Put as Gay In? Mem as a Tactic Rsian LGBT+ Activism | SprgerLk

Contents:

• 27 GAY MEM SURE TO MAKE ANYONE LGH
• MEMERS CHALLENGE GAY STEREOTYP JT TIME FOR PRI
• CELEBRATE YOUR PRI WH THE 12 BT GAY MEM OF THE YEAR
• PUT AS GAY IN? MEM AS A TACTIC RSIAN LGBT+ ACTIVISM
• THE ARE 10 GAY MEM THAT WILL MAKE YOU LOL
• IDUBBBZ'S "I'M GAY"
• GAY PRI MEMI N'T IMAGE WHAT ULD HAVE GONE WRONG!
• 20 GAY GREEK GODS

27 GAY MEM SURE TO MAKE ANYONE LGH

Mostly, ’s that gay people n see right through a pany explog the opportuny to sell stuff wh rabow flags on . I’m glad gay upl are ads for soup or whatever bee means we’re normalizg somethg that is, ankly, normal to beg wh. Brands marketg My gayto gays: iends: — kewlshrek (@kewlshrek) May 16, 2021Instead of focg merely on crgey brands, the Twter meme (the brachild of @kewlshrek) ntrasts how marketers portray gay people wh how gay people - and gay iends - actually look and behave.

Where adverts tell you that gay people are flamboyant, loud, and cked our rabows, the Twter ers want the world to know that their iends are generally reprented by people who are jt a b more plex. If you’re a gay male and you dare mentn onle, you’re bound to get a bunch of odd qutns and accatns that you’re actually an cel. Confsg your feelgs to someone you thk is queer but actually isn’t seems to be an awkward part of the gay experience that everyone shar.

IntroductnIn 2016, an image of Print Vladimir Put wearg make-up and superimposed on a gay pri flag was banned Rsia.

MEMERS CHALLENGE GAY STEREOTYP JT TIME FOR PRI

Footnote 2 Yet the image has appeared on Rsian social media an apparent crique of both gay rights and Put.

The Rsian state and s lears are equently put to nversatn wh homosexualy, but the valence of the disurse shifts by first sectn of this chapter exam the image closer tail, nductg a semtic analysis of how a picture be memetic, able to travel across space and time. We nsir the subject of the gay clown image self, Footnote 3 Rsian Print Vladimir Put, as a cril space wh the terpretive polysemy of prott. We emphasize that the explic shift om behavr (fg sexual acts between subjects) to performance and imag (pecially those suggtive of Put’s “non-standard sexual orientatn”) recenters the genr bate wh an thorarian range, reifyg homophobic propaganda and jtifyg anti-gay state policy.

Poutg Put, Pop Art, and Polil Portras: Symbols and Syntax of a MemeIn this sectn, we explore the emergence of the Put as gay clown meme. The image buted on social media outsi of Rsia the ntext of foreign reactns to the 2013 Rsian anti-“gay propaganda” law No.

CELEBRATE YOUR PRI WH THE 12 BT GAY MEM OF THE YEAR

Footnote 4, Footnote 5 On Augt 23, 2013, a Getty photographer at a prott outsi the Rsian embassy Madrid photographed a protter wh a sign pictg Put’s face bold make-up superimposed over a rabow flag wh the words “STOP HOMOFOBIA” [sic] scribed on his forehead. Footnote 6 Here, the image appears (sans the scriptn “STOP HOMOFOBIA”) on a poster, above a ptn readg ( Rsian): “Electors of Put are like. ”Footnote 7 While the Mistry of Jtice listg oms “obscene vobulary” om the origal quote, the implitns of the msage’s polil lcul are clear: Put voters are homosexual and Put’s their man.

The Put as gay clown meme is an eratn of a dynamic seri of siar mem nveyg polil meang by appropriatg material om other social disurs.

Footnote 8 Put’s “Regular Joe” scenar is red as “gay, ” “drag, ” or otherwise flux (Wood 2016, p. Footnote 9 Iteratns of the Put meme which rporate text, such as those wh “STOP HOMOFOBIA” stenciled across Put’s forehead, also ploy a strategy of trangement.

PUT AS GAY IN? MEM AS A TACTIC RSIAN LGBT+ ACTIVISM

More recently, the image ronat wh strategi such as “queerg the Queen” that have been documented at LGBT+ pri paras the UK; both functn as an example of the ntradictory existence of “shared” and “modifyg” gay inti wh the space of public activism (Ammaturo 2016; Armstrong 2002) such, votn of the pop art athetic ntribut to the subversive qualy of the meme two ways.

THE ARE 10 GAY MEM THAT WILL MAKE YOU LOL

”Disurs of Sexualy and Rsian PolicsThis sectn suat the Put as gay clown meme wh a material and symbolic ntext, explorg the way which the meme shifts across the four realms intified Table 9. In Realm II, “Patrtic Homosexualy, ” we explore the possibili of a disurse of patrtic homosexualy bridgg the state and civil society.

Fally, we fe Realm IV as “Heteronormative-homophobic Opposn Polics, ” where we explore how opposn to Put enjos the nmnatn of homosexualy public disurse. We see the meme of Put as a gay clown shift between the last two realms—“Queerg the Ristance” and “Heteronormative-homophobic Opposn Polics”—movg om the material level Wtern protts 2013 to the symbolic level of the viral image, and back to the material/legal level where is banned Rsia I: Homophobia Rsian Polics and the Heteronormative StateIn this sectn, we trace the way which issu of queer inty are prent on material and symbolic levels Rsian polics.

The stat quo of both Soviet era and Rsian era homosexual polics exist Realm I: “the Heteronormative State. ” This discursive regime is anti-homosexualy and pro-Rsia/pro-Put, as evinced by the 2010 and 2013 “anti-homosexual propaganda” laws and the media disurse surroundg the sexualy of Put and his polil opponents. Here, we fd the strong iologil dictate that homosexualy is damagg to a strong Rsian state, and so should be ntrolled, limed, or elimated.

IDUBBBZ'S "I'M GAY"

First, we foc on the material levels: the way which the ernment attempts to erase the phenomenon of gayns om public space and the public sphere. This marks a shift om regulatg the act of (male) gay sex to crimalizg the act and stead regulatg the imagery the public sphere. This battle for ntrol over the material and symbolic productn of gayns public and polil space then replit self the Put meme.

This is a send maniftatn of the relatnships Realm I, the heteronormative state: g an attack on homosexualy by proxy orr to disparage polil opponents.

Both imag pict polil opposn women’s cloth, nflatg cross-drsg and beg gay wh emasculizatn and sexual viance. Th, he rejects the characterizatn of himself, not the characterizatn of gayns as scenars unrsre the stabily of the discursive regime of sexual cizenship operatg Put’s Rsia. Romas (2017) not that there are recurrent homosexual and transvte scenars, which “bluntly manipulate the ncepts of masculy and sexual viancy as part of their anti-adversarial rhetoric bee domatn for a patriarchal culture n only be experienced as a form of emasculatn” (p.

GAY PRI MEMI N'T IMAGE WHAT ULD HAVE GONE WRONG!

In this formulatn, Put even mands domance and submissn om his own state, while suatg a transn to outright homophobia, even wh opposn polics, as fed by Realm II: The (Mostly Foreclosed?

As homophobia tensifi, the possibily of anizg a movement which po patrtic homosexualy the ntext of supportg mocratic reform, civil rights, or a transn away om Put’s be foreclosed. However, the unstable nature of homosexualy Rsian disurse plit the terpretatn of the state’s rponse to the Put as gay clown imagery. For example, Alexandr Dug, a proponent of Neo-Eurasianism and fascist thought, is ntroversially creded wh statg that Rsia has ma a mistake by refg to “accept, rporate, and velop a homosexual disurse of patrtic homosexualy by juxtaposg to European ‘sodomy’” (Romas 2017).

20 GAY GREEK GODS

Footnote 10 While far om the Rsian learship’s stance, is also an versn of Gorky’s maxim: “elimate homosexualy and you will make fascism disappear” (Essig 1999). We need only to accept a ntortn of the prent regime of sexual cizenship by embracg Dug’s “patrtic homosexualy” to oculate Rsia agast the existential threat of “European sodomy” and s attendant human rights-based disurse. Petersburg, which simultaneoly celebrated the Internatnal Day Agast Homophobia while llg natnal and global attentn to claims of LGBT+ persecutn and torture Chechnya (“Gay rights activists hold flash-mob prott St.