I was raised Catholic and only attended Catholic schools before Queens University just over three years ago. Although my mom is pretty tolerant and fair on a variety of issues, the church always taught me that sex before marriage and homosexuality were horrible sins worthy of eternity in hell. I distinctly remember our priest explaining to the congregation that a “proper family” was a married mother and father with children born within wedlock and raised in the church. He declared that all other families were “wrong” and “sinful,” and that not abiding by God’s law meant that those families were living in sin. This infuriated me, even as a young girl, because my parents are divorced, and I have a half-sister; I didn’t see what was wrong with my family. I know that not every Catholic or religious person feels this way, but it helped me to recognize at an early age that families came in every shape and size.
I was very sheltered growing up, so a lot of what I learned about the world in middle and high school was through popular culture, including music, TV shows, movies, celebrities, etc. I think that in the most recent decade, popular culture has shifted to show gay and mixed families more favorably. Of course, I am a white, heterosexual woman living in the United States, so I’m sure that I don’t always recognize bias in the media because I constantly see people who look like me. However, I love seeing a variety of families portrayed in popular culture, especially homosexual couples and parents with children. I distinctly remember when JC Penney came out with advertisements showing gay families on TV and in magazines, and the 1 Million Moms organization directly came out against it. Thankfully, JC Penney took a stand and kept the families in their advertisements, which I truly admired.
How cute is this?!
I believe that showing homosexual couples and gay families positively has increased in popular culture and media, which could be directly correlated to states legalizing gay marriage (including North Carolina- yay!) and young people supporting equal love. Pride parades are popular in states across the nation, and even celebrities and musicians like Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are coming out in support of equal love.
Support for same-sex families is not a new concept, but I believe that our generation is really fueling the push for equality. To me, people can fall in love with anyone regardless of sex, especially because, as we discussed in class, gender is socially-constructed and is not something that people are born with. Girls aren’t born liking the color pink or dolls, and boys don’t automatically like the color blue or trucks just because of their sex. By opening up our constricted and judgmental view of people- taking them out of their stereotypical boxes that we use to classify people and reduce uncertainty- we can view equality of everyone more positively. The audiences determine what TV shows or movies are popular; in the same way, we Americans, as consumers in this economically-driven society, can choose what to consume based on the values that are being sold to us. Disney channeled made waves last year when one of its TV shows, Good Luck Charlie, featured a lesbian couple. I absolutely love Honey Maid’s recent advertisements featuring divorced, interracial, and same-sex families.
Their “wholesome family” campaign used hashtags such as #thisiswholesome and #notbroken to describe and support families that come in every shape and size. I think that this is the exact kind of advertising that we need to promote, because values such as equality, acceptance, tolerance, and love are things that will never go out of style.
Communication and Pop Culture 