Warner (English/Rutgers Univ.) challenges the current stodginess of queer activism—focused as it is on the gay community’s hope to be considered “normal”—through his incisive critique of the banalities and dangers of such normalcy. Criticizing the way some identities are deemed normal while others are not (Ö la Foucault), Warner delineates with lapidary skill the problems of the cultural constructions of the normal, how heterosexual lives are thus validated at the expense of the queer. Using a smoothly textured argumentative style, Warner showcases the functioning of shame within a conservative ideological framework to reward some identities and punish others. His argument stands strongest when he concentrates on how the eradication of shame from sexuality would liberate queer communities from the monolith of marriage and how the rejection of normalcy would accord the gay community a liberated space within the spheres of the sexual culture. Ironically, the trouble with The Trouble with Normal is that it directs its arguments toward the queer community rather than the straight one. Telling gay people that, for various ethical reasons, they shouldn’t even want to marry, when they already can’t, does not change the fact that laws that enfranchise some while disenfranchising others are discriminatory. Warner’s rhetoric persuasively reveals the hierarchical parameters of marriage and the constraints of normalcy, but a more universal approach to his topic would delineate the limitations of marriage for all people—not just queer people. In the end, his polemic leaves standing discriminatory treatment of queers for the sake of a theoretical attack on normalcy. Warner’s ethical vision succeeds as a utopian revelation of sex freed from shame, but a sharper eye for the real-life ramifications of such an outlook might have revealed its limitations.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-684-86529-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
An inspired look at how ideas are disseminated by the media and at how new concepts can be injected into the mainstream, altering views about critical social issues. The ``datasphere,'' says culture critic Rushkoff (Cyberia, not reviewed), is the new territory of human development, a region as ``open as the globe was five hundred years ago.'' Discounting fears that new media will remain the province of corporations and governments, Rushkoff maintains that they're too complex and chaotic to be controlled by any one force. In fact, he asserts, the media replicates much like biological forms and can be manipulated to hasten our evolution. This book is a guide to empowerment through media activism; it shows how progressive notions are ``injected'' into the media—often with careful premeditation—via television programs like ``The Simpsons'' or through the recreation of events like the Rodney King beating on programs like ``L.A. Law.'' Rushkoff interviews young meta-media theorists who develop ``designer viruses'' such as the ``Smart Drugs'' public relations campaign (which works to legalize drugs the FDA forbids) in order to ``infect'' public thinking. And he shows how attempts to control the media can backfire, as happened in the 1992 Republican presidential campaign. The book has its problems: A helter-skelter style sometimes undermines the rigor of otherwise persuasive arguments, and Rushkoff is so enthusiastic about the positive power of everything from daytime talk shows to MTV that he barely acknowledges their negative effects. A more critical perspective— or an examination of the media activism of the Christian right or other cultural forces—would have given his study a critical edge it lacks. But this book will convince many that the counterculture is alive and well—and more widely dispersed than ever. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-345-38276-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The 1992 recipient of the Soldier of the Year award, who saw a brilliant Army career crumble when he decided to come out of the closet, breathlessly recaptures the events surrounding his sensational gesture. Zuniga comes from a family with deep roots in the US military; he clearly has great respect for the Army as an institution, with the exception of its ruling on homosexuals. His home life of military-style discipline is described affectionately and fairly, as is his successful career as an Army journalist. Boot camp at Fort Hood is seen as a period of exultant self-discovery. He did not find it difficult to maintain a clandestine gay lifestyle inside the Army, he says—in fact, most of his friends there were gay. We get interesting behind-the-lines scenes of the Gulf War, in which he served as a medic; he seems to stress his bonding relations with straight men as if to prove that sexual orientation did not interfere with duty. A turning point suddenly arrived when the predicament of a lesbian supply technician (sexually harassed and then dishonorably discharged at the harasser's instigation) aroused Zuniga's guilt at not announcing his own homosexuality. Transferred to San Francisco's Presidio barracks, he felt his double life ready to overtake him. He made his announcement on April 24, 1993, just four months after President Clinton's reiterated promise to lift the ban on gays in the armed services. Zuniga is a bit too taken with his own heroism here: ``I risked it not to become a Nelson Mandela or Andrei Sakharovtype figure in gay history,'' he says unironically, ``but because Silence truly does equal Death.'' That he did not, unlike those men, spend years in confinement for his actions does not, alas, seem to have occurred to him. Honest and emotionally charged, but marred by childish and clichÇd political rhetoric.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-671-88814-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
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