Black Men as Pink Consumers?

208 Pages·2015·4.37 MB·English

Black Men as Pink Consumers? A critical reading of race, sexuality and the construction of
the Pink Economy in South African queer consumer media

by
Katlego Disemelo

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of the Arts
(Media Studies)

in the Faculty of Humanities
University of the Witwatersrand
October 2014

Supervisor: Dr. Mehita Iqani
Declaration
Student number: 0608698X

I hereby declare the following:

 I am aware that plagiarism (the use of someone else’s work without their permission and/or
without acknowledging the original source) is wrong.
 I confirm that the work submitted for assessment for this dissertation is my own unaided
work except where I have explicitly indicated otherwise.
 I have followed the required conventions in referencing the thoughts and ideas of others.
 I understand that the University of the Witwatersrand may take disciplinary action against me
if there is a belief that this is not my own unaided work or that I have failed to acknowledge
the source of the ideas or words in my writing.

Signature: ______________________________________

Date: __________________________________________

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Abstract

The notion of a Pink Economy has become a significant aspect of queer visual and consumer
culture over the past two decades. This study investigates the media discourses of the Pink
Economy in order to understand and contextualize their historical foundations, as well as
their social implications within the queer body politic. This study focuses on post-apartheid
queer consumer media in order to investigate the constructions of the Pink Economy and the
queer consumer identities which are therein represented. Moreover, this study seeks to locate
black queer male subjectivities within the queer media landscape, and investigates the extent
to which they are represented as possessing consumer agency, or as legitimate participants
within the media discourses of the Pink Economy. A corpus of post-apartheid queer media
texts was constructed and organized thematically in accordance to the discourses of sexual
identity politics, queer consumption and representations of racialized masculinities. Semi-
structured participant interviews with the editors of successful contemporary queer media
publications were also designed and incorporated within the corpus for analysis. This was
done in order to provide contextual background as to the history of these publications and the
editorial motivations behind certain representations which were found to be most salient and
interesting. A qualitative discourse analysis was undertaken in order to explore the ways in
which the media texts spoke to or problematized the research questions. The assimilationist
ideologies which informed the homonormative discourses within these various media
platforms were theorized and critiqued accordingly. The homonormative discourses of the
Pink Economy were shown to be highly exclusionary in terms of the marginalization of black
queer male consumption. This study, therefore, provides a cogent and insightful theory of the
homonormative inflection of the discourses of the Pink Economy within post-apartheid queer
consumer media.

Key terms: queer consumption, Pink Economy, Pink Rand, queer consumer media, sexual
identity politics, representation, consumer-citizenship, visibility, “niche” marketing,
advertising, DINKS, luxury, leisure, travel and tourism, homonormativity, assimilation,
neoliberalism, commodification, hypersexuality, black masculinity, black sexuality,
fetishization, stereotype, marginalization.

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Acknowledgements

Immense gratitude is extended to the following people and institutions without whose support this
dissertation would not have been possible:

 Dr. Mehita Iqani. I could write volumes about your kindness, guidance and wisdom. Suffice
it to say, at this point, that I am continually inspired by your vast talents and knowledge.
Thank you for everything you have ever done for me.

 The University of the Witwatersrand and the National Research Foundation for providing
me with financial assistance to make this project possible.

 The Gay and Lesbian Archives Memory in Action. The long hours spent in your library have
proven to be an extremely heartfelt and meaningful experience. Keep doing the important
work you do. Aluta Continua!

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Table of Contents
Declaration ................................................................................................................................... ii
Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... iii
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... iv
List of figures ............................................................................................................................. viii
Introduction: Background and aims of the study ............................................................................ 1
Research question ............................................................................................................................... 5
Overview of the chapters .................................................................................................................... 5
Chapter 1 ...................................................................................................................................... 9
Critical debates about queer consumer media, the Pink Economy and the representations of black
masculinities ................................................................................................................................. 9
1.1 LGBTQIA subjectivities, history and politics in South Africa ......................................................... 9
1.2.1 The history and trajectory of queer consumer media in global and local contexts ................ 12
1.2.1.1 Changing masculinities,“new” markets and the emergence of global queer media ....... 12
1.2.1.2 Queer media in a changing South Africa: The emergence of local queer consumer media
...................................................................................................................................................... 16
1.3 Queer consumption and the Pink Economy: Debating global gay identities consumption
practices, and their local instantiations ............................................................................................ 20
1.3.1 The emergence of Western queer consumption: Marxist historiography, class and the
elision of diverse patterns of sexual dissidence ........................................................................... 21
1.3.2 Theorizing the “Global Gay”: Toward a critical account of globalization, queer subjectivity
and local agency ............................................................................................................................ 24
1.3.3 The Pink Economy and the Pink Rand: Marketing myths and biased samples in global and
local markets ................................................................................................................................. 26
1.3.4 The Pink Economy, Bourdieusian habitus, and the taxonomy of taste and value .............. 33
1.4 Homonormativity, the discursive reproduction of whiteness in queer consumer media, and the
marginalization of black queer consumption. .................................................................................. 36
1.4.1 Homonormativity, the Pink Economy and the depoliticization of queer sexual identity
politics ........................................................................................................................................... 36
1.4.2 The neoliberal embrace: The assimilation of queer sexualities within the nation-state ... 39
1.4.3 The racialization of the Pink Economy and the marginalizing discourses of
homonormativity .......................................................................................................................... 45
Chapter 2 .................................................................................................................................... 49
Theoretical Framework ............................................................................................................... 49
2.1 Queering Homonormativity: Queer Theory’s rebellious project, and the problematics of
homonormativity .............................................................................................................................. 49
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2.2 Images of the Other: Critical race and Feminist Theories of colonial discourse and
representation. ................................................................................................................................. 53
2.3 Critical Race Theory .................................................................................................................... 54
2.4 Feminist Theory .......................................................................................................................... 55
2.5 Post-colonial Theory ................................................................................................................... 57
2.6 What You Lookin’ At? The colonial and gay gazes, and the production of knowledge .............. 58
Chapter 3 .................................................................................................................................... 61
Methodology: Corpus Construction and Analytical Frameworks ................................................... 61
3.1 Date Collection ............................................................................................................................ 61
3.1.1 Corpus construction: South African queer consumer media texts ...................................... 62
3.1.2 Participant interviews .......................................................................................................... 64
3.1.3 Research ethics .................................................................................................................... 65
3.2 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................................... 66
3.2.1 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA).......................................................................................... 66
3.2.2 Multimodality and Critical Visual Analysis .......................................................................... 67
3.2.3 Social Semiotics .................................................................................................................... 68
3.2.4 Intertextuality ...................................................................................................................... 69
Chapter 4 .................................................................................................................................... 70
Media constructions of the Pink Economy: A hyperreal world of luxury, leisure and commodities .. 70
4.1 The Pink Economy: constructions of “the gay lifestyle,” and the power of queer consumption
.......................................................................................................................................................... 71
4.2 Leisure: lesbian and gay travel and tourism, and the construction of “global gay” identity...... 76
4.3 The media constructions of a hyperreal world of luxury commodities and “ideal” consumer
identities ........................................................................................................................................... 82
Chapter 5 .................................................................................................................................... 99
The Assimilation of Queer Sexuality: Homonormativity and its problematics ................................ 99
5.1 Queer sexuality and queer media in a changing South Africa: sexual identity politics and the
constructions of the “Rainbow Nation” .......................................................................................... 100
5.2 Homonormativity, commodification and constructions of the “ideal” queer consumer ......... 111
Chapter 6 .................................................................................................................................. 120
Marginalized Consumers and Commodified Bodies: representations of black masculinities on the
peripheries of the Pink Economy ................................................................................................ 120
6.1 Black men as Pink Consumers? Representations of black masculinities and their consumption
practices within the Pink Economy ................................................................................................. 121
6.2 Selling Bodies, selling Sex: The discursive commodification of the black male body ............... 131
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6.3 The power of the white gay male gaze: the marginalization/negation of black consumer agency
........................................................................................................................................................ 142
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 146
Overview of the analytical chapters ............................................................................................... 147
Contributions of the study .............................................................................................................. 149
Limitations and opportunities for further study ............................................................................. 150
Appendices ............................................................................................................................... 151
Appendix A ...................................................................................................................................... 151
Appendix B ...................................................................................................................................... 153
Appendix C ...................................................................................................................................... 169
Appendix D ...................................................................................................................................... 178
Appendix E ...................................................................................................................................... 183
References ................................................................................................................................ 187

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List of figures

Page
Figure 1: Advertisement for Mango Airlines, 2013 79
Figure 2: Advertisement for Outright magazine, 2000 83
Figure 3: Advertisement for Absolut Vodka, 1994 86
Figure 4: Advertisement for Porsche, 2011/2012 87
Figure 5: Advertisement for Cartier, 2009 91
Figure 6: Advertisement for Azzaro Chrome, 2000 92
Figure 7: Advertisement for Marc Jacobs Bang Bang, 2012/2013 94
Figure 8: November 1993 cover for Outright 102
Figure 9: August 1994 cover of Outright 104
Figure 10: Advertisement for ANC election campaign, 1994 107
Figure 11: Advertisement for Tsogo Sun hotel, 2013 122
Figure 12: Advertisement for United Colors of Benetton, 1994 123
Figure 13: “Shopping” photo shoot in Wrapped, 2000 131
Figure 14: “This city is a bitch” photo shoot in Outright, 2000 133
Figure 15: Advertisement for Metropolitan, 2000 139
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Introduction: Background and aims of the study

Although sexual orientation has been included in the bill of rights in South Africa’s
constitution, many members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer, intersexed and
asexual (LGBTQIA) population still face discrimination in their daily lives. While the South
African constitution protects the basic human rights of all LGBTQIA citizens, such
protection has not become manifest in the lived experiences of the majority of the queer body
politic. Such discrimination often takes the form of homophobic attitudes, hate speech and
violent attacks on the bodies and dignity of those citizens whose gender and sexual identities
do not conform to the heteronormative dictates of the socio-cultural status quo. The
discrimination of LGBTQIA citizens in post-apartheid South Africa does not only take the
form of homophobia and bigotry from the heteronormative mainstream. Discrimination also
takes place within the queer “community” itself, wherein the racist and repressive legacies of
apartheid ideology still permeate the social and intimate relations between various LGBTQIA
subjectivities. The most glaring examples of these exist within the interrelated spheres of
queer consumption and media representations. The marginalization of black, and other non-
white, queer subjectivities can be seen as a discursive process of discrimination. This is
because the invisibilization and/or biased representations of non-white queer subjectivities
contribute to the gender, class and racial fragmentations within the LGBTQIA body politic.
The constructions of the Pink Economy within various queer consumer media prioritize and
over-represent a white middle- to upper-class gay male minority within South Africa’s queer
body politic. These exclusionary and rather homogenizing discourses have borne (and
continue to bear) dire consequences with regards to the socio-cultural and interracial relations
within South Africa’s queer “community”. The aim of this study, therefore, is to examine the
extent to which the discursive marginalization of a large non-white constituency within the
LGBTQIA body politic occurs within post-apartheid South African queer consumer media.

This study will analyze and critique the discourses of the Pink Economy which are
constructed in South African queer consumer media. By relying on several qualitative
analytical approaches, the foci of this dissertation will be twofold: First, it shall be the task of
this study to problematize the homogenizing discourses around which the ideas of the Pink
Economy are constructed. Second, through a critical discourse analysis, this study seeks to
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shore up and therefore problematize the processes through which black queer male
consumption and consumer identities are marginalized and undermined within post-apartheid
queer consumer media.

This study will also critique the representations of black masculinity in South African queer
consume media. The discursive production and representation of black queer masculinities
will be interrogated in order to highlight the discursive tensions inherent within media
constructions of the Pink Economy as it has been propagated to queer consumers and media
advertisers since the early 1990s. A key aspect of this study is to critique the racialization of
queer consumer identities and practices which are prioritized within queer consumer media. It
shall be shown that queer consumption and socio-political visibility can be limited insofar as
they are based upon assimilationist politics through which queer subjectivity is subsumed
within heteronomormative practices and ideologies. In the main, this study will analyze the
various ways in which “ideal” gay consumers and practices are discursively produced, and
thus sanitized in order to become marketable for the profit-making interests of both the
nation-state and global capitalist institutions.

Queer consumer media in South Africa are a relatively new phenomenon whose beginnings
can be traced back to 1985, with the publication one community newspaper titled
Link/Skakel. The early 1990s proved to be a pivotal time during which the country underwent
historical changes in terms of the socio-political climate preceding the first democratic
elections in 1994. These structural changes in South African society provided an opportune
context within which various LGBTQIA liberation movements could make strides in
claiming the civil and human rights which they were denied under apartheid law. This pre-
democratic era also proved to be fruitful in that it enabled the emergence and proliferation of
a number of regional and national queer media publications. The majority of these queer
media publications engendered and promulgated vociferous liberal rights discourses, calling
for the inclusion of sexual orientation within section nine of the equality clause of the
constitution. However, with the passage of time, the structural changes within South African
society, and the ever-present influence from global consumer markets, things have changed.
Contemporary post-apartheid queer consumer media are saturated with commercialized
norms and values, espousing a material and consumer culture that is associated with the Pink
Economy. This study will therefore analyze these media constructions of the Pink Economy
in order to problematize the exclusionary and discriminatory ideologies upon which they are
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