Hegemony and Hollywood

Hegemony is the dominant ideology of a society. Under a hegemonic structure, the dominant ideology rules the land and any ideologies which oppose or contradict the dominant one are marginalized and have a hard time finding acceptance. Dominant ideologies can change, but this takes a lot of effort on the part of the people who make up a culture and generally takes decades to fully change. The civil rights movement is an obvious past example. Fifty years ago, blacks couldn't stay in the same hotels or eat in the same restaurants as whites in this country because the dominant ideology was that whites are better than blacks. Through years of struggle, civil disobedience, and federal legislation, we have slowly changed this ideology and now (for the most part) everyone believes that all races are equal, and we no longer have segregation like we did back then.

Today there is a similar ideological struggle going on, only this time it has to do with sexual orientation. Ever since the Stonewall Riots in 1969 triggered the modern gay rights movement, gays and lesbians have struggled to attain the same rights that heterosexuals take for granted. The campaign for equality has gained steam in recent years. In 2000 Vermont became the first state to grant civil unions to same-sex couples (VT now grants marriages), while in 2004 my home state of Massachusetts became the first to grant full fledged marriages. There are now five states which grant gay marriages, with others granting civil unions or recognizing marriages performed elsewhere. More recent developments include the federal challenge to Proposition 8 in California (expected to be the first gay marriage case to reach the Supreme Court), and the hearings in Congress to finally abolish the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy which bars gays and lesbians from being out in the military.

All this progress does have its caveats. There are still cases in which homosexuality is being marginalized or covered up. The new movie Valentine's Day features a gay couple. The advertising for the movie would like you to believe otherwise. The couple, featuring Bradley Cooper and Eric Dane, isn't featured in either the trailer or the heart shaped poster for the movie (well, Dane's face isn't on the poster). In fact, in the trailer Cooper is seen laughing on a plane beside Julia Roberts, leading the viewer to infer that Cooper and Roberts are a couple. I had seen the trailer before and was unaware that Cooper and Dane were a couple until I read an article about their relationship on CNN.com. Click here to read the article. Another example of the continued struggle of gays and lesbians to find acceptance in American culture is an ad in the upcoming Super Bowl. CBS rejected an ad for the gay dating site mancrunch.com because it was "not within the Network's Broadcast Standards for Super Bowl Sunday." What that means is not entirely clear, though gay rights groups called it CBS being anti-gay. An article on the matter can be read here. Watch both the movie trailer and the ad below.

These are but two cases of how the hegemony of heterosexuality is still the dominant ideology of our culture. Homosexuality has come a long way from the days when it was considered a mental disease and sex between two consenting gay adults was a criminal act throughout much of the country. However, homosexuality is still a minority ideology and will have to continue to struggle to gain more mainstream acceptance, especially in the areas of this country considered to be more conservative where it is harder to find acceptance of homosexuality widespread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VMqHb03p74&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSS-QPdiiiY