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- Title
NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER.
- Authors
COOK, RAY
- Abstract
Not With a Bang But a Whimper is the first of three photographic series made between 2004 and 2009 that interpret the post-AIDS, millennial rise of legitimacy for gay men. The phenomenon is commonly seen as evidence of Western societies becoming ever more enlightened, but I propose it simply reflects the usefulness of gays to neoliberal capitalism. Legitimacy is wielded as a reward for gay docility, and to position gay men as tutors and guides for heterosexual men through the complex terrain of consumption. Not With a Bang But a Whimper uses the archetype of a clown to invert representations of gay men used in the lifestyle television show, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. The images in this series emerge from an allegorical theatre, produced in the spirit of the vaudeville skit or satirical drag show, which draws from a critically reinvigorated repertoire of the gay male cultural idiom of Camp. The series begins with a strident critique of neoliberal capitalism but develops into a more subjective, multi-dimensional appraisal of shifting gay male consciousness.
- Subjects
GAY men; HETEROSEXUAL men; DRAG shows; WESTERN society; GAY people
- Publication
Social Alternatives, 2022, Vol 41, Issue 2, p60
- ISSN
0155-0306
- Publication type
Article