. New York: Oxford
University Press.

Mason-Schrock, D. 1996. Transsexuals' Narrative Construction of the "True Self". Social
Psychology Quarterly 59 (3):176-192.

Mastro, D. (2009). Effects of racial and ethnic stereotyping. In J. Bryant & M. B. Oliver
(Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 325-341). New York:
Routledge.

Mayer, V. (2001). When the camera won't focus: Tensions in media ethnography.
Feminist Media Studies, 1(3), 307-322.

Mayer, V. (2008). Studying up and f**cking up: Ethnographic interviewing in production
studies. Cinema Journal, 47 (2), 141-148.

Mays, L., Henderson, E. H., Seidman, S. K., & Steiner, V. S. (1975). An evaluation
report on Vegetable Soup: The effects of multiethnic children’s television series
on intergroup attitudes of children. Albany, NY: Department of Education, State
of New York.

McChesney, R. (2007). Communication revolution: Critical junctures and the future of
media. New York: New Press.

McLaughlin, L. (1999). Beyond ‘separate spheres’: Feminism and the cultural
studies/political economy debate. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 23(4), 327-
354.

McKee, A. (2000). Images of gay men in the media and the development of self-esteem.
Australian Journal of Communication, 27, 81-98.

Meyer, M. D. E. (2003). Looking toward the interSEXions: Examining bisexual and
transgender identity formation from a dialectical theoretical perspective. In J.
Alexander & K. Yescavage (Eds.), Bisexuality and transgenderism: InterSEXions
of the others (pp. 151-170). Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press.

Moag, J. (2008, November 6). Dumbest outrage ever.
http://www.gaytvblog.com/2008/11/dumbest-outrage.html
181

Montgomery, K. C. (1989). Target: Prime time. Advocacy groups and the struggle over
entertainment TV. New York: Oxford.

Montgomery, K. C. (1993). The Harvard Alcohol Project: Promoting the designated
driver on television. In T. E. Backer & E. M. Rogers (Eds.), Organizational
aspects of health communication campaigns: What works? (pp. 178-202).
Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Morgan, M., Shanahan, J., & Signorielli, N. (2009). Growing up with television:
Cultivation processes. In J. Bryant & M. B. Oliver (Eds.), Media effects:
Advances in theory and research (pp. 34-49). New York: Routledge.

Moscovici, S. (1988). Notes towards a description of social representations. European
Journal of Social Psychology 18:211-250.

Mutz, D. (2006). Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative vs. Participatory Democracy.
New York: Cambridge University Press.

Negus, K. (1999). Music genres and corporate cultures. New York: Routledge.

Newcomb, H., & Alley, R. (1983). The producer’s medium. New York: Oxford
University Press.

Nielsen (2009). A2/M2 Three Screen Report. 4th Quarter 2008. Available online at
http://www.nielsen-online.com/downloads/3_Screens_4Q08_final.pdf

Ortner, S. B. (1995). Resistance and the problem of ethnographic refusal. Comparative
Studies in Society and History, 37(1), 173-93.

Paluck, E.L., & Green, D.P. (2009). Prejudice reduction: What works? A critical look at
evidence from the field and the laboratory. Annual Review of Psychology, 60,
339-367.

Papa, M. J., Singhal, A., Law, S., Pant, S., Sood, S., Roger, E. M., & Shefner-Rogers, C.
L. (2000). Entertainment-education and social change: An analysis of parasocial
interaction, social learning, collective efficacy, and paradoxical communication.
Journal of Communication, 50, 31-55.

Paterson, R. (1981). The production context of Coronation Street. In R. Dyer, C.
Geraghty, M. Jordan, T. Lovell, R. Paterson & J. Stewart (Eds.), Coronation
Street. London: British Film Institute.

182
Paul (2010, Feb 12). Time to Die, GLAAD. Time to Die. The S Word. Accessed March
22 2010 at http://thesword.com/index.php/mixedmedia/3473-time-to-die-glaad-
its-time-to-die.html

Pekurny, R. (2000). Advocacy groups in the age of audience fragmentation: Thoughts on
a new strategy. In M. Suman & G. Rossman (Eds.), Advocacy groups and the
entertainment industry (pp. 105-114). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Petty, R.E., Priester, J.E. & Brinol, P. (2002). Mass media attitude change: Implications
of the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. In J. Bryant & D. Zillman
(Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 155-198). Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.

Powdermaker, H. (1950). Hollywood the dream factory: An anthropologist looks at the
movie-makers. Boston: Little Brown.

Power, D., & Scott, A. J. (2004). A prelude to cultural industries and the production of
culture. In D. Power & A. J. Scott (Eds.), Cultural industries and the production
of culture (pp. 3-15). New York: Routledge.

Prior, M. (2005). News vs. entertainment: How increasing media choice widens gaps in
political knowledge and turnout. American Journal of Political Science, 49 (3),
577-592.

Prosser, J. (1998). Second skins : the body narratives of transsexuality, Gender and
culture. New York: Columbia University Press.

Robinson, C. (2006). Developing an Identity Model for Transgender and Intersex
Inclusion in Lesbian Communities. Journal of Lesbian Studies 10 (1-2):181-199.

Romine, D. (2007). Personal Communication [Interview]. Los Angeles, February 16.

Rosen, M. (1991). Coming to terms with the field: Understanding and doing
organizational ethnography. Journal of Management Studies, 28, 1-24.

Rosen, M. (2000). Turning words, spinning worlds. Amsterdam: Harwood.

Roskos-Ewoldsen, D. R., Roskos-Ewoldson, B., & Carpentier, F. D. (2009). Media
priming: An updated synthesis. In J. Bryant & M. B. Oliver (Eds.), Media effects:
Advances in theory and research (pp. 74-93). New York: Routledge.

Rossman, G. (2000). Hostile and cooperative advocacy. In M. Suman and G. Rossman
(Eds.), Advocacy groups and the entertainment industry (pp. 85-104). Westport,
CT: Praeger.

183
Rubin, A. M (2009). Uses-and-gratifications perspective on media effects. In J. Bryant &
M. B. Oliver (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 165-
184). New York: Routledge.

Rubin, A. M., & Perse, E. M. (1987). Audience activity and soap opera
involvement. Human Communication Research, 14 (2), 246-268.

Russo, V. (1981). The celluloid closet. New York: Harper & Row.

Saito, S. (2007). Television and the cultivation of gender-role attitudes in Japan: Does
television contribute to the maintenance of the status quo? Journal of
Communication, 57, 511-531.

Schatz, T., & Perren, A. (2004). Hollywood. In J. D. H. Downing, D. McQuail, P.
Schlesinger, & E. Wartella (Eds.), The Sage handbook of media studies (pp. 495-
516). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Schneider, A. R. (2000). Dealing with advocacy groups at ABC. In M. Suman & G.
Rossman (Eds.), Advocacy groups and the entertainment industry (pp. 131-138).
Westport, CT: Praeger.

Schneider, C. P. (2008, September 3). "Traitor": The challenges of Hollywood and the
Muslim world. On Faith Blog hosted by Washingtonpost.com and Newsweek.
Available at http://www.brookings.edu

Schneider, C. P., & Nelson, K. (2008, June). Mightier than the sword: Arts and culture in
the U.S.-Muslim world relationship. The Brookings Institution. Available at
www.brookings.edu

Schuh, C. A. (2006). Being Lisa: Discourses of gender and transsexual identity.
Kaleidoscope 5:35-56.

Serano, J. (2007). Whipping girl: a transsexual woman on sexism and the scapegoating of
femininity. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press.

Shaivitz, M. (2003). How pro-social messages make their way into entertainment
programming. Report to The Carnegie Foundation for the Media, Citizens &
Democracy Project of the Council for Excellence in Government and The
Norman Lear Center.

Shefner, C. L., & Rogers, E. M. (1992). Hollywood lobbyists: How social causes get in
network television. International Communication Association Conference. Miami,
FL.

184
Stone, S. (1991). The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto. In Body
guards: the cultural politics of gender ambiguity, edited by J. Epstein and K.
Straub. New York: Routledge.

Szalai, G. (2010, March 22). Simultaneous Web/TV use up, says Nielsen. Hollywood
Reporter. Accessed March 22 2010 at www.hollywoodreporter.com.

Schafer, M. (2008, April 23). Gay couple kisses on ‘As the World Turns’: Fans accused
soap opera of censoring male liplocks. Washington Blade. Accessed April 29
2008 at http://www.washblade.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=17887.

Schiappa, E. (2008). Beyond representational correctness. Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press.

Shanahan, J., & Morgan, M. (1999). Television and its viewers: Cultivation theory and
research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Shrum, L. J. (2009). Media consumption and perceptions of social reality. In J. Bryant &
M. B. Oliver (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 50-73).
New York: Routledge.

Shuy, R. W. (2002). In-person versus telephone interviewing. In J. F. Gubrium & J. A.
Holstein (Eds.), Handbook of interview research (pp. 537-556). London: Sage.

Signorile, M. (2010, February). GLAAD Reconsidered. The Advocate. Available at
http://advocate.com/Arts_and_Entertainment/Commentary/GLAAD_Reconsidere
d/

Singhal, A., Cody, M. J., Rogers, E. M., & Sabido, M. (2004). Entertainment-education
and social change: History, research, and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Singhal, A., & Rogers, E. M. (2004). The status of entertainment-education worldwide.
In A. Singhal, M. J. Cody, E. M. Rogers, & M. Sabido (Eds.), Entertainment-
education and social change. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Smircich, L. (1983). Concepts of culture and organizational analysis. Administrative
Science Quarterly, 28(3), 339-358.

Smircich, L., & Calás, M. B. (1987). Organizational culture: A critical assessment. In F.
M. Jablin, L. L. Putnam, K. H. Roberts, & L. W. Porter (Eds.), Handbook of
organizational communication: An interdisciplinary perspective (pp. 228-263).
Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

185
Smith, S., & Granados, A. D. (2009). Content patterns and effects surrounding sex-role
stereotyping on television and film. In J. Bryant & M. B. Oliver (Eds.), Media
effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 342-361). New York: Routledge.

Snarker, D. (2009, February 5). Hollywood to lesbians: ‘We’re just not that into you.’
AfterEllen.com. Available at http://www.afterellen.com/TV/2009/2/not-that-into-
you

Sood, S. (2002). Audience involvement and entertainment-education. Communication
Theory, 12, 153-172.

Sparks, G. G., Sparks, C. W., & Sparks, E. A. (2009). Media violence. In J. Bryant & M.
B. Oliver (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 269-286).
New York: Routledge.

Spradley, J. P. (1979). The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart &
Winston.

Streeter, T. (1996). Selling the air: A critique of the policy of commercial broadcasting in
the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Streeter, T. (2000). What is an advocacy group, anyway? In M. Suman & G. Rossman
(Eds.), Advocacy groups and the entertainment industry (pp. 77-84). Westport,
CT: Praeger.

Suman, M. (2000). Interest groups and public debate. In M. Suman & G. Rossman (Eds.),
Advocacy groups and the entertainment industry (pp. 115-124). Westport, CT:
Praeger.

Suman, M., & Rossman, G. (Eds.) (2000). Advocacy groups and the entertainment
industry. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Taylor, B. C., & Trujillo, N. (2001). Qualitative research methods. In F. M. Jablin & L.
L. Putnam (Eds.), The new handbook of organizational communication (pp. 161-
194). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Tedlock, B. (2000). Ethnography and ethnographic representation. In N. K. Denzin & Y.
S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 455-486). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.

Thomas, R. J. (1995). Interviewing important people in big companies. In R. Hertz & J.
B. Imber (Eds.), Studying elites using qualitative methods (pp. 3-17). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.

186
Toynbee, J. (2006). The media’s view of the audience. In D. Hesmondhalgh (Ed.), Media
production (pp. 92-132). New York: The Open University.

Tropiano, S. (2002). The prime time closet. New York: Applause.

Trujillo, N. (1992). Interpreting (the work and the talk of) baseball: Perspectives on
ballpark culture. Western Journal of Communication, 56, 350-371.

Trujillo, N., & Krizek, B. (1994). Emotionality in the stands and in the field: Expressing
self through baseball. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 18, 303-325.

Tuchman, G. (1972). Objectivity as strategic ritual: An examination of newsmen’s
notions of objectivity. American Journal of Sociology, 77(4), 660-679.

Tuchman, G. (1978). Making news: A study in the construction of reality. New York:
Free Press.

Tulloch, J., & Alvardo, M. (1983). Doctor Who: The unfolding text. London: Macmillan.

Tulloch, J., & Moran, A. (1986). A Country Practice: ‘Quality Soap’. Sydney: Currency
Press.

Tunstall, J. (1993). Television producers. London: Routledge.

Turow, J. (1984). Media Industries: The Production of News and Entertainment. New
York: Longman.

Turow, J. (1989). Playing doctor: Television, storytelling, and medical power. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.

Valentine, D. (2003). ‘I went to bed with my own kind once’: the erasure of desire in the
name of identity. Language & Communication 23:123-138.

Valentine, D. (2007). Imagining Transgender. Durham: Duke University Press.

Van Maanen, J. (1988). Tales of the field. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Vasquez, D. (2006). From Zarf into Zoe, soap's transgender. Available from
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman/publish/article_8846.asp.

Walsh-Childers, K., & Brown, J. D. (2009). Effects of media on personal and public
health. In J. Bryant & M. B. Oliver (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and
research (pp. 469-489). New York: Routledge.

187
Walters, K. L., T. Evans-Campbell, J. M. Simoni, T. Ronquillo, and R. Bhuyan. (2006).
"My Spirit in My Heart": Identity Experiences and Challenges Among American
Indian Two-Spirit Women. Journal of Lesbian Studies 10 (1-2):125-149.

Warn, S. (2008, November 5). Visibility matters: The disappearing lesbian on primetime
broadcast TV. AfterEllen.com. Available at
http://www.afterellen.com/TV/2008/10/visibilitymatters

Weinreich, N. K. (2007, October 15). Save the CDC's Entertainment Education Funding!
Spare Change. Available at http://www.social-marketing.com/blog/2007/10/save-
cdcs-entertainment-education.html

Whitney, D.C., & Ettema, J.S. (2006). Media production: Individuals, organizations,
institutions. In A.N. Valdivia (Ed.), A companion to media studies (pp.157-187).
Oxford: Blackwell.

Whittier, D.K., Kennedy, M.G., St. Lawrence, J.S., Seeley, S., & Beck, V. (2005).
Embedding health messages into entertainment television: Effect on gay men's
response to a syphilis outbreak. Journal of Health Communication, 10, 251-259.

Whitworth, S. (1994). Feminism and international relations: Towards a political
economy of gender in interstate and non-governmental institutions. New York: St.
Martin’s.

Wilchins, R. A. (1997). Read my lips: sexual subversion and the end of gender. Ithaca,
NY: Firebrand Books.

Willox, A. (2003). Branding Teena: (Mis)Representations in the Media. Sexualities
6:407-425.

Windahl, S. (1981). Uses and gratifications at the crossroads. Mass Communication
Review Yearbook, 2, 174-185.

Winsten, J. A. (1994). Promoting designated drivers: The Harvard Alcohol Project.
American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 10(Suppl. 3), 11.

Winsten, J. A. (2000). The Harvard Alcohol Project: Promoting the “designated driver.”
In M. Suman & G. Rossman (Eds.), Advocacy groups and the entertainment
industry (pp. 3-8). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Winsten, J. A., & DeJong, W. (2001). The designated driver campaign. In R. Rice & C.
Atkin (Eds.), Public communication campaigns (pp. 290-294). Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.

188
Yanow, D. (2000). Doing organizational ethnography. In M. Rosen, Turning words,
spinning worlds (pp. 1-19). Amsterdam: Harwood.

Ytreberg, E. (2000). Notes on text production as a field of inquiry in media studies.
Nordicom Review, 2, 53-62.

Zechowski, S. (2004). Public interest, convenience and necessity. In H. Newcomb (Ed.),
The Museum of Broadcast Communications’ encyclopedia of television (pp. 1847-
1849). New York: Fitzroy Dearborn.
189
APPENDIX A: METHODS
From late 2007 to late 2009, I researched GLAAD and the broader Hollywood
advocacy community. This appendix presents a deeper look into my methodological
approach. In terms of specific practices, my work is heavily reliant upon ethnography
and interviews -- yet this says nothing of my perspective on what can or should be known
during and after undertaking that fieldwork, and/or how my work might align or differ
from others’ use of the same methodology. In the following, I seek to situate my work
within approaches to qualitative research, and then within approaches to organizational
culture and ethnographically based research. I explain my interest in narrative analytics
and antenarrative multivocality before discussing issues particular to ethnography and
interviews. Finally, I acknowledge the challenges I have encountered, and the ways in
which I have responded.
THE QUESTION OF KNOWING
Qualitative research, which may include “case study; personal experience;
introspection; life story; interview; artifacts; cultural texts and productions; [and]
observational, historical, interactional, and visual texts” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p. 3),
has often found itself trying to ‘live up’ to quantitative research. Positivist standards used
to be basis of assessment for qualitative studies, with researchers seeking controls against
bias, and falsification or confirmation of hypotheses (Taylor & Trujillo, 2001).
Qualitative research found it hard to meet such demands, garnering snide accusations of
‘unverifiable data’ that is ‘nongeneralizable.’ As Taylor and Trujillo (2001) state,
“Ultimately, the value and significance of qualitative research are the province of
readers…applying standards that are…contested, fluid, and rapidly evolving” (p. 182).
190
Researchers most consumed by validity concerns may view qualitative research as either
preliminary information that can be harnessed and targeted in more ‘precise’ quantitative
studies, or useful in providing color to hard data, or – less frequently – entirely
expendable. Among those who practice the ‘soft’ methodology of qualitative research, a
continuum of epistemological positions exists: quasi-positivism to interpretivism to
critical postmodernism (Taylor & Trujillo, 2001). Quasi-positivists are closest to the
positivists described above, and attempt to control the research process as much as
possible. Though I appreciate the utility of this perspective, and see its value particularly
when done as a form of triangulation with quantitative projects, it is not the approach
relevant here. Instead, I consider interpretivist informed by critical postmodern concerns
appropriate, placing myself between the final two approaches.
In interpretivist research, external validity is not relevant. “Description,
interpretation, narrative skill, and empathic understanding” (Taylor & Trujillo, 2001, p.
183) are of more importance. This does not mean, however, that any interpretation goes.
Taylor and Trujillo (2001) highlight seven criteria for what constitutes a “valid, useful,
and significant account” (p. 183): evidence of a ‘sufficient’ amount of time and
involvement in the field; inductive, emic analysis; rich evidence to support claims;
continuous and reflexive movement between data and explanations; skillful language
choice; use of publicly viewable data [whether public speeches or fieldnotes edited for
confidentiality]; and triangulation of multiple sources and/or methods.
Although Taylor and Trujillo’s (2001) brief presentation of an epistemological
spectrum of qualitative research might lead readers to imagine interpretive research in the
precise middle-ground between quasi-positivist and critical postmodern, interpretivist
191
appears to have a particular amenability toward the latter end of the spectrum. Consider
Trujillo’s (1992) breakdown of the key points of an interpretivist approach: emphasizing
the subjectivity, pluralism, and dynamism of organizations, while de-emphasizing
objectivity, unity, and stability. The critical postmodern approach takes some of these
interests and focuses them, promoting the centrality of discourse, fragmentation of self,
loss of master narratives, power/knowledge connection, and opportunities for resistance
(Taylor & Trujillo, 2001).
Postmodern remains secondary to interpretive within my research due to a
preference that the critical not overtake the project. While I see it as a necessary
contribution to the complexity of the information presented, critical theory as applied to
organizational communication “has as its ultimate goal the ‘emancipation’ of
organizational members” (Taylor & Trujillo, 2001, p. 168), a perspective which presumes
a certain level of hegemonic oppression I wish not to automatically apply to any field
before existing in it. Interpretivist researchers hold off on introducing theory until they
have “a holistic understanding of the scene” (p. 184), at which point theory and field data
are “brought into contact…in a tentative, reflective manner” (p. 184). Demonstrating my
alignment with interpretivism over critical postmodernism, I hold critical theory concerns
in reserve, one part of a theoretical toolbox -- but a particularly valued part, nonetheless.
My prioritization of interpretivism over critical postmodernism also derives from
the potential of the latter to obscure more actionable, material themes. Calás and
Smircich (2003), for instance, speak of the “difficulties of this [postmodern] position for
creating theories that promote active engagement with the world” (p. 39), while
McLaughlin (1999) states that postmodern ethnography risks fostering “a sense of
192
powerlessness and abstraction” (p. 345). To postmodernists, the manifestation of power
and the varieties of meanings and identities “are unrelated to prevailing material
condition or the activities of agents and institutions” (Whitworth, 1994, p. 22). An
interest in discourse and multiplicities of meaning cannot -- or, rather, should not -- mean
the exclusion of structural awareness, nor the omission of actionable analyses.
INDUSTRY CULTURE
In this research, I examine content lobbying culture in Hollywood, with a
particular eye toward advocacy of marginalized group representations. Smircich (1983)
acknowledges that there is no consensus on what ‘culture’ means exactly, either in its
home territory of anthropology or in its adoptive home in organization studies. In general,
however, the linkage of culture to organizational studies means “questioning taken-for-
granted assumptions, raising issues of context and meaning, and bringing to the surface
underlying values” (p. 355).
Eisenberg and Riley (2001) offer a thematic framework for studying
organizational culture from a communication perspective, in which symbolism,
performance, text, critique, identity, and cognition fall under ‘communicative process,’
and effectiveness and climate under ‘communicative goals.’ In this study, I am more
interested in pursuing the themes within the former category. How is organizational
reality constructed, managed, transformed through symbolism and performance? What
do written and spoken texts reveal? How are critical considerations of domination and
reflexivity relevant? To what degree is culture an external variable brought in through
the affiliations and background of workers? How are identities constructed (or faked)?
What is the relationship between individual cognitions and organizational culture?
193
Eisenberg and Riley (2001) also note that technology is a new area of organizational
culture research, and the use of technology by workers is indeed one element of the
‘communicative process’ to be considered in this research.
Martin (1992) separates organizational culture research into integration,
differentiation, and fragmentation, with the first focused on shared values, the second on
different values, and the third on the ever-changing nature of individuals and their
organizations. Differentiation and fragmentation stand to figure more prominently in this
research, as perspectives which actively seek multivocality and ambiguity are more
useful to a researcher with postmodern leanings, a direction Smircich and Calás (1987)
would support. However, cultural commonalities must also be incorporated as
appropriate. As Martin (1992) points out, all three of the perspectives are involved in any
given culture, so all three must be included in cultural analysis.
NARRATIVE AND ANTENARRATIVE
Stories are central to our daily social existence as humans, and are possibly even
more crucial to professionals who work with mass media. Whitney and Ettema (2006)
cite narrative theory as one of the more important cultural perspectives to be applied to
the study of mass communicators, as it recognizes the significant role of stories not only
in fiction but in everyday ‘facts.’ Making the situation (and story possibilities) more
complex, “cultural producers must manage the complicit and contestatory dimensions of
their work as they balance their desire for acceptance and cultural legitimacy against an
interest in producing cultural critique” (Mahon, 2000, p. 477). This in mind, I find Boje’s
(2001) approach to narrative analysis (‘antenarrative’) especially attractive, as it moves
beyond standard methods to provide an awareness of and attention to stories outside the
194
most powerful, linear and coherent. Such antenarrative views of grand and local
storytelling are useful in understanding the situation both within GLAAD, and between
different advocacy organizations. His comments on deconstruction, problematizing the
grand narrative, and thematic analysis are of particular use.
Deconstruction recognizes that narrative moves, flows, unravels, and is
reconstructed, and that this can all happen simultaneously. Boje (2001) quotes Martin
(1990), who states that deconstruction “reveal[s] ideological assumptions in a way that is
particularly sensitive to the suppressed interests of members of disempowered,
marginalized groups” (cited in Boje, 2001, p.19). Boje considers deconstruction an
epistemological position rather than a process of steps involving specific procedures, but
he does offer certain analytical guidelines. Included among these suggested tactics: seek
to ‘fill in the blanks’ of what is unspoken; look for exceptions to rules and scripts; find
subordinate/rebel voices; and resituate in a way that does not replace one hierarchy with
another, but attempts to suspend amidst the options.
Boje (2001) also insists we must shatter the mono-voiced grand narrative -- the
implicit macrostory so beloved in traditional narrative analysis -- into polysemous,
multivocal, resistant little stories. At the same time, we cannot entirely reject or ignore
the grand narrative. As Boje (2001) states, “Not everyone wants grand narratives
banished, which gives the tension between dominant or grand narrative, and the ante-
narrating of little stories” (p. 10). There are official stories and non-official stories, grand
narratives and local narratives, and interplay between each. Heeding the postmodern
emphasis on the variety of knowledge perspectives and the ultimately limited and
195
constructed nature of reality, Boje requests that researchers pay attention to all levels of
co-occurring narrative.
Finally, on the subject of theme analysis, Boje (2001) is opposed to classifying
via taxonomies. He describes taxonomy cells typical to thematic analysis as “entrapping”
stories, “caging” them in (p. 122), and recommends avoidance of such hierarchy and
separation of kinds of stories. In his view, traditional theme analysis “would divest story
of time, place, plurality and connectivity” (p. 11), and is analysis based in stereotypes,
reducing and downgrading the stories in a search for more coherence than is truly there.
Each of the approaches discussed up to this point -- to research knowledge
(interpretivist, with postmodern leanings) and to the subject (organizational culture, with
intent to flesh out an antenarrative) -- is foundational to the process of data collection.
Moving onto that next step…
DATA COLLECTION
My research utilizes a multiple methods approach, with a strong focus on
ethnography and interviews. As Taylor and Trujillo (2001) state, “Virtually all
ethnographers use interview and participant-observation methods to collect data in
organizations, and some use document analysis, content analysis, and other methods” (p.
167). Each potential methodology makes meaning visible in different ways (Denzin &
Lincoln, 2005), obtaining different -- but complementary -- views of the subject of study.
In so doing, multiple methods can assist the researcher in creating a montage that
effectively navigates the personal, political, local, historical, and cultural, adding to the
perceived depth and value of the research project (Taylor & Trujillo, 2001). My
ethnography focuses on a particular division within a larger organization (the
196
Entertainment Media team at GLAAD), and the interviews extend to the broader
community of professionals who perform a similar function within the entertainment
industry. This work is supported with observation at relevant meetings and events
outside of GLAAD, such as sponsored panels at Writer Guild of America –West and
interest group awards programs, as well as regular review of trade and popular press,
relevant blogs, and e-mail listservs.
Ethnography – and, in fact, qualitative methodology more broadly – has been
historically tied to colonialism and racist conceptualizations of the Other (Denzin &
Lincoln, 2005). Classic ethnography aimed to interpret and archive the natives of distant
lands, providing works of scholarship still referenced for fieldwork guidance but not for
the “timeless truths” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005, p. 16) that they sought to offer. Since
then, ethnography has moved closer to home, and has actively incorporated researcher
reflexivity, even embracing new narrative styles of data presentation. Outlining the
various ways in which data may be presented, Van Maanen (1988) divided organizational
ethnographies into realist, confessional, and impressionist; realist strives to provide an
objective account by a detached observer, confessional focuses on the researcher, and
impressionist attempts to balance between the two. I identify most with that final option,
seeking to acknowledge my positionality and the fact of my research being tied to my
particular experiences, while also being as faithful as I can to what I do observe and the
presentation of the relevant analyses. This appears to be an increasingly acceptable
approach, as Tedlock (2000) speaks of a general methodological shift from having to
choose either a self-focused ethnography or a standard other-focused ethnography, to an
inclusion of ethnographies which “allow both self and other to appear together” (p. 471).
197
Indeed, it is vital that I am able to include myself in the research to some degree,
as I was not just an observer of participants, but a direct participant myself. Gans (1976)
suggested a continuum of participant observation research: from observer, to
participation as a researcher, to “real participation” (p. 51) driven not by particular
research goals but by the situation at hand. Over my year at GLAAD, I moved between
both of the participation-heavy options suggested. As Rosen (1991) points out, direct
participant organizational ethnographers can gain a deeper working knowledge of how
things are done, and access to more hidden levels of organizational secrecy. Research
connected to social movements – which my work at GLAAD clearly was – may even
require that level of involvement. Juris (2008) argues forcefully for active, engaged
participation:
The tendency to position oneself at a distance and treat social life as an object to
decode rather than entering the flow and rhythm of ongoing social interaction
hinders our ability to understand social practice. To grasp the concrete logic
generating specific practices, one has to become an active participant. With
respect to social movements, this means…weighing in during strategic and
tactical debates, staking out political positions… Simply taking on the role of
‘circumstantial activist’ (Marcus, 1995) is not sufficient; one has to build long
term relationships of commitment and trust, become entangled with complex
relations of power, and live the emotions associated with [the active position]. (p.
20)

At the same time, role definition in such a situation becomes very complicated, since the
boundary between researcher and employee is becomes blurred it is almost entirely
removed from view. In the field, I referenced my research as often as felt natural and/or
necessary to do, however it is certain that my position as a researcher was not always
front and center in my co-workers’ minds, particularly as the year in the field proceeded.
Rosen (1991) also acknowledges that direct participants suffer the need to take notes
198
while one ‘should be’ working. I was lucky enough to be in an employee position that
had clear peaks and dips in activity, as well as times when multi-tasking research notes
with my organizational work would not impact the quality or efficiency of work
performed, so this was not as much of a problem as it could have been.
Kunda (2000) describes the “ultimate goal of good ethnography: multi-layered,
evocative stories that ring of truth” (p. xi). While staying within the confines of GLAAD
would provide me with many narratives and practices to report on, any analysis would be
severely lacking in context and layers. Rosen (2000) argues that “situating one’s gaze to
understand the work within an organization is more complex than drawing a line around
the presumed formal organization and looking inward with one’s back against the wall”
(p. 121). Juris (2008) suggests attention to “three interrelated modes”: first, reflection on
“movement practices, logics, and emerging cultural and political models,” second,
“analysis of broader social processes and power relations that affect strategic and tactical
decision making,” and third, “reflection about diverse movement networks, how they
interact, and how they might better relate to broader constituencies” (p. 23). Translating
these to my research, I address to varying degrees (1) the internal practices and logics of
individual lobbyists, (2) connections between lobbyist strategy and entertainment
industry structure, and (3) the community within which these media advocates are
located.
In conducting my interviews within the advocacy community, I utilized snowball
and convenience sampling, and approached the interactions through the lens of Holstein
and Gubrium’s (1995) conception of the ‘active interview.’ This approach aligns well
with a methodological approach placed between interpretivist and critical postmodern
199
perspectives, as evidenced by their argument that “all interviews are interpretively active,
implicating meaning-making practices on the part of both interviewers and respondents”
(p. 4), and that this is an unavoidable aspect of the interviewing process. As opposed to
the traditional respondent-as-vessel-of-answers approach, in this perspective the
researcher is also implicated in meaning making not only in the minute-to-minute give
and take of the interview dialogue, but even through the most foundational interview
decisions, such as choice of topic direction, respondent selection, and initial interaction /
interview request. So, for instance, potential subject posturing is not seen as a threat to
data ‘validity,’ but as a reminder that there is performance on both parts. Incidentally,
this performance dynamic may be more exaggerated in short-term interview situations
than in the day to day of ethnographic work, and should be analyzed as such, but not
feared. Recognizing this kind of mutual construction, Collins (1998) suggests that ‘data
generation’ may be more accurate terminology than ‘data collection.’
It is further important to acknowledge that the relationship between researcher
and interviewee is continually changing, within and outside of the interview itself.
Collins (1998) suggests that different roles are taken by the interviewer and many selves
might come into play; a non-exhaustive list of such roles includes expert, story-teller,
sympathetic ear, biographer, witness, sounding board, confessor, counselor, confidante,
co-conspirator, filter/go-between, and co-performer. Whatever roles taken or not, the
interviewer’s goal should be to “provide an environment conducive to the production of
the range and complexity of meanings that address relevant issues” (p. 17).
In the active interview, released from the need to seek precise answers to strategic
questions, pressure is removed from predesigning a strict schedule of questions. Instead,
200
the interviewer’s agenda and queries are viewed as loose directions and constraints on the
conversation. This is not to say that a foundational schedule would not be needed or
useful or recommended, or that efforts to not lead the interviewee should be abandoned,
rather that the scientifically idealized status of precise questions might be reconsidered
for a more flexible set of inquiries. The active interview still has a plan, still has
organization, still utilizes strategy in directing conversation; the plan, however, coexists
with a willingness to improvise.
Interview elicitation techniques, which should not be confused with structured
interviewing, may be used “to uncover unarticulated informant knowledge” (Johnson &
Weller, 2002, p. 491). Elicitation techniques have “an exploratory or emergent
character” (p. 492), and seek to investigate subjective understandings. They are often
utilized to supplement ethnographically situated fieldwork, and in grounded research
more generally. Johnson and Weller (2002) suggest that interviewers should start with
broad questions before moving into more clear and focused questions as familiarity with
the topic increases. One specific tactic is to request a ‘grand tour’ or a ‘mini tour’
description of a typical day, typical procedure, or typical event (Spradley, 1979).
Another specific type of question that can be asked is “What kinds of ____ are there?”
(Johnson & Weller, 2002, p. 498); these ‘domain definition’ or ‘item generation’
questions are often used in developing pilot surveys, but can also be useful in broader
research endeavors. Similarly, respondents may be asked to describe how other
colleagues are successful and how they are not. Direct comparison and contrast questions
can be more useful than single-item description questions; for instance, asking why a
respondent would do X and not Y (and Y instead of X) tends to elicit more information
201
than asking simply why she or he would do X, and why she or he would do Y (Johnson &
Weller, 2002). It may also be helpful to “express ignorance repeatedly” (Johnson &
Weller, 2002, p. 497) in order to demonstrate the need for more information than might
otherwise be offered. Likewise, expressing interest in the topic and in what is being said
can help to encourage greater detail.
At times, it has been necessary to utilize telephone interviews. What are the key
points a researcher should bear in mind with these interactions? Interestingly, Shuy
(2002) found that females are more likely to be better telephone interviewers than males,
as they more consistently inject informality into the questioning and pick up on subtle
communicative clues, making for a more comfortable dialogue. Regardless of gender,
telephone interviewers that used a conversational approach – with “contractions, added
personal comments, abundant feedback markers (such as ‘uh-huh’ uttered during
responses), and conversational intonation” (p. 550) – were better able to get information
from respondents quickly and more completely. In terms of the kinds of questions asked,
Shuy (2002) suggests that phone interviews tend to use closed-ended questions, limiting
responses. This need not be the case, however. Attempting to avoid yes/no and limited
response lines of questioning should in fact be an ongoing, conscious goal for the
interviewer, whether in-person or over the telephone. Curiously, Shuy (2002) does not
acknowledge differences in kinds of contact between interviewer and interviewee that
may precede the actual interview. For instance, the interview request may be made via e-
mail, telephone, or an in-person meeting, or some combination thereof. Similarly, a
second interview might be conducted via phone with someone first interviewed in-
person. In each of these possible situations, dynamics will differ, and so it is important
202
that each interview be planned for, conducted, and analyzed as uniquely appropriate to
the history of interactions with that individual.
DATA ANALYSIS
Thematic analysis was conducted on all data obtained over the course of the field
research. Reviewing the collected data, I sought information relevant to select themes
highlighted early on – explicit/official goals, implicit/unofficial goals, conflict over goals,
carrot versus stick, censorship, technology, research. There was not enough material to
justify censorship as a major theme, and the material that did exist would be better for a
different style of dissertation, so that subject receives only a cursory discussion in this
book.
Alongside my interest in Boje’s (2001) take on grand and little narratives, I am
drawn to his approach toward thematic analysis. He is opposed to classifying via
taxonomies, describing such a method as “entrapping” stories, “caging” them in (p. 122),
and recommends avoidance of this kind of separation of stories. I thus did not seek to
narrowly box in themes or label them in strict hierarchical manners, but rather to explore
each topic to its most analytically productive ends in ways that come to overlap and
influence the reading of data connected to the other selected topics.
Findings were judged by perceived utility to the descriptive and analytical
purposes of the study, rather than by frequency of occurrence. Particularly when wishing
to include more marginalized counternarratives, the frequency of a given view cannot be
taken as the marker of that view’s reality or significance. Given this, no quantitative
analysis was incorporated; the research relies upon purely qualitative analysis, and is
presented in a manner informed by both cultural studies and social science practices.
203
CHALLENGES
Mayer (2001) suggests that every ethnography constructs a messy process as a
coherent narrative. Obviously, a base level of coherence is mandated, and, yes,
inevitably certain things will be left out, but the seeming suggestion of an unquestioned
elision of messiness is suspect. Open acknowledgement of messiness must be included in
any research endeavor, as it is the context in which the data was gathered, and thus
impacts both the data and the analysis. In this section, I will illuminate some of the
greatest challenges I have encountered, and how I have dealt with them.
As Yanow (2000) points out, research proposals for organizational ethnographies
are difficult to compose, as steps are unclear and future developments unknown. Indeed,
not only are they difficult to compose, but they can be even more difficult to get
approved. IRB, as I discovered, can be terribly unfriendly toward ethnographers
depending upon which reviewer is assigned to your project. My heart felt as if it stopped
when I received my first round of IRB feedback, in which I was informed I must pre-
approve any and all questions I wished to ask while in the field. In the eyes of this
reviewer, it was both acceptable and necessary that I be asked to seek the IRB stamp of
approval on any questions asked over the course of 1500 hours in the field. Luckily, with
faculty assistance, I was able to get my application transferred to a reviewer with more
openness toward ethnographic research. That said, the process still proved to be lengthy
and frustrating, but after many rounds of back and forth the project was approved.
While part of the difficulty in obtaining IRB approval was based on the
ethnographic method more generally, part of my specific troubles revolved around
questions of identification and anonymity. As Rossman (2000) indicated in his
204
ethnography of GLAAD, it would be impossible to disguise the group [as most
ethnographies do for their sources and organizations], since there simply is no other
organization that does what GLAAD does. At the same time, to fully reveal a broad
range of organizational details [as most ethnographies do] carries serious questions of
consequences when the organization is involved in heated societal drama and must be
extremely careful of information leakage and image maintenance. The broader
community of Hollywood lobbyists provides a limited context in which GLAAD-specific
observations might be disguised, however that would require taking GLAAD’s actions
and viewpoints out of their very specific social and political context. Confronted with
these facts, the bargain struck with GLAAD and approved by the IRB was that I would
provide GLAAD with the ability to review any information I wished to cite to GLAAD
specifically, and any remaining unapproved details would be disguised within my data on
the broader community. Not wishing to have my data entirely dictated by GLAAD, I
supplement my GLAAD-approved data with GLAAD-specific information culled from
anonymous interviews, blogs, and the popular press. At the same time, I have chosen
carefully what GLAAD-specific information I discuss, as certain operations important to
the broader LGBT political movement must remain confidential. In this way, I hope to
provide as complete a picture as possible of GLAAD and the larger Hollywood advocacy
community, without betraying confidences, organizational interest, or movement goals.
It is not only groups located in the midst of cultural controversy that must be dealt
with so carefully. In my work within the broader advocacy community, I have been
confronted with the issue of ‘reluctant respondents’ more than anticipated. Adler and
Adler (2003) describe this as problems in gaining the initial agreement to be a source
205
(‘access’) and problems getting the respondent to be forthcoming once she or he has
agreed to be a source (‘resistance’). Adler and Adler (2003) identify organizations as one
category of reluctant respondents, noting the drive to “safeguard organizational goals” by
keeping out “unknown or nosy intruders” (p. 158). Along these lines, Thomas (1995) has
stated, “Gaining access can be a tough proposition, even when the point of getting in is
innocuous, well-intentioned, or attractive to key people in the organization itself” (p. 4).
Indeed, my planned observation of monthly community meetings between a number of
Hollywood lobbyists (in a group known as ERPA, Entertainment Resource Professionals
Association) came to a fiery dead end, despite assurances by one of the central members
of the group that my work would be easily accepted and supported.
Adler and Adler (2003) suggest easing access problems by securing an informal
‘sponsor,’ someone to serve as a referral and character reference for others in a group.
Unfortunately, despite my sponsor’s enthusiastic embrace of this role, my proposed
observation of ERPA group meetings was loudly shot down. I had offered promises of
confidentiality, and reassurances that I would seek permission to identify a person in
relation to particular data or disguise them sufficiently that it would not be attributable to
them, yet there remained a tangible sense of fear and threat (a dynamic worth noting!). I
believe I may have been too eager in seeking permission, alienating the group by taking
my sponsor’s evaluation of the situation for granted before feeling out the situation with
more members of the group. As Adler and Adler (2003) point out, seeking access too
quickly can mean losing all future access. I took this under advisement when
approaching my GLAAD ethnography, and submitted my carefully worded request for
206
research permission after I was offered the Entertainment Media fellowship position for
which I had applied.
The ERPA rejection was a clear crisis point for my project, particularly since I
had already attended previous ERPA meetings as a student and interested party before
my formal research began. Could I still attend as a budding practitioner but not
researcher? Was that possible? Moreover, what of my role with the GLAAD team?
Beyond the encouragement I received to attend (so long as I did not pursue my
observation research), my position on the Entertainment Media team at GLAAD provided
me with one more reason to be counted present. Perhaps I could attend meetings, but
omit specific details from my research? Similar to a jury member told to disregard
various evidence or dialogue, but whom inevitably retains it despite that command, I
recognized that material from meetings would be drawn from however unintentionally
when conceptualizing my analyses.
Clearly the desire of the group was that I not use their meetings as a site of study,
a situation further complicated by the fact that the meetings were technically open, with
no formal membership procedures; my sense of ethical obligation to those in attendance
led to the IRB application and official permission request of the group. I did, in fact,
return two more times, but ultimately decided that the experience was not worth the
ethical risk and potential alienation of interview sources. It was an unfortunate loss of a
highly informative data site.
Moving from more externally located challenges to a more personally located
challenge, there is the issue of my age, which was between 24 and 26 years old during the
period of field research. Mayer (2001) talks about power differentials between young
207
participants and older researchers, and the potential for exploitation, but my situation has
been quite different. With a precisely opposite direction of the age relationship,
exploitation was not the issue – instead, the issue was being perceived as a capable
researcher, or even an adult. Within Collins’ (1998) description of the roles in which he
was sometimes placed by interviewees, ‘expert’ is particularly distant to my experience.
One lobbyist presumed that I was working on an undergraduate paper, despite my having
completed undergraduate education six years prior and having obtained ‘real world’ work
experience and a master’s degree in the meantime. Returning to the idea of interviews as
performance, I certainly felt my role as a co-performer, actively engaged in impression
management (Collins, 1998). I would debate with myself whether or not to wear glasses
to the interview, and would stress over my clothing/hair/jewelry in trying to strike an
appropriate balance between sophistication and the casual style of many Los Angeles
professionals. Telephone interviews sometimes allowed me to escape this dynamic, most
clearly if I had not previously met them in-person. They still knew I was a ‘student’ in
some capacity, but did not know my age. Even when I had previously met them in-
person, not being visually confronted with my age as they were interviewed may have
lessened the influence of my age on some participants’ interactions with me. Indeed,
while Shuy (2002) suggests that in-person interviews can level the power playing field
more than relatively hierarchical telephone interviews, when overcoming interviewer
youth and student status it seems that the phone could provide a greater symmetry of
power than in-person.

208
CONCLUSION
In this research, I have chosen to utilize the tools of organizational ethnography
and interviews approached through the lens of the interpretivism, and informed by a
small but not overpowering dose of postmodernism. Though focused on one particular
organization, I am also giving attention to a broader community of similar professionals
for reasons including the analytical need for context, the practical need for anonymizing
certain data, and simple personal interest. Whether focused on the named organization or
the industry culture more generally, I use antenarrative approaches to deconstruction,
grand/local narrative, and theme analysis to provide a representation of the many voices
inevitably present. Ultimately, I hope to offer a multilayered view of the site(s) I am
studying, incorporating each of the three perspectives from which Trujillo (1992)
suggests interpretive ethnographers should speak during data analysis: the romantic, the
functionalist, and the critic. These different positions encourage researchers to find the
inspiring, the practical, and the problematic within a given arena. Simultaneously, I must
acknowledge that the view I provide, even if including a multivocality of narrative and
encompassing a variety of analytic roles, is ultimately just that: my view. According to
Clifford (1986), we should think of an ethnographic account as not “the story, but a story
among other stories” (p. 109). My aim is to offer one more story, relevant to both
academic and practitioner audiences, which may serve as an actionable contribution to
the broader narrative of media-assisted social change.
209
APPENDIX B: SAMPLE TV GAYED LISTING
TV Listings for the Week of April 23, 2010

Friday, April 23
9:00 pm Stargate Universe, SyFy (1 hr) NEW Rush tinkers with the ship’s computer
system, which spurs a painful flashback. Also features lesbian IOA officer, Camile
Wray.
10:00 pm Real Time with Bill Maher, HBO (1 hr) NEW Don’t miss an all-new edition of
Real Time, as Bill Maher frequently discusses LGBT-inclusive news stories and guests
that have included lesbian pundit Rachel Maddow and out columnist Dan Savage.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, April 24
11:00 pm The Wanda Sykes Show, Fox (1 hr) NEW Move over Leno! The queen of
funny is taking over her own late night talk show! Don’t miss GLAAD Media Award
honoree Wanda Sykes commenting on everything from news, politics, sports, and pop
culture mixed with field pieces, comedy segments, and panel discussions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, April 25
8:00 pm The Simpsons, Fox (30 min) NEW The Simpsons try to be eco-friendly by
building a wind turbine in their yard as their sole power source. Also, Lisa and Homer
try to save a beached whale. Features gay characters, Patty and Smithers.
8:00 pm Amazing Race 16, CBS (1 hr) NEW The race ended for lesbian couple Brandy
and Carol, but gay brother Jordan is still fighting for the big bucks! Tune in tonight as the
race continues in Shanghai.
9:00 pm Desperate Housewives, ABC (1 hr) NEW A series of flashbacks highlight
the Fairview Strangler. Will it give us any insight into who will be next on his hit list?
9:30 pm American Dad! Fox (30 min) NEW Omnisexual alien Roger learns about crime
scene photography, while Stan tries to toughen Steve up by consistently making fun of
him.
10:00 pm Brothers & Sisters, ABC (1 hr) NEW Nora and Saul address their mother’s
forgetfulness, while Luc gets a highly anticipated delivery. Also, which member of the
Walker family may be pregnant?
210
10:00 pm Kirstie Alley’s Big Life, A&E (30 min) NEW Kirstie gets the family and team
together for training on being prepared, while Jim teaches True how to be a real man.
Will Kyle, Kirstie’s gay assistant, have any input?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday, April 26
8:00 pm Dancing with the Stars, ABC (2 hrs) NEW The sixth round of dancing is
featured tonight, and Niecy Nash and her gay partner Louis Von Amstel are still in
the running! Will they have what it takes to make it through another round of elimination
tomorrow night?
8:00 pm 10 Things I Hate About You, ABC Family (30 min) NEW Karma strikes after
Chastity steals Bianca’s talent show act and faces dropping out of the competition. Kat
helps Cameron with his magic act. Will lesbian student Mandela perform in the show?
8:00 pm House, Fox (1 hr) NEW Even House is shocked by a woman in an open
marriage who seeks the team’s treatment. Features bisexual MD, Thirteen.
9:00 pm 24, Fox (1 hr) NEW President Taylor (out actress Cherry Jones) hires
security to help relieve the crisis, and Jack asks an old friend for assistance on an
important mission.
9:00 RuPaul’s Drag Race, Logo (1 hr) SEASON FINALE Calling all queens! If you’re a
fan of all the diva drama, don’t miss the season finale where hilarious Jujubee, the sultry
Raven, and the bodacious Tyra battle for big prizes! May the best woman win!
9:00 pm Trauma, NBC (1 hr) NEW Boone plans a birthday bash for gay EMT Tyler, but
will a dispatch error put a damper on all of the fun?
10:00 pm Nurse Jackie, Showtime (30 min) NEW Jackie gets busy with Eddie, and we
finally get to meet Dr. O’Hara’s girlfriend. Also features gay nurse, Thor.
10:30 pm United States of Tara, Showtime (30 min) NEW Tara’s newest alter,
Shoshana, organizes a family meeting after a tornado strikes, marking the first time her
gay son Marshall and Kate have ever met her. And what’s going on with Tara’s bisexual
relationship with Pammi?
10:00 pm Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood, Oxygen (1 hr) NEW After Tori gets
freaked out when she suspects her home is haunted, she seeks the help of a voodoo
priestess. Will Liam and Stella’s gay uncles Scout and Bill help rid the evil spirits?
10:30 pm TRANSform Me, VH1 (30 min) NEW Sexy trans women Laverne, Jamie, and
Nina work their magic on a disheveled hippy from West Virginia. Will they help her get
her groove back?
211
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, April 27
8:00 pm Dancing with the Stars, ABC (1 hr) NEW The results are in! Who will be the
fifth couple to go? Hopefully Niecy Nash and her gay partner Louis Von Amstel
showed the viewers what they wanted to see!
8:00 pm American Idol, Fox (1 hr) NEW Will the contestants be able to channel their
inner country singer tonight, after some sound advice from Shania Twain. Will out
comedian Ellen DeGeneres dig the contestants’ country ditties?
8:00 pm 90210, The CW (1 hr) NEW Navid and Dixon throw a gambling party, while
Naomi’s lies backfire when she gets sentenced to community service for her sexual
harassment allegations. Also, Debbie confesses and Naomi’s sister pays a visit. And
what’s in store for Adrianna and Gia after their break up?
9:00 pm Glee, Fox (1 hr) NEW Kurt arranges a date for his father and Finn’s mother in
hopes of getting closer to Finn, and drunken songstress April Rhodes (Kristin
Chenoweth) returns to help Will find a new rehearsal location.
10:00 pm The Big Gay Sketch Show, Logo (30 min) NEW The cast spoofs The View,
where the hosts share their wild Pride Month experiences, a lesbian folk group
performs at a hot dog eating contest, and a wedding is ruined. Don’t miss guest
appearances by celebrities like Rosie O’Donnell and Julianna Margulies!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, April 28
8:00 pm America’s Next Top Model, The CW (1 hr) NEW The models-in-training head
to New Zealand for a photo shoot with…a sheep? What kind of input will gay modeling
experts Miss J. Alexander and Jay Manuel have for the final six?
8:00 pm Mercy, NBC (1 hr) NEW A nearby prison riot leaves the hospital flooding with
injured prisoners—will gay nurse Angel be able to help take care of the mess? Also,
Veronica’s patient has a secret and Sonya is concerned about her involvement in the
suicide of a former patient.
9:00 pm American Idol, Fox (1 hr) NEW Tune in to see who gets the boot, and to
watch performances by Lady Antebellum and Rascal Flatts!
9:00 pm Modern Family, ABC (30 min) NEW Cameron offers his musical talents to help
Dylan’s band, while Manny is traumatized after seeing a horror flick. Also, Phil and his
dad (Fred Willard) have some father-son bonding time, but Claire is suspicious.
9:30 pm High Society, The CW (30 min) SEASON FINALE Paul and Tommy’s
212
relationship is on the rocks after Paul is involved in a scandal. Also, Devorah hits St.
Croix but gets caught in customs. Also, Tinsley, Dabney, and Dale get a little closer after
some party drama.
10:00 pm Law & Order: SVU, NBC (1 hr) NEW Stabler’s ex-partner (Sharon Stone)
returns to ask him for help investigating the murder of two sisters. Will Benson go
overboard in his interrogation this time? Also features gay psychologist, Dr. Huang.
11:00 pm Tacky House, Style (1 hr) NEW Former Queer Eye design expert Thom Filicia
transforms a 1920s-inspired jazz salon gone bad!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, April 29
8:00 pm Vampire Diaries, The CW (1 hr) NEW Elena finds out how Stefan and Damon
became vampires, as Jeremy and Anna’s relationship develops. Also, Pearl confronts
Jonathan. Created by out screenwriter, Kevin Williamson.
8:00 pm FlashForward, ABC (1 hr) NEW Lesbian FBI agent Janis helps speed up an
ongoing project by relaying information to her employer, and Olivia learns about a man
who has experienced multiple flash forwards, some involving her future. Also, Aaron
hunts for his daughter in Afganistan.
8:00 pm Bones, Fox (1 hr) NEW Bisexual forensic artist Angela’s knowledge of the
music industry helps Booth and Brennan investigate a case involving of the remains of a
rich risk-taker found at a rock-and-roll camp.
9:00 pm The Office, NBC (30 min) NEW Pam and Jim join forces on a sales pitch, and
Mindy is pressured into minority training by Dwight. Features gay accountant, Oscar.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, April 30
9:00 pm Stargate Universe, SyFy (1 hr) NEW It’s a rocky road for LT. Scott, Eli, Chloe,
and Greer after they get stranded in an underground maze. Will Dr. Rush and Colonel
Young’s recovery plan be successful?
10:00 pm Real Time with Bill Maher, HBO (1 hr) NEW Don’t miss an all-new edition of
Real Time, as Bill Maher frequently discusses LGBT-inclusive news stories and guests
that have included lesbian pundit Rachel Maddow and out columnist Dan Savage.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daily & Syndication (times vary; check local listings)
As the World Turns, CBS (1 hr) As the World Turns for its final year, Luke and Noah
213
are still going strong, and will likely continue to reign as daytime’s hottest gay couple.
The Young and the Restless, CBS (1 hr) Things are getting hot between Rafe and
new love interest Adam, and Phillip Chancellor III (openly gay actor Thom Bierdz) is back
from the dead! He faked his death out of shame for being gay, but now he’s back and
ready to stir things up!
The Ellen DeGeneres Show, NBC/syndicated (1 hr) Ellen DeGeneres hosts a wildly
popular syndicated talk show.
The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC/syndicated (1 hr) Television’s smartest lesbian
pundit comments on the latest news, attracting a wide spectrum of viewers, and
includes exceptional coverage on issues facing the LGBT community.
In The Life, American Public Television (1 hr) Gay and lesbian news magazine with
guest hosts discussing youth and education, health and AIDS, arts and culture,
workplace, relationships and family, and global issues.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don’t forget about the all-LGBT channels! For complete listings, please go to their web
sites:
Logo
here!tv
------------------------------------------------------------------------

214
APPENDIX C: SAMPLE STAFF LISTING

Abstract (if available)

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

“A door, an exit, a way out”: trans*temporality in hybrid media

PDF

The popularizing and politicizing of queer media images in Taiwan: 1997 to the present

PDF

Queerness explained to my mother

PDF

Infrastructures of the imagination: building new worlds in media, art, & design

PDF

The out field: professional sports and the mediation of gay sexualities

PDF

Youth advocacy for vape prevention

PDF

Deviant futures: queer temporality and the cultural politics of science fiction

PDF

Mapping feminism: representing women's liberation in 1970s popular media

PDF

Understanding barriers in consumer health advocacy: an improvement study

PDF

Why public relations is important for the representation of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in entertainment

PDF

Corporate social media: trends in the use of emerging social media in corporate America

PDF

Coding.Care: guidebooks for intersectional AI

PDF

Staying ahead of the digital tsunami: strategy, innovation and change in public media organizations

PDF

The data dilemma: sensemaking and cultures of research in the media industries

PDF

Riddles of representation in fantastic media

PDF

Performance unleashed: multispecies stardom and companion animal media

PDF

Running with newbies: understanding online communities through the eyes of second-generation gamers

PDF

What looked like cruelty: animal welfare in Hollywood, 1916-1950

PDF

Trading places: an in-depth analysis of entertainment public relations practices within different socio-economic contexts

PDF

Labors of love: Black women, cultural production, and the romance genre

Asset Metadata

Creator Morrison, Eleanor Grace (author)

Core Title Advocacy of public interest content in corporate entertainment media

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Communication

Publication Date 07/28/2012

Defense Date 06/02/2010

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag advocacy,bisexual,entertainment,gay,health,Hollywood,lesbian,LGBT,media,OAI-PMH Harvest,public interest,queer,television,transgender

Place Name California (states), Hollywood (city or populated place), Los Angeles (counties)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Cody, Michael J. (committee chair), Gross, Larry (committee member), McPherson, Tara (committee member), Riley, Patricia (committee member)

Creator Email egm620@yahoo.com,eleanormorrison@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m3225

Unique identifier UC1426038

Identifier etd-Morrison-3834 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-359728 (legacy record id),usctheses-m3225 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Morrison-3834.pdf

Dmrecord 359728

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Morrison, Eleanor Grace

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu