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Euphoria- Complex character- Creators influence from lived experience 

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Euphoria- Complex character- Creators influence from lived experience 

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‘It triggered mass panic!’ – is Euphoria the most shocking teen show ever?

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With its infamous ‘30 penises’ scene, drugs and sex, the cast and creators of the HBO show discuss making a controversial TV hit

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This is the representation we've been craving.

The first season of Euphoria has just finished airing its debut run to widespread acclaim, with particular praise aimed at the show's nuanced, queer characters and representation of the modern LGBTQ experience. In celebration of the show's success (it's been renewed for a second season!), we've listed seven reasons why Euphoria is one of the most groundbreaking LGBTQ shows out right now.

Complex portrayals of queerness.

While each character in Euphoria brings their own individual complexities to the show, the way in which queer people's identities is examined is groundbreaking because being queer isn't their main character trait. Each LGBTQ character has their own battles to fight, and their sexuality or gender identity is always shown as secondary to their plight: never the cause of it.

The danger of queer repression.

Just because queer characters are being shown accurately doesn't mean they live in completely rainbow-washed happiness. Far from it. Two of the main antagonists, Nate and his father Cal, are demonstrations of the dangers that LGBTQ repression and fear can be as they both grapple with their sexual confusion in different ways - be that statutory rape, or violence.

The impact that trauma has on a queer person's trajectory.

Jules is one of the most complex characters in television history - and not because she's trans. At the start of episode four, we're given a glimpse into her early life pre-transition and witness how her traumatic experiences lay the blueprint for the self-destructive behaviour she now indulges in. Elsewhere, we see Nate struggling with his sexuality after being exposed to his father's illicit pornography collection from a young age.

Mainstream non-binary representation.

Non-binary people are among the most misunderstood and misrepresented individuals within the LGBTQ initialism, so to see main character Rue reject gender expectations when it comes to her style without any resistance from those around her feels refreshing. What started as a fan theory was later confirmed by the show's costume designer, and then by Rue herself in the season finale: "I just don't feel comfortable in a dress."

The lack of importance placed on labels.

Throughout the first season, we see each character's relationship with those around them chop and change drastically. In other shows, these changes would be signposted with bizarre couple names and changes in the way the characters were portrayed. Euphoria shows the way that modern young people are moving further and further away from typical labels when it comes to their relationships. One minute we're friends, the next we're fucking - this is a reality that many queer people can identify with.

Modern thinking on sexuality and gender identity.

While arguing with a repressed Nate about his sexuality, his girlfriend Maddie flat out says, "Sexuality is on a spectrum!" This educated understanding of the fluid nature of sexuality and gender identity runs as a lifeblood throughout the entire show, with young people and their parents alike demonstrating enhanced perceptions of modern queer terminology and politics.

Parents who are actually supportive.

One of the most common tropes of queer representation in fiction is the separation of LGBTQ people from their biological families due to a lack of acceptance. While this is a sad reality for many in our community, Euphoria leads the way in showing parents who actually support their children regardless of their sexuality or gender identity.

Euphoria season 1 can be streamed on HBO or on Sky Atlantic.

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Seven reasons why Euphoria is one of the most groundbreaking LGBTQ shows on television

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This is the representation we've been craving. The first season of Euphoria has just finished airing its debut run to widespread acclaim, with particular praise aimed at the show's nuanced, queer characters and representation of the modern LGBTQ experience.

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Ryan Murphy options on authentic casting 

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Ryan Murphy options on authentic casting 

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Ryan Murphy on why it’s “not an option” to cast cis actors in trans roles

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The producer, who assembled a record-breaking trans cast for FX’s Pose, is excited to find new talent.

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LOS ANGELES, Jan 26 (TheWrap.com) - There's still a celluloid closet in Hollywood.

Gay actors are far more open about their sexuality with friends and co-workers, than their agents, according to a new survey by the British trade union Equity.

Only 57 percent say that they are openly gay with their agents. Despite the success of gay and lesbian actors like Neil Patrick Harris, Jane Lynch and Ian McKellen, the indication seems to be that actors and actresses fear that their choice of roles will be affected if they come out of the closet publicly.

Rupert Everett, once eager to become the next James Bond, has for years spoken frankly the price he's paid for being openly gay, lambasting Hollywood as "very, very conservative" in a late 2010 interview.

He said that he didn't blame those who chose to remain in the closet, calling it "very sensible."

McKellen, Lynch, Harris and others have made great strides for the gay community and frequently play straight people on television and in movies, but there are no A-list film stars who are openly gay. Rumors have swirled for years about the sexuality of major stars such as Jodie Foster, but so far the actress has avoided any explicit public declarations.

At this year's Golden Globe awards, host Ricky Gervais riffed on the those rumors, and the title of Foster's recent film, "The Beaver."

"I haven't seen it myself," Gervais said. 'I've spoken to a lot of guys -- they haven't seen it either, but that doesn't mean it's not good."

Beyond a reticence to broadcast their sexuality, 35 percent the actors surveyed said they have experienced homophobia in their professional lives.

"I have never felt that being gay has worked against me but the finding in Equity's own survey that just under half of all gay performers are not out to their agent in the U.K. is worrying," Malcolm Sinclair, actor and president of Equity, said in a statement. "But then work is scarce and, whether sexuality is a barrier or not, people may just err on the side of caution. They don't want to test the water to see if it's all right."

The same anxiety does not appear to exist among co-workers. Ninety four percent of those polled said they are honest about their sexuality with their fellow performers and 81 percent were out in their professional lives.

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Gay actors still worry that coming out will hurt careers

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LOS ANGELES, Jan 26 (TheWrap.com) - There's still a celluloid closet in Hollywood. Gay actors are far more open about their sexuality with friends and co-workers, than their agents, according to a new survey by the British trade union Equity. Only 57 percent say that they are openly gay with their agents.

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Abstract

This study moves beyond previous research by demonstrating how prior exposure to stereotypical content can reinforce the selection of comparable biased news content and by clarifying its intergroup and interpersonal consequences. With two experiments ( N = 236, N = 270), we show that media effects and selectivity of biased media content about Arabic migrant workers are connected by automatic (i.e., implicit) stereotypes. The findings reveal that exposure to moderate doses of stereotypic news primes affects the selection of biased news via implicit stereotypes and subsequently shifts intergroup and interpersonal outcomes in the direction of the activated biased beliefs. These effects did not surface for high doses of stereotypic news primes, suggesting that individuals resist and inhibit activation processes when exposure is perceived to be too extreme. As subtle forms of bias are omnipresent in news environments and implicit stereotypes operate partly under the radar of conscious awareness, they may affect selection without individuals being aware of it. The findings imply that audiences' biased selectivity should not be seen in isolation from prior media exposure.

Stereotypes and prejudiced beliefs can be significant barriers to the social, political, and economic opportunities available to underserved groups, such as racial/ethnic minorities. For decades, research has demonstrated that mass media can create and reinforce these views through the repeated dissemination of one-sided, stereotyped portrayals of social groups (e.g., Mastro, 2009; Saleem et al., 2016). Yet, evidence also indicates that media can function to alleviate bias. Studies applying insights from a variety of theoretical perspectives have highlighted the positive role that media may serve in improving intergroup dynamics (e.g., Park, 2012; Wojcieszak & Azrout, 2016). Of course, to achieve these positive outcomes, audiences must be exposed to auspicious media depictions of outgroup members ( Mastro & Tukachinsky, 2011; Schieferdecker & Wessler, 2017). For this to occur, not only must such representations exist for consumption, but audiences must also select them. What this implies is that audience members' specific media choices, whether or not consciously, may serve to help or hurt outgroup bias.

Accordingly, critical questions remain in the literature regarding the relationship between stereotypical media depictions of underserved groups, audience members' media selection preferences, and the consequences of exposure to such stereotypic content. Given that individuals tend to choose media content that supports group identity (e.g., Appiah et al., 2013; Harwood, 1999) and that stereotypical media messages activate outgroup bias which may also serve to bolster identity (e.g., Arendt, 2015), this study argues that the effects of media stereotypes are inherently linked to selectivity via automatic (i.e., implicit) stereotypical beliefs.

This study is set out to investigate the mediating role of implicit stereotypes in the interplay between media exposure and selection of biased news messages. To this end, a comprehensive conceptual model of media effects processes and content selection is tested in the contexts of news coverage of Arabic migrant workers in the Netherlands, a group whose employment opportunities are hampered by negative stereotypes and discrimination. By simultaneously modeling media selection and effects processes, this research brings clarity to both the antecedents and consequences of exposure to stereotypical media content. In so doing, the proposed model extends prior scholarship in two important ways. First, this study builds on insights from social cognition research, which indicates that (news) selection processes are not merely the outcome of controlled, evaluative judgments, but also originate from unconscious, media-induced evaluations ( Arendt et al., 2016; Galdi et al., 2012; Peters & Gawronski, 2011). As such, this research offers novel insights into the antecedents of biased media selections. Second, the model clarifies the consequences of biased selectivity for interracial/ethnic dynamics in society at the intergroup and interpersonal levels. Herewith, this study sheds light on previously unspecified links between biased selectivity and actual inclusion-related outcomes while additionally pinpointing reasons why negative effects of biased news may or may not materialize. Theoretical insights and empirical evidence from the media stereotyping literature, selective exposure scholarship, as well as BIAS map (i.e., behaviors from interpersonal affect and stereotypes) and stereotype content model (SCM) research ( Cuddy et al., 2008; Fiske et al., 2002) guide this work.

Implicit Stereotype Activation by the Media

Empirical evidence supports the assertion that exposure to media stereotypes influences conscious beliefs about and the treatment of diverse groups in society ( Mastro, 2009). Across numerous contexts, studies have shown that biased media content can prompt overt, explicit stereotype-based responses consistent with the traditional cognitive stereotypes associated with specific groups as well as those tied to the underlying trait dimensions associated with stereotypes more broadly conceptualized (i.e., warmth and competence; Fiske et al., 2002; Seate & Mastro, 2016; Sink et al., 2018). Far less evidence exists regarding the media's ability to activate implicit stereotypes. Given that "participants often feel obligated to report that they are much less prejudiced than what they are" ( Ramasubramanian, 2011, p. 15), researchers have long stressed the importance of considering implicit stereotypes in these contexts ( Devine, 1989; see also Jones & Sigall, 1971). Indeed, studies that have incorporated implicit measures generally corroborate the claim that (even subtle) stereotypical media depictions prime or activate implicit stereotypes (e.g., Weisbuch et al., 2009).

Furthermore, research examining the effects of news primes on the activation of stereotypes demonstrates "dose-dependent effects" such that a curvilinear relationship appears to exist between exposure frequency and explicit stereotypes whereas a monotonic relationship best describes the relationship between exposure and implicit stereotype activation ( Arendt, 2013, 2015). In other words, the effect of media priming on explicit stereotype activation seems to deteriorate at high frequency levels, with no such decay emerging for implicit priming. Arendt (2013, p. 843) stresses the significance of this relationship, stating, "[o]nly by using implicit measures of stereotypes were we able to find such otherwise hidden media effects." Of course this does not negate the well-documented ability of even a single media exposure to prompt overt and explicit forms of bias; however, it reveals that there may be exposure thresholds, boundary conditions, and social desirability pressures in the context of explicit stereotype activation that do not exist for implicit bias ( Arendt, 2013).

Accordingly, recognizing implicit stereotypes in this context is critical as they appear to better predict both prejudice and discrimination as well as affective responses to outgroup members, than explicit views ( Nosek et al., 2007). Once implicit stereotypes have become activated (by the media or other external cues), they have the potential to affect the future selection of media messages that validate activated biased beliefs. Hence, implicit stereotypes could be important factors driving biased selectivity.

Implicit Antecedents of Biased Selectivity

However, evidence from research applying social identity and social cognitive approaches find that group membership, ingroup identification, and self-esteem can predict the selection of biased media content (e.g., Knobloch-Westerwick et al., 2008). Accordingly, this scholarship supports the notion that self-consistency motives (i.e., seeking out content reinforcing prior beliefs), social identity motives (i.e., seeking out content that offers representations of valued ingroups), and self-enhancement motives (i.e., seeking out content to downwardly compare to feel better about oneself) have the potential to prompt the selection of stereotypical media messages ( Luong & Knobloch-Westerwick, 2017).

To illustrate, Schemer's (2012) work on reinforcing spirals reveals that group-based identity needs are tied to exposure to content which validates biased views about outgroups. Schemer finds that attention to biased political ads about minorities not only enhances attention to comparable messages in the future but also induces anti-minority sentiment. This selection-based finding is consistent with work from Arendt and colleagues (2016), which reveals that audience members' attitudes predict selection of news about political issues. In this, and related research, selection of news content is found not only to operate as a function of explicit, controlled processes but also to emerge based on implicit, unconscious mechanisms, with implicit stereotypes possibly exerting an even stronger influence than explicit views due to the incidental, associative nature of implicit bias (e.g., Appiah et al., 2013; Arendt et al., 2016). Given this, the relationship between selection and reinforcement can be better understood if the trait dimensions of stereotypes-known to prescribe distinct group-based emotions and behaviors-are considered. Scholarship based on the SCM and the BIAS map inform this issue ( Cuddy et al., 2008; Fiske et al., 2002).

Trait Dimensions of Stereotypes: The Case of Arabic Migrant Workers

According to SCM ( Fiske et al., 2002) and the BIAS map ( Cuddy et al., 2008), stereotypes are captured by two underlying dimensions: warmth and competence. Specifically, outgroups that do not pose a threat (e.g., cooperative groups) are judged as warm (e.g., reliable, trustworthy, friendly) and moral (e.g., sincere, tolerant, understanding), whereas outgroups that elicit fear or pose a threat (e.g., competitive groups) are believed to lack warmth (e.g., unreliable, untrustworthy) ( Wojciszke et al., 1998). Hence, low-warmth stereotypes are rooted in competitiveness ( Cuddy et al., 2008). At the same time, groups considered as high status are seen as competent (e.g., productive, efficient) whereas groups viewed as low status are judged as incompetent (e.g., not clever, not knowledgeable). Thus, competence stereotypes are rooted in status ( Cuddy et al., 2008).

The positioning of groups along the array of warmth and competence dimensions is not inconsequential. As research reveals, the extent to which groups are defined by these dimensions predicts the emotions that are experienced in relation to the groups, ultimately governing judgments about and behaviors toward them in society (e.g., Cuddy et al., 2008). When considering stereotypes associated with Arabic migrant workers in the Dutch labor market, a potentially detrimental environment is revealed. Owing in part to the perceived low status and threat posed by this group to the economic systems and resources of host-countries, Arabic migrant workers across Europe are deemed unreliable, violent, dishonest, and criminal (e.g., Kamans et al., 2009). These characterizations are reiterated in media coverage of this group, both in European and U.S. contexts ( Ahmed & Matthes, 2017; Midberry, 2017). This appraisal squarely situates Arabic migrant workers in the low-warmth, low-competence quadrant of the BIAS map (see Fiske et al., 2002, p. 104).

Implicit Components of Media Selection and Effects: This Study

In aggregate, the research detailed above suggests that implicit stereotypes induced (i.e., primed) by news exposure will impact on the selection of news content along three distinct domains. Grounded in BIAS map and SCM research ( Cuddy et al., 2008; Fiske et al., 2002), these domains include (a) cognitive (stereotypes), (b) affective (emotional prejudice), and (c) behavioral (discrimination) bias. Although these forms of bias have typically been used to predict responses to outgroups in society, they also serve as a meaningful categorization scheme for delineating bias in media content.

When applying this conceptualization of bias, it is clear that cognitive, affective, and behavioral components all are represented in media characterizations of Arabic migrants. First, the tendency to portray this group as untrustworthy and violent in the media (e.g., Ahmed & Matthes, 2017) reflects low-warmth features, which can be understood in terms of cognitive or stereotype-based bias. Second, the tendency to frame immigrants as a threat to the cultural and economic status quo is consistent with the affective components of bias discussed within SCM and BIAS map research. Finally, the instructive and prescriptive nature of media messages (news media, in particular) offers action-based directives (e.g., close borders, increase penalties for immigrants) that align with the behavioral components of bias defined in these frameworks.

By incorporating the insights offered in the domains of media stereotyping and selective exposure, we anticipate that implicit stereotypes are important in explaining the relationship between media exposure and the selection of news messages containing cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of bias-but not neutral news about outgroup (vs. ingroup) members (see Figure 1). Thus, informed by previous research that argues that implicit stereotyping might be amplified as a function of the level of exposure ( Arendt, 2013, 2015), we investigate this relationship for moderate levels and high levels of stereotypical news primes. We formulate:

Hypothesis 1 ( H1): The selection of cognitive-based, affect-based, and behavior-based biased news messages is positively predicted by (a) moderate and (b) high levels of stereotypical news primes, such that high levels of stereotypical news primes exert stronger positive effects than moderate levels.

Hypothesis 2 (H2): The positive relationship between exposure to (a) moderate and (b) high levels of stereotypical news primes and the selection of cognitive-based, affect-based, and behavior-based biased news messages will be mediated by implicit stereotypes.

Intergroup and Interpersonal Consequences of Biased Selectivity

The types of media bias distinguished in this study would be expected to work in synchrony with one another in affecting both intergroup and interpersonal behaviors. In other words, implicit media stereotypes alongside the cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of appraisals may work together to distinctly predict interpersonal and group-based dynamics in society. Given the importance of determining the trait dimensions along which outgroup members are defined, mediated cues that characterize immigrants in terms of specific qualities are meaningful in understanding the consequences of outgroup bias and interpersonal behaviors. Recent evidence supports this notion; Seate and Mastro (2017) show that exposure to immigration threat in the news increases active and passive harming behaviors through feelings of contempt. The authors conclude that a predictable pattern of behaviors, consistent with SCM and BIAS map research, emerges when media exposure cues the relationship between group traits and associated feelings regarding the warmth and competence of outgroup members.

Importantly, these effects do not occur in isolation. Instead, they originate in part from selective exposure to biased media messages. Recent evidence suggests that self-selected mediated exposure to outgroup members decreases negative outgroup sentiment ( Wojcieszak & Azrout, 2016), but only if this content is positive. By the same logic, if citizens self-select into negative biased content, negative effects can be anticipated ( Schieferdecker & Wessler, 2017). Self-consistency motives might also play a role here: Individuals might align their outgroup perceptions with the news choices they made ( Heider, 1958). Therefore, it is anticipated that the selection of news content depicting Arabic migrants in terms of low-warmth traits (i.e., cognitive bias), high threat (i.e., affective bias), and with displays of discriminatory behaviors (i.e., behavioral bias) will elicit intergroup bias and harming behavior on the interpersonal level. Considering the case of the labor market integration of Arabic migrant workers, we focus on prejudice regarding this group as a proxy for intergroup outcomes, and individuals' likelihood to hire an Arabic migrant as a proxy for interpersonal discriminatory outcomes. We expect:

Hypothesis 3 (H3): The selection of (a) cognitive-based, (b) affect-based, and (c) behavior-based biased news messages is associated with increased prejudice against Arabic migrant workers.

Hypothesis 4 (H4): The selection of (a) cognitive-based, (b) affect-based, and (c) behavior-based biased news messages is associated with a decreased likelihood to hire an Arabic migrant.

Method

Sample Study 1

The consequences of exposure to biased news for the employment outcomes of Arabic migrant workers are arguably most consequential to members of the labor force-who make daily decisions regarding whom to work for and with, and whom to hire or fire. The hypotheses are therefore tested among a sample of members of the Dutch labor force with a non-migration background recruited by Survey Sampling International (SSI) between December 12 and 18, 2017. Quotas were set for age and gender, to ensure representativeness within the Dutch labor force regarding these characteristics. To ensure that participants carefully read the instructions and stimuli, they were exposed to three attention checks. With a completion rate of 57%, 252 participants passed the three attention checks and consequently attentively completed the experiment. Sixteen participants were removed because they indicated that they and/or their parents are immigrants, or because they did not meet the quota criteria, making the final sample size N = 236 (50.8% female). Participants were between 19 and 65 years of age ( M = 45.48, SD = 13.79). In total, 86.9% ( n = 205) of the sample completed at least secondary vocational education. Most participants (78.8%, n = 186) worked at least 20 hours per week. Across participants, 38.9% worked in the public sector, 39.4% worked in the private sector, and 16.5% worked at a public-private sector organization. Almost a quarter (24.1%) of the participants held a managerial position. About half of the participants (47.5%) indicated having less than a single contact with Arabic migrants per week.

Sample Study 2

Between February 18 and 25, 2019, a second sample was recruited by the same panel company. Of the 506 participants that completed the survey, 16.4% ( n = 83) was removed due to incorrect answers on the two attention checks. In addition, 153 participants were removed as they did not comply with pre-defined inclusion criteria (51 participants did not consider themselves to be Dutch, 102 participants were not employed). This makes the final sample size 270 (mean age = 38.49, SD = 14.33). Participants were generally highly educated (51% completed at least secondary vocational education). The majority of participants (64.1%, n = 173) worked between 20 and 40 hours per week. 23.3% ( n = 63) participants held a managerial position, and roughly 48.14% ( n = 130) worked for a public sector organization. On average, participants had little contact with Arabic migrant workers (64.1% encountered Arabic migrant workers less than a single time per week).

Design and Procedure

A between-subjects design ( four vs. two vs. control media stereotype primes) was used to investigate the antecedents and consequences of biased selectivity in an online experiment using Qualtrics software. After complying with informed consent, the participants were randomly assigned to one of the conditions. Participants in the stereotype-prime conditions were exposed to the stimulus material, afterward they were directed to an external online environment to conduct the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The participants in the control condition proceeded immediately to the IAT. After completing the IAT, participants were redirected to the Qualtrics environment. Subsequently, participants were exposed to multiple choice trials to measure biased selectivity on several dimensions. Then, participants responded to items measuring the outcome variables, control variables, and demographic measures. A between-subjects randomization check confirmed that the experimental conditions in both Study 1 and Study 2 did not differ regarding the following variables: age, gender, education, contact with Arabic migrant workers, and internal motivation to avoid stereotyping.

To increase the external validity of the experiment, the news articles and news headlines used for the experimental stimuli and news selection variables were derived from existing news articles about Arabic workers that appeared in Dutch newspapers in the past 10 years. LexisNexis and popular Dutch online news websites were searched to identify news articles and headlines about Arabic migrant workers. Appropriate articles and news headlines were occasionally modified for the purpose of the study and their content elements were categorized according to our typology of media bias (i.e., cognitive, affective, and behavioral bias). The news articles and news headlines were tested during two pilot tests among undergraduate students in Communication Science and Psychology at a large university in the Netherlands (Pilot 1; N = 84, Pilot 2: N = 50). The results, presented in Table A1, Online Appendix A, substantiate the manipulation of both the stimulus material (i.e., media stereotype prime articles) and the selective exposure measures (i.e., news headlines).

Measures

Participants were exposed to moderate doses of news stereotypes (two stereotypical news articles, Study 1: n = 80, Study 2: n = 79) or high doses of news stereotypes (four stereotypical news articles, Study 1: n = 73, Study 2: n = 94). Participants in the control condition were not exposed to news media content (Study 1: n = 83, Study 2: n = 97). In the exposure conditions, participants were asked to carefully read news articles that portrayed Arabic migrant workers in a stereotypical manner. The news articles highlighted low-warmth characteristics of Arabic migrant workers, portraying them in terms of untrustworthiness, unreliability, hostility, and criminality. For example, the news articles highlighted difficulties that employers experience regarding the socialization of Arabic migrant workers in the workplace and depicted Arabic migrant workers as "difficult to handle," "aggressive," and "not adjusted to Dutch social standards of the workplace." Online Appendix B includes an overview of the stimulus materials.

For the purpose of this study, an IAT ( Greenwald et al., 2003) was developed to measure the association between two target categories ("Arabic migrant workers" and "Native Dutch workers") and two attribute categories ("Cold" and "Warm"). Visual stimuli were used for the target categories. The validated Radboud Faces Database (RaFD) was used to select pictures of neutral faces of four Caucasian male adults and four Arabic (Moroccan) male adults ( Langner et al., 2010). Verbal stimuli were used for the attribute categories based on the theoretical dimensions of warmth stereotypes ( Fiske et al., 2002). The stimulus items for high-warmth characteristics were trustworthy, sincere, tolerant, warm, and good-natured. The stimulus items for low-warmth characteristics were untrustworthy, unreliable, hostile, cold, and frigid. The D 2SD scoring algorithm was used to compute respondents' implicit scores ( Greenwald et al., 2003), as this algorithm return slightly higher split-half results (0.62) compared to the D ₆₀₀ scoring algorithm (0.61). Higher scores indicate a stronger implicit association between Arabic migrant workers (vs. Dutch native workers) and low-warmth characteristics (vs. high-warmth characteristics) (Study 1: M = 0.47, SD = 0.46; Study 2: M = 0.43, SD = 0.44).

Participants were exposed to 20 choice trials. In each trial, participants were exposed to two headlines and asked to select the one they would most likely choose to read when they came across it in their everyday life (following Arendt et al., 2016; Galdi et al., 2012). Both the order of the trials and the order of the pairs of headlines were randomized. The first target selection task consisted of neutral news regarding outgroup (vs. ingroup) members. Consistent with this study's typology of media bias, the other target selection tasks consisted of cognitive, affective, and behavioral-based media bias. The target task including neutral news about outgroup (vs. ingroup) members was included to ensure that selection effects of biased news content were not due to mere exposure to news about outgroup members, but rather a consequence of specific biased content characteristics. All headlines can be found in Online Appendix B.

As an indicator of intergroup outcomes, an adapted version of the "Anti-Immigrant Prejudice" scale was used ( Pehrson et al., 2009). Five items tapping into negative perceptions of Arabic migrant workers were used (example item: "Arabic migrant workers are generally good for the Dutch economy" [reverse coded]). One item was removed due to problematic factor loadings. Internal validity of the items is good (Study 1: Cronbach's α = .86; Study 2: Cronbach's α = .85). The measurement model confirmed the factor structure: all items loaded sufficiently on the intended factor (>.72). Higher scores indicate stronger prejudice against Arabic workers (Study 1: M = 4.45, SD = 1.36; Study 2: M = 4.14, SD = 1.16).

As an indicator of interpersonal outcomes, intention to hire an Arabic migrant worker was assessed; measured in a simulation and decision task. Participants were asked to imagine that they were the employer of a travel agency and notified that due to the resignation of a co-worker, a new employee could be hired. Participants were informed that two candidates sent in their résumé and were asked to read short profiles about them. The two profiles were identical, except for the ethnicity of the candidates: One candidate had a typical Arabic name (i.e., Mohammed Alaoui) while the other candidate had a typical Dutch name (i.e., Daan de Groot) ( Blommaert et al., 2014). The following precautions were taken to ensure that the candidates were comparable; both were males and had equivalent levels of work experience and education. A validation check confirmed that the candidates were judged as equally suitable for the job. The ethnicity of the candidates was randomly reversed across the profiles so that half of the participants were exposed to the scenario where candidate A was Arabic and candidate B was Dutch, and the other half of the participants were exposed to the scenario where candidate A was Dutch and candidate B was Arabic. Participants were asked how likely they were to hire Mohammed Alaoui (1 = not likely at all, 7 = very likely) (Study 1: M = 4.45, SD = 1.36; Study 2: M = 4.43, SD = 1.50).

To investigate main effects of exposure to stereotypical news messages on selection (H1), we rely on analysis of variance (ANOVA). Next, and to better understand the process through which exposure and selections may be related, Hypotheses 2, 3, and 4 were tested using a partially latent structural equation model with maximum likelihood (ML) estimation. Analyses were conducted in r, using the Lavaan package (0.5-23.1097). Standard cut-off points for adequate model fit were indicated by a non-significant chi-square ratio, comparative fit index (CFI), and Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) values above 0.95, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) values below 0.05, and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) values below 0.08 ( Bentler & Bonett, 1980; Byrne, 2001; Hu & Bentler, 1999; Kline, 2011). Bootstrapping was employed to calculate confidence intervals of the indirect pathways using 10,000 bootstrap samples from the data. The error terms of the exposure measures were allowed to covary, reflecting the assumption that these variables may have causes in common that are not explicitly modeled ( Kline, 2011, p. 115).

Results Study 1

In a first step, we test the main effect of moderate and high levels of stereotypical news primes on the selection of stereotypical news articles (H1ab). A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) using Pillai's trace revealed no main effect of the treatments on the selection of cognitive-based, affective-based, and behavioral-based biased news headlines, V = .03, F(8, 233) = 0.96, p = .468. We reject H1ab. To further understand the role that implicit stereotypes fulfill in explaining the relationship between exposure to stereotypical news content and selection, we use structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques. The hypothesized model had a good fit: χ ²(43) = 57.11, p = .07; CFI = 0.98; TLI = 0.98; RMSEA = 0.04, 90% CI [0.00, 0.06]; SRMR = 0.04.

We expected that the positive relationship between exposure to (a) moderate and (b) high levels of stereotypical news primes and the selection of cognitive-based, affect-based, and behavior-based biased news messages is mediated by implicit stereotypes (H2). Table 1 displays the unstandardized results from Study 1. The results show that the moderate stereotype prime condition significantly increased implicit stereotypes. This indicates that after exposure to a moderate stereotypical prime, participants' implicit associations between Arabic migrant (vs. native Dutch) workers and low-warmth (vs. high warmth) traits increased. Exposure to strong stereotypical news primes, however, did not activate implicit stereotypes. In addition, implicit stereotypes significantly predicted the selection of cognitive-based, affective-based, and behavioral-based biased news headlines.

Study 1-Predicting Biased Selectivity, Prejudice, and Intension to Hire an Arabic Migrant Worker Using Structural Equation Modeling.

Furthermore, mediation analysis revealed significant indirect effects of moderate levels of stereotypical news primes on the selection of biased articles via implicit stereotypes. Implicit stereotypes mediate the path between moderate levels of stereotypical news primes and the selection of cognitive-based ( b = .009, SE = 0.005, 95% CI [0.0003, 0.024]), affective-based ( b = .0145, SE = 0.009, 95% CI [0.001, 0.038]), and behavioral-based bias ( b = .0137, SE = 0.007, 95% CI [0.001, 0.032]). Implicit stereotypes did not affect the selection of neutral messages about outgroup (vs. ingroup) members. As we do not find activation effects at high levels of stereotypical news primes, implicit stereotypes were not useful in explaining the relationship between exposure to high levels of stereotypical news primes and selection of stereotypical messages. This implies that exposure to moderate levels of stereotypical news primes rather than high levels of stereotypical primes increases the selection of biased news through activated implicit stereotypes: We accept H2a and reject H2b.

Next, we investigated the consequences of selecting biased news messages for intergroup and interpersonal outcomes. It was anticipated that the selection of cognitive-based, affective-based, and behavioral-based biased news messages would increase unfavorable intergroup outcomes (i.e., strengthen prejudice against Arabic migrant workers) (H3abc). In line with expectations, we find that the selection of cognitive-based, affective-based, and behavioral-based biased news messages was associated with increased prejudiced beliefs about Arabic migrant workers, offering support for H3abc. In addition, we expected that the selection of biased news messages would exert negative effects on interpersonal outcomes (i.e., decrease the likelihood to hire an Arabic migrant worker) (H4abc). In line with this expectation, we find that the selection of cognitive and affective biased news headlines exerted significant and negative effects on the intention to hire an Arabic migrant worker. The effect of behavioral-based biased news headlines points to the same direction but did not reach statistical significance. We accept H4ab, and reject H4c.

Results Study 2

Study 2 set out to replicate Study 1's findings and to draw stronger conclusions regarding the robustness of the set of results. As in Study 1, we did not find main effects of the treatment on selection in Study 2 ( V = .02, F(8, 267) = 0.96, p = .588) (reject H1ab). We proceed to the use of SEM techniques. The model fits the data reasonably well: χ ²(43) = 79.62, p = .001; CFI = 0.97; TLI = 0.95; RMSEA = 0.06, 90% CI [0.04, 0.08]; SRMR = 0.05.

Table 2 displays the results from Study 2. Table 2 shows that, consistent with Study 1, exposure to moderate levels of stereotypical news primes of Arabic migrant workers exerts a marginally significant and positive effect on implicit stereotypes. Again, we do not find an effect of high exposure levels on implicit beliefs. In addition, and replicating Study 1's findings, implicit stereotypes predicted the selection of cognitive-based, affective-based, and behavioral-based biased news messages. The significance of the indirect paths was tested. Implicit stereotypes mediated the relation between exposure to moderate levels of stereotype primes and the selection of cognitive-based (CI [0.0002, 0.045]), affective-based (CI [0.001, 0.052]), and behavioral-based bias (CI [0.0001, 0.040]). As no activation effects for high levels of stereotype primes were found, implicit stereotypes proved not useful in explaining the relationship between exposure to high levels of media stereotypes and selection of stereotypical messages (H2a accepted, H2b rejected).

Study 2-Predicting Biased Selectivity, Prejudice, and Intension to Hire an Arabic Migrant Worker Using Structural Equation Modeling.

We investigated the consequences of selecting biased news headlines. The results show that affective-based and behavioral-based biased news headlines were significant and positively related to prejudice toward Arabic migrant workers. The effect of cognitive-based bias did not reach statistical significance (H3a rejected, H3bc accepted). Furthermore, the selection of cognitive-based and affective-based (but not behavioral-based) headlines decreased the intension to hire an Arabic migrant worker (H4ab accepted, H4c rejected). In conclusion, Study 2 largely replicates Study 1's findings. It was found that exposure to moderate levels-rather than high levels-of stereotypical news content increases the selection of biased news through activated implicit stereotypes. The selection of biased headlines, in turn, largely fostered negative outgroup perceptions and decreased the likelihood to hire an Arabic migrant worker.

Discussion

This study moves beyond previous research by demonstrating why exposure to and selection of stereotypical media messages are interrelated processes, and by clarifying the intergroup and interpersonal consequences of these processes. The results presented here demonstrate that media effects and selectivity of biased media content are connected by automatic processes (i.e., implicit stereotypes). These processes are activated by exposure to moderate doses of stereotypical news messages, and in turn prompt the selection of biased news messages, leading to adverse outcomes at the intergroup and interpersonal levels. Hence, these findings indicate that implicit stereotypes encourage selections in line with activated beliefs, and subsequently shift intergroup and interpersonal outcomes in the direction of those beliefs. These effects did not surface for high doses of news stereotype primes, suggesting that individuals resist and inhibit activation processes when stereotypes are perceived too blatant. As subtle forms of bias are omnipresent in news environments and implicit stereotypes operate partly under the radar of conscious awareness, they may affect selection without individuals being aware of it. The findings imply that audiences' biased selectivity should not be seen in isolation from prior media exposure.

Despite theoretical and empirical agreement regarding the reciprocal and mutually dependent relationship between effects and selectivity of biased media messages ( Schemer, 2012), these processes are only rarely modeled simultaneously. Consequently, little is known about the mechanisms underlying the relationship between exposure and selection of stereotypical media messages. As such, this study's key contribution lies in providing a conceptual framework and empirical substantiation for the mediating role of implicit stereotypes in the interplay between media exposure and selection of biased news messages.

The limited available evidence linking media effects to selectivity pertains exclusively to overtly expressed beliefs regarding outgroup members ( Schieferdecker & Wessler, 2017). This is surprising, as research in the media-stereotyping domain can be considered socially sensitive, limiting explicit measures validity due to participants' impression-management biases ( Appiah et al., 2013; Arendt et al., 2016). This study's conceptualization of implicit stereotypes as important channels in the process between media effects and selection was based on two key assumptions. First, research consistently shows that media can activate implicit stereotypical evaluations of outgroup members. Second, implicit stereotypes are deemed important predictors of decision-making. Yet, even though evidence exists for the predictive power of implicit attitudes in selection processes ( Arendt et al., 2016), previous research has largely neglected the role of implicit stereotypes as predictors of selection biases.

The results showed that moderate rather than high levels of media stereotypes activated implicit stereotypes, and subsequently set in motion a process of biased news selection. Arendt (2013) suggests that although implicit stereotypes are monotonically activated by increased doses of stereotype primes, higher doses can concurrently set negation processes in motion. These negation processes, in turn, dampen total effects of implicit stereotypes in higher dose conditions ( Arendt, 2013). Scholarship contends that stereotype activation can be controlled by distinct and separable processes and is thus dependent upon both situational and chronic variables (e.g., Glaser & Knowles, 2008; Kunda & Spencer, 2003; Moskowitz, 2010). Arguably, in this study, stereotype primes in the high-level condition might have been consciously perceived as (excessively) stereotypical, signaling contrasts between blatant media depictions and individual egalitarian norms and self-concepts (see Moskowitz, 2010; Moskowitz & Li, 2011), resulting in conscious efforts to resist, negate, and inhibit activation processes. Nevertheless, in a real-world setting, subtle forms of media bias are likely more prevalent while at the same time resistant to conscious identification, making them especially concerning ( Weisbuch et al., 2009).

The present results suggest that biased news preferences are the partial outcome of media-induced implicit stereotypes. Uniformly, support was found for the mediating role of implicit stereotypes in the model of media bias predicted in this study, that is, the selection of news messages conveying cognitive-based, affective-based, and behavioral-based bias. This implies that activated biased beliefs about outgroup members motivate individuals to actively pursue further reinforcement of such stereotypes while avoiding being confronted with information that disconfirms prejudiced beliefs. Implicit stereotypes played a substantial role in this process. As individuals are not always mindful of their implicit biases ( Arendt et al., 2016), automatically activated beliefs may affect news selection without awareness.

Along these lines it can be concluded that individuals with strong biases may allocate more time to media exposure that reinforces their negative beliefs regarding outgroup members' characteristics. Particularly, the selection of biased news content increased outgroup prejudice and decreased individuals' willingness to hire an Arabic migrant worker. These findings align with the BIAS map prediction that low-warmth targets trigger feelings of contempt toward outgroup members, which in turn may trigger negative outgroup perceptions and harming behaviors ( Cuddy et al., 2008; Seate & Mastro, 2017).

This study began by highlighting the potential for media to exacerbate or overcome intergroup bias. Recent evidence suggests that the answer to this question ultimately depends on audience's choices. This study refines this argument by showing that audience's biased selectivity can and should not be seen in isolation from prior media exposure. Previous exposure to mass-mediated stereotypical cues promote the formation and entrenchment of stereotypes in individuals' memory ( Arendt & Northup, 2015; Devine, 1989), making them easily accessible as cognitive shortcuts ( Ramasubramanian, 2011). These predispositions, in turn, determine media selectivity. Hence, media ultimately fulfill a crucial role in reinforcing patterns of media exposure by virtue of the fact that, over time, implicit stereotypes are formed and triggered among audience members (see Arendt & Northup, 2015).

This suggests that, despite the harmful intergroup patterns found here, media may fulfill a crucial role in fostering more positive intergroup outcomes by reducing the accessibility of media stereotypes, if favorable representations were prevalent in the media landscape. Accordingly, the existence of more positive media portrayals of Arabic migrants could ultimately produce auspicious intergroup outcomes, by way of the same mechanisms and processes that lead to antisocial responses. Both European and US-based research indicates that when Arabic and Muslim migrants are presented in the media, negative stereotypes predominate (e.g., Ahmed & Matthes, 2017), frequently linking this group to criminal behavior, violence, and terrorism. This study suggests that more positive media depictions of outgroup members could contribute to the activation of positive implicit stereotypes, which, in turn, could lead to the selection of a less biased media diet.

In light of the study's limitations, it should be stated that our design does not allow drawing strong conclusions regarding the directionality of the association between news choices and the intergroup and interpersonal outcomes. As participants only made selection choices, but were not exposed to the selected biased news articles, we are only able to draw conclusions about the consequences of selecting biased headlines. In addition, and despite its centrality to intergroup and interpersonal outcomes, this study's focus exclusively on the warmth dimension of Arabic migrants' stereotypes means that any novel effects of status (i.e., competence) remain unspecified. Given that the trait dimensions of stereotypes consist of both warmth and competence dimensions, future research should investigate the role of competence stereotypes in mediating the relationship between news exposure and selectivity. Furthermore, the generalizability of the findings reported here is limited to the case of Arabic migrant workers, although similar outcomes would be expected for other groups associated with similar cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of bias. Yet, as outgroup members frequently are characterized by low-warmth stereotypes, we believe that this study's findings have merits beyond the specific case of Arabic migrant workers.

In sum, the findings point to the important role of media content in activating stereotypes, setting in motion a sequence of reinforcing selection processes and unfavorable effects on intergroup and interpersonal outcomes. On a positive note, this indicates that media are capable of removing key peripheral cues that activate stereotypes on an implicit level. The findings illustrate that a more constructive, inclusive portrayal of Arabic migrants in the media environment may encourage audience members to self-select a more nuanced media diet, in turn leading to more favorable intergroup perceptions and prevent discriminatory outcomes in the workplace.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs
Anne C. Kroon https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7600-7979

Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Toni G. L. A. van der Meer https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7605-2021

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Author Biographies

Anne C. Kroon is an assistant professor in Corporate Communication at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the content and consequences of biased media representations of minorities.

Toni G. L. A. van der Meer is an assistant professor in Corporate Communication at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) at the University van Amsterdam. Besides crisis communication, his current research focuses on the process of media and public framing of issues, mediatization, and biases in news media.

Dana Mastro (PhD, Michigan State University) is a professor of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research documents depictions of Latinos in English and Spanish language media and empirically examines the range of intergroup and identity-based outcomes associated with exposure to these portrayals.

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Confirming Bias Without Knowing? Automatic Pathways Between Media Exposure and Selectivity - Anne C. Kroon, Toni G. L. A. van der Meer, Dana Mastro, 2021

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Abstract This study moves beyond previous research by demonstrating how prior exposure to stereotypical content can reinforce the selection of comparable biased news content and by clarifying its intergroup and interpersonal consequences. With two experiments ( N = 236, N = 270), we show that media effects and selectivity of biased media content about Arabic migrant workers are connected by automatic (i.e., implicit) stereotypes.

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Some women are going further, arguing that the antidote to decades of TV shows penned by all-male writers' rooms is the rise of all-female equivalents. Netflix's black comedy Russian Doll, the brainchild of Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland, is one such example. Written and directed by women, it centres on a whip-smart 30-something who finds herself stuck in a Groundhog Day-style loop. For Lyonne, the makeup of the room was purely coincidental. "The best people for the job just happened to be female," she says. "It certainly wasn't a diktat," adds Headland. "I've been in male-dominated writers' rooms before, and it's not that I prefer one to the other, but for Russian Doll, which was so deeply emotional and personal, this felt right."

The experience was revolutionary. "The tone of the show relied on us being vulnerable," explains Headland. "Our room was a place where I felt comfortable discussing trauma. What was the darkest day of my life? What day would I never want to live all over again?" It was a shift from being the lone woman on a male team. "In those cases, you have to advocate for your female characters and justify their decision-making," she says. Removing that burden of representation created more room for nuance. "We dismantled preconceived notions about women and how they should behave, and created people who were complicated, curious, even self-hating."
Read more: Slavishly Following The News Won't Fix Our Broken System... So I Stopped
A sense of sisterhood remained during production thanks to a predominantly female crew and Jamie Babbit, who directed alongside Lyonne and Headland. "Sometimes male directors can hold back when it comes to giving compliments, mainly because it's a competitive field, but Jamie was so generous," says Headland. "She gave us a real confidence boost." If their short-term aim was to create a utopian environment conducive to creativity, their long-term one was to change perceptions. "When people think of directors, they think of white men," she continues. "But when you're telling stories about women or marginalised people, you need to make sure they're in the room."

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The Death Of The All-Male Writers' Room Is Redefining Hollywood

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Some women are going further, arguing that the antidote to decades of TV shows penned by all-male writers' rooms is the rise of all-female equivalents. Netflix's black comedy Russian Doll, the brainchild of Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland, is one such example.

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atch a behind-the-scenes feature on any American TV show and you will see the clip where a gaggle of Biro-twiddling, Evian-sipping writers sit around an oval-shaped table, while the boss stands at the front scratching away on a scribble-strewn whiteboard. This is how most of our favourite telly shows are made, where seasons, episodes and storylines are invented, broken down, thrown out, lobbed in and generally brainstormed until they are perfect (or at least, as perfect as the showrunner allows them to be). Any one of that roomful of writers may get an episode credited solely to them, but usually there are many, many creative prints over that final draft.

Frank Spotnitz, the writer and executive producer of the X-Files, remembers the day when, in a meeting with the BBC in 2011, he first floated his idea for a US-style TV writers room in the UK. "They told me British writers can't do this," he says, laughing. "Like they need to be left alone in their shed to write - they can't come in and actually talk to human beings in a room."

That was then, however, and this is now. Today, the writers' room model, for so long the go-to set-up in the US TV system, is becoming almost de rigueur in the UK. It is the result of not just a rocketing in overseas co-productions with their bounteous budgets (paying a pack of writers a full-time wage is clearly pricier than shedding out for just the one) and the inexorable rise of streaming, but also because a generation of "second golden age"-doting Brits looked at the biggest shows of the past 20 years and thought: "Why can't we do it like that?"

"I can sit alone by myself in my room staring at my laptop screen, stuck on a problem for hours or trying many variations trying to solve a problem," says Spotnitz, who learned his craft in the X-Files writers' room before setting up his own for his BBC/Cinemax drama, Hunted, "but if you're in a writers' room, you're going to shuttle through possibilities and ideas and arrive at a solution much more quickly than you would working by yourself."

Frank Spotnitz believes the writers' room model offers better possibilities than working on your own. Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images

"It's actually a beautiful way to foster new talent," says the comic book writer Mark Millar, whose raft of Millarworld titles are currently deep in production at Netflix. "The crucial thing is that whoever is running the show needs to be both brilliant and experienced. They can structure the whole thing, keeping the big picture in mind at all times, plus do the heavy lifting and rewrites for the newbies."

While British TV hasn't totally given up on the single-authored series (the headlines would be screaming if Jed Mercurio, for example, let anybody else near Line of Duty), for shows with double-digit runs there's usually a need for extra hands, even if the showrunner has the final edit. Although his name is wedded to the series he created, the great David Chase is only credited as screenwriter on 25 of the 86 episodes of The Sopranos. Of the 62 episodes of Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan wrote just 13. Jesse Armstrong's name is on just six of the 20 episodes of Succession screened so far.

"A lot of UK shows are being sold internationally and the UK model of four to six episodes a season doesn't always work when trying to sell a show to streamers or networks," says the US writer Tara Bennett, author of the book Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show. "Having a writers' room dynamic in the UK makes them competitive with US churn, amping up the number of scripts that can be created for a season."

Toby Whithouse, writer of Being Human, is currently prepping a fresh adaptation of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast for Showtime. Last year, he and three other writers (the numbers involved in these rooms can vary from a handful to 20-plus) cosied up in London for five weeks with what he describes as "a table, a whiteboard, lots of index cards and bad sandwiches".

He says getting the chemistry right is crucial. For Gormenghast, which he is showrunning for executive producer Neil Gaiman, Whithouse waded through 80 or so scripts just to find those three writers. "You're a bit of a hostage to fortune really," he says. "You can meet them for a coffee, and you've read their work and thought: 'I really like their voice as a writer.' But that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be any good in the room. It's a bit of a lottery."

"Casting a writers room is like casting a show," says Pete McTighe, who is part of Chris Chibnall's writers' room on Doctor Who. "If you get it right it can really be to your benefit, but if you miscast that room it can be tricky. I've seen plenty of really talented people leave a show through no fault of their own - some writers don't do their best work in a collaborative situation."

The writer Toby Whithouse: 'It's a bit of a lottery.' Photograph: Rob Latour/Rex/Shutterstock

However thrilling much of the creative conversation in a well-peopled writers' room is, though, tempers can flare. Sometimes, says Spotnitz, who has run rooms on such series as The Man in the High Castle, Medici and the forthcoming Eisenhorn, writers can have their ego too invested in an idea or script and take it personally when it is rejected.

"Every once in a while, people get so passionate, they forget that it's just ideas that we're discussing," he says. "And it hurts. They love an idea, and it upsets them when other people don't love it."

At the moment, of course, getting more than six people in an actual room is a no-no. Zoom, however, has proved to be a priceless resource to anxious showrunners. While the filming of TV had largely closed down over the summer, writers were still hooking up over Zoom and Google Hangouts. Moving the script chat from a physical room to a virtual one will, Spotnitz believes, prove beneficial in the long term to writers who are reluctant, or unable, to move to London or Los Angeles. It could foster a greater diversity of voices.

"That's actually one of the silver linings of the pandemic," he says. "We've been doing writers' rooms via Zoom and, guess what, it turns out they work. Maybe in future you won't have to live in London; you can be in a writers' room in Cornwall or Manchester or wherever and still participate. That's been one of the obstacles up to this point."

This democratising of the writing pool can only help boost the UK TV industry, says Bennett. "When they work right," she says, "writers' rooms are training writers to go up the writing/producing ladder. That means there's an organic eco-system breeding the next generation of writers and showrunners, so there's a sustainable market for the future. If the UK is going to compete, broadening the pool of experienced writers and producers is necessary for the health of the industry."

But should we be preparing to bid adieu to the one writer-one series model? Whithouse believes there's still value in the single-authored drama and that not everything necessarily lends itself to the writers room format. "Single authorship is much more of tradition in the UK," he says. "You look at something like Line of Duty or the shows of Russell T Davies or Sally Wainwright; they're all written by one person, so there's no need for a room.

"I'm so pleased that the writers' room is now becoming more of a staple in the UK, but I think there's a place for both."

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The room where it happens: why writers' rooms make for great TV

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atch a behind-the-scenes feature on any American TV show and you will see the clip where a gaggle of Biro-twiddling, Evian-sipping writers sit around an oval-shaped table, while the boss stands at the front scratching away on a scribble-strewn whiteboard.

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The writers' room has become a staple of American television production. But look to our British friends across the pond, and they've got other ideas. Imagine: one writer, penning all the episodes of a show. No writers' room. No shared concept. Just single vision, single author, executed from start to finish by the creator.

"Every writer would cravenly admit they would want to write their shows themselves," says Steven Moffat, the famed British scribe with a long list of credits, including "Coupling," " Doctor Who " and "Sherlock."

Throughout his career, he's worked on series with both production models. "The writers' room came about because we have huge volumes of episodes to make." It's simply more practical, he says, for shows with long runs like "Doctor Who."

But for shorter-run series, the Brits say the single-author strategy is more creatively satisfying. Which means it fits especially well in the miniseries category.

Noah Hawley pulled it off with FX's "Fargo." It's his vision from start to finish. He had eight of the 10 episodes written before the show was even cast. And though he used a writers' room and is paying homage to the Coen brothers, there's no question it's an auteur-like execution. (Writer Nic Pizzolatto went solo for "True Detective," but whether that's a miniseries is, well, another story.)

The Brits would approve.

Take BBC America's "Luther," as executed by Neil Cross. "Neil Cross pitched us 'Luther' as a big powerful detective where you would know the murderer right at the top of the show, you'd watch him battle his demons and the murderer, and then watch him bring him to justice," says Kate Harwood, head of drama for the BBC, which produced "Luther," now in its third season.

There was never any question, she says, about Cross using a writers' room. "Like a lot of British writers, I think Neil always felt this was something he owned completely. He never wanted to bring another writer in to carry the load.. This was a character he inhabited from the beginning, and a character he solely wanted to write. He has always wanted to keep that strong connection with that character he created. He has in his head a very long plan for 'Luther.' "

It's a cultural approach to TV writing, she explains. While American audiences - and writers - have been raised on 22-episode series, British TV series are traditionally shorter, running six or eight episodes. So writers enter the process expecting to - and do - carry the full load.

"You get good drama when writers are at front and center in the process," says Harwood. "In the end you're nothing without a good script." And her job, she says, is simply to sit back: "The great joy of 'Luther' is giving a writer like Neil a free hand, and watching him grow as a writer."

In another example of solo creation, scribe Julian Fellowes writes every word of " Downton Abbey." "He's phenomenal," raves Harwood. "I don't know how he does it!"

That's just how his producing partner, Gareth Neame, intends it. "I want him to do what he does brilliantly, which is writing," says Neame. "A lot of other parts of the making of the show can be taken off his hands so he can concentrate on the writing. That's our system. The reason why our show works is that Julian isn't being pulled into all of the other parts of the production."

"I think it's probably easier to maintain a clear voice for a show if one writer writes it," Fellowes says. "I think the concept of the writers' room is much less part of our culture." He adds that the hit BBC series "Broadchurch" was also by a single writer.

"It is part of an American writer's training to learn how to write in the style of a show," says Fellowes. "They will watch 50 episodes and read I don't know how many scripts in an attempt to pick up the style of ("Mad Men" creator) Matthew Weiner or whoever they're dealing with. Their pride is to write an episode that will come across as one that was written by Matthew Weiner. But English writers don't have that. When they write an episode, they want to write an episode that's not like any other episode's been."

That's why it would be frustrating, he says, to try to build a British writers' room. "What you want is an episode that stylistically fits into the show. When a show is very much character driven and character narrative, then it's hard in Britain to find a group of writers who would be prepared to enter into that."
There are economic implications as well: BBC's Harwood points out that a writers' room carries prohibitively high costs.

"It's a much more expensive way of writing drama, because you have so many writers involved."

That's just simply not how the U.K. makes TV. Explains Neame: "The British model is much more like the film model, where the producer's job is to find a property, put together an idea and a writer, and commission a writer to write that script. It's much more like a film producer. The British writer is much more like the writer of a screenplay. He really doesn't tend to have other responsibilities on the show besides the script."

Given his long career, Moffat has had a hand in both worlds: While "Doctor Who" uses a writers' room by necessity - its seasons can run as long as 26 weeks - "Sherlock" follows a more traditionally British model (the current season was just three episodes). "I don't think the writers' room and the showrunner model exists as a creative response as much as a necessity," he says. "How else would you imagine getting it all done?"

But, he admits: "It's writing that's quite special to me. I'm trying to carve out time to write - I'm getting quite impatient with all the other stuff."
By all the other stuff, he means the showrunner work: It is the ultimate irony of the showrunner model that writers who by nature are often introverts are asked to take on a host of other responsibilities: marketing, publicity, directing, editing, casting.

"I will say the showrunner job isn't for everybody," says "Fargo's" Hawley. "You have to be able to manage people and story and budgets - and all the things that most writers might run and hide from. That was a surprise for me that I was good at that stuff and I liked that stuff."

That said, though, he admits his favorite part of the job is writing. "At the end of the day, that's the purest bit of it," he says. "I'll find myself getting agitated and realize it's because I haven't written anything in a while. The minute I sit down and get a few pages in, it's very calming. It's also what the work is about."

But a confluence of styles is on the horizon. As American audiences and programmers are increasingly drawn to shorter-run series, it's clear the two models - the American writers' room and the British single author - are going to slightly steal from each other and find the best of both worlds.

"We're seeing a real conversion from the American model, which is a real industrial, 22-episode brilliantly efficient drama, toward the English system, which is more authored, more serialized," says "Downton's" Neame.

"I think we can learn from each other," agrees Moffat. "The idea that the individual writers' voice is so central to a series is British in origin. But what we'd really like to learn is where you get all that money from!"

BBC's Harwood is happy to see the revival of the mini. "The glory of British TV has been the miniseries," she adds. "There are some stories that you want to have a beginning, middle and end - and be thinking about six or eight episodes, and not how to get to (season) seven."

When Fellowes finishes "Downton," his next project is "Gilded Age" for an American broadcast network - and he's agreed to set up a writers' room. "I have to say I'm rather looking forward to it because I've never done it before," he says with his trademark aplomb. "It will be quite the adventure."

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Writers' Rooms Vs. Solo Scribes: Where Does TV Creativity Flourish Best?

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The writers' room has become a staple of American television production. But look to our British friends across the pond, and they've got other ideas. Imagine: one writer, penning all the episodes of a show. No writers' room. No shared concept.

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Importance of a Script Writer - Career Guide

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Script Writer or Screen Writer is a person who writes Scripts of the films.

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Dear Hollywood, Let queer people tell our own damn stories.

Call Me By Your Name opened in late November to rave reviews, with a number of critics remarking on how two straight men, Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet, so beautifully played the two lead gay roles. The film has also garnered some "straightwash" pushback - the accusation that the movie diluted its gay source material to make itself more palatable to straight audiences - as the conversation about this film falling into a Hollywood trend of preferring to cast straight actors in prominent LGB roles is slowly gaining momentum. This is a new manifestation of an old story - critically-lauded LGB-themed films of past few years like Moonlight and Carol also starred straight actors.

To convince Hollywood executives and casting directors that LGB-themed films with LGB actors playing LGB roles can be critically and commercially successful across wide audiences, entertainment insiders and consumers alike can use their money, influence and social media platforms to support, promote, and elevate LGB-inclusive content, while using those same resources to push back against content they find exclusionary.

To illustrate the pervasiveness of what I would describe as the "Gay for Pay Problem" - Hollywood's preference to pay and reward straight actors for playing gay - consider this list of straight folks who have recently (within the past 25 years) won Oscars for playing gay roles:

In 1994, Tom Hanks won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of a gay man who is an AIDS patient in Philadelphia.

In 2004, Charlize Theron won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of notorious serial killer Aileen Wuornos - who was a lesbian - in Monster.

In 2006, Phillip Seymour Hoffman won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of gay screenwriter, novelist, and playwright, Truman Capote, in Capote.

In 2009, Sean Penn won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of iconic gay rights activist, Harvey Milk, in Milk.

None of these actors are openly gay.

In fact, no openly gay actor has ever won the Oscar for Best Actor.

It's a point that 78-year-old actor Sir Ian McKellen - who is openly gay and who was nominated for a best actor Oscar in 1999 for Gods and Monsters and in 2002 for best supporting actor in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - has often brought up.

"My speech has been in two jackets," he told The Guardian in 2016. "'I'm proud to be the first openly gay man to win the Oscar.' I've had to put it back in my pocket twice."

McKellen continued: "How clever, how clever. What about giving me one for playing a straight man?"

One need not look far to see that Hollywood often fails to provide both representation of, and employment to, members of marginalized communities. Movements like #OscarsSoWhite, and continued pushback against cisgender actors playing trans roles, have been increasingly covered in media the past few years. Yet the Gay for Pay Problem has not had the same attention, at least in the recent past, as other ways that Hollywood is willing to tell stories from marginalized groups without hiring marginalized people.

Many queer folk grew up with popular queer media narratives helmed by straight actors, including Eric McCormack as Will on Will & Grace, Gale Harold as Brian Kinney on Queer as Folk, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as Ennis and Jack in Brokeback Mountain, or Eric Stonestreet as Cam on Modern Family. While those characters were positive in terms of queer representation - even when so many of them characters are gay white men - it's often disappointing for queer viewers to learn that LGB actors didn't play these parts.

The exact forces that decide why it's preferable for straight actors to play LGB roles are murky, but one thing is for certain, actor availability is not an issue.

"I think what's clear is that there are a lot of great LGBTQ actors in Hollywood, and that there are plenty who are ready to play LGBTQ roles," says Sarah McBride, the national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign. "We should give LGBTQ talent the opportunities and roles that reflect our lives and our identities."

Megan Townsend, the director of entertainment research at GLAAD, says it's also not an issue of there not being LGB roles. She adds that this year, the number of LGBTQ+ regular and recurring characters is up across broadcast, cable, and streaming originals, so it is crucial to recognize where programming still falls short.

"In all forms of television that GLAAD tracks, LGBTQ characters are still predominantly white (77% of LGBTQ characters on streaming, 62% on broadcast, 64% on cable)," Townsend says. "The majority of LGBTQ characters are men and cisgender."

According to firsthand accounts, the major issues that underlie the Gay for Pay Problem are discriminatory casting practices, and deeply held beliefs that LGB actors are less marketable. A 2013 study conducted by UCLA's LGBTQ+ think tank, Williams Institute, surveyed 5,700 SAG-AFTRA members and created an image of an insidiously homophobic Hollywood.

The study found that 53% of LGBT respondents believed that directors and producers are biased against LGBTQ+ performers, and 31% of non-LGBTQ+ respondents agreed with that assessment. Furthermore, the study discovered that nearly half of lesbian and gay respondents believed casting directors and studio execs saw them as being less marketable for romantic leads, and that more than half of LGB performers who responded "have heard directors and producers make anti-gay comments about actors."

Though one might be tempted to ask whether gay people shouldn't play straight roles, it's important to note that the number of notable straight roles per year is limitless, while the same cannot be said for gay roles, especially on the silver screen. While Townsend pointed out the rise of LGBTQ+ characters in TV and streaming, the same cannot be said for feature films.

"I feel very strongly that it is absolutely important for LGBTQ actors be given the opportunity to play LGBTQ roles, if only because of the dearth of opportunity for LGBTQ actors to be given any roles," says Kathy Tu, one of the hosts of WNYC's Nancy podcast, which covers all topics LGBTQ+, including pop culture and entertainment. "At the very least, queer folks should be able to play queer roles."

Dr. Stacy Smith, the founder of the Media, Diversity & Social Change Initiative at USC, does research that supports Tu's view. In her study, Inequality in 900 Popular Films, Dr. Smith examined portrayals of gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation and disability in the 100 top grossing fictional films each year, starting in 2007.

Dr. Smith's study found that of the 4,544 characters that could be evaluated for apparent sexuality across the 100 top films of 2016, only 51 or 1.1% were lesbian, gay, or bisexual. And since the percentage of individuals identifying as LGB in the U.S. is 3.5%, not even counting LGB people who are in the closet or have not discovered their sexuality, Hollywood clearly underrepresents LGB folks on screen.

In addition to Sir Ian McKellen, Ellen Page has been consistently vocal about Hollywood's preference to cast straight actors in LGB roles. Page discussed the issue when she played a leading lesbian role in 2015's Freeheld.

"There was something about being out, getting to play a gay character, and getting to play a woman who is so inspiring to me - it was such an amazing experience for me," she said in an interview for TIME.

Page called it "borderline offensive" for straight actors to be called 'brave' for playing LGB roles, "I'm never going to be considered brave for playing a straight person, and nor should I be."

Tu agrees that applauding straight actors for playing gay roles suggests an inherent negativity attached to LGB character and storylines.

"I think it's usually because we're telling a queer person's life as some sort of hardship," Tu says. "Our default is to think that everyone is straight, and so casting a straight person to play a queer role is like they're stretching their acting muscles to play such hardship."

Her co-host, Tobin Low, points out how movie marketing plays off of this implicit homophobia.

"Nowadays the way movies are promoted, they want to highlight actors for how 'brave' or 'empathetic' they are for taking on this role," Low says. "I am not a Hollywood insider, but as far as I can tell there's something like this person is 'threatening' the future of their career by playing an LGBTQ character."

It's instructive to read about how well-known, straight actors themselves describe the environment for LGB performers in Hollywood, as they too confirm the perception that such actors actively endanger their careers by being honest about their sexuality.

Matt Damon - a straight actor who played Liberace's ex-boyfriend, Scott Thorson, in Behind the Candelabra - spoke about the overall perception of LGB actors in Hollywood during a 2015 interview with The Guardian, as he discussed early-career rumors that he and Ben Affleck were romantically involved:

"I know. It's just like any piece of gossip... and it put us in a weird position of having to answer, you know what I mean? Which was then really deeply offensive. I don't want to, like [imply] its some sort of disease - then it's like I'm throwing my friends under the bus. But at the time, I remember thinking and saying, Rupert Everett was openly gay and this guy - more handsome than anybody, a classically trained actor - it's tough to make the argument that he didn't take a hit for being out."

Damon's sentiment is one that has been vocalized before. Everett himself - who was nominated for Golden Globes for his acting in My Best Friend's Wedding and An Ideal Husband - himself had told The Telegraph in 2014 that his career felt more limited after he came out.

"There's only a certain amount of mileage you can make, as a young pretender, as a leading man, as a homosexual," he said. "There just isn't very far you can go."

Damon has advice to remedy Hollywood not hiring gay actors. "Whether you're straight or gay, people shouldn't know anything about your sexuality because that's one of the mysteries that you should be able to play," he said. It's notable, however, that he spoke openly about his wife and children in the same interview, and is thus open about his own heterosexuality.

In 2010, straight actor Colin Firth - who played the gay lead in A Single Man - had more honest and introspective commentary on the issue when he explicitly said he felt he was a part of the problem.

"If you're known as a straight guy, playing a gay role, you get rewarded for that," he said. "If you're a gay man and you want to play a straight role, you don't get cast - and if a gay man wants to play a gay role now, you don't get cast."

Firth thus gets to the heart of the issue: it isn't that straight people should never be allowed to play LGB roles, but rather that they should not be implicitly or explicitly preferred to fill such roles. Based on the homophobic history of casting in Hollywood, to give equity to LGB actors, they should be given preference in casting for these roles.

Tobin Low expanded upon this idea.

"I think most people are arguing that queer actors haven't been given, and still don't get, the same opportunities as straight actors to tell their own stories, when they could really enrich these LGB roles," he says. "That's not to say straight actor couldn't also enrich the roles in certain ways, but there's definitely an argument for someone who can understand the background and where that character is coming from, which is especially important when they haven't historically been given the opportunity or visibility."

The Gay for Pay Problem, though deep-rooted, is not intractable. There are multiple ways for everyone, from entertainment executives to the person watching Netflix on their couch, to confront the issue.

Change can happen within Hollywood: Casting directors can make conscious efforts to cast LGB actors in LGB roles, and to cast LGB actors in non-LGB roles. Influential LGB actors and executives, as well as their influential allies, can continue to speak out and even - as Dr. Stacy Smith suggests in her previously mentioned study - facilitate adding an equity clause to their contracts (she's created one they can use) to demand a more equitable process for auditioning, casting talent, and hiring behind-the-camera jobs.

"The clause instantiates equality from a film's inception; creates a system of checks and balances to achieve it; and develops metrics to permit a review of its success," Dr. Smith writes. "For A‐list actors, directors, or producers, using an equity clause is a way to do more than advocate for change, it is a means to achieving it."

Yet it is consumers who have the ultimate power for change, and multiple avenues through which they can wield that power.

Consumers can call for and support the increased creation of LGB movies and TV shows with LGB actors, and also watch and buy them when they are created. As Dr. Smith notes in her study, consumers should not only provide financial support to inclusive projects through buying tickets or paying for the content, but also publicity by using social media to positively promote shows and movies that are making the effort, like Fox's Empire, which cast gay actor Jussie Smollett as prominent gay character, and HBO's Looking, which starred gay actors Jonathan Groff and Russell Tovey as gay leads.

Of course, money talks in both directions: Consumers can also push back by loudly boycotting productions that exclude diverse LGB characters and diverse LGB actors, as people did with Roland Emmerich's 2015 Stonewall. Queer folks can lead the charge, whether as consumers or entertainment insiders, by continuing to talk to straight friends and allies about the historical and current implications of the issues, and the impact of choosing whether or not to financially support certain productions, thus encouraging them to push Hollywood to better employ LGB actors.

There are plenty of LGB actors, writers, and directors waiting to tell these stories to which they have not historically had access - stories inspired by their own lives, struggles and successes. When Hollywood insiders and audiences combine their voices, talents, platforms, and, of course, their financial support, they can hold Hollywood responsible for correcting its legacy of homophobic hiring practices, and change the accepted belief that queer films must have their queerness diluted in order to achieve mainstream acceptance, and commercial and critical success.

One thing is for certain: This is a conversation that cannot just exist in the wake of the release of certain films; it must be an ongoing conversation and movement that examines the exclusionary practices of the entertainment industry as a whole. Hollywood has a historical homophobia problem. It's systemic, it's embedded, and it's not going to fix itself.

Seamus Kirst is the author of Shitfaced: Musings of a Former Drunk, and co-host of two podcasts, Mental Health Hangouts and Social Justice League. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Teen Vogue, The Guardian, Mic, Vice, and Forbes. Seamus lives in Brooklyn with his two cats, Sugar and Bernie Sanders.

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"Call Me By Your Name" Is the Latest Gay-for-Pay Oscar Bait

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Dear Hollywood, Let queer people tell our own damn stories. Call Me By Your Name opened in late November to rave reviews, with a number of critics remarking on how two straight men, Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet, so beautifully played the two lead gay roles.

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Chapter 2- The L Word paragraph at the end 

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Chapter 2- The L Word paragraph at the end 

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Riverdale features aliens and organ-stealing cults, but somehow Jughead's asexuality was a bridge too far.

Have you ever watched a TV show or movie and thought to yourself, "This would be better if it was gayer"? If so, you may be picking up on an unfortunate practice known as "straightwashing."

Straightwashing is the " practice of portraying non-straight people or characters as straight." Similarly, "ciswashing" refers to portraying people who are canonically trans or non-binary as cisgender.

Straightwashing can occur in advertising - for example, altering trailers, posters, or other promotional materials to make a movie about a gay relationship appear like it's about a straight one - or within the narrative itself.

Stocksnapper / Getty Images

The term can also apply to real life historical figures. Did you know that Hans Christian Andersen was bisexual? I didn't, and if I had, I probably would've enjoyed fairy tales way more.

These 14 characters were queer in their original incarnations, but by the time they reached mainstream audiences, they'd become...suspiciously heterosexual.

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14 Times Hollywood "Straightwashed" Queer Characters

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Riverdale features aliens and organ-stealing cults, but somehow Jughead's asexuality was a bridge too far. Straightwashing is the " practice of portraying non-straight people or characters as straight." Similarly, "ciswashing" refers to portraying people who are canonically trans or non-binary as cisgender.

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Chapter 2- Spiral of silence, last sentence 

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Chapter 2- Spiral of silence, last sentence 

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Swansea-born writer and producer Russell T Davies, who splits his time between home country Wales and Manchester, the English city he has called home since his 20s, has been changing the way we look at queer characters on TV for decades now. He's done so again brilliantly with quietly revolutionary hit show Years and Years.

Depicting the loves, laughs and losses of rambunctious Manchester family the Lyons, we follow them from now right through the next 15 years, as the world spirals out of control.

We see the fraught political divisions of our time blow up, with divisive issues like the refugee crisis amplified to nightmarishly dystopian levels. There's a warmongering second term for US President Donald Trump, and Emma Thompson playing against type as Vivienne Rook, a disturbing, disruptive and dangerous Nigel Farage-like populist who rises to power by appealing to our basest instincts.

But as crazy as things get, including an episode one cliff-hanger that will leave you breathlessly distressed, life goes on. One of the absolute strengths of Davies, who successfully rebooted Doctor Who in 2005 after years of cancelled wasteland, is that he centres family in his stories, however fantastical they may be.

Russell Tovey ( Looking) is the beating heart of this show that places homosexual love as a fact of life

Russell Tovey ( Looking) is the beating heart of this show that places homosexual love as a fact of life, rather than a major plot point. He previously played a queer space pilot who hooks up with John Barrowman's Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who, but here he comes back down to earth as housing officer Daniel Lyons.

While trying to deal humanely with an overrun refugee camp exacerbated by the effects of Brexit, the rollercoaster first ep sees him get married to his cute beefcake boyfriend Ralph. Played by Dino Fetscher, who starred in Davies' intriguingly connected series Cucumber and Banana, their union is initially sweet. But, like many relationships, the hearts and flowers get a little lost in the hum-drum, inviting the creeping feeling they're not all that alike.

Both out actors in an industry that perversely remains unwelcoming to open LGBTIQ+ stars, despite the proliferation of queer creatives, this realistic depiction of a recognisably mundane romance is quietly revolutionary in its own way.

It's further complicated by a frisson between Daniel and handsome Ukrainian refugee Viktor (Russian-British actor Maxim Baldry), fleeing persecution over his sexuality.

Tovey spoke to British website Metro.co.uk about his character Daniel, noting, "When it comes to how gay people are represented there's been a complete shift from when I first started in this business. There's more opportunity to show there are billions of different straight people - so why is there only one way to portray gay people?"

Davies, who nursed his long-term partner of 20 years Andrew Smith until he died of a brain tumour in 2018, has been at the forefront of shaking things up on the small screen, depicting queer lives that both joyously embrace the truth in stereotypes and cast them off.

It's easy to focus on the shock and awe of Queer as Folk when Davies beamed gay and lesbian life loud and proud in all its messy glory onto screens globally in 1999. Drawing on his youthful adventures, while its depiction of shenanigans in a toilet cubicle between Charlie Hunnam's underage Nathan and Aidan Gillen's older Stuart shocked and outraged in some quarters, the show was just as much about coming out to biological family and creating a new queer one. It was a lifeline for many young LGBTIQ+ people who felt seen.

Just a few years earlier, Davies cast Sue Holderness as an Anglican Vicar, Joan, who came out as a lesbian in soap opera Revelations, a nuanced look at religion that was light on judgement. Bob & Rose depicted an odd couple 'it's complicated' relationship between a gay man (comedian Alan Davies, no relation) and straight woman (Lesley Sharp), showing that coming out of the closet isn't always an open and shut case.

And he's not afraid to reveal the darker side of queer life. Recently he cast out actor Ben Whishaw as Norman Scott in the riveting A Very English Scandal. It relayed a sordid true episode of British politics in which a climate of persecution led to ugly blackmail, and then an attempted murder arranged by closeted MP Jeremy Thorpe (Hugh Grant).

Years and Year s explores how jealousy and infidelity can lead to catastrophe

For all the love displayed in Years and Years it, too, explores how jealousy and infidelity can lead to catastrophe. As he told Variety, "You are going to have awful days that every family member will remember forever," Davies says, "but in the long term, I don't think there's a point to writing the story if you're just going to say we're always in hell. I do think we're in bad times right now, but there's still hope; there's still love; young people still have an enormous sense of imagination and joy."

Once again with Years and Years, Davies has gifted us with a refreshing look at queer lives that are believably complex, tenderly depicted, but with all the prickles still attached. It's magnificent, and magnificently unnerving, television.

Years and Years premieres Wednesday, 6 November at 8.30pm on SBS and SBS On Demand with a double episode. Watch the trailer below:

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Russell T Davies centering queer lives in Years and Years | SBS Voices

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Swansea-born writer and producer Russell T Davies, who splits his time between home country Wales and Manchester, the English city he has called home since his 20s, has been changing the way we look at queer characters on TV for decades now. He's done so again brilliantly with quietly revolutionary hit show Years and Years.

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Chapter 2- Spiral of Silence 85% of Brits supportive LGBT

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Chapter 2- Spiral of Silence 85% of Brits supportive LGBT

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Most Britons would be accepting of a relative coming out although they are less supportive of transgender and non-binary people than those who are gay or bisexual

A new YouGov survey of eight western countries reveals how attitudes to LGBTQ+ communities differ.

In Britain, one in fourteen people (7%) identify as LGBTQ+, while a further three in ten (31%) are close to someone who does. However, a majority of Britons (55%) have no personal relation to the LGBTQ+ community.

Among the countries surveyed, Spain has the highest proportion of people who identify as LGBTQ+ (10%). A majority of Spaniards who are heterosexual (55%) also have a close relative or friend who is part of the LGBTQ+ community. This leaves only one in three people (33%) have no personal relation to people who are non-binary or bisexual, gay or lesbian.

Two thirds of Swedes (65%) don't have any close friend or family member who is LGBTQ+ - the highest proportion among the countries in the survey.

An overwhelming majority of Britons would support a family member coming out

Some 85% of the British public say they would be supportive if their child, sibling or close family member came out as lesbian, gay or bisexual, while 6% would not be supportive.

Seven in ten (71%) would feel the same about relative saying they were transgender or non-binary with one in eight (12%) saying they would not be supportive.

Spaniards are the most likely among the surveyed nationalities to say they would be supportive in both when it came to a family member coming out as lesbian, gay or bisexual (91%) or transgender/non-binary (87%).

Meanwhile, France has the lowest levels of support. Only around three in five people in France (57%) say they would be supportive if a close family member came out as lesbian, gay or bisexual, while one in five say they would not (19%).

Around half (47%) would be supportive if their relative came out as transgender or non-binary, but one in four (27%) would not.
See the full results here

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International survey: how supportive would Britons be of a family member coming out? | YouGov

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A new YouGov survey of eight western countries reveals how attitudes to LGBTQ+ communities differ. In Britain, one in fourteen people (7%) identify as LGBTQ+, while a further three in ten (31%) are close to someone who does. However, a majority of Britons (55%) have no personal relation to the LGBTQ+ community.

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Chapter 2- Spiral of silence theory "Quentin Crisp"

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Chapter 2- Spiral of silence theory "Quentin Crisp"

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Man about town ... John Hurt as Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant

When it was first broadcast in 1975, The Naked Civil Servant - starring John Hurt as the notorious homosexual Quentin Crisp swishing through 30s Soho "dumb with lipstick and blind with mascara" - was praised to the very heavens. And rightly so.

The Guardian's Nancy Banks-Smith said it "justified the existence of television". It won the Prix Italia, a raft of Baftas, and In 2000, the BFI voted it the fourth greatest British television programme of the 20th century. Not bad for a film that the BBC had refused to make.

It's hard to convey what a shock it was. Witty, tragic, brave and pathetic, audiences sympathised with Crisp, even if they didn't empathise with him. At the time of The Naked Civil Servant's broadcast, the number of out gay public figures was still close to zero. Crisp practically invented the idea of coming out: "Instead of hiding my sexuality, I would announce it." He soon fulfilled his own prophecy, becoming one of the "stately homos of England".

To some, the very idea of a sequel seems at best pointless, at worst sacrilegious. But in August filming will begin on An Englishman In New York, about the final act of Crisp's life, from his move to the States in 1980 to his death in 1999. Scripted by Brian Fillis, it could be as wonderfully macabre as his Fear of Fanny, or as clumsily clunky as The Curse of Steptoe.

Thankfully, Hurt will reprise the role. Crisp once commented; "Mr Hurt is born to play victims. He played me and then he played Caligula, which is only me in a sheet." When I see Hurt in The Elephant Man stalking the mean-spirited streets of London, it seems like Crisp with a sack over his head.

Quentin Crisp's life had a coda every bit as fascinating as his early years, and one that was shaped by the reception to The Naked Civil Servant. He noted wistfully; "I am a man who's famous for wearing make-up. It's hardly enough." In New York, he was also famous for being famous - which sounds like one of his own aphorisms. There were cameos in Philadelphia, and incongruous ads for Impulse, Calvin Klein and Nike trainers. He also wrote an irregular column for the Guardian, which he endearingly insisted on calling "the Manchester Guardian".

Quentin Crisp's New York years are perfect for drama because they saw the tragedy of his fall from gay grace; the man first seen as the John The Baptist of gay liberation was later reviled as its Judas.

He said that "homosexuality is a curse and I wouldn't wish it on anyone," and often remarked that being gay was an "abnormality" and an "illness." The new drama's pre-publicity hints that it hinges on Crisp being dropped from New York society after calling Aids "a fad". His biographer Tim Fountain recounts Crisp addressing a gay meeting in London in the late 70s, where one man angrily berated him, saying that The Naked Civil Servant had led him to believe Quentin Crisp was our Martin Luther King, but he'd turned out to be a queer "Uncle Tom."

Crisp's stock reply to such critics showed a sense of defiance; "I am first and last an individual, not a spokesman for any group. I have lived my life with my sexuality clearly apparent. I cannot do any more."

I still think we owe much to that great arch man, even if he was only out for himself.

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Does The Naked Civil Servant need a sequel?

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Man about town ... John Hurt as Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant When it was first broadcast in 1975, The Naked Civil Servant - starring John Hurt as the notorious homosexual Quentin Crisp swishing through 30s Soho "dumb with lipstick and blind with mascara" - was praised to the very heavens.

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Chapter 2- Heteronormative (Kurt Hummel example)

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Chapter 2- Heteronormative (Kurt Hummel example)

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The hit musical series wallows in stereotypes and clichés, writes Andy Dehnart-particularly ones that have to do with being male and female, straight and gay.

Between spontaneous musical numbers featuring popular pop songs and Jane Lynch's flawless delivery of every syllable, Fox's Glee thrives on embracing individuality.

That was evident in last week's episode, when characters' struggles with identity led gay glee club member Kurt to dress in flannel, make out with a girl, and become more masculine in a misguided attempt to win his father's affection. As it did with Kurt's coming out last fall, Glee handled this well. "Don't lose track of who you are just because it might be easier to be somebody else," glee club adviser Will Schuester told Kurt. Eventually, Kurt's dad confronted his son and said: "Your job is to be yourself. And my job is to love you no matter what."

So many of the characters on Glee seem to just reinforce the way people already think.

Unconditional love is also what the show's fans give it, embracing this progressive message-and the musical numbers-that Glee returns to episode after episode. But disappointingly, the breakout hit wallows in stereotypes and clichés, particularly ones that have to do with gender. Every opportunity Glee has, it turns its characters into what our society expects and demands from people based not on who they are as individuals, but what their genitalia looks like.

* Thaddeus Russell: Glee-In Praise of Stereotypes * Gallery: Celebrity Gleeks Although the term "gender" gets conflated with "sex," it refers to the behavior we expect, and even demand, from people based on their biology. That socially constructed idea differs between cultures and societies, but we expect men to act masculine, which includes all of the associated clichés, such as being athletic, aggressive, or emotionally reserved. Likewise, women are expected to be emotional, concerned with their appearance, and maternal. Gender is arbitrary, and while our expectation that, for example, men should be athletic might have a connection to physiological attributes, there are so many exceptions that rules just don't make sense.

Forcing gender roles upon people is damaging, but that's what Glee does: it accepts society's definitions and reinforces them.

One of the most damning examples is the character of Terri Schuester, who's married to glee club adviser Will Schuester. As played by Jessalyn Gilsig, Terri is "the shrewish, nagging wife from hell," as Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune wrote. [] The character confirmed our worst fears about women-that they're devious and trying to force men into lifelong relationships the men don't want-when she and her sister conspired to trap her unhappy husband in their relationship by pretending to be pregnant. When the fake pregnancy was finally revealed, Glee's writers used that as an opportunity for a little violence against women-Will angrily grabbed her wrist and shoved her backwards-and worse, that's violence the audience might actually support because of Terri's awful behavior.

Gender roles oppress men, too, and Glee keeps its straight male characters in societally defined boxes. The two major teen male characters, Finn and Puck, are both clueless jocks. They may be in the glee club, but to appease our uneasiness with that derivation in gender roles, we're constantly reminded how straight, obsessed with sports, and dumb they are. Finn, for example, was convinced by a conniving female character that he'd gotten her pregnant by simply sitting in a hot tub-without having sex.

Of course, setting an over-the-top dramedy in a high school begs for stereotypes. In high school especially, kids often pigeonhole each other to make themselves feel better about their own differences. Perhaps these gendered stereotypes, then, are just reflective of reality.

I asked my friend and Stetson University colleague Emily Mieras, an associate professor in American Studies who teaches classes in popular culture and gender studies, about that. "To me, the question always is with popular culture: Is the representation of those stereotypes raising awareness, or does the presence of stereotypes just reinforce the stereotypes people already have in their heads?" she said. "If it's just reinforcing the way people think people anyway, I don't see that as necessarily positive."

The characters on Glee do reinforce the way people already think and don't question gender roles because these reductive, lazy portrayals are convenient devices for the writers. Even throwaway moments make it clear what is acceptable and what is not. In one episode, cheerleader coach Sue Sylvester, played by Lynch, cut off a male student's ponytail in the hallway, and told him, "You no longer confuse me with your she-male looks."

Sue Sylvester herself appears to be a more complicated example of gender. Her short hair and bullying, among other things, make her far more masculine. However, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Julia T. Wood writes in Gendered Lives that even though "the historical trend of emphasizing gender-stereotyped roles and images continues today ... it is sometimes challenged by alternative images of women, men, and relationships. Below the surface, however, most media products continue to reflect traditional views of women and men on a deeper level."

That's true on Glee. Sylvester's short hair was revealed to be not a choice made by an empowered woman, but instead the result of a failed attempt at femininity: damage caused when she tried to make it look like Madonna's. More damningly, when Sue actually pursued a relationship with a man she liked, she immediately softened, becoming conciliatory, at least until the relationship ended and she reverted back to her hyper-masculine, aggressive, and vicious ways. And there is the ugly stereotype: Women need men to calm them down.

Similarly, Will (Matthew Morrison) advises the glee club and isn't obsessed with sports, and he's more sensitive than our society demands men be, but the writers make sure he's constantly fending off women or asserting his heterosexuality to balance that.

The gendered stereotype that has generated the most controversy is the one that makes people most uncomfortable: the feminine gay male. Kurt, played by Chris Colfer, sometimes even jokes that he's so effeminate he's not even male ("as an honorary girl, I have to agree"). Perhaps because Kurt is based on Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy, the show and its characters embrace his derivation from gender norms, and that has a positive impact. As Michael Jensen, the editor of the gay media website AfterElton, told me, "Kurt, for the most part, is meant to be taken seriously and as a representation" of gay teens' experiences, and "a lot of [gay teens] really identify with him and what he's going through."

Yet even as Glee celebrated attributes that would typically attract jokes or taunts, the series usually just reaches for the ugliest gendered stereotype imaginable.

Former glee club director Sandy Ryerson, for example, was presented as an effeminate doll-collecting man who the show has strongly suggested is a convicted pedophile who has to stay away from students. Because he lusts after Josh Groban and inappropriately rubs a male student's stomach, there's no real stretch involved to see how Glee uses the character to illustrate one of the ugliest and most inaccurate stereotypes, that being gay makes one a pedophile.

That's not very gleeful.

Plus: Check out more of the latest entertainment, fashion, and culture coverage on Sexy Beast-photos, videos, features, and Tweets.
Andy Dehnart is a writer, TV critic, and editor of reality blurred. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

Between spontaneous musical numbers featuring popular pop songs and Jane Lynch's flawless delivery of every syllable, Fox's Glee thrives on embracing individuality.

That was evident in last week's episode, when characters' struggles with identity led gay glee club member Kurt to dress in flannel, make out with a girl, and become more masculine in a misguided attempt to win his father's affection. As it did with Kurt's coming out last fall, Glee handled this well. "Don't lose track of who you are just because it might be easier to be somebody else," glee club adviser Will Schuester told Kurt. Eventually, Kurt's dad confronted his son and said: "Your job is to be yourself. And my job is to love you no matter what."

So many of the characters on Glee seem to just reinforce the way people already think.

Unconditional love is also what the show's fans give it, embracing this progressive message-and the musical numbers-that Glee returns to episode after episode. But disappointingly, the breakout hit wallows in stereotypes and clichés, particularly ones that have to do with gender. Every opportunity Glee has, it turns its characters into what our society expects and demands from people based not on who they are as individuals, but what their genitalia looks like.

* Thaddeus Russell: Glee-In Praise of Stereotypes * Gallery: Celebrity Gleeks Although the term "gender" gets conflated with "sex," it refers to the behavior we expect, and even demand, from people based on their biology. That socially constructed idea differs between cultures and societies, but we expect men to act masculine, which includes all of the associated clichés, such as being athletic, aggressive, or emotionally reserved. Likewise, women are expected to be emotional, concerned with their appearance, and maternal. Gender is arbitrary, and while our expectation that, for example, men should be athletic might have a connection to physiological attributes, there are so many exceptions that rules just don't make sense.

Forcing gender roles upon people is damaging, but that's what Glee does: it accepts society's definitions and reinforces them.

One of the most damning examples is the character of Terri Schuester, who's married to glee club adviser Will Schuester. As played by Jessalyn Gilsig, Terri is "the shrewish, nagging wife from hell," as Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune wrote. [] The character confirmed our worst fears about women-that they're devious and trying to force men into lifelong relationships the men don't want-when she and her sister conspired to trap her unhappy husband in their relationship by pretending to be pregnant. When the fake pregnancy was finally revealed, Glee's writers used that as an opportunity for a little violence against women-Will angrily grabbed her wrist and shoved her backwards-and worse, that's violence the audience might actually support because of Terri's awful behavior.

Gender roles oppress men, too, and Glee keeps its straight male characters in societally defined boxes. The two major teen male characters, Finn and Puck, are both clueless jocks. They may be in the glee club, but to appease our uneasiness with that derivation in gender roles, we're constantly reminded how straight, obsessed with sports, and dumb they are. Finn, for example, was convinced by a conniving female character that he'd gotten her pregnant by simply sitting in a hot tub-without having sex.

Of course, setting an over-the-top dramedy in a high school begs for stereotypes. In high school especially, kids often pigeonhole each other to make themselves feel better about their own differences. Perhaps these gendered stereotypes, then, are just reflective of reality.

I asked my friend and Stetson University colleague Emily Mieras, an associate professor in American Studies who teaches classes in popular culture and gender studies, about that. "To me, the question always is with popular culture: Is the representation of those stereotypes raising awareness, or does the presence of stereotypes just reinforce the stereotypes people already have in their heads?" she said. "If it's just reinforcing the way people think people anyway, I don't see that as necessarily positive."

The characters on Glee do reinforce the way people already think and don't question gender roles because these reductive, lazy portrayals are convenient devices for the writers. Even throwaway moments make it clear what is acceptable and what is not. In one episode, cheerleader coach Sue Sylvester, played by Lynch, cut off a male student's ponytail in the hallway, and told him, "You no longer confuse me with your she-male looks."

Sue Sylvester herself appears to be a more complicated example of gender. Her short hair and bullying, among other things, make her far more masculine. However, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Julia T. Wood writes in Gendered Lives that even though "the historical trend of emphasizing gender-stereotyped roles and images continues today ... it is sometimes challenged by alternative images of women, men, and relationships. Below the surface, however, most media products continue to reflect traditional views of women and men on a deeper level."

That's true on Glee. Sylvester's short hair was revealed to be not a choice made by an empowered woman, but instead the result of a failed attempt at femininity: damage caused when she tried to make it look like Madonna's. More damningly, when Sue actually pursued a relationship with a man she liked, she immediately softened, becoming conciliatory, at least until the relationship ended and she reverted back to her hyper-masculine, aggressive, and vicious ways. And there is the ugly stereotype: Women need men to calm them down.

Similarly, Will (Matthew Morrison) advises the glee club and isn't obsessed with sports, and he's more sensitive than our society demands men be, but the writers make sure he's constantly fending off women or asserting his heterosexuality to balance that.

The gendered stereotype that has generated the most controversy is the one that makes people most uncomfortable: the feminine gay male. Kurt, played by Chris Colfer, sometimes even jokes that he's so effeminate he's not even male ("as an honorary girl, I have to agree"). Perhaps because Kurt is based on Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy, the show and its characters embrace his derivation from gender norms, and that has a positive impact. As Michael Jensen, the editor of the gay media website AfterElton, told me, "Kurt, for the most part, is meant to be taken seriously and as a representation" of gay teens' experiences, and "a lot of [gay teens] really identify with him and what he's going through."

Yet even as Glee celebrated attributes that would typically attract jokes or taunts, the series usually just reaches for the ugliest gendered stereotype imaginable.

Former glee club director Sandy Ryerson, for example, was presented as an effeminate doll-collecting man who the show has strongly suggested is a convicted pedophile who has to stay away from students. Because he lusts after Josh Groban and inappropriately rubs a male student's stomach, there's no real stretch involved to see how Glee uses the character to illustrate one of the ugliest and most inaccurate stereotypes, that being gay makes one a pedophile.

That's not very gleeful.

Plus: Check out more of the latest entertainment, fashion, and culture coverage on Sexy Beast-photos, videos, features, and Tweets.
Andy Dehnart is a writer, TV critic, and editor of reality blurred. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter.

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The hit musical series wallows in stereotypes and clichés, writes Andy Dehnart-particularly ones that have to do with being male and female, straight and gay. Between spontaneous musical numbers featuring popular pop songs and Jane Lynch's flawless delivery of every syllable, Fox's Glee thrives on embracing individuality.

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Society Vs. Self Identity: Knocking Down the Walls of Heteronormativity | Koosha Nouri | TEDxUCSB

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Huesmann, L. R., Moise-Titus, J., Podolski, C., & Eron, L. D. (2003). Longitudinal relations between children's exposure to TV violence and their aggressive and violent behavior in young adulthood: 1977-1992. Developmental Psychology, 39, 201-221.

What is this study about?

There is increasing evidence that early exposure to media violence is a contributing factor to the development of aggression. However, much of the past research on media violence has focused on short-term effects and reported significant relations only for boys. This study draws on social-cognitive observational-learning theory, desensitization theory, and social comparison theory to examine the longitudinal relationship between early exposure to TV violence and adult aggressive behavior for both males and females.

This study is a follow-up of the 3-year longitudinal study conducted by Huesmann and his colleagues in 1977. In the original study, which included 557 children from five countries (aged 6-10 years), researchers gathered information on childhood TV-violence viewing, identification with aggressive TV characters, judgments of realism of TV violence, aggressive behavior, and intellectual ability, as well as parents' socioeconomic status (measured by educational level), aggressiveness, parenting practices and attitudes, and parent's TV usage (i.e., TV-viewing frequency and TV-violence viewing).

In this follow-up study, researchers interviewed and gathered collateral data (i.e., archival records and interviews of spouses and friends) on 329 participants from the original sample. At the time of the follow-up, the participants ranged in age from 20 to 25 years. Researchers administered measures of adult TV-violence viewing and adult aggressive behavior, and obtained archival data on criminal conviction and moving violation records from state records.

What did the study find?

The results of this study revealed that early childhood exposure to TV violence predicted aggressive behavior for both males and females in adulthood. Additionally, identification with same sex aggressive TV characters, as well as participants' ratings of perceived realism of TV violence, also predicted adult aggression in both males and females. Furthermore, while a positive relationship was found between early aggression and subsequent TV violence viewing, the effect was not significant. These findings suggest that, while aggressive children may choose to watch more violent TV programming, it is more plausible that early childhood exposure to TV violence stimulates increases in aggression later in adulthood.

Gender differences were also observed in the expression of aggression. Specifically, men were more likely to engage in serious physical aggression and criminality, whereas women were more likely to engage in forms of indirect aggression. Men and women reported similar frequencies of engaging in verbal aggression, general aggression, and aggression toward spouses. For men, the effects were exacerbated by their identification with same sex characters and perceptions of realism in TV violence.

The longitudinal relationships observed in this study held true, even after controlling for the effects of early aggressive behavior in childhood, socioeconomic status, intellectual ability, and various parenting factors. These findings support the hypothesis that the causal effects of media violence exposure found in laboratory settings can be generalized to real life from childhood to adulthood.

How does this relate to the ACT Against Violence program?

Children are increasingly becoming heavy media consumers. Research indicates that much of the media directed at children contains violent content. While media violence exposure may have short-term effects on adults, its negative impact on children is enduring. As this study suggests, early exposure to TV violence places both male and female children at risk for the development of aggressive and violent behavior in adulthood. The ACT program addresses the impact of media violence on the development of young children, and teaches parents strategies for reducing their children's exposure to media violence.

Contact the Violence Prevention Office

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Early Exposure to TV Violence Predicts Aggression in Adulthood

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Huesmann, L. R., Moise-Titus, J., Podolski, C., & Eron, L. D. (2003). Longitudinal relations between children's exposure to TV violence and their aggressive and violent behavior in young adulthood: 1977-1992. Developmental Psychology, 39, 201-221. There is increasing evidence that early exposure to media violence is a contributing factor to the development of aggression.

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Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education

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Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Education. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 01 December 2021

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“Queer Theory and Heteronormativity” published on by Oxford University Press.

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1The pursuit of authenticity is film's dominant mode of historical representation. For the overwhelming majority of historical film makers and audiences, authenticity signifies a realistic historical experience, an effective suspension of temporal-spatial disbelief. Authenticity, as the engine of mainstream historical filmmaking, has three chief functions: as an aesthetic strategy, a reception discourse and a marketing discourse. A feeling, a form of perception and (supposed) knowledge, the aesthetic success of authenticity, and thus the mainstream historical film, is assessed via the following question: Has the past been conveyed in a way that the spectator can reconcile with his or her perception of the historical reality? Audiences speak of films that "bring history to life". 2 I call this condition - this sensation of a media-produced, purportedly successful historicity - the ‚authenticity feeling'.

To be sure, authenticity and the authenticity feeling are products of particular domains and styles of representation, including costume and music. Precisely because authenticity remains, among many audiences and critics, the most important benchmark in the evaluation of historical filmmaking, however, it must be understood and examined as a chief characteristic of marketing and reception discourses. Interviews with actors, directors and other film personnel, advertising campaigns and Making Of featurettes frequently and consistently refer to the quantity and quality of pre-production historical research. The producers of ZODIAC (David Fincher, USA 2007), we learn for example, used helicopters and cement to plant trees on a barren California island in order to precisely reconstruct a murder scene due for a mere smattering of shooting days. On the ‚San Francisco Chronicle'-set, production designers sourced painstakingly elaborate replicas of every page of each day's newspaper, even though they never appear on camera. Such meticulous forms of realism, the prop master Hope M. Parrish explains in the Making Of, help the actors slip into their roles. The screenwriter and other personnel justify this obsessive degree of historical reconstruction with auteurist appeals: according to them, David Fincher is no mere perfectionist, but above all the consummate, uncompromising artist, and the pursuit of visual authenticity represents a sort of method acting for sets, props and locations. (Fincher himself never speaks; the production designer, costume designer and make-up artist admire him from the distance as talking heads.) Furthermore, and above all in recreating instances of human suffering - ZODIAC revolves around a serial killing spree in northern California in the late 1960s - filmmakers appeal to a sense of moral duty to stay as close as possible to known and knowable facts, as a gesture of respect to the victims. This is certainly not a phenomenon restricted to the CGI-era. Film historians such as George Custen register exemplary 1930s Cecil B. DeMille productions by which authenticity essentially shapes both aesthetics and marketing. 3

Authenticity has been and remains the most prominent element in historical films' reception discourse. Scholars never tire to explain the extent to which historians, critics and lay audiences evaluate historical films according to the meter of "accuracy and authenticity." 4 Above all, critical reviews and academic articles seek to clarify the extent to which the film corresponds to the "real events" and "official records". Ridiculed and rejected by film scholars as the "fidelity discourse", this approach considers the film as the reflection of an already existent and indisputably superior description of reality. As Jonathan Stubbs opines, "achievement in the historical film genre is often judged according to the perception of historical accuracy rather than by aesthetic criteria." 5

The impression of authenticity, and the warm, righteous feeling it catalyses, fundamentally shape the reception of historical films, particularly among lay audiences. There is no shortage of sources which report that in BRAVEHEART (Mel Gibson, USA 1995), set in thirteenth-century Scotland, a white van and a man with a baseball cap can be seen, or that in GLADIATOR (Ridley Scott, USA 2000) a gas bottle appears in the back of a Roman chariot. 6 IMDb maintains categories for goofs and anachronisms so that users can, for example, flag up and discuss the extras in SPARTACUS (Stanley Kubrick, USA 1960) who wear a wrist watch. 7 The American humour magazine Cracked asked its readers to upload the "most glaring mistakes" in film onto a webpage that eventually attracted over 1.5 million hits. Most users - and the winners of the competition - highlighted errors in period films. Among them: Jack, protagonist of TITANIC (James Cameron, USA 1997) supposedly comes from a town in Wisconsin that in reality was founded five years after his death. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (Steven Spielberg, USA 1981) depicts a German military operation in Egypt that is not only invented, but also, because of the British occupation during the period, would have been impossible. In a BACK TO THE FUTURE (Robert Zemeckis, USA 1985) scene meant to be set in 1953, Marty (Michael J. Fox) plays a Gibson ES335 guitar, a model that was not sold until three years later. 8 A fan culture that collects and disseminates such continuity errors exists among blogs, forums, Wikipedia entries, YouTube videos and books, which serve this culture and its interests. 9As we shall see, empirical studies demonstrate that, for a significant proportion of audiences, the search for "mistakes" and the engagement with the details of the historical mise-en-scène represent the "pleasure", "source of active enjoyment" and "most important motivation" for the consumption of historical films. 10

Authenticity is, for it many proponents, ultimately a felt, sensual, even embodied historicity: the authenticity feeling. Its detractors belittle authenticity as historicism, an arduous yet naïve representational form and artistic habitus that attempts to approach the past in an uncritical and affirmative manner. In this article I seek to disrupt the critical consensus and propose two main arguments. First, authenticity, as an aesthetic strategy, and the authenticity feeling, as a measure and characteristic of reception, are important social phenomena that must be considered more closely and dissected more systematically. Second, sound - and above all language and dialect - plays an essential and hitherto little studied part in the production of the authenticity feeling. In order to write an Audio History of Film, it is essential to better understand the authenticity feeling; only via a rigorous analysis of the historical film's acoustic elements can one comprehend authenticity as a marketing discourse and means of reception.

Authenticity Criticism

Today, there are many critics who write lengthy, often embittered condemnations of filmmakers' authenticity efforts. According to the opinion of Katja Nicodemus ( Die Zeit), there should be a "multiyear prohibition . . . for the one street used as a historical location at the Babelsberg studio". 11 Alluding to Walter Benjamin, Nicodemus ridicules contemporary German historical films and their "deeply museal engagement with their visual representation" as whores in the bordello of historicism: "it seems as if the German cinema, with its prop-schlepping, its over-enthusiastic recreators . . . has fooled around with precisely this historical whore". Nicodemus is hardly alone in her critique of the "parasitic shamelessness of the German nostalgia film". According to taz-critic Cristina Nord, it suffices these days "when the license plate in the film matches the one in real life". Indeed, if "there is anything resembling a program" among these films, "it expresses itself in the fetishisation of authenticity". The aesthetic focus on historical details, according to Nord, is part and parcel of a "new naïveté". 12

Such opinions are not only widely held among German film critics. The former NYU professor Robert Sklar criticised THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX (DER BAADER MEINHOF KOMPLEX, Uli Edel, D 2008) in a similar way: "Its idea of interpreting the past is to try to match on screen the same number of bullets that were expended in the actual event". 13 Directors such as Romuald Karmakar, Christian Petzold and Andres Veiel complain about "stylisation of the past", a "historical over-consolidation that is simply disgusting". They reject the attempts of productions such as THE MIRACLE OF BERN (DAS WUNDER VON BERN, Sönke Wortmann, D/A 2003) GOOD BYE, LENIN! (Wolfgang Becker, D 2003) and DOWNFALL (DER UNTERGANG, Oliver Hirschbiegel, D 2004) for wanting to "end history with a full stop". 14 In (conscious or unconscious) reference to Linda Williams' definition of pornography (a genre that above all aims for "maximum visibility"), some "Berlin School" filmmakers speak of "history porn" when describing such films. 15Authenticity criticism is an international phenomenon with a long pre-history: film scholars such as Stubbs refer to the tradition of leftist critique of historical films, which are supposedly too preoccupied with costumes and detailed mise-en-scène. 16

The most well-known instance of authenticity criticism took place in the context of the 1990s "heritage film" debate. Andrew Higson delivered the most prominent contributions in his various publications on the British costume dramas of the 1980s and 1990s. 17 Higson describes the "discourse of authenticity" thus: "the desire to establish the adaptation of a heritage property (whether conceived as historical period, novel, play, building, personage, décor, or fashion) as an authentic reproduction of the original". 18 Revealingly, this formulation foregrounds the relationship between original and copy: historical films and their production processes function essentially as adaptations. Measured in this way, historical films suffer from the traditional status of reproduction (in the history of art and otherwise): second-rate fakes that prey on the original in order to appropriate the latter's reputation. Authenticity criticism places historical films under the general suspicion of being no more than leeches:

One central representational strategy of the heritage film is the reproduction of literary texts, artefacts, and landscapes which already have a privileged status within the accepted definition of the national heritage. 19

According to Higson, heritage films cling to the cultural capital of written historiography as well as that of documents, artefacts or monuments.

The authenticity critics involved in this debate judged heritage films in often caustic terms. For Richard Dyer and Ginette Vincendeau - who extended the British discussion to contemporary Continental period productions - heritage films are "characterised above all by a museum aesthetic", maintaining an "apparently meticulous period accuracy, but clean, beautifully lit, and clearly on display". 20 Indeed, in the course of the debate, the films were often accused of an "aesthetic of display". According to these commentators, the productions seek to configure unreflective ‚Heimat' fantasies with a fixation on the mise-en-scène, e.g., with lighting, cinematography and editing that emphasise the detailed reconstruction of costumes. Moreover, they claim, this stylisation serves to represent, and thus glorify, the upper classes. Implicitly and explicitly, the scholars and critics attempt to yoke the "conservative" aesthetic together with conservative politics and, furthermore, a conservative audience.

It is important to emphasise that the heritage-film authenticity critics analyse their objects of inquiry in a ‚normative' way. Professor, newspaper columnist or blogger alike: all commentators thematise the productions as a means to criticise them. In the opinion of Claire Monk, the heritage film is therefore not a genre in the conventional sense, but rather a kind of warning label:

the construction of the idea of the 'heritage film' is interesting for its entanglements of political criticisms with a gut-level cultural aesthetic aversion to the films on the part of its many critics. 21

To my mind this vehement antipathy towards the historical film - a culturally contingent, sociologically decipherable curiosity of the history of taste - inhibits a productive engagement with an Audio History of Film. Elsewhere, I refer to the weaknesses of such authenticity criticism. For instance, critics dismiss the productions out of hand, without undertaking differentiated analyses of individual examples or accounting for unique historical receptions; they suspect (erroneously) that the films appeal mainly to women, gays and/or conservatives, a problematic assumption that reveals suspicions of "visual pleasure". 22

In the context of this study of Audio History, however, new insights are necessary. First of all, it is important to note the authenticity critics' fixation on visual elements. For example, Nicodemus discusses problems with the "visual representation", the "picture", "Grandpa's ‚Wehrmachtsuniform' and discarded disco balls", the "Technicolor aesthetic", or the "typical brown-beige patina of the German coming-to-terms-with-the-past film", i.e., props, costumes, production design and their ‚visual' representation. The one single exception - Nicodemus mentions her dismissive attitude towards "violin excesses" - proves the rule. 23 The critics of the "new naïveté" and "history porn" seem to have few problems with any "maximum audibility", in other words, the engagement with sound. Is there less to criticise about the concerted search for and detailed rendering of sound, than there is regarding the production design? Or is this aspect neglected by the makers of historical films and can thus, according to the logic of these commentators, be ignored in such critiques? As the lengthy discussion of dialect, music and so on in this chapter demonstrates, at least the second question can be answered in the negative.

These are dramatic fiction films, but also so much more. The debates surrounding historical authenticity are aesthetic questions about representation, but ultimately ontological questions about the essence of the historical film and its identitarian functions. Commentators contest ‚how' history should be best and most credibly represented, but they also seek to resolve a deeper dilemma: If history is represented in this particular way, ‚who'are we? The focus on authenticity in marketing discourses is surely a strategy to foreclose a negative reception via reports of extensive and time-consuming research. The authenticity discourse attempts to veil and prevent aesthetic judgments: "It's just a film" and "That's how it really was", when spoken by filmmakers or historical witnesses become indisputable (if contradictory) responses to any criticism. The deafening noise that is the authenticity discourse drowns out more subtle, subjunctive and counterfactual questions about form, effect, affect and audience engagement. How ‚could' history have been best conveyed, in this case? Did the spectator understand the larger implications of the representations? ‚What' did he or she understand?

Nevertheless, authenticity critics - reviewers as well as many historians and film scholars 27 - ignore the significant resonance of authenticity in popular discourse: the historical film remains one of the most popular and successful film genres. 28 An Adornian argument - i.e., that audiences only engage with or expect "authentic" costumes or dialects because they unconsciously reproduce media discourses - would be, in my opinion, an insufficient explanation of this phenomenon. Human beings have a sensual need and instinctive desire for credible historical experiences. Initial empirical studies demonstrate, for example, how spectators assume various expectations and demands for "truth" and "accuracy" depending on whether the film was marketed as a historical film and whether the film depicts well-known historical figures and events. 29 Following this principle, for instance, the demand for authenticity would be greater for LINCOLN (Steven Spielberg, USA 2012) than for MOULIN ROUGE!(Baz Luhrmann, AUS/USA 2001), even if strictly speaking both are historical films. Such audience desires must be taken seriously and studied in a differentiated manner - ‚why' and ‚for whom' are they important? - rather than simply rejecting them as "disgusting" or "naïve".

Indeed, authenticity criticism tends towards simplified explanations and characterisations of the productions themselves, the filmmakers who deliver them, and the implied audiences that consume them. Even exemplars that do not fetishise production design, costumes and narrative details (whether in the film itself or in the surrounding discussions) cannot simply do away with such details. After all, such details - whether anachronistic clothing, specific means of speaking, music and others sounds from the depicted period, historical figures or written references to past dates - are necessary to cue audiences to recognise the films as ‚historical' in the first place. 30 The following section outlines a taxonomy of these details - first the visual and subsequently the acoustic elements - which produce the authenticity feeling.

How Is the Authenticity Feeling Created?

Historical films express authenticity via a qualitative and quantitative excess of detail, reconfirmed with perpetual references, both within the films themselves and in extratextual discourse. Period films, according to Jonathan Stubbs, "have represented the past by accumulating visual evidence which evoke a sense of historical period and overwhelm potential laxities in the narrative. . . . material details are foregrounded as a way to establish an authentic connection with real events". 31 Vivian Sobchack argues, moreover, that history "emerges in popular consciousness not so much from any ‚particular accuracy' or even ‚specificity' of detail and event as it does from a ‚transcendence of accuracy and specificity' enabled by a general and ‚excessive' parade and accumulation of detail and event". 32

In practice, films thematise authenticity directly. Prologues and the frequently deployed line "based on a true story" are exemplary in this sense: e.g., FARGO (Joel and Ethan Coen, USA 1996) and the spinoff television series FARGO (series, USA 2014-), which use the cliché ironically (both are decidedly not based on a true story), or AMERICAN HUSTLE (David O. Russell, USA 2013), with its entreaty that "Some of this actually happened". Stubbs gestures to the long tradition of such texts as well as other ways by which authenticity is foregrounded in typographical form. GLORY (Edward Zwick, USA 1989) conveys the fact that the letters from the protagonist Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick) "are collected in the Houghton Library of Harvard University". 33 The epilogue of many historical films functions in a similar manner. Without fail, a final message in a white, solemn font upon a black background (or photographs or documentary moving images of the real-life historical figures) announces the fate of the hitherto depicted events and the further course of history. This tactic connects the drama to the "real history" and in this way, according to Stubbs, "works to close the gap between the film's representation of historical events and the historical events themselves", with the intention of underlining the authenticity of the production one final time. 34

Beyond intertitles, a tactical implementation (and publicity-based dissemination) of details seeks to evoke an authenticity feeling. On the level of the story, filmmakers attend to seeming trivialities. For THE WHITE RIBBON (DAS WEIßE BAND - EINE DEUTSCHE KINDERGESCHICHTE, D 2009), Michael Haneke insisted upon sowing fields with antique seeds from the depicted decade. 35 Such details are "excessive"; audiences would hardly perceive the story or historical interpretation of the Kennedy assassination differently if the district attorney drinks a beer on a bar called "Napoleon's" or one named "Tortoich's". In fact, they remain more important for later marketing and reception discourses, where filmmakers can use them to highlight the accuracy of their production, as here in the case of Oliver Stone and JFK (1991). 36 For spectators, the very act of ‚knowing' these details creates a feeling of confirmation, which can be activated before, during or after viewings of the film itself.

Props are hardly trivialities in period film production. In the reception of the many so-called ‚Ostalgie' (nostalgia for the East German past) films, the production designer was celebrated as a sort of auteur. Lothar Holler, who coordinated these duties for exemplars such as SUN ALLEY(SONNENALLEE, Leander Haußmann, D 1999), THE ROOM FOUNTAIN (DER ZIMMERSPRINGBRUNNEN, Peter Timm, D 2001), GOOD BYE, LENIN! (2003) and NVA (Leander Haußmann, D 2005), was interviewed for his role as production designer of GOOD BYE, LENIN! nearly as often as the director, Wolfgang Becker, and the stars, Daniel Brühl and Kathrin Saß. 40 In these articles Holler referred again and again to the painstaking and arduous efforts to source authentic GDR match sticks and other East German products at flea markets. (It was after all precisely these products that were discarded after the fall of the Berlin Wall.) Because of the importance of this role, Michelle Pierson refers to the historical film as the "production designer's cinema". 41 If historical films are evaluated largely according to the perception of historical details, production designers make the crucial contribution to their success.

Casting is likewise of central importance to the authenticity feeling. Characters' faces and bodies must correspond to viewers' imaginations, in order to manufacture a believable historical world. The marketing discourses surrounding THE WHITE RIBBON are exemplary. Statements in interviews repeatedly referred to the six months that director Michael Haneke and casting agent Markus Schleinzer devoted to evaluating 7000 head shots of children. 42 The aim of finding the "right faces" was in essence an effort to mimic shapes and contours that audiences retrospectively know through other media, e.g., the human bodies on display in old August Sander photographs.

Representing historical figures - the prominent people we learn about in history textbooks and popular media - requires surpassing a further hurdle: through his or her embodiment, the actor writes over or rewrites the knowledge of a more or less well-known individual. In judging such efforts, critics distinguish between mimetic ‚imitatio', i.e., impersonation, on the one hand, and an interpretation that somehow transposes the present into the past, a performance that - by its very divergence from pure mimicry - portrays the ‚spirit' of the character, on the other. Here again, the ebbs and flows of reception discourses are revealing. Mixed reactions greeted Cate Blanchett's portrayal of Katherine Hepburn in THE AVIATOR (Martin Scorsese, D/USA 2004), above all because of the recreation of Hepburn's old-fashioned and idiosyncratic accent, gestures and movements. 43 Similarly, Moritz Bliebtreu faced round critique and taunts of hammed-up clownery for his turn as Joseph Goebbels in JEW SUSS: RISE AND FALL (JUD SÜSS - FILM OHNE GEWISSEN, Oskar Roehler, D/AUT 2010). According to critic Hanns-Georg Rodek, Bleibtreu limps as Goebbels, hits his actors chummily with his fist on their chest, he waves around his index finger and even yells, when his avuncular attitude bears no fruit. This is copied precisely from historical film documents and yet comes off as semi-skilled, because it fails to divine the difference between the accurate and the credible: someone who plays Goebbel like he (probably) was back then looks just ridiculous today. 44

Bleibtreu's manner of speaking and gesture - the mimetic representation of Goebbels as he appears in old newsreels and audio recordings, not to mention the many documentaries that recycle these primary sources - functioned in 2010 as a caricature. Despite its accuracy, the performance carried no authenticity and it helped little that other historical, if less prominent, figures (e.g. Tobias Moretti's turn as Ferdinand Marian or Justus von Dohnányi as Veit Harlan) were portrayed with relative restraint and conformity vis-à-vis twenty-first century norms.

How Can Film Sound Produce an Authenticity Feeling?

Acting performance, and the discourse surrounding it, anticipates the essential role of sound in producing a satisfying historical experience. It furthermore problematises any clear distinction between sound and image in the analysis of historical films. Sound has a key role to play and, indeed, inhabits this function almost always in conjunction and dynamic interaction with images. Despite the research that claims that "Historical cinema, then, is led by ‚visual'evidence in its representation to the past . . . . material details are foregrounded as a way to establish an authentic connection with real events", sound is in fact essential to the credible experience of historicity. 45

Historians are just beginning to thoroughly analyse the role of sound in the writing of history. In his monograph How Early America Sounded, Richard Cullen Rath attempts to reconstruct the acoustic world of seventeenth-century America. He argues that sound was particularly important to the people of this era and imagines how different the historical record might appear, had scholars not only taken into account written and other visual documents. According to Rath, sound played a much more important role in that era than in the present day; the dominance of the visual is not an inevitable or natural condition, but rather the consequence of an historical process. 46

In contrast, Lutz Koepnick and Nora M. Alter argue in their introduction to Sound Matters that sound is the quintessential element of modernity. Unlike Rath they claim that the acoustic sphere first achieved significant prominence and cultural value in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Furthermore, they contend, sound has an ontological connection with the construction of identity. 47 These claims are evidenced by the rise of noise and other acoustic forms in public and private spaces. The advent of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, and later in France, the United States, Germany and elsewhere, introduced a new era and a capital-intensive economic system. "Preindustrial sounds could be traced to their origins-an animal, a hand-held tool, a cloudy sky-and hence made meaningful", according to Koepnick and Alter. 48 In the new, loud metropolitan centres, a sensual overload and a new, strict separation between the visual and sonic suddenly prevailed. 49 Repeatedly, Koepnick and Alter refer on the one hand to the sound tradition of Richard Wagner, and on the other to Theodor Adorno (and/or Bertolt Brecht). 50 In this context the contrast Wagner versus Adorno/Brecht stands in for many other binary oppositions: harmony versus dissonance, unity versus fragment, synthesis versus dialectic, aesthetic versus self-reflexivity, nationalism versus resistance, conservatism versus avant-garde.

As radical as Rath's and Koepnick/Alter's interventions may be among historians and cultural studies scholars, respectively, it is also clear that (at least since the 1930s) filmmakers needed to create narrative worlds out of images ‚and' sounds in order to excavate the past in historical films. As progressive historians (e.g., Robert Rosenstone) note, period films are historiographical forms despite - and precisely because of - their commercial mandates, broad consumer address and lack of adherence to scholarly representations of the past. 51 But how are these historical realities constructed? With which acoustic details and styles is the authenticity feeling evoked? Which culturally contingent filmic conventions have established themselves in the sonic realm in order to efficiently and effectively depict an "authentic" past? These questions must be answered in this section, first with reference to music and then with a thorough discussion of language.

Music

Experts enumerate four elements of film sound: music, dialogue, sound effects and silence. 52 Music is perhaps the most conspicuous aspect; it existed in cinemas even before the first talkies. 53 Correspondingly, music is also one of the most important ingredients in the production of historical films; their pastness hinges on music's potential to efficiently locate proceedings in time, establish mood, characterise, interpret events and so on. Film music, according to James Wierzbicki, structures narrative form and identifies "films' locales and time periods". 54 Soundtracks, as Arthur Knight und Pamela Robertson Wojcik furthermore argue, "recall us to our past, or they conjure up a past we never experienced and, through the familiar language of popular music, make it ours". 55 Just as effective (and stylistically more elegant) as an intertitle with a day, month or year, a song from the portrayed period can date the story and mark jumps in time. The Four Tops or The Supremes transport the audience back into the 1960s; in addition, of course, they establish a specific mood and delineate a certain human representation and his or her emotions, tastes, class and background. Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" and Janis Joplin's "Mercedes-Benz" locate THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX historically and allude to the broader, more pacifist left-wing movements around 1968, on the one hand, and to the RAF-terrorists' preference for fast German cars, on the other. FORREST GUMP (Robert Zemeckis, USA 1994), to cite another example, uses no text intertitles to mark its many jumps in historical time. Instead, Jenny's changing fashion and hairstyles, but above all a hit-parade of pop songs, perform this narrative function. Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog", Aretha Franklin's "Respect", Creedance Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son", Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" and Bob Seger's "Against the Wind" convey, in effective manner, the historicity of the scenes from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The music is no background décor: "Without the music, and its discrete meaning existing outside the visual text", as Hilary Lapedis writes about "soundtrack films" such as FORREST GUMP or TRAINSPOTTING (Danny Boyle, UK 1999) "the film would be less effective". 56 Lapedis's observation must be refined for cases such as FORREST GUMP. In ‚historical films' that use such musical tactics, their ‚historical experiences' would be less effective without such music.

Historical films that chiefly represent musicians must confront additional aesthetic problems that require bespoke solutions. Unlike the many historical productions that deal with politicians, actors, artists or other historically prominent figures, those that portray musicians must compete with additional audience memories and perceptions from other sources. Chief among these are sound memories, i.e., the associations and feelings that arise from (often repeated) listening to the musician's work. Biographical films such as THE DOORS(Oliver Stone, USA 1991) or GAINSBOURG (VIE HÉROÏQUE, Joann Sfar, F 2010) narrate the lives of musicians and report in great detail on their love affairs and drug addictions behind the scenes. These productions recreate their subject's first modest and later spectacular stage appearances, and provide narrative opportunities to hear the musician's work: performance is key to the generic formula and provision of pleasure. This subgenre, called the musical biopic or musician biopic by fans and press alike, 63 features various filmic conventions in order to solve fundamental aesthetic-philosophical problems, such as: How can one credibly represent the well-known achievements of these highly talented and unmistakable musicians? Some films largely do without new recordings. Instead, threy create a convincing audio-historical experience by reusing original sound in the film itself. THE HARMONISTS (COMEDIAN HARMONISTS, Joseph Vilsmaier, D/AUT 1997) exemplifies the use of this tactic. The German boy band is embodied by Ben Becker and other actors; the group's singing, however, derives from the 1930s recordings. The advantages of this method of historical representation are clear. Casting selection can focus on appearance and acting talent and the production must not devote any herculean effort to recreate the accomplishments of the bygone musicians. Furthermore, audiences immediately recognise the music as authentic, which directly activates a sound memory. In such a scenario, however, the actors must mime and sing in lip-sync, a means of sound-image performance and editing that, when not handled with utmost precision, can leave the audience with the strong impression of illusion, fakery and simulation: the dissonance between the authentic sound, on the one hand, and the recreated visual staging of the actor's foreign body, on the other, only increases and can become painfully plain. Such an aesthetic can therefore effect an involuntary distanciation in the reception, as evidenced in reviews and internet audience forums.

For this reason, a second strategy rejects synchronisation. 64 In projects such as RAY (Tayler Hackford, USA 2004) or WALK THE LINE (James Mangold, USA/D 2005), Jaime Foxx and Joaquin Phoenix perform their own interpretations of well-known Ray Charles and Johnny Cash songs, respectively. Such productions also attempt to deliver an authenticity feeling; the aesthetic dilemma is resolved in a different manner, however. In other words, the artistic and musical talent of the recreating ‚actor' is decisive; his or her performance is implicitly, but usually explicitly, compared to that of the historical musician. Indeed, marketing discourses typically belabour the extensive vocal training required for the role. Reese Witherspoon, who played June Carter in WALK THE LINE (and later received an Oscar for her efforts), was asked by a reporter how she mastered the "difficult task of singing like June Carter":

Well, [it was] nearly impossible so I just tried to be the best version of what I could be, because it was impossible to emulate her. And I'm sure on Joaquin [Phoenix]'s part it was pretty difficult to emulate Johnny Cash. But we trained for five and a half months and learned to play instruments, record an album, and worked six or seven hours every day for five months on it. So you can't say we didn't try. 65

Correspondingly, the reception of musician biopics largely dwells on the success or failure of the acoustic imitation. Remaining on the example of WALK THE LINE, film critic Roger Ebert's evaluation is revealing:

It is by now well known that Phoenix and Witherspoon perform their own vocals in the movie. It was not well known when the movie previewed - at least not by me. Knowing Cash's albums more or less by heart, I closed my eyes to focus on the soundtrack and decided that, yes, that was the voice of Johnny Cash I was listening to. The closing credits make it clear it's Joaquin Phoenix doing the singing, and I was gob-smacked. Phoenix and Mangold can talk all they want about how it was as much a matter of getting in character, of delivering the songs, as it was a matter of voice technique, but whatever it was, it worked. 66

In this way, these films make aesthetic claims (the imitation of a known performance) that transcend those of other genres and modes; in turn, the fulfilment of these demands provides audiences with an added value. The evaluation of (and any pleasure derived from) the imitation partly distracts from the fact that the sounds and visuals are recreated in the present of the production, emanating from a time and space detached from the treasured recordings. In addition, these productions offer the opportunity to revive (and re-monetise) old classics. In the vein of a live performance by a Beatles cover band or going to see a Queen or Michael Jackson musical play, musician biopics satisfy a longing for the repetition, with small changes, of a past positive experience. This discussion of pop music - which traditionally foregrounds the singer and his or her putatively unique voice in the sound mix (let alone the marketing) - anticipates the importance of language, a subject to which I now turn.

Dialogue and Language

Even if critics and audiences most often consider music to be film's most artistic sonic aspect, 67 filmmakers themselves maintain a different perspective. "Ask any sound professional in the film industry today what is the most important element in the soundtrack", Gianluca Sergi attests, and "you will invariably receive the same answer: dialogue". 68 The audibility of every last footstep or every last tuba note on the score is ultimately secondary: in contrast, however, every line of dialogue must be clearly heard. Compared to music, dialogue remains problematic terrain in period productions, a formal element that foretells a whole host of aesthetic and cultural quandaries. The ability to even reconstruct dialogue presents serious issues for the makers of historical films. For example, in ZODIAC, which commits to an extreme form of authentic recreation, it is simply impossible - unlike costume, hairstyles, make-up or props such as cars - to exactly convey the precise conversations between victims directly before their deaths.

That is not to say that many films do not attempt to recreate dialogue as faithfully as possible to the historical record. This impetus abounds among productions set in recent history, especially those that revolve around politicians, celebrities and others subject to frequent media scrutiny. Such projects can use word-for-word quotations from speeches or interviews in their screenplays. Indeed, some historical films, in the tradition of documentary theatre, 69 compose dialogue using largely or exclusively confirmed sources such as public reports and newspapers, as well as radio and television appearances. Reinhard Hauff's STAMMHEIM (D 1986) is an archetype of this strategy. It thematises the 1975-1977 trial of Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof und Jan-Carl Raspe using text that derives from court protocols. In this way the various (and hotly contested) historical interpretations of the RAF and the death of Baader et al. are contrasted with the sober, "objective" perspective of the dialogue.

BAADER represents a further example of using real quotations. The conversation between Helmut Ensslin (Peter Rühring) and his daughter Gudrun (Laura Tonke) stems from an interview he gave after the 1968 Frankfurt department store fire. The texts spoken by the characters Ulrike Meinhof (Birge Schade) and Horst Herold (Vadim Glowna) are adapted in part from newspaper articles written by the real Meinhof and Herold. Both sources are reprinted in Stefan Aust's standard history on the subject, Der Baader-Meinhof-Komplex. 70 To be sure, this type of historical sound authenticity risks alienating audiences with anachronisms. The effect can be similar to the case of the Bleibtreu's depiction of Goebbels in JEW SUSS (D 1940): the real quotations (the historical figures themselves often recycled Marxist teachings word for word) from the wild 1960s and 1970s seemed stiff and archaic even by the time of BAADER's 2002 release. Director Christopher Roth faced caustic critique in arts pages, and an almost invisible theatrical reception (30,000 tickets sold in its domestic run), on account of such dramaturgical methods. 71

Unlike other aspects of film sound such as the score and pop music, the role of dialect in particular and of language in general remains strongly bound by cultural differences. Dialect is ‚a priori' unique or peculiar; it contains untranslatable meanings. To be sure, Sardinian, Scottish and Swabian maintain some parallels (especially in their relations to the dominant dialects of their respective language groups); nevertheless, they can hardly be compared directly. Indeed, language is the quintessential substratum and codeterminant of culture. Furthermore, there are traditions of individual national and regional film industries - for example vis-à-vis subtitling and dubbing - that arise for complex reasons (including the size of the language community, the mutual comprehensibility of different dialects, the market for foreign-language films, state funding and other interventions). This fact suggests that films create a credible historical experience dialect conventions that may vary widely. A few examples can illustrate this point.

In contrast, other filmmakers use a highly consistent and historically documented dialect as an opportunity to efficiently convey an authenticity feeling. HEIMAT (DE 1984) director Edgar Reitz insisted that the actors' speech should correspond as closely as possible to the local Hunsrück idiom. Yet again in this case, questions of acoustic representation commingle with the politics of identity. Reitz' aesthetic choice must be understood as a formal but ultimately historiographical programme. Dialect in HEIMAT must be considered on the one hand as part of the larger sound design: the dialogue and even the music in HEIMAT were produced live in front of the camera, i.e., not added in postproduction. "The HEIMAT series", as Michael Kaiser writes, "applied the principle of producing as much authenticity as possible during the shoot, in order to approximate in this way reality as closely as possible under the artificial conditions of a film production". 75 As a reaction to the perceived cultural appropriation of the German past through US-American film forms, narrative storytelling and historical interpretation, the HEIMAT projects' precise use of local dialect (and sound in general) constitutes, on the other hand, a political message. According to producer Joachim von Mengershausen, Reitz developed the concept for an epic family history, out of which HEIMAT emerged. Back then it was still, originally called ‚Made in Germany' - which exactly reflects what we were feeling back then - namely, no longer 'Made in USA' but 'Made in Germany' - it was supposed to be a programmatic title, but then at the very end of production and also because of the influence of Constantin boss Eichinger, who had worked hard to secure the premiere of the film at the Munich Film Festival - because of his influence the film or the series was called in the end HEIMAT. 76

In other words, an acoustic-aesthetic-political authenticity in the film's representation (and conscious rewriting) of history was developed as a means to counteract a perceived loss of national identity and longstanding cultural appropriation. Reitz himself fuelled this interpretation. According to him:

Neither on German television nor in any kind of feature film, whether from America or Italy or anywhere else, does synchronisation look [as if it were recorded] live! Never in my life have I seen a film in which a synchronised recording looks as if the people are really playing [music live] - never! . . . Film crews almost never understand what I mean. 77

As we shall see plainly in the subsequent discussion of REQUIEM (Hans-Christian Schmid, D 2006), the role of dialect in HEIMAT represents an exception among German historical films. In other cultural contexts, however, accent and dialect are essential components of dramatising history on screen. In representations of British history, for example, filmmakers take pains to ensure clearly recognisable and differentiated accents. This rule obtains across the spectrum of production, including blockbusters recreating epic events from the distant past (BRAVEHEART), small-scale auteurist reckonings with recent times (e.g., Lynne Ramsey's 1999 art film RATCATCHER (UK/F 1999), set in 1970s Glasgow) or television efforts of all shapes and sizes. These conventions not only reflect Britain's regional identities, postcolonial legacies, funding-body imperatives or the omnipresent discourses of today's multicultural society and anxieties surrounding immigration. In British English class is expressed largely via spoken language and accent; hardly restricted to films that dwell explicitly on these themes, such as THE KING'S SPEECH (Tom Hooper, UK/USA/AUS 2010), sound quality, intonation and the performed heritage of language offer an essential contribution to characterisation, story and thus historical interpretation.

It is important to note that such "details" can have substantial effects on the reception of historical films. Ultimately, they exert a significant influence on the credibility of the historical experience and the creation of an authenticity feeling. The reception of ROBIN HOOD (Ridley Scott, USA/UK 2010) was chiefly a discussion of dialect: commentators accused Russell Crowe - despite "hours of intensive vocal training" - of failing to reproduce the Nottingham dialect. This linguistic error was interpreted as a miscarriage of professional performance, but moreover a fatal flaw in the aesthetic experience of the film. 78 "Russell Crowe accused of making Robin Hood sound Irish", wrote The Daily Telegraph, one of many British and international newspapers that reported the incident. 79 Indeed, the press have traditionally made dialect the main topic in their reportage of Robin Hood adaptations: "When Errol Flynn played Robin Hood in 1938 he spoke with an upper-class English accent while Kevin Costner was criticised for his strong American accent in the 1991 film ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES". 80

Nevertheless, the equal and opposite general principle, that the accurate rendering of dialect - in the minds of critics and audiences - will guarantee a positive reception, does not obtain. There are counterexamples by which films attempt to convey a realistic historical experience precisely by ‚avoiding' dialect. REQUIEM, a portrait of a young, schizophrenic woman set in the Swabian Alp and Tübingen areas of 1970s southwestern Germany, is such a case: the local dialect, Swabian, is circumvented completely. The main characters, who come from simple, working-class local origins and are portrayed by classically trained, award-wining actors (e.g., Sandra Hüller and Burghart Klaußner), might as well come from Hannover or Paderborn, so closely do they intone standard German, ‚Hochdeutsch'. I was not able to find any interview with the director Hans-Christian Schmid or the other filmmakers in which they justify the aesthetic decision. Nevertheless, the lack of dialect was noticed in reviews. On the website filmspiegel.de, for example, the use of standard German was deciphered in the following manner:

REQUIEM is an inventory, a purely empathetic rendering of a thought-provoking death, which in reality of course had much more absurd features than the representation in the film. REQUIEM is the attempt first to depict and then to understand, and is thus the sharpest contradiction of popular cinema. Evidence thereof is the avoidance of dialect, which would have all too quickly stigmatised the events as curiosity, or the almost complete relinquishment of depicting the world of medicine, which would have brought familiar, scientific explanatory patterns into play. The spectator is supposed to participate in the fate of Michaela Klinger without prejudice and only thereafter concern him- or herself with the question why. First the emotional, then the rational dimension. 81

The review portal critic.de claimed that:

The rational stance of the director is unmistakable in every shot: no image bears evidence of the supernatural, no shock effect pulls the spectator into the psyche of the girl. For there are no abysses to find there, but rather a human fate that is universally valid, and precisely without a fixed geography and time. Deep Purple's 'Anthem', which gives the film part of its unique atmosphere, sets the mood, rather than indicating the historical period. And the Swabian surroundings are merely an example for provinciality as a breeding ground for false dreams and fundamentalist thoughts. None of the protagonists speaks in dialect. 82

The first reviewer deems the avoidance of dialect (in a German historical film) above all as a sign of an art film (rather than "popular cinema"). The neutral ‚Hochdeutsch' is interpreted as evidence of a "rational" perspective. Moreover, the review suggests that the use of Swabian (perhaps unlike dialects from Berlin, Hamburg or other areas of the German-speaking world) would have harmed the drama. That particular idiom, often considered by non-speakers to be cute, ugly or silly, would have distracted from the serious theme of mental illness. In contrast, the use of standard German allows the spectator an engagement with the depicted events "without prejudice". The second critic interprets the use of standard German in the rural areas of Baden-Württemberg as an attempt to generalise and universalise the story: the film avoids simply recreating the details of an exceptional event and instead delivers an atmospheric sketch that could happen anywhere, an important objective in the aim to evoke empathy among diverse audiences. This sound strategy is important, according to the reviewer, in narrating an allegorical - rather than merely "accurate" - story. The acoustic parallel to the role of music is significant: the Deep Purple song serves more to furnish a mood than to date the film in a specific time. The (sound) representation is thus evaluated positively.

Furthermore, both critics imply that the use of dialect in (German) historical films does not contribute to the feeling of authenticity. Perhaps based on the German tradition of populist and trivial ‚Heimatfilme' or television movies and series such as DIE KIRCHE BLEIBT IM DORF (Ulrike Grote, D 2012; series from 2013) or SOKO STUTTGART (D, from 2009), they consider dialect to detract from the aesthetic value of historical films. One must only think of Italian neorealism, e.g., LA TERRA TREMA (Luchino Visconti, IT 1948), or refer to the aforementioned British tradition, to demonstrate how such film sound conventions are culturally specific.

To be sure, there are other essential aspects of a taxonomy of historical films' linguistic-acoustic representation beyond regional differences. Swearing and other vulgar expressions - a culturally important subgroup of language's lexical level - project respect and/or contempt as well as class differences. Such linguistic elements are especially important in the reception of historical films. One case can be found in Alison Landsberg's analysis of DEADWOOD (USA 2004-2006), the much-praised US-American television series that takes place in a gold rush town in 1876. Landsberg's observations tell us much not only about the historio-political implications of swear words, but also resound with the overall project of Audio History. Landsberg claims that "sound and language can elicit particular kinds of spectatorial responses". 83 The use of sound, which can produce "specific kinds of cognition and knowledge" 84 in the spectators of historical films and series, functions in DEADWOOD by "mov[ing] spectators between spectatorial identification and alienation". 85 The series consistently avoids non-diegetic music. Furthermore, it attempts repeatedly to reconstruct detailed, difficult-to-produce and historically documented sounds. Sound memories that no longer have cultural currency today - for example, the screams of a character who undergoes a medical operation without anaesthesia, or the montage of the many town residents who experience the ruckus through the contemporary buildings' thin walls - are foregrounded. 86 In this way the historicity of the proceedings (the lack of narcotics and medical knowledge, but also the proximity of the community - all experience other community members' deaths, births, illnesses, sexual intercourse and so on acoustically) are marked and emphasised through the interaction of film sound, empathy and the authenticity feeling.

In DEADWOOD, language has important consequences for the transmission of the authenticity feeling, on the one hand, and the type of spectatorial identification, on the other. Landsberg cites the New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley, who is thoroughly surprised by the series' dialogue: both the good and evil characters use a "crude language more commonly associated with THE SOPRANOS". 87 In some of the series' conversations, "cocksucker", "pussy", and above all "fuck" are heard in almost every line of dialogue; such encounters hardly push forward the plot and contribute rather to characterisation (of individuals and of the overall milieu). Other reviewers gesture towards the generally baroque quality of speech: "big looping passages of quasi-Elizabethan prose that immediately set the show apart from the usual western repertory of variations on the word 'pardner'". 88 Through the generally old-fashioned and partially unintelligible dialogue (for example: "The Creator in his infinite wisdom, Miz Garret, salted his works so that where gold was, there also you'd find rumor, though he decreed just as firm that the opposite wouldn't always hold"), according to Landsberg, "conjur[es] a world to which we have only limited access". 89 In the film scholar's opinion, this stylised speech requires an active form of spectatorship: "the language calls attention to itself and [the viewers] must work to make sense of what is being said". 90 Indeed, it helps express the multilayered network of social relationships in the series; with the many allusions to the Bible and Shakespeare, DEADWOOD transmits a past with fixed, common cultural goods that are also shared by the many illiterates in the community - an idea that was integral to the authenticity efforts of producer David Milch. 91 In this sense the cursing and other vulgarities remain part and parcel of a historio-political strategy: to build a bridge between the past and present. "Profanity", according to Milch, "was the ‚lingua franca' of the time and place, which is to say that anyone, no matter what his or her background, could connect with almost anyone else on the frontier through the use of profanity". 92 Clearly, Milch seeks to evoke an authenticity feeling by means of well-researched, historically documented language use. Swearing has further effects, however. Contemporary audiences are reminded of THE SOPRANOS (USA 1999-2007), that is, of the present itself as time period but even more so the present of the medium - high-quality cable television - and its regulation. Of a time in which (unlike Hays-Code-era Hollywood) more piquant forms of expression have become quotidian in various audiovisual media. In this sense, one can consider Landsberg's analysis of profane language in DEADWOOD symptomatically. That Milch's authentic, profane dialogue could surprise critics demonstrates their expectations of staid or refined language in historical films and series.

Landsberg's observations beg important questions: Why do historical film audiences expect such acoustic rules and norms? Why is (sound-)authenticity sometimes perceived as inauthentic? In order to answer these questions and to conclude this section of the article, I present here important results from Claire Monk's empirical study regarding historical film audiences' behaviours, preferences and understandings regarding language, swearing, authenticity, class and historiography. These can help us test and confirm the aforementioned observations regarding the role of sound and above all language. For: Landsberg's analysis of DEADWOOD is an important example of how film scholars might recognise and analyse how sound functions in producing an authenticity feeling. (The final portion of this article offers further case studies that could also be productive in this sense.) And yet Landsberg's efforts are neither comprehensive nor conclusive. In essence, she argues - with reference to various formal and stylistic elements in DEADWOOD - that sound (and above all language) is decisive in the creation of historical understanding and an authenticity feeling. To my mind, this argument is successful; after all, I propose a similar thesis. Landsberg's claims about audience reactions are more asserted than demonstrated, however. Indeed, except for a few New York Times critics, public opinion (besides her own of course) is completely ignored.

Claire Monk's empirical study regarding historical film audiences - one of the very few of its kind - is revealing in this context. Unlike science fiction, fantasy or horror, 93 the audiences and fans of historical films remain neglected. Monk's project, conducted between 1997 and 1998, examined two different subgroupings of the "heritage film" audience: readers of the London listings magazine Time Out and members of the British cultural preservation society, the National Trust.

The study has important implications for our discussion regarding authenticity and the function of sound in the production of the authenticity feeling. Both groups found authenticity to be of central importance to their experience, even if in different measures. Roughly 60 percent of the overall younger Time Out group, almost exclusively Londoners and cinephiles, deemed the "accurate reproduction of details in period settings" and "looking at period costumes" to be of central importance, even if only 17 percent of these viewers estimated this aspect as "very important". In contrast, the overwhelming majority (95 percent) of the National Trust cohort found such elements to be important and 81 percent considered them to be "very important". 94 Furthermore, there were recognizable differences in the understandings of the concept of authenticity. The Time Out group emphasized an authentic ambience, i.e., an authenticity feeling that derived from stylistic details, even if the individual costumes, locations and so on were never their main focus. In contrast, the National Trust members fixated obsessively on details, often at the expense of the story or characters themselves. 95 The latter group evaluated the "accurate reproduction" of historical details to be even more important than "visual enjoyment". Some of the interviewees "did not respond to period films ‚as films', narratives or dramas, but more as a pretext for the scrutiny of detail". 96 This perspective, according to Monk, was the essential feature of the National Trust cohort and betrayed its understanding of the function of history. "Quality", "authenticity" and "educationality" (i.e., the exercise of cultural competence) were frequently used terms by which the interviewees justified their interest in historical films. 97 According to Monk, "spotting perceived inauthenticities and anachronisms (of period detail more than historical fact) was a source of active enjoyment. Indeed, the criteria of authenticity applied to period films by some respondents were unworkably stringent; and for some [...] this exercising of cultural or historical knowledge was an important - if at times sadistic and fault-finding - pleasure". 98

Monk is surprised - perhaps on account of the fixation on visual details in the scholarly literature - with the evaluation of the role of sound in her questionnaire. "It was notable that so many respondents were as preoccupied with the (perceived) historical 'authenticity' (or otherwise) of dialogue, and the speech/diction and deportment of actors, as they were with details of visual styling". 99 In the survey the participants mentioned again and again - of their own volition and without targeted questioning on Monk's part - acoustic elements as decisive in their preference for the heritage film and in their evaluation of individual titles. Historical films offer "true langue [ sic], not pseudo dialects", claimed one interviewee. 100 In this context "true langu[ag]e" means a grammatically correct, finely expressed manner of speaking with neither modern pronunciation nor slang: via historical films' soundscape, many of the study participants hoped to escape the unpleasant elements of modern life.

This way of seeing - and above all, ‚hearing' - historical films implies a relative evaluation of other exemplars: modern, vulgar comedies, but also art films and social realism with strong regional accents, for example Ken Loach. Class differences, norms and good manners were often the crucial issue in their appreciation of sound and language in the historical film. According to the opinion of one participant, "Dialogue indicates education. Generally," she appreciates "an absence of vulgarity". 101 This opinion was widespread. One interviewee mentioned the lack of curse words as the great advantage of the historical film. The spectators' negotiation of language also betrays, moreover, cultural, national and industrial preferences and prejudices. Many of the participants associated culturally or historically non-authentic language with Hollywood historical films such as ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES (Kevin Reynolds, USA 1991), an exemplar mentioned several times.

Interestingly, both the older, more conservative National Trust members and the younger ‚Time Out'cinephiles partook of this discourse. For the former group, however, this view of language functioned as part of a pro-British patriotism and a means to express the putative superiority of the British film industry over Hollywood and the United States. The ‚Time Out' group perspective, in contrast, served a preference for quality, more artistically worthwhile films, rather than mainstream culture. 102 The viewer comments reveal a vague, resistant understanding of the role of Britain and the domestic film industry in the world: e.g., "Actors and actresses' accents are sometimes wrong for the period or setting, often because 'American' stars are used to sell the film in the USA market". 103 (This sentiment has been observed also in earlier studies.) 104 In this way, locution plays an important role in evaluation: "I hate any slip in the language which makes [an historical film] unbelievable". 105 Speech connects also here quite directly to authenticity - and with it, the value of films and history.

Monk's results are resonant for the purposes of the current essay in at least three ways. First, sound - and above all language - is a decisive, empirically documented factor (and, in some instances, one of the ‚central' reasons) for audiences' consumption of historical films. For some viewers at least, heritage films offer a safe space, far removed from contemporary fears about, and distaste for, indulgent representations of sex, violence and so on. Second, the policing of the (perceived) (in)authenticity of language in historical films is for many viewers a desirable task and even constitutes one of the main activities in the reception. The authenticity feeling is therefore not a passive condition; rather, its arises from an active negotiation with the film and its stylistic characteristics. The audience often intensively attempts to challenge the filmmakers by scrutinising details, mistakes and other discrepancies. The caricature of the daydreamer spectator, who considers the depicted past like a beautiful fantasy, cannot be substantiated in empirical observation. For this reason, authenticity criticism (for example of the type put forward by the heritage film critics), formulated after all without reference to any real, existing audiences, must be urgently revised. Third, regarding language, viewers react to certain historical film conventions that have developed over time. To be sure, people living in the nineteenth century, and much earlier, swore; but over time it has become the norm not to use such rough language and vulgarities - or to use them less - vis-à-vis other genres, e.g., action movies, gangster films or comedies. The authenticity feeling thus refers just as much to film history (an individual, subjective film history - the films that one has seen in his or her life) as to history writ large, the one learned in schoolbooks. (There is furthermore the tradition in such films to concentrate on the "mannered" classes and historical episodes, which only compounds such perceptions.) It is also for this reason that exceptions like DEADWOOD prove the rule. The surprised reactions of critics - that DEADWOOD sounds like THE SOPRANOS - demonstrate symptomatically how deep-rooted such norms may be.

Language and Dialect in Context: Three Case Studies of an Audio History of Film

This article has demonstrated the extent to which filmmakers deploy sonic stylistic elements - and above all language and dialect - in order to create a credible historical representation and authenticity feeling, and how these efforts are explained and evaluated in marketing and reception discourses, respectively. For example: both GLADIATOR and REQUIEM avoid historically correct language and dialect, respectively. The very same aesthetic decision is used as evidence, in the reception of each film, to categorise the former as Hollywood and the latter as an art film. These codes are - as demonstrated clearly in the comparison between German and British historical films - culturally specific and not universal. Indeed, they are not even necessarily consistent across a filmmaker's body of work: Ridley Scott experimented with two very different dialect conventions in two of his films, GLADIATOR and ROBIN HOOD. Such conventions are unstable and not bound to hard and fast rules; they vary according to culture, depicted epoch, filmmakers, intended audience and, indeed, even within these categories. A generic inventory, in which for example the appearance of dialect gestures definitively to a certain meaning (art cinema, "authentic" mode of historiography) is therefore useless. Aesthetic elements and decisions lead - in various constellations, but also because of material influence in the marketing, distribution, exhibition and so on - to (intended or unintended) interactions and consequences, which must be considered in close analyses and case studies.

It is furthermore important to emphasise that individual stylistic elements always function in larger contexts. In addition to and in conjunction with language and dialect, there exist other essential aspects of a taxonomy of historical films' acoustic representation. For instance, in FORREST GUMP, Tom Hanks' conspicuous, Southern US-American accented voice-over must be considered in concert with the prominent pop music and the relative lack of other sound effects: Randy Thom's focussed sound design differentiates the life phases of Gump and the historical events of the United States across the second half of the twentieth century. 106 Any attempt to consider these elements individually and exclusively poses the risk of misappropriation and misunderstanding: such acoustic tactics may be important parts of their films' historical interpretations, but taken singularly and out of context they do not correspond to typical audiences' experiences. Language, dialect and the authenticity feeling, among the most essential elements of an historical film for its consumer, function in larger constellations.

So what could an Audio History of Film look like, in practice and applied to individual, exemplary films? With three examples that I submit here less as completed analyses but rather as approaches to and beginnings of possible audio(visual) investigations, I would like to conclude my article and simultaneously pave the way for further efforts of this kind.

A. Language, Music, Historical Interpretation: Two Sound Montages in ZODIAC

The sound montages in ZODIAC demonstrate how multi-layering can create narrative transitions and simultaneously advance particular interpretations of the past. This film, which contains many jumps in historical time, hints in various ways when a good deal of time passes between scenes. These markers include the display of text with dates (e.g., "2 weeks later - October 11, 1969"); new fashions in costumes, different car models, evolving technologies (e.g., typewriters) and other props. Montage sequences also feature for this purpose: for example, the construction of the iconic Transamerica Pyramid building (finished in 1972) is depicted in fast-motion, accompanied by Marvin Gaye's 1971 song "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)". Later in the film, a sound montage against a black background functions as a formal alternative. A whole host of voices, musical motifs and other sounds can be heard: Richard Nixon (from his speech about "peace with honour in Vietnam"), the commentary of the iconic television presenter Walter Cronkite regarding the arrest of Charles Manson, as well as Queen Elizabeth's speech on the occasion of the US bicentennial celebrations. Simultaneously, there are excerpts from news reports, among others regarding the Chowchilla kidnapping, the death of Mao, the resignation and pardoning of Nixon, the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa and the arrest of the "Son of Sam" serial killer. Likewise spliced into the sound mix are pop songs - for example, The Temptations' "Papa Was a Rolling Stone"; Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly"; Bachman Turner Overdrive's "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" and The Ohio Player's "Love Rollercoaster". Only at the very end of the 53-second sequence is there a text subtitle: "4 years later".

The interaction of pop music and sound found footage in this sequence is suggestive for at least four reasons. First, the sound montage (and the black screen) marks, as mentioned above, a break in the story as well as a jump in historical time from 1972 to 1976 with a filmic punctuation. Because of the many transitions in historical time, the sound montage functions, second, as a kind of elegant variation (of the other forms of marking time like text with dates) and therefore as an indicator of quality and artistic aspiration. In other words, Fincher shows off that he can fulfil a storytelling task in unique ways, similar to how a director of a boxing film demonstrates how he or she can choreograph, stage, shoot and edit four or five fights with different stylistics means. (This principle animates also the first example above, the erection of the Transamerica Building; history is indicated less as a date or political speech, but rather via an architectural icon and the contemporary cityscape of San Francisco, as well as Marvin Gaye's well-known voice and music from the era.) Third, the pop music and above all the original audio verify the events as authentic, in the way they add documentary (and recognisable) sounds to a dramatic feature film. Known sounds that derive from the past produce authenticity via their indexicality. The sound montage seeks to marshal an authenticity feeling and, with a layered acoustic, a superfluity of history that overwhelms the viewer in real time: voices of political actors and famous news readers as well as pop music. The effect of the various voices and other sounds, which overlap and intermingle, serves the overall authenticity strategy: as treated thoroughly above, the ZODIAC filmmakers tried to discursively emphasise and position the authenticity of the film, including locations, costumes and so on. Fourth, the carefully selected sound recordings embed the following scenes into a specific history and indeed propose a specific interpretation of history. The sound excerpts offer a partly clichéd yet efficient chronicle of contemporary American history (Nixon's speeches, "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet"); furthermore, the events are located in a cultural history of mass murderers (Manson, Chowchilla, Son of Sam). In this way - from Nixon's pardon to Son of Sam - the film implies a paranoid historiography of left-wing conspiracy theories. The sound montage thus functions as a thematic preview of the film's last act, i.e., Robert Graysmith's feverish attempt to research the true story of the Zodiac killer. This mere 53-second transition thus presents sensitive questions regarding the relationship between sound, representation, historical interpretation and identity.

B. Language and the Healed Nation inTHE KING'S SPEECH

The title of this British production is a play on words, referring both to the language (and above all speech impediment) of King George VI (Colin Firth) as well as to the speech (in the meaning of oral presentation) that he must make at the end of the story in order to motivate his subjects and army to defeat Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

The film begins in 1925 with a montage of sound - not a sound montage in the conventional sense, but rather an edited audiovisual scene of speaking and hearing. The very first shot shows a microphone in close-up. The central theme of speaking - and above all the mass-mediated communication - is thus foregrounded from the very beginning. The microphone, which rests on a desk in an otherwise empty, spacious studio, is examined from all sides in a series of shots. More close-ups follow: of an A4 typewriter page; the face of the future King George VI (at this moment in time still Albert, Duke of York; Colin Firth), whose mouth moves without making a sound. Only slowly does the montage offer larger shot scales: the Duke and his wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), who stand asymmetrically on the right side of the frame in front of a white brick wall, heads bent down, faces invisible. This shot reveals itself to be a POV: the Archbishop of Canterbury (Derek Jacobi) and other high representatives from politics, church and industry stare at the royal couple with contempt, impatience and sympathy, respectively. Suddenly, it becomes clear that the montage is proceeding in parallel: between the preparations for the Duke's speech at the Empire Exhibition in London's Wembley Stadium, and those of the radio announcer covering the event in the studio. The montage continues and the announcer - clad in a crisp tuxedo - gurgles forcefully, spitting the liquid into a servant's silver cup. As he undertakes his vocal exercises with routine confidence and precision in the well-lit studio, the Duke, who remains standing idly in the cold, damp, dark stadium stairwell, is beseeched to finally commence his speech: "Sir . . . let the microphone do the work", says one of the waiting organisers.

In these first shots the sound design is simple but prominent. Besides the three or four encouraging lines of dialogue and the gurgling in the announcer's studio, there is virtually no diegetic sound. However, the score stands out. With hesitation and an almost plaintive melancholy, the classically composed music (piano and stringed instruments) evokes a mood that characterises the pathetic, yes nearly tragic protagonist, but also implies a certain understanding of history. 107

The interplay of score, silence and relative lack of diegetic sounds (especially dialogue) continues in the binary parallel montage. In the first half, the announcer gives his radio listeners notice of the BBC National Programme and Empire Service and the forthcoming Duke's speech. The exhibition, he communicates, is the largest of its kind (58 colonies took part) and through the "invention of radio", he reminds, the current King George V and the latter's son and heir, the Prince of Wales (Guy Pearce), had already spoken with their subjects in the preceding days: "Today, his younger brother, His Royal Highness the Duke of York will give his inaugural broadcast". The radio man articulates precisely in perfect Received Pronunciation, the linguistic term for what is known colloquially today as "Oxford English", "BBC English" or "Queen's English". The two locations mix in the sound design: the announcer transforms from a diegetic, embodied voice into a bodiless radio sound, one which somehow penetrates the stadium stairwell. This acoustic overlap connects the two scenes and simultaneously sets up a stark contrast between the atmosphere of the two spaces, which could hardly be more different; it produces a suspense that is built up with increasing intensity directly before the future king's speech.

In the other half of the montage, Albert approaches his microphone - depicted as an enormous, wiry contraption that allows generous sight of the large audience's stares. An unpleasant silence prevails, broken only by squeaky folding seats, horse neighs, embarrassed coughs and a few understated piano and violin notes. With an unsteady fish-eye effect, the camera captures the oversized microphone (and the audience waiting in the background, seemingly thousands of Bowler hats and dark overcoats) in a subjective shot: tottering, like just before a fainting spell. Albert hesitates and the nation (portrayed symbolically via short takes of the radio announcer, the BBC engineers' room and the impatient spectators in the stadium) awaits. Finally he begins, but his speech is anything but fluent; Albert's voice falters and stops, stutters and hisses, echoing ominously and much too loudly through the space. The stadium spectators turn away, disappointed and embarrassed, hanging their heads in shame while the Archbishop of Canterbury observes with apparent irritation.

After the opening sequence, the plot picks up pace and shows how Albert seeks out the unconventional Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) to help cure his stammer. When his father dies and his brother, the Prince of Wales abdicates the throne (in order to marry a divorced American commoner), the significance of the therapy increases: Albert becomes King and must encourage his threatened country and empire to eradicate the political and military threats of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The narrative form of THE KING'S SPEECH is only partly a chronicle of the political events in Britain and Europe between 1925 and 1939. The central dynamic is not embodied by Albert and Hitler; much more important is the unequal doctor-patient relationship and friendship between Albert and Logue, as well as the family melodrama among the Windsors. The ‚melos' pertains not only to music in this case, however; it includes sound in general. Language and dialect remain the most important defining features of the drama.

The opening scene in the stadium clearly demonstrates Albert's weakness. It also introduces the "problem" of the three-act structure: Albert must overcome his speaking handicap in order to reach the narrative goal. Simultaneously, the family melodrama plays against the backdrop of repeated language contrasts with other characters. Already in the 28 th minute Albert's father, King George V, makes his 1934 Christmas speech, recorded for the radio in the royals' Sandringham House. In this scene one hears the King before seeing him: deep and restrained, sober and composed, his voice echoes through the castle. The sound overlays several images: the snow-covered house in a long shot; a room full of recording equipment and engineers; the King speaking in close-up. George V, played by the veteran theatre actor Michael Gambon, has perhaps the perfect radio voice for conducting such an important and delicate national-political fireside chat, as indicated in the envious and insecure gaze of his son in a POV. "Easy when you know how", the King lectures after he is off-air, allowing himself to be photographed; as the consummate professional, the King - in stark contrast to his son - is an expert of the new medium. George V understands the enormous significance of radio in this new era and how a voice can move a nation: "In the past all the King had to do was to look respectable in a uniform and not fall off his horse. Now we must invade people's homes and ingratiate ourselves with them". This idea confirms in dramatic fashion the scholarly claims of Koepnick and Alter regarding the increasingly political role of sound in early twentieth-century Europe.

Behind the scenes the mood changes drastically, and suddenly the mild radio monarch transforms into a stern taskmaster: "Sit up! Straight back! Face boldly up to the bloody thing [microphone] and stare it square in the eye as would any decent Englishman! Show who's in command", he orders with a clipped, brusque manner of speaking and rolled R - in marked contrast to his purring calls for "tranquillity" in his just-finished speech. The King is exposed here as a performer and one not without the capacity for self-reflection. "This family has been reduced to those lowest, basest of all creatures", he says regarding the new duties of broadcasting: "We've become actors!" THE KING'S SPEECH, according to the film critic Stuart Klawans, is ultimately "a crowd-pleasing movie about the importance of pleasing crowds". 108

This family ‚melo-'drama depicts a classical oedipal conflict via sound and above all language. Even though today's medical scholarship and practice acknowledge stuttering as a hereditary disorder, 109 the film interprets Albert's speech impediment as the consequence of a psychological childhood trauma induced by his domineering father. After the death of George V, the abdication of Edward VIII and the increasing threat of war from Nazi Germany, the solution to this conflict becomes existential: Albert must overcome his stammer and master the radio address in order to save the monarchy and the nation.

The arduous therapeutic attempts to resolve Albert's speech troubles occupy the main portion of the film. But other characters have their own language problems, which determine their fates and express themselves largely via dialect. In no other Anglophone country is the relationship between language and social hierarchy so apparent; 110

THE KING'S SPEECH uses this British trait to make shortcuts in characterisation, to betray power structures, to produce an authenticity feeling and structures of sympathy, and to interpret the history. Wallis Simpson's raw American dialect seals the fate of Edward VIII: because of the vulgar, previously divorced woman (who apparently cheated on him with other men and perhaps even Joachim von Ribbentrop), he must abdicate. Other characters use dialect in order to forge class alliances and affinities: Logue's son, who studies medicine and seeks to escape his father's simple milieu as quickly as possible, speaks with a markedly upper-class accent (see minute 45). This is also the irony of the opening scene: the slickly coiffed radio announcer speaks an impeccable "King's English", while the future King cannot; the subject commands the dialect of the elites better than the Prince himself. In turn, Logue comes from Australia and retains the dialect of his homeland; his desired vocation, actor, is for this reason impossible. (At a casting he is accused of making King Lear sound "of the colonies".) In the Making Of, director Tom Hooper describes concretely how Logue's dialect inflects the proceedings: "Logue needed to be quite a tactical, smart man to really help Bertie [...] Logue might use some of the freedoms of being Australian to set up a smokescreen under which he could actually effect some really interesting changes or challenge the King in interesting ways". In other words, the Australian dialect sets up a clear contrast with Albert - or "Bertie", as Logue cheekily calls him - and shows emphatically and efficiently that the two derive from markedly different backgrounds. Logue's heritage and casual manner of speaking make Albert's recovery possible. Freed from rigid hierarchies (represented, for example, through the unhinged relationship with his father, the King; "mother" and "father" become helping words in his vocal exercises, which tend to resemble psychoanalysis), Albert can build up self-confidence and improve his stammer.

The implementation of curse words in the therapy has a similar function (e.g., in minute 59): Albert must swear ("fuck", "shit", "tits", "willy" and so on) in order to improve the fluency of his pronunciation. The expressions contribute, moreover, to the general theme of class and to the normalisation of the royals as human beings. In general, the Windsors are not depicted as privileged hereditary monarchs, but rather as unhappy serfs, functionaries who nearly suffocate under the weight of their duties. "I'm trapped", Edward VIII says, after he becomes King. The film critic Felicitas Kleiner opines that the "set design imbues the royal spaces with more pressing weight than glamour, and the camera discreetly establishes a slightly claustrophobic spatial poetics". 111 The friendship that arises between Albert and Logue contributes to the healing of Albert's speech impediment, but beyond this also to the reduction of the class differences and the formalities, mores and imperatives that - the film implies - cause the stammer in the first place. The vulgar expressions, the singing of a black minstrel song ("Swanee River") and children's rhymes ("Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill"), the trips out among commoners: these literally popular methods help Albert much more than the contemporary moment's scientifically accepted remedies. (At the outset of the film a recognised expert in the field attempts to insert seven marbles into Albert's mouth. "It's the classical approach. It cured Demosthenes", the well-dressed doctor with upper-class accent contends in his Picadilly practice. He also prescribes more cigarette smoking: "Inhale deep into your lungs, Your Royal Highness. Relaxes your larynx, does it not?")

As in many historical films, (political, social) history is depicted as media history. THE KING'S SPEECH thematises, indeed fetishises, media technologies and the power that the users of these media can exert. Dialogue is peppered with references to this media history: "the new invention of radio", emphasises the radio announcer; the Silvertone grammaphone and recording equipment is "the most brilliant thing from America", according to Logue, and it indeed helps Albert to speak more smoothly by allowing him to hear his successful utterances in playback. In the film, important information is communicated through the contemporary new media. For example: Albert's coronation is recorded both for the radio and the cinema; the Archbishop of Canterbury comments on the preparations in Westminster Abbey thus: "Wireless. It is indeed a Pandora's box. I'm afraid I also had to permit the newsreel cameras, the product of which I shall personally edit". Afterwards Albert watches the recording with his family. After the reportage of the coronation (documentary material), an excerpt from Hitler's ‚Sportpalastrede' features. His daughter asks what Hitler - who speaks German in the clip, without subtitles - is talking about, and Albert replies: "I don't know. But he seems to be saying it rather well". The contrast with the wildly gesticulating Hitler, who moves his audience into a loud frenzy of excited fanfare, illustrates once again that Albert does not yet command public speaking and modern, mass-mediated political theatre.

The consumers of this historical film experience the dramatic political events less from the perspectives of the political agents, but rather from those of the common British people (and colonial subjects), above all on the radio. One hears of the abdication of Edward VIII via his radio address to the nation (minute 67), and precisely not in a dramatic conversation with his brother or Wallis Simpson. The death of George V is also reported via radio (minute 43). A clever edit connects Albert, who is mourning at the castle, and Logue, who listens to the broadcast in his office. Although Guy Pearce recreates the former speech quite precisely in pronunciation and intonation, the latter news item and others are reproduced original sounds from the era (for example, Neville Chamberlain's declaration of war on Germany from 3 September 1939, minute 99; Logue's family listens to the radio news when Edward VIII comes under increasing pressure to resign, minute 63). In order to create an authenticity feeling, the film includes the radio original versions or recreates these as faithfully as possible.

The authenticity feeling is - as in the other case studies - not only a product of these detailed reconstructions on the soundtrack or in the mise-en-scène; it is anticipated in publicity discourses. Roughly half of the thirty-minute Making Of featurette highlights authenticity. The discussion emphasises, for instance, how Guy Pearce mastered the intonation, "rhyming" and the nervousness of the abdication speech. "We needed a great actor for that", the producer says. Timothy Spall plays Churchill as caricature, pure imitation. "I've tried to make [the film] as accurate as I possibly can", Tom Hooper claims. This message is seconded immediately and repeatedly. According to Geoffrey Rush, "If a line comes up that [Hooper] thinks is historically inaccurate in its reference, but seems dramatically more valuable, he'll kind of eliminate it and say, 'well I think it's actually worth referencing what ‚truly' happened'". 112 The costume designer, Hooper reports, eliminated all inauthentic clothing ideas already at script stage, replacing these with costumes confirmed in historical records. The set designer Eve Stewart researched "obsessively" and examined above all primary sources, according to Hooper. Rush read Logue's diaries in order to prepare himself for the role. This authentic quality was commented on extensively, alternately underlined or disputed in the reception. A ‚Variety' reviewer opined that THE KING'S SPEECH constitutes "a copiously researched account" of the real history. 113 In contrast, the historian Andrew Roberts complained about the "very many glaring and egregious inaccuracies and tired old myths that this otherwise charming film unquestioningly regurgitates"; for example, the real Churchill in fact supported Edward VIII and did not want him to abdicate. 114 Jeffrey Hsu offered another opinion on the topic: "Luckily, the movie mostly gets the facts right", even if it succumbs to the myth that Albert's stammer was caused by trauma. 115 The authenticity efforts in the mise-en-scène and above all in the sound design helped the film to create an authenticity feeling and achieve success both in Britain and worldwide. THE KING'S SPEECH became the highest-grossing British film of all time and garnered many distinctions, including four Academy Awards and seven BAFTA prizes. 116

In this way, the film and its sound, language and dialect concept resounded significantly with audiences. But what is the historio-political effect of this authenticity strategy? THE KING'S SPEECH evinces "cheek" and "audacity", according to Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw, because the narrative presents the English monarchy as an "underdog". 117 In the opinion of film scholar Nicola Rehling, this perspective is a "common mode through which the British monarchy is represented in contemporary British cinema, primarily to evoke sympathy for the strain the royal role places on the monarch as private individual". 118 However, Rehling and Bradshaw neglect to explicitly refer to sound as the essential channel of identification: it is above all the stammering, as well as the cursing and singing in therapy, that render Albert as a fundamentally likeable character.

At its core THE KING'S SPEECH narrates a triumph of speaking, a triumph of media technology, a triumph of the authenticity feeling: as soon as Albert finds his voice and achieves competence in modern mass communication - and his people begin believing in him, precisely via these media - he can rule his country. Overcoming a speech impediment and the confirmation of the power of language in the formation of political relations produce a thoroughly sympathetic portrait of the hereditary monarch and his family, which still rules over Britain today.

Considered symptomatically, the film tries not only to evoke empathy vis-à-vis Albert and his suffering, and to represent the monarch as both normal (because vulnerable) and also ultimately successful and virtuous; it seeks to inflate the added value of the monarchy as a necessary institution for Britain's past, present and future. The victory against stuttering, (the) healed/healing speech, functions as a clear sound metaphor for the strength of the nation: the strong communicator can preserve the country. This is also the gambit of the final dramatic scene, Albert's nine-minute speech that the entire nation hears on the radio. Accompanied and encouraged by Logue (and supported in the soundtrack by Beethoven's Seventh Symphony in A-major, Op. 92), Albert speaks relatively fluently and - in a last montage of listening - he is heard and ultimately celebrated by his people and a nation: common people dwell in a pub, Logue's family at home, MPs in Parliament, servants in the Palace, Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson in their villa (probably in the Bahamas), Albert's mother at Buckingham Palace, soldiers on the front, BBC employees, the audience (including politicians) in the room where the speech is being recorded. This type of imaginary community, connected by a voice and the radio, is similarly implemented by Sönke Wortmann in the following case study, indeed in a perhaps even more dramatic form.

Like all historical films, understanding THE KING'S SPEECH means considering it retrospectively, i.e., via the demise of the British Empire, the independence movement of the colonies and the diminished role that Britain now plays (but often does not want to accept). An intertitle before the first scene clearly demonstrates the unique historical situation: "1925. King George V reigns over a quarter of the world's people". The Empire Exhibition in London, a colonial exposition, is not insignificant as an initial setting. The time of the story marks the beginning of the end of the British Empire; in the film the King still signs with "R. + I.," that is, Rex et Imperator, King and Emperor.

As an historical parable, THE KING'S SPEECH is ready for the era of the Internet and Brexit. At a moment in which the royals are constantly followed and filmed by the paparazzi - and selfies and videos are uploaded by an army of non-professionals - the film seeks to remind its viewers of the acoustic origins, and teach them how difficult it can be to be a celebrity. In an age in which the British people struggle with their place in multilateral international relationships, the film tells a story of even more distressing episodes and still more stressful tasks that were ultimately overcome. The soldiers on the front, the elected politicians in Parliament, the workers in the factories and the farms in the countryside: these agents are more or less erased from the film's historical interpretation of causes and effects. In the end, it was THE KING'S SPEECH that won the war.

C. Radio Voice, Dialect, Historical Interpretation and THE MIRACLE OF BERN

This final case study seeks to demonstrate how film sound can function in a ‚Gesamtkunstwerk' in order to revise the interpretation of a well-known historical episode. 119 THE MIRACLE OF BERN is a particularly appropriate example, because the events upon which it is based are today still "sound memories". The film illustrates the effects of the 1954 World Cup in three narrative strands: the West German national football team, led by Helmut Rahn (Sascha Göpel); the Lubanski family, and above all the 11 year-old Matthias (Louis Klamroth) and his father, Richard (Peter Lohmeyer), a prisoner of war who has just returned from the Soviet Union; and the sports journalist Paul Ackermann (Lucas Gregorowicz) and his wife Annette (Katharina Wackernagel).

The 1954 World Cup final was a particularly important cultural event in Germany, comparable with the moon landing or 11 September 2001. Nevertheless, because of the lack of television footage, the match differs drastically from the memory of the Kennedy assassination or the fall of the Berlin Wall. To be sure, public West German television began transmission in December 1952. And yet, by 1954 there were only 11,658 television sets registered in the country (with a population of almost 52 million). 120 Today only 18 minutes of the television broadcast, of mostly very poor quality, exists. 121 For this reason, the final was followed above all on the radio; the transmission was primarily an acoustic, rather than visual, experience. Because of the lack of visual evidence, moreover, television images do not maintain an iconic, metonymic function in memory maintenance; unlike the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination, there are no images of the World Cup victory that immediately and efficiently stand in for the event. Furthermore, Herbert Zimmermann's radio play-by-play serves as the main source for the cultural memory. The game is, like other events, remembered via mass communication media; however, the collective memory is activated via sound rather than images.

THE MIRACLE OF BERN tactically embeds the radio commentary into a general authenticity strategy. Using diverse forms and styles, the film attempts to create a convincing authenticity feeling. Recreated newsreel footage shows the World Cup squad training with grainy black-and-white images and a camp voice-over; the interlude ends with an iris shot. During the final, the choreography of every goal is precisely reconstructed. In general, the staging of many shots derives from popular illustrated books that commemorate the event: e.g., one photo in which a crowd watches the match via a television set in the shop window of "Radio Spieß".

The marketing discourses emphasise the historical research and the great effort expended in order to manufacture an "authentic" aesthetic. In an interview on the DVD, director Sönke Wortmann reports on the extensive pre-production: he claims to have viewed all newsreels from 1950 to 1954 in order to replicate the "complexion of the age". According to Wortmann, "that is important". 122 Peter Lohmeyer, who played Richard Lubanski, says that he watched "many ‚Heimkehrervideos'" in preparation for the role. One can presume he means the so-called ‚Trümmerfilme' (rubble films), such as SOMEWHERE IN BERLIN (IRGENDWO IN BERLIN, Gerhard Lamprecht, D 1946), which often thematised the initial troubles and attempted integration of soldiers returning from the front after the war and imprisonment. Sascha Göpsel was cast as Helmut Rahn, according to Wortmann in the Making Of, because he looked like the "reincarnation" of Rahn, and because he comes from Essen and speaks the local vernacular. In general - exceptionally in a German film - dialect functioned as an essential focus in the film's authenticity efforts. The football players speak the idiom of their historical models - for example, Knut Hartwig and Simon Verhoeven, who respectively play Fritz Walter and Ottmar Walter, imitate the Kaiserslautern-Palatinate dialect of the real Walter brothers. Beyond their authenticity function, however, the diverse accents of the team support the historical interpretation of the film, i.e., that just as the team comes from all corners of the Federal Republic, the rebirth of Germany was the achievement of all Germans. The dialect-inflected team thus functions as a microcosm for an imagined nation, the central players in an allegory of common-goal nation-(re)building.

Indeed, not only does THE MIRACLE OF BERN recreate period costumes and hairdos, attempting in the casting to simulate the historical agents in appearance and sound. With acoustic, specifically linguistic interventions, the film offers access to empirically unknowable motivations and ideas. In this way, for instance, the film humorously imagines the origins of head coach Sepp Herberger's (Peter Franke) aphorisms, such as "the ball is round and the game lasts 90 minutes" or "after the game is before the game", which over the years have become shared cultural properties. 126 These sayings arise, according to the apocryphal scenes in THE MIRACLE OF BERN, in the course of late-night banter with a hotel cleaner. Above all, however, the representation of the World Cup final and Herbert Zimmermann's commentary pose an important sonic and historio-dramaturgical intervention. In 1954, 50 million people followed Zimmermann's enthusiastic reportage on the radio; as mentioned above, his commentary functions today as the privileged signifier for the cultural event. Both the film and its marketing acknowledge the cultural meaning of this sound memory. Excerpts from Zimmermann's broadcast play in the end credit sequence as well as in the German cinema trailer. These disembodied appropriations - the historical Zimmermann is never shown - of the commentator's "real" voice subscribe to a politics of authenticity and aggrandisement. First, the putative truthfulness of the film is verified by the close aesthetic proximity to the already extant cultural memory of the event. Second, the film adds value by filling in missing parts of this sound memory: viewers can now also ‚see' Zimmermann (as a character). An historical experience is elaborated upon and thereby interpreted anew.

Michel Chion's theories regarding the interaction between voices and (non-)represented bodies help to elucidate this remarkable historio-dramaturical aspect of THE MIRACLE OF BERN: when the film debuted, Germans could finally see a face behind the famous voice, because the actor and comic Andreas Obering embodied Zimmermann and intoned excerpts from the latter's famous commentary. Chion uses the term ‚acousmêtre' to describe a being that is heard but not seen. 127 In many films, this aesthetic concept underpins a dramaturgical and dramatic strategy. Characters can leave the confines of a shot while speaking; sometimes suspense is built by delaying the visual appearance of a character: "An entire image, an entire story, an entire film can thus hang on the epiphany of the acousmêtre". 128 Chion describes, furthermore, ‚déacousmatisation', that is, the gradual embodiment of a disembodied voice. ‚Déacousmatisation' primarily marks thrillers, fantasy or gangster films, e.g., KISS ME DEADLY (1955; Robert Aldrich), in which the Big Boss, for most of the proceedings out of the audience's sight, is finally embodied. In such films, becoming visible goes hand in hand with becoming vulnerable, however. This cat-and-mouse game with sound and image, in other words, produces concrete consequences for characterisation and dramaturgy.

But what effects can we expect from ‚déacousmatisation' in an historical film, and namely one that retells a sound memory in audiovisual form? According to Chion, ‚déacousmatisation' is "a sort of symbolic act, dooming the acousmêtre to the fate of ordinary mortals". 129 This idea obtains certainly in productions such as THE WIZARD OF OZ (Victor Fleming, USA 1939), in which the Great Oz (Frank Morgan) is unmasked as a normal citizen, and likewise in the aforementioned genres. The effect in THE MIRACLE OF BERN is another, however. The visual representation of Zimmermann permitted the many Germans who had heard the final on the radio to also perceive the mimicry and gesticulations of Obering. In addition, younger spectators could now see a visual representation of the man whose voice they knew from the many documentaries and reportages on the subject.

The representation of Zimmermann recalls the dynamics of what I have called a sound memory. Even if THE MIRACLE OF BERN's aesthetic (in many ways) and marketing discourses (in every way) belabour authenticity to no end, this type of historiography also effectuates a monumentalisation. It is important to note that the football commentator's visual presence is not merely - as in Chion's examples - withheld from spectators by the filmmakers for a certain portion of the film. Rather, Zimmermann was denied the audience because of the course of the history of media technology. For this reason I call this type of revealing an "historical ‚déacousmatisation'". Unlike THE WIZARD OF OZ or KISS ME DEADLY (USA 1955), the character is not made harmless because of this form and style of representation; rather, he is monumentalised. By choosing to prominently depict Zimmermann, his voice and his body in this way, the filmmakers "promote" him. That is, via historical ‚déacousmatisation', Zimmermann functions no longer as merely a radio commentator; rather, he is reinterpreted as a radio ‚and' television announcer. Indeed, the final scenes in the Lubanski pub and in the East Berlin FDJ house confirm this principle: in both spaces, Zimmermann's voice emits from a television set. The (real) Zimmermann's inability to sufficiently describe the "picture of the match" - a weakness for which colleagues retrospectively criticised him 130 and for which Zimmermann himself apologises in the after-game wrap-up - is erased via his presence in Wortmann's recreated moving images.

A closer analysis of THE MIRACLE OF BERN World Cup final scene and a comparison with another historical film - THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN (DIE EHE DER MARIA BRAUN, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, D 1979) - which also appropriates the Zimmermann commentary in its sound design, demonstrate how sound contributes, in an aesthetic constellation, to an historical interpretation and a political message regarding national identity.

In THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN, the 1954 World Cup final also forms the background for a dramatic dénouement and a family drama. The last minutes of the Zimmermann broadcast accompany, indeed drown out, the unhappy reunion of the Brauns; the scene climaxes in the explosion of their house. Rainer Werner Fassbinder interprets the victory at Bern as the lost opportunity of the young Federal Republic and as the continuation of authoritarian structures from Hitler to Helmut Schmidt.

The final minutes of the same match in THE MIRACLE OF BERN, in contrast, paint a harmonious resolution. Obering's recreated Zimmermann reportage dominates the soundtrack. His voice seems resolute, omniscient and dynamic. Between shots of Matthias outside the Wankdorf Stadium, in the arena and on the edge of the pitch, and of Zimmermann in his press box, the source and function of the commentator shift. He is first a radio voice staged as an ‚acousmêtre'; then a Dr. Mabuse-esque, half-diegetic voice-over; and finally a narrator who is revealed visually via an ‚déacousmatisation'. The reconstructed voice of Zimmermann is unreleneting and unstoppable in the soundtrack; it remains the acoustic focus in a mix that is otherwise composed of crowd noise and the expressive (and for this reason completely redundant) Barsotti score. The actual match began, because of a referee decision, eight minutes before the scheduled kick-off; the real Zimmermann thus had to announce the line-ups under duress during the first few minutes of the play-by-play. Wortmann's depiction, in contrast, starts with a composed Zimmermann character who confidently announces the players. Only one moment interrupts the general permeation of the reporter's voice: the gaze between Rahn and Matthias immediately before the go-ahead goal. In these ten shots Barsotti's orchestral arrangement swells and Zimmer's voice temporarily subsides.

Apart from this exception, Zimmermann's voice is ubiquitous and pervades the entire nation. Immediately following Rahn's winning goal, a montage sequence of spectators' reactions begins. The shots - all frontal per stationary camera, as if the proceedings were recorded from the perspective of the television set or radio - show characters of all classes and regions of Germany. Each setting is transmitted in a single shot in an almost photographic manner: Annette in the stands, the Lubanski pub in Essen, Herberger and the bench players in Bern. The Barsotti score becomes ever faster and louder and Zimmermann beseeches the clock to tick more quickly; simultaneously, the redemption of Germany takes place. The editing is relentless and devoid of irony: it shows the empty office where earlier Richard was denied his war pension; Bruno Lubanski (Mirko Lang), who watches the match on television with his FDJ comrades in East Berlin (even Lenin, in the wall painting behind the young men, looks on); the empty Süddeutsche Zeitung building in Munich; and (hitherto unseen) monks, who intensively follow the match on the radio in their monastery and cheer on the final whistle (Jesus on the cross observes the scene in the background). When Zimmermann calls the game as a victory ("Aus! Aus! [...] Deutschland ist Weltmeister!"), the all-German spectators are shown once again as they celebrate. Via the victory of the Federal Republic's national team and aesthetically above all via the omnipresent voice of Zimmermann, THE MIRACLE OF BERN reunites an imaginary and thoroughly invented nation of many classes, ages, creeds and ideologies, both in the West and East.

In contrast, the Zimmermann commentary in the last ten minutes of THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN functions an index of separation and dissonance. The play-by-play begins with the return of Hermann Braun (Klaus Löwitsch). In contrast to THE MIRACLE OF BERN, in which Zimmermann's actual voice only appears in the trailer and at the end of the credits, Fassbinder and sound designer Peer Raben use the original throughout. Nevertheless, the reportage is not adopted wholesale: rather it is whittled down, rearranged and embedded into a dynamic, multilayered and multifaceted mix. Zimmermann's voice is an important sound element, and yet one that competes with several others: dialogue (often itself multilayered, for example when Maria and Senkenberg [Hanna Schygulla and Hark Bohm] talk at the same time that the will is being read) and further sounds (door knobs, the gas hob and so on). Because each individual track continually increases and decreases in volume, the acoustic remains in constant flux. If Zimmermann serves in THE MIRACLE OF BERN as the dominant, omnipresent voice of the nation, he functions here in an acoustic cacophony. Barsotti's score seeks to create suspense and anticipate, with the recreated reporter's voice, the redemptive final whistle; when Zimmermann warns that there are only "seven minutes [...] six minutes" left, Raben's sound mix projects fear and doom.

Unlike THE MIRACLE OF BERN, it is never clear in THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN whether the football commentary is supposed to be diegetic or not. The probable source, a radio, is never identified explicitly, but seen only quickly in the course of a tracking shot. In Wortmann's film all Germans, whether monk or East German communist, are passionate football fans, radio listeners and television spectators; in Fassbinder's production, however, no one listens in a concentrated manner. Indeed, the characters in THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN maintain little interest in mass media; the fact of ‚not' listening to political events on the radio - for example, Adenauer's arguments for the rearmament of the Federal Republic - remains a recurring theme in the film. Radio broadcasts the political sphere; but the family, preoccupied with private matters and material objects, almost completely ignores it.

In contrast to THE MIRACLE OF BERN, where the recreated Zimmermann functions as the uncontested voice of Germany, an ‚ex post facto' unified nation invented in the mise-en-scène and montage, the final scene of THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN takes place in a single setting: Maria's villa. Michael Ballhaus' cinematography favours claustrophobic and disorientating tracking shots and zooms. In long takes, the camera winds through the rooms of the villa; the editing ignores conventional 180-degree rules. In the two shots of Senkenberg and the French notary (Kristine De Loup) in front of the exploding house, Zimmermann's voice disappears. The sound mix - in direct contradistinction to the unification scene in THE MIRACLE OF BERN - here only sharpens the dramatic scene of disunity and discord. The victory in the final leads to father-son reconciliation in THE MIRACLE OF BERN, but to husband-wife death in THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN. The final words of the latter film - Zimmermann's (original-sound) apology for his insufficient reportage ("You can't imagine what just happened here!") 131 echoes ironically over the images of the postwar Chancellors Adenauer, Erhardt, Kiesinger and Schmidt as a withering historical diagnosis of the Federal Republic. The last words in the Wortmann film - text superimposed over a shot of the national team's train bound for Germany, itself illuminated by a magnificent sunset - are infinitely more harmonious: "One year later the last prisoners of war came home. One year later the Economic Miracle began. The eleven from Bern never again played together". 132

Conclusion

This article has posed and answered fundamental questions regarding the role of historical films' sound - and above all language and dialect - in the production of an "authenticity feeling". The aesthetic of the historical film, its rationalisation in marketing discourses and its critique in reception revolve around authenticity. Previously, critics have thematised authenticity, but only in a normative, pejorative discourse that has almost exclusively dealt with ‚visual' details and which diminishes, underestimates or outright dismisses the meanings, emotions and importance of this phenomenon for many viewers. They do this despite the empirical evidence, as put forward by Monk and Bisson, that historical film consumers actively engage with sound in evaluating authenticity; indeed, for many this represents their motivation for consumption and their main activity while watching historical films.

The course of this discussion and above all the case studies - which considered language and dialect in an audiovisual context - elucidated how questions of community and nation, of in-group and out-group, of the self and the Other, indeed of identity itself, are inextricably bound to this topic. The creation of an authenticity feeling puts much more at stake than acoustic and visual details; it raises larger questions about how such details can evoke empaths and consolidate the belief in historical experiences and interpretations. For this reason, the following observation by Monk should come as no surprise: consumers prefer to watch historical films that contain social, political and identitarian issues that are close to themselves. 136 Even if these films take place in the distant past or deal with courtly intrigues, spectators ferret out a connection to (the) history with which they can identify.

For these reasons, the investigation of sound's functions in filmic historiography may neither be excised from its aesthetic contexts nor ignore the cultural factors which codetermine these aesthetic decisions. The former principle gestures to the indivisibility of sound and image. 143 The latter points to Birdsall's conclusion: "a phenomenological understanding of listening experience . . . appears better equipped to address both the corporeal basis of listening and sound's affective charge in various social and cultural contexts". 144 The approaches and methods proposed here in this special issue surely lend themselves to application across further film examples, historical periods, cultures, stylistic forms and media.

Suggested Citation: Frey, Mattias: The Authenticity Feeling: Language and Dialect in the Historical Film. In: Research in Film and History. New Approaches (2018), pp. 1-48. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/14811.

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The pursuit of authenticity is film's dominant mode of historical representation. For the overwhelming majority of historical film makers and audiences, authenticity signifies a realistic historical experience, an effective suspension of temporal-spatial disbelief. Authenticity, as the engine of mainstream historical filmmaking, has three chief functions: as an aesthetic strategy, a reception discourse and a marketing discourse.

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Chapter 1- Introduction to representation 

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Chapter 1- Introduction to representation 

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Being concerned with representation, this book is about an idea, a concept, a word. It is primarily a conceptual analysis, not a historical study of the way in which representative government has evolved, nor yet an empirical investigation of the behavior of contemporary representatives or the expectations voters have about them. Yet, although the book is about a word, it is not about mere words, not merely about words. For the social philosopher, for the social scientist, words are not "mere"; they are the tools of his trade and a vital part of his subject matter. Since human beings are not merely political animals but also language-using animals, their behavior is shaped by their ideas. What they do and how they do it depends upon how they see themselves and their world, and this in turn depends upon the concepts through which they see. Learning what "representation" means and learning how to represent are intimately connected. But even beyond this, the social theorist sees the world through a network of concepts. Our words define and delimit our world in important ways, and this is particularly true of the world of human and social things. For a zoologist may capture a rare specimen and simply observe it; but who can capture an instance of representation (or of power, or of interest)? Such things, too, can be observed, but the observation always presupposes at least a rudimentary conception of what representation (or power, or interest) is, what counts as representation, where it leaves off and some other phenomenon begins. Questions about what representation is, or is like, are not fully separable from the question of what "representation" means. This book approaches the former questions by way of the latter.

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Being concerned with representation, this book is about an idea, a concept, a word. It is primarily a conceptual analysis, not a historical study of the way in which representative government has evolved, nor yet an empirical investigation of the behavior of contemporary representatives or the expectations voters have about them.

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Why Representation Really Matters | Aisha Thomas | TEDxBristol

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Schitt's Creek 'normalises LGBTQ relationships'

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The Canadian show won nine Emmys, but for its fans, it's special for more than its awards.

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Russell T Davies- Straight actors quotes

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Russell T Davies- Straight actors quotes

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Acclaimed TV writer Russell T Davies has said that straight actors should not play gay characters.

Best known for his work on Queer As Folk and Doctor Who, Davies is due to return to the screen with the much anticipated new Channel 4 drama It's A Sin, which explores the HIV crisis in London in the 1980s.

Years and Years singer Olly Alexander, who is openly gay, stars in the lead role as a promiscuous aspiring actor.

There has been much debate in recent years over whether straight actors should portray gay characters.

Speaking to the Radio Times, Davies compared a straight actor playing a gay character to black face.

He said: "I'm not being woke about this... but I feel strongly that if I cast someone in a story, I am casting them to act as a lover, or an enemy, or someone on drugs or a criminal or a saint... they are NOT there to 'act gay' because 'acting gay' is a bunch of codes for a performance.

"It's about authenticity, the taste of 2020.

"You wouldn't cast someone able-bodied and put them in a wheelchair, you wouldn't black someone up. Authenticity is leading us to joyous places."

High-profile examples of straight performers playing LGBTQ+ characters include Rami Malek's Oscar-winning portrayal of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, and Taron Egerton's Golden Globe-winning turn as Sir Elton John in Rocketman.

In December, British TV presenter and actor James Corden was accused of "gay face" following his role in Netflix musical comedy The Prom.
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In September, Netflix adapted the 1968 play The Boys In The Band, the story of a group of gay men who gather for a birthday party.

While both gay and straight actors were auditioned, the nine characters all ended up being played by gay men.

Director Joe Mantello told Sky News the casting was not intentional, but rather a "very fortunate series of events".

He continued: "That being said, I think having an out gay cast really did inform the work and it took on a particular kind of tone because of that, which is not to say that's the only way to approach this material. But for this particular group, it did something that I think is very, very special. There's a chemistry that they have."

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Russell T Davies: Straight actors should not play gay characters

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Acclaimed TV writer Russell T Davies has said that straight actors should not play gay characters. Best known for his work on Queer As Folk and Doctor Who , Davies is due to return to the screen with the much anticipated new Channel 4 drama It's A Sin, which explores the HIV crisis in London in the 1980s.

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Idea in Brief

The Problem

When we view authenticity as an unwavering sense of self, we struggle to take on new challenges and bigger roles. The reality is that people learn-and change-who they are through experience.

The Solution

By trying out different leadership styles and behaviors, we grow more than we would through introspection alone. Experimenting with our identities allows us to find the right approach for ourselves and our organizations.

The Sticking Point

This adaptive approach to authenticity can make us feel like impostors, because it involves doing things that may not come naturally. But it's outside our comfort zones that we learn the most about leading effectively.

Editor's note (2022): To mark our 100th anniversary, we're highlighting 12 of our very favorite articles. Subscribers can access all 12 at any time and, for nonsubscribers, we're unlocking one per month this year. For October, we're sharing a 2015 article by HBS professor Herminia Ibarra in which she explains how aspiring leaders can grow by focusing less on authenticity and more on playful experimentation.
Authenticity has become the gold standard for leadership. But a simplistic understanding of what it means can hinder your growth and limit your impact.

Consider Cynthia, a general manager in a health care organization. Her promotion into that role increased her direct reports 10-fold and expanded the range of businesses she oversaw-and she felt a little shaky about making such a big leap. A strong believer in transparent, collaborative leadership, she bared her soul to her new employees: "I want to do this job," she said, "but it's scary, and I need your help." Her candor backfired; she lost credibility with people who wanted and needed a confident leader to take charge.

Or take George, a Malaysian executive in an auto parts company where people valued a clear chain of command and made decisions by consensus. When a Dutch multinational with a matrix structure acquired the company, George found himself working with peers who saw decision-making as a freewheeling contest for the best-debated ideas. That style didn't come easily to him, and it contradicted everything he had learned about humility growing up in his country. In a 360-degree debrief, his boss told him that he needed to sell his ideas and accomplishments more aggressively. George felt he had to choose between being a failure and being a fake.

Because going against our natural inclinations can make us feel like impostors, we tend to latch on to authenticity as an excuse for sticking with what's comfortable. But few jobs allow us to do that for long. That's doubly true when we advance in our careers or when demands or expectations change, as Cynthia, George, and countless other executives have discovered.

In my research on leadership transitions, I have observed that career advances require all of us to move way beyond our comfort zones. At the same time, however, they trigger a strong countervailing impulse to protect our identities: When we are unsure of ourselves or our ability to perform well or measure up in a new setting, we often retreat to familiar behaviors and styles.

But my research also demonstrates that the moments that most challenge our sense of self are the ones that can teach us the most about leading effectively. By viewing ourselves as works in progress and evolving our professional identities through trial and error, we can develop a personal style that feels right to us and suits our organizations' changing needs.

That takes courage, because learning, by definition, starts with unnatural and often superficial behaviors that can make us feel calculating instead of genuine and spontaneous. But the only way to avoid being pigeonholed and ultimately become better leaders is to do the things that a rigidly authentic sense of self would keep us from doing.

Why Leaders Struggle with Authenticity

The word "authentic" traditionally referred to any work of art that is an original, not a copy. When used to describe leadership, of course, it has other meanings-and they can be problematic. For example, the notion of adhering to one "true self" flies in the face of much research on how people evolve with experience, discovering facets of themselves they would never have unearthed through introspection alone. And being utterly transparent-disclosing every single thought and feeling-is both unrealistic and risky.

Leaders today struggle with authenticity for several reasons. First, we make more-frequent and more-radical changes in the kinds of work we do. As we strive to improve our game, a clear and firm sense of self is a compass that helps us navigate choices and progress toward our goals. But when we're looking to change our game, a too-rigid self-concept becomes an anchor that keeps us from sailing forth, as it did at first with Cynthia.

Second, in global business, many of us work with people who don't share our cultural norms and have different expectations for how we should behave. It can often seem as if we have to choose between what is expected-and therefore effective-and what feels authentic. George is a case in point.

Third, identities are always on display in today's world of ubiquitous connectivity and social media. How we present ourselves-not just as executives but as people, with quirks and broader interests-has become an important aspect of leadership. Having to carefully curate a persona that's out there for all to see can clash with our private sense of self.

In dozens of interviews with talented executives facing new expectations, I have found that they most often grapple with authenticity in the following situations.

Taking charge in an unfamiliar role.

As everyone knows, the first 90 days are critical in a new leadership role. First impressions form quickly, and they matter. Depending on their personalities, leaders respond very differently to the increased visibility and performance pressure.

Psychologist Mark Snyder, of the University of Minnesota, identified two psychological profiles that inform how leaders develop their personal styles. "High self-monitors"-or chameleons, as I call them-are naturally able and willing to adapt to the demands of a situation without feeling fake. Chameleons care about managing their public image and often mask their vulnerability with bluster. They may not always get it right the first time, but they keep trying on different styles like new clothes until they find a good fit for themselves and their circumstances. Because of that flexibility, they often advance rapidly. But chameleons can run into problems when people perceive them as disingenuous or lacking a moral center-even though they're expressing their "true" chameleon nature.

By contrast, "true-to-selfers" (Snyder's "low self-monitors") tend to express what they really think and feel, even when it runs counter to situational demands. The danger with true-to-selfers like Cynthia and George is that they may stick too long with comfortable behavior that prevents them from meeting new requirements, instead of evolving their style as they gain insight and experience.

Cynthia (whom I interviewed after her story appeared in a Wall Street Journal article by Carol Hymowitz) hemmed herself in like this. She thought she was setting herself up for success by staying true to her highly personal, full-disclosure style of management. She asked her new team for support, openly acknowledging that she felt a bit at sea. As she scrambled to learn unfamiliar aspects of the business, she worked tirelessly to contribute to every decision and solve every problem. After a few months, she was on the verge of burnout. To make matters worse, sharing her vulnerability with her team members so early on had damaged her standing. Reflecting on her transition some years later, Cynthia told me: "Being authentic doesn't mean that you can be held up to the light and people can see right through you." But at the time, that was how she saw it-and instead of building trust, she made people question her ability to do the job.

Managers can choose from countless books, articles, and executive workshops for advice on how to be more authentic at work. Two trends help explain the exploding popularity of the concept and the training industry it has fed.

First, trust in business leaders fell to an all-time low in 2012, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer. Even in 2013, when trust began to climb back up, only 18% of people reported that they trusted business leaders to tell the truth, and fewer than half trusted businesses to do the right thing.

Second, employee engagement is at a nadir. A 2013 Gallup poll found that only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. Only one in eight workers-out of roughly 180 million employees studied-is psychologically committed to his or her job. In study after study, frustration, burnout, disillusionment, and misalignment with personal values are cited among the biggest reasons for career change.

At a time when public confidence and employee morale are so low, it's no surprise that companies are encouraging leaders to discover their "true" selves.

Delegating and communicating appropriately are only part of the problem in a case like this. A deeper-seated issue is finding the right mix of distance and closeness in an unfamiliar situation. Stanford psychologist Deborah Gruenfeld describes this as managing the tension between authority and approachability. To be authoritative, you privilege your knowledge, experience, and expertise over the team's, maintaining a measure of distance. To be approachable, you emphasize your relationships with people, their input, and their perspective, and you lead with empathy and warmth. Getting the balance right presents an acute authenticity crisis for true-to-selfers, who typically have a strong preference for behaving one way or the other. Cynthia made herself too approachable and vulnerable, and it undermined and drained her. In her bigger role, she needed more distance from her employees to gain their confidence and get the job done.

Selling your ideas (and yourself).

Leadership growth usually involves a shift from having good ideas to pitching them to diverse stakeholders. Inexperienced leaders, especially true-to-selfers, often find the process of getting buy-in distasteful because it feels artificial and political; they believe that their work should stand on its own merits.

Here's an example: Anne, a senior manager at a transportation company, had doubled revenue and fundamentally redesigned core processes in her unit. Despite her obvious accomplishments, however, her boss didn't consider her an inspirational leader. Anne also knew she was not communicating effectively in her role as a board member of the parent company. The chairman, a broad-brush thinker, often became impatient with her detail orientation. His feedback to her was "step up, do the vision thing." But to Anne that seemed like valuing form over substance. "For me, it is manipulation," she told me in an interview. "I can do the storytelling too, but I refuse to play on people's emotions. If the string-pulling is too obvious, I can't make myself do it." Like many aspiring leaders, she resisted crafting emotional messages to influence and inspire others because that felt less authentic to her than relying on facts, figures, and spreadsheets. As a result, she worked at cross-purposes with the board chairman, pushing hard on the facts instead of pulling him in as a valued ally.

Many managers know deep down that their good ideas and strong potential will go unnoticed if they don't do a better job of selling themselves. Still, they can't bring themselves to do it. "I try to build a network based on professionalism and what I can deliver for the business, not who I know," one manager told me. "Maybe that's not smart from a career point of view. But I can't go against my beliefs....So I have been more limited in 'networking up.'"

Until we see career advancement as a way of extending our reach and increasing our impact in the organization-a collective win, not just a selfish pursuit-we have trouble feeling authentic when touting our strengths to influential people. True-to-selfers find it particularly hard to sell themselves to senior management when they most need to do so: when they are still unproven. Research shows, however, that this hesitancy disappears as people gain experience and become more certain of the value they bring.

Processing negative feedback.

Many successful executives encounter serious negative feedback for the first time in their careers when they take on larger roles or responsibilities. Even when the criticisms aren't exactly new, they loom larger because the stakes are higher. But leaders often convince themselves that dysfunctional aspects of their "natural" style are the inevitable price of being effective.

Let's look at Jacob, a food company production manager whose direct reports gave him low marks in a 360 review on emotional intelligence, team building, and empowering others. One team member wrote that it was hard for Jacob to accept criticism. Another remarked that after an angry outburst, he'd suddenly make a joke as if nothing had happened, not realizing the destabilizing effect of his mood changes on those around him. For someone who genuinely believed that he'd built trust among his people, all this was tough to swallow.

Once the initial shock had subsided, Jacob acknowledged that this was not the first time he'd received such criticism (some colleagues and subordinates had made similar comments a few years earlier). "I thought I'd changed my approach," he reflected, "but I haven't really changed so much since the last time." However, he quickly rationalized his behavior to his boss: "Sometimes you have to be tough in order to deliver results, and people don't like it," he said. "You have to accept that as part of the job description." Of course, he was missing the point.

Because negative feedback given to leaders often centers on style rather than skills or expertise, it can feel like a threat to their identity-as if they're being asked to give up their "secret sauce." That's how Jacob saw it. Yes, he could be explosive-but from his point of view, his "toughness" allowed him to deliver results year after year. In reality, though, he had succeeded up to this point despite his behavior. When his role expanded and he took on greater responsibility, his intense scrutiny of subordinates became an even bigger obstacle because it took up time he should have been devoting to more-strategic pursuits.

Whatever the situation-taking charge in unfamiliar territory, selling your ideas and yourself, or processing negative feedback-finding authentic ways of being effective is even more difficult in a multicultural environment.

As my INSEAD colleague Erin Meyer finds in her research, styles of persuading others and the kinds of arguments that people find persuasive are far from universal; they are deeply rooted in a culture's philosophical, religious, and educational assumptions. That said, prescriptions for how leaders are supposed to look and sound are rarely as diverse as the leaders themselves. And despite corporate initiatives to build understanding of cultural differences and promote diversity, the fact is that leaders are still expected to express ideas assertively, to claim credit for them, and to use charisma to motivate and inspire people.

Authenticity is supposed to be an antidote to a single model of leadership. (After all, the message is to be yourself, not what someone else expects you to be.) But as the notion has gained currency, it has, ironically, come to mean something much more limiting and culturally specific. A closer look at how leaders are taught to discover and demonstrate authenticity-by telling a personal story about a hardship they have overcome, for example-reveals a model that is, in fact, very American, based on ideals such as self-disclosure, humility, and individualistic triumph over adversity.

This amounts to a catch-22 for managers from cultures with different norms for authority, communication, and collective endeavor because they must behave inauthentically in order to conform to the strictures of "authentic" leadership.

A great public example of this phenomenon is Margaret Thatcher. Those who worked with her knew she could be merciless if someone failed to prepare as thoroughly as she did. She was capable of humiliating a staff member in public, she was a notoriously bad listener, and she believed that compromise was cowardice. As she became known to the world as the "Iron Lady," Thatcher grew more and more convinced of the rightness of her ideas and the necessity of her coercive methods. She could beat anyone into submission with the power of her rhetoric and conviction, and she only got better at it. Eventually, though, it was her undoing-she was ousted by her own cabinet.

A Playful Frame of Mind

Such a rigid self-concept can result from too much introspection. When we look only within for answers, we inadvertently reinforce old ways of seeing the world and outdated views of ourselves. Without the benefit of what I call outsight-the valuable external perspective we get from experimenting with new leadership behaviors-habitual patterns of thought and action fence us in. To begin thinking like leaders, we must first act: plunge ourselves into new projects and activities, interact with very different kinds of people, and experiment with new ways of getting things done. Especially in times of transition and uncertainty, thinking and introspection should follow experience-not vice versa. Action changes who we are and what we believe is worth doing.

Fortunately, there are ways of increasing outsight and evolving toward an "adaptively authentic" way of leading, but they require a playful frame of mind. Think of leadership development as trying on possible selves rather than working on yourself-which, let's face it, sounds like drudgery. When we adopt a playful attitude, we're more open to possibilities. It's OK to be inconsistent from one day to the next. That's not being a fake; it's how we experiment to figure out what's right for the new challenges and circumstances we face.

My research suggests three important ways to get started:

Learn from diverse role models.

Most learning necessarily involves some form of imitation-and the understanding that nothing is "original." An important part of growing as a leader is viewing authenticity not as an intrinsic state but as the ability to take elements you have learned from others' styles and behaviors and make them your own.

But don't copy just one person's leadership style; tap many diverse role models. There is a big difference between imitating someone wholesale and borrowing selectively from various people to create your own collage, which you then modify and improve. As the playwright Wilson Mizner said, copying one author is plagiarism, but copying many is research.

I observed the importance of this approach in a study of investment bankers and consultants who were advancing from analytical and project work to roles advising clients and selling new business. Though most of them felt incompetent and insecure in their new positions, the chameleons among them consciously borrowed styles and tactics from successful senior leaders-learning through emulation how to use humor to break tension in meetings, for instance, and how to shape opinion without being overbearing. Essentially, the chameleons faked it until they found what worked for them. Noticing their efforts, their managers provided coaching and mentoring and shared tacit knowledge.

As a result, the chameleons arrived much faster at an authentic but more skillful style than the true-to-selfers in the study, who continued to focus solely on demonstrating technical mastery. Often the true-to-selfers concluded that their managers were "all talk and little content" and therefore not suitable role models. In the absence of a "perfect" model they had a harder time with imitation-it felt bogus. Unfortunately, their managers perceived their inability to adapt as a lack of effort or investment and thus didn't give them as much mentoring and coaching as they gave the chameleons.

Work on getting better.

Setting goals for learning (not just for performance) helps us experiment with our identities without feeling like impostors, because we don't expect to get everything right from the start. We stop trying to protect our comfortable old selves from the threats that change can bring, and start exploring what kinds of leaders we might become.

Of course, we all want to perform well in a new situation-get the right strategy in place, execute like crazy, deliver results the organization cares about. But focusing exclusively on those things makes us afraid to take risks in the service of learning. In a series of ingenious experiments, Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck has shown that concern about how we will appear to others inhibits learning on new or unfamiliar tasks. Performance goals motivate us to show others that we possess valued attributes, such as intelligence and social skill, and to prove to ourselves that we have them. By contrast, learning goals motivate us to develop valued attributes.

When we're in performance mode, leadership is about presenting ourselves in the most favorable light. In learning mode, we can reconcile our yearning for authenticity in how we work and lead with an equally powerful desire to grow. One leader I met was highly effective in small-group settings but struggled to convey openness to new ideas in larger meetings, where he often stuck to long-winded presentations for fear of getting derailed by others' comments. He set himself a "no PowerPoint" rule to develop a more relaxed, improvisational style. He surprised himself by how much he learned, not only about his own evolving preferences but also about the issues at hand.

Don't stick to "your story."

Most of us have personal narratives about defining moments that taught us important lessons. Consciously or not, we allow our stories, and the images of ourselves that they paint, to guide us in new situations. But the stories can become outdated as we grow, so sometimes it's necessary to alter them dramatically or even to throw them out and start from scratch.

That was true for Maria, a leader who saw herself as a "mother hen with her chicks all around." Her coach, former Ogilvy & Mather CEO Charlotte Beers, explains in I'd Rather Be in Charge that this self-image emerged from a time when Maria had to sacrifice her own goals and dreams to take care of her extended family. It eventually began to hold her back in her career: Though it had worked for her as a friendly and loyal team player and a peacekeeper, it wasn't helping her get the big leadership assignment she wanted. Together Maria and her coach looked for another defining moment to use as a touchstone-one that was more in keeping with Maria's desired future self, not who she had been in the past. They chose the time when Maria, as a young woman, had left her family to travel the world for 18 months. Acting from that bolder sense of self, she asked for-and got-a promotion that had previously been elusive.

Dan McAdams, a Northwestern psychology professor who has spent his career studying life stories, describes identity as "the internalized and evolving story that results from a person's selective appropriation of past, present and future." This isn't just academic jargon. McAdams is saying that you have to believe your story-but also embrace how it changes over time, according to what you need it to do. Try out new stories about yourself, and keep editing them, much as you would your résumé.

Again, revising one's story is both an introspective and a social process. The narratives we choose should not only sum up our experiences and aspirations but also reflect the demands we face and resonate with the audience we're trying to win over.

. . .

Countless books and advisers tell you to start your leadership journey with a clear sense of who you are. But that can be a recipe for staying stuck in the past. Your leadership identity can and should change each time you move on to bigger and better things.

The only way we grow as leaders is by stretching the limits of who we are-doing new things that make us uncomfortable but that teach us through direct experience who we want to become. Such growth doesn't require a radical personality makeover. Small changes-in the way we carry ourselves, the way we communicate, the way we interact-often make a world of difference in how effectively we lead.

A version of this article appeared in the January-February 2015 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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Authenticity has become the gold standard for leadership. But as INSEAD professor Herminia Ibarra argues, a simplistic understanding of what authenticity means can limit leaders' growth and impact. All too often, we tend to latch on to authenticity as an excuse for sticking with what's comfortable.

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The language of self-fulfillment, self-realization, and self-actualization (in short, 'authenticity') has become common in contemporary culture. The desire to be 'authentic' is implicitly a desire to shape one's self in accordance with an ideal, and the concern for what it means to be authentic is, in many ways, the modern form of the ancient question "what is the life of excellence?" However, this notion of authenticity has its critics, Christopher Lasch, for instance, who equates it with a form of narcissism and Theodor Adorno who views it as a glorification of privatism.

Brian J. Braman argues that, despite criticisms, it is possible to speak about human authenticity as something that addresses contemporary concerns as well as the ancient preoccupation with the nature of the good life. He refers to the theories of Bernard Lonergan and Charles Taylor, thinkers who placed a high value on the search for human authenticity. Lonergan discusses authenticity in terms of a three-fold conversion with intellectual, moral, and religious implications while Taylor views it as a rich, vibrant, and important addition to conversations about what it means to be human.

Meaning and Authenticity presents an engaging dialogue between two thinkers, both of whom maintain that there is a normative conception of authentic human life that overcomes moral relativism, narcissism, privatism, and the collapse of the public self.

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The language of self-fulfillment, self-realization, and self-actualization (in short, 'authenticity') has become common in contemporary culture. The desire to be 'authentic' is implicitly a desire to shape one's self in accordance with an ideal, and the concern for what it means to be authentic is, in many ways, the modern form of the ancient question "what is the life of excellence?"

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The pros and cons of Glee, as well as the impact it had on society.

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Abstract

In this paper, we build upon the model of authenticity proposed by Lehman and colleagues, which includes the dimensions consistency, conformity, and connection. We expand this "3C-view" by adding a fourth dimension, continuity, which results in what we have come to call "4C-view of authenticity." We discuss our proposal from a process perspective and emphasize that congruence might be a reasonable candidate for a concept that unifies the four dimensions of authenticity.

Keywords: authenticity, congruence, self, self-development, continuity in self-development

Introduction

In a recent review article, Lehman and colleagues write about authenticity in the context of management studies ( Lehman et al., 2019). Their point of departure is their perception that the term "authenticity" refers to what is real, genuine, or true. In contrast to this, Lehman and coauthors outline their perspective of authenticity as dependent on the referent of the term. In keeping with other recent publications motivated by a "lack of definitional clarity" ( Newman, 2019, p. 8), they outline different meanings the term can have in different contexts and ask what we are talking about when we talk about something or someone authentic.

Obviously, this semantic heterogeneity has its disadvantages, of which Lehman et al. (2019) emphasize two: the difficulties it brings for scholarly discourse and the possibility of "missing the big picture" ( Lehman et al., 2019, p. 2). In order to overcome these hurdles, the authors propose a conceptual framework that rests on three different "meanings" of authenticity: authenticity as consistency, as conformity, and as connection.

In brief, authenticity as consistency is the congruous relationship between an entity's external characteristics and its internal values. Authenticity as conformity is a congruous relationship between an entity and its social norms. Authenticity as connection is the congruence between an entity and "a person, place, or time as claimed" ( Lehman et al., 2019, p. 3). We deliberately use the terms congruence and congruous in all three definitions because we propose in this paper that congruence is the essence of authenticity. In general, we use these terms in keeping with Merriam-Webster's dictionary definition for congruous, "being in agreement, harmony, or correspondence" ( Congruous, 2020). We think that all three of Lehman and coworkers' interpretations of authenticity encompass some form of congruence: a particular congruous relationship between an entity and characteristics of itself, between an entity and its social context, and between an entity and another one, respectively.

We think of authenticity not as a static concept, but as a developmental process, as subject to change. Consequently, we suggest that besides the above three "C's," there is a fourth "C," a fourth meaning of authenticity as continuity. The continuity perspective captures the developmental character of authenticity, the ever-changing relationships between an individual and himself/herself, others, and the social norms his/her life is embedded in. These relationships are different across the lifespan; they are different for the same person as a child, adolescent or adult. Hence, authenticity as continuity describes the congruous relationship between an entity and features of development and, therefore, captures the evolving nature of authenticity. Going beyond the static view of authenticity allows for inherent changes in authenticity over time and places a greater emphasis on becoming authentic instead of being authentic. Thus, authenticity as continuity combines a dynamic connection between static and process characteristics of authenticity, which in turn makes authenticity more of an on-going project instead of something that can be achieved.

Based on these considerations, we define authenticity as "the process of being in a congruous relationship with self, others, and relevant social norms." Thus defined, we restrict our discussion to authenticity as a concept that can be applied at both the level of the individual as well as at the level of the collective (community and population). In this paper, we first briefly review Lehman et al.'s (2019) view of authenticity as consistency, conformity, and connection (henceforth, "3C-view" of authenticity). Then, we propose the addition of a fourth C, continuity (4C-view). Next, we explore and propose congruence as the essence of authenticity. Finally, we discuss advantages and disadvantages of our proposal.

The 3C-View of Authenticity

Lehman et al. (2019) tackle the problem of multiple interpretability of the term "authenticity." The paper appeared in Academy of Management Annals and is, therefore, written from an economics and management perspective. In this section, we outline their discussion and argument step-by-step.

The authors' 3C-View emerges from three guiding questions that address the referent, the target, and the audience of authenticity. First, they argue that in order to capture the meaning of authenticity one has to know who or what is the reference point to assess authenticity, which can be either inside (i.e., the entity itself) or outside of the entity (e.g., social category) that is judged. Second, the meaning of authenticity also depends on who or what the judgment of authenticity is directed to, meaning who or what the entity in itself is (e.g., individuals, organizations, brands, and objects etc.). Lastly, the audience that makes the authenticity judgment should be considered, and whether the audience is congruent with the entity (e.g., the self) or different (e.g., consumers judging authenticity of a product). The concept of authenticity as consistency was derived from classical philosophical works by the ancient Greeks and the existentialist movement (see Lehman et al., 2019). Here, the referent and target are the same (i.e., the entity) and hence authenticity is judged by the congruous relationship between external characteristic and internal representations of values and beliefs of the entity. An entity is primarily considered an individual in this conceptualization. The audience that judges on the congruence can be congruent with the entity (i.e., the alignment of an individual's internal representations with his/her behavior leads to a feeling of authenticity or inauthenticity) or different (i.e., the perception of someone's behavior being aligned with his/her assumed inner representations). However, in both cases the interpretative nature of authenticity is very subjective, as internal representations cannot be measured objectively, but are rather dependent on subjective feelings, or estimates from the perceived characteristics. Definitions in this conceptualization of authenticity reflect these two major aspects for alignment: the understanding of one's true self (i.e., internal representation) and behaving and interacting accordingly (i.e., external characteristics; e.g., Goldman and Kernis, 2002; Harter, 2002; Kernis and Goldman, 2005, 2006; Wood et al., 2008). This conceptualization is informed by research themes around self-concept ( Kraus et al., 2011), self-representation ( Walumbwa et al., 2008; Hochschild, 2012) and organizational as well as brand identity ( Beverland, 2005; Hatch and Schultz, 2017; Lehman et al., 2019).

Understanding the meaning of authenticity as conformity is embedded in cognitive psychology on schemas and work in sociology on institutional categories (for a brief overview see Lehman et al., 2019). Here, the referent lies outside of the entity (i.e., the social category). The target of the authenticity judgment, i.e., the entity, is either an individual (e.g., a musician creates music that is congruous with their genre; a leader with a specific leadership style and their actions are congruous with expectations of that category) or an object (e.g., a restaurant that serves cuisine that is congruous with the restaurant's theme). Thus, authenticity is assessed by the congruous relationship between the entity and the social category that serves as a referent. The audience that judges on the congruence can be the entity itself or outside of the entity using categories and classifications to locate and evaluate authenticity. They can even act jointly to determine how authentic an entity is (e.g., people rate authenticity of a restaurant by evaluating who dines at that restaurant). As referent and target can both be captured objectively, the interpretative nature is much more objective than in the previous evaluation of authenticity. Yet, according to the authors, it still has subjective elements, as humans define and perceive social categories, and therefore there are some variabilities depending on the audience. In this conceptualization, the referent is dynamic as it is defined by members of the specific category, as they determine the norms and expectations the entity is subject to. Therefore, authenticity is subject to change according to the evolvement of a social category. Authenticity thus conceived "... reflects a concern with correct classification" (Davies, 2001, p. 203; citation in Lehman et al., 2019, p. 14). This conceptualization of authenticity is informed by research themes around category membership ( Kovács et al., 2014) and reinterpretation ( Negro et al., 2011; Lehman et al., 2019).

The last conceptualization according to the 3C-view is authenticity as a connection, which is derived from work both in psychological essentialism and semiotics ( Lehman et al., 2019). Here, the referent is outside of the entity and is identified as a point of connection to a specific origin (i.e., person, place, or time). The target of the authenticity is mainly considered an object (e.g., artwork, clothing, and jewelry). Authenticity is judged by the congruence of the entity and the spatial and/or temporal distance to a specific outside criterion. The audience that judges the authenticity is equally outside of the entity and either relies on expert knowledge (e.g., an authentic Picasso painting is defined by certain criteria) or is the expert in itself (e.g., a connoisseur), which in turn makes the interpretation of authenticity highly objective. This conceptualization is informed by research themes around provenance ( Dutton, 2003), transference ( Grayson and Martinec, 2004) and symbolism ( Leigh, 2006; see also Lehman et al., 2019 for an in depth review).

The 4C-View of Authenticity

While the 3C-view reflects the complexity of authenticity, it does not capture the developmental aspect of authenticity. Thus, we propose a fourth "C": authenticity as continuity. This view takes a process perspective: it captures the developmental process of authenticity. This perspective goes hand in hand with the remarks on authenticity of Peterson (2005) who characterized the term "authenticity work," stating that individuals continuously work on appearing and remaining authentic and thus derived that authenticity "[...] is subject to continual change" ( Peterson, 2005, p. 1086). Moreover, Koole and Kuhl (2003) hold that a chronic fixation (i.e., being static in authenticity) is rather suboptimal, as a dynamic change in affect and temporary alienation are relevant to allow for self-development and "optimal functioning sometimes requires active suppression of the authentic self [...]" ( Koole and Kuhl, 2003, p. 46). We think that the study of the variability of authenticity expressions over time, both intra-and inter-individually, will be as relevant to personality psychology research as is the variability of other behavioral characteristics. In particular, conceiving of expressions of authenticity as density distributions over time ( Fleeson, 2001) might be one fruitful way of looking at the continuity dimension of authenticity.

Several considerations are important when thinking of authenticity as continuity. First, authenticity is established through repeated self-assessment. An individual has to continuously evaluate whether he/she considers himself/herself being authentic or not. This involves constantly seeking "one's truth of [...] feelings and desires" ( Krause, 2017, p. 5f) and reflecting critically on them in order to evolve authentically. Second, in a process, change abounds. Therefore, there are no characteristics of authenticity that are constantly fixed. Everything moves and is always subject to change. This requires the ongoing evaluation and re-evaluation of these ever-changing characteristics with the question in mind whether they fit the then current perception of authenticity. This resonates with the reflections of education researcher Pauline E. Leonard, who wrote about navigating the road of authenticity that "[b]ecoming authentic is a process, a journey, not an end in itself; it is an inner and outer journey and requires a continual examination of one's multiple identities within the context of the communities in which one lives, works, and interacts" ( Leonard, 2005, p. 7f). Third, with each change, the question comes up whether the continuity of authenticity is interrupted. It is difficult, but not impossible, to define breakage points where someone considers himself/herself authentic before and non-authentic after such point if the characteristics of authenticity are constantly changing. For example, traumatic events may cause an interruption in authenticity. Quade et al. (2019) examined in a qualitative study about scapegoating - a term that describes actively deflecting the blame received for one's own failures by blaming others - how this traumatic event left it challenging for female leaders to remain authentic. In their qualitative study, all participants experienced an incongruence between their self-image and the image their audience had of them ( Quade et al., 2019). Fourth, every process has a beginning and an end. It seems clear that the authenticity process does not begin at birth due to the intellectual requirements of the person to self-evaluate. The endpoint of the process is hard to determine and is probably only individually defined, perhaps just like all of the process. One could argue that certain illnesses, such as dementia, can lead to an assessment of an endpoint, whereas authenticity is no longer experienced or perceived. Yet as the mental state of people with dementia is fluctuating, it could be considered more as a fading of authenticity rather than an actual end point of authenticity (see also Holm, 2001).

The concept of authenticity as continuity can be viewed in light of the work of modern philosophers, such as Parfit (1984), who addressed moral, personal identity, and normative ethics. In keeping with our outline of the 3 C's, we apply to the 4th C (authenticity as continuity) the same three guiding questions, considering the referent, the target, and the audience of authenticity. Here, the referent is considered the feature of development over time (e.g., typical development). The target of the identity judgment, i.e., the entity, is mostly considered an individual but can also be an object (e.g., a company), a community, or even a population. Therefore, authenticity is assessed by the congruous relationship between the entity and the feature of development over time that serves as a referent. The audience that judges on the congruence can be the entity itself or reside outside of the entity, who either rely on expert knowledge on features of development or the "gut feeling" of how oneself or others stay true to their path of development. While the former can be considered rather objective, the latter is very subjective since internal representations cannot be measured objectively, but are rather dependent on subjective feelings, or on inferences based on perceived characteristics. This conceptualization is informed by research themes that revolve around personality development, subjective sense of self, and individual values ( Kuhl, 2001, 2020; Newman, 2019; Urminsky and Bartels, 2019).

Taken together, our extension of Lehman's 3C-view of authenticity provides a comprehensive model of authenticity, henceforth called 4C-Model of authenticity (). The 4C-model allows for a more complete, inclusive, and integrated understanding of authenticity. Moreover, the model reveals interesting relations among the different characteristics of authenticity.

Table 1

C #

Dimension

Relationship between an entity's/individual's self and the referent below

Individual level example

1

Consistency

external characteristics of self (e.g., behavior)

A person who is true to themselves

2

Conformity

social norms

An individual who lives in harmony with, and according to the rules accepted by their community peers

3

Connection

socio-spatial-temporal position

A person who is well-integrated in their community and live their life fully embedded in its history, value system, and expectations

4

Continuity

features of development

An individual whose changes over their lifespan are in keeping with what is socially accepted as "typical development"

All four Cs are relational in that they either relate different kinds of characteristics of one individual or entity to each other (C1, C4) or characteristics of an individual or entity to something external (C2, C3; ). All four Cs are arranged so that these two axes of authenticity relations self-self (green) and self-world (red) form the diagonals (1,4) and (2,3), respectively. What all four kinds of relationship have in common is that the relation is congruous.

Congruence as the Essence of Authenticity

In this section we explicate what we mean when we use the term congruence in our present context. We also outline why we think that congruence is the essence of authenticity.

The Latin origin of the word, congruere, means to come together, to fit in, to correspond, or to agree. We see things or aspects as congruous or congruent when we see fit. When characteristics that form or represent the relata of C-relationships go well together, we consider them congruous. What does that mean, to go well together? Let us consider a few examples pertinent to C1, consistency.

First, it should be possible to assess (evaluate) the relata and their relationship. We cannot establish congruence if we cannot make up our mind about the meaning of relata in and of themselves, as well as for each other. In terms of consistency (C1), what are we talking about when we talk about external features and internal values? We need to define what counts as external and internal value. We also need to explicate what external feature and internal values we are talking about.

Second, the relata have to be mutually relevant. For example, the relationship between external characteristics and internal values in C1 should have mutually relevant relata if, for example, a person behaves in a friendly and peaceful manner and his/her values include a devotion to non-violence. It makes less sense to attempt to establish a relation between peaceful behavior and the part of a person's value system that embraces family values. Congruence can be evaluated in the former, but not the latter case. We can say that friendly behavior and a non-violent stance are congruent, and that aggressive behavior and a non-violent stance are incongruent. But we cannot say that friendliness and family values are necessarily congruent. On the other hand, aggressive behavior and family values are not entirely incongruent.

Third, and most obviously, the relata have to support each other in a justificatory, explanatory, or even causal way, at least in one, sometimes in both directions. A non-violent stance causes peaceful behavior, which in turn supports a non-violent stance. Anti-racist values explain inclusive behaviors, which in turn nurture an anti-racist value system.

Fourth, the relata should not contradict each other. Supporting the death penalty and insisting on keeping the 10 Commandments as an important component of one's value system is a contradiction. Only if relata stand in a non-contradictory relationship with each other can we consider them congruous.

In sum, we see congruence as referring to a self-self or self-world relationship in which relata are assessable, mutually relevant and supportive, and non-contradictory. Based on our definition of congruence and our discussion of the 4 C's we believe that congruence is a formidable candidate for the common denominator of all four Cs and, therefore, for representing the essence of authenticity.

Discussion

In this paper, we have discussed Lehman's 3C view of authenticity and expanded it by adding a fourth C, continuity. This modification emphasizes our view that authenticity is not static, but a process. This process perspective is based on the assumption that authenticity is subject to change, requires continuous work, and can thus be characterized as a developmental process.

Moreover, we have proposed that congruence may be the essence of authenticity. All four Cs require congruent relationships between internal and external aspects and, together, represent a proposed 4C model of authenticity.

Rogers uses the terms "congruence" and "incongruence" to delineate the difference between individuals who live an authentic life (congruence) at least in part due to receiving positive regard and those who cannot (incongruence) and who develop defense mechanisms ( Rogers, 1951). According to Rogers' concept of an "organismic valuing process," a person has an inborn capability to estimate what kinds of changes will be good for them in terms of being conducive to their strive towards such lived congruence. Sheldon and colleagues have put that theory to the test and performed a study to see "how people change their minds over time about what goals and values to pursue" ( Sheldon et al., 2003, p. 837). Their results suggest that individuals shift towards intrinsic more than extrinsic goals, which supports the hypothesis that subjective well-being plays a greater role in such changes than, e.g., social desirability. These results provide an illustration of the developmental process we aim to capture with our fourth C, continuity. They also suggest that Lehman et al.'s consistency might be a stronger motivation for such developmental change than conformity.

Among the many possible repercussions of inauthenticity appears to be that experiencing inauthenticity can come as a threat to one's moral self-concept ( Gino et al., 2015). Gino and colleagues have offered the explanation that inauthenticity and dishonesty share similar roots in that both are a "violation of being true, whether to others or oneself" (p. 984). Feelings of impurity in the context of inauthenticity could be explained by a spillover effect, because dishonesty is not socially accepted, while inauthenticity is. However, experiencing inauthenticity (i.e., incongruence) is a vital aspect for the process perspective of authenticity, as incongruence allows for continuous re-evaluation, and hence offers opportunities for development ( Kuhl, 2020).

How does our 4C-model of authenticity fit with existing categorization schemes? Newman recently lamented the "lack of definitional clarity [which is] due in part to the diversity of contexts in which authenticity is studied" ( Newman, 2019, p. 8). In response to this perceived heterogeneity of definitions, Newman proposes three broad categories, i.e., historical, categorical, and values authenticity. The first two apply mainly to objects (e.g., pieces of art or types of food, resp.) Only the third appears to be applicable to individuals in that it refers to "the consistency between an entity's internal states and its external expressions" ( Newman, 2019, p. 10). This definition maps directly onto Lehman et al.'s first dimension of authenticity. Both Lehman et al.'s three and our fourth dimension should not be viewed as mutually exclusive categories, but as viewpoints or lenses through which the different kinds of authenticity can be studied.

We wish to emphasize that we developed our 4C-model of authenticity in the context of models of the self. In other words, we refer to authenticity (in the present context) as a characteristic of the self and its development. Our goal is not to contribute to the debate about what authenticity is in general, but to expand the list of characteristics of authenticity in the particular context of concepts of the self and the development of the self. When Newman writes about the "psychology of authenticity," his focus is on what he calls "lenses" or "dimensions of consideration" ( Newman, 2019, p. 10). His lenses (historical, categorical, and value) are not characteristics or dimensions of authenticity, but of the ways how authenticity is established in different contexts.

Carroll views authenticity as "an attribution - nothing more, nothing less" ( Carroll, 2015, p. 3). He claims that "[i]n modern society, authenticity is often socially constructed," and is thereby "culturally contingent and historically situated" ( Carroll, 2015, p. 3) He contrasts this kind of socially constructed authenticity with Dutton's nominal authenticity, e.g., the kind of authenticity attributed to an original painting or historically authentic piece of clothing ( Dutton, 2003), the authenticity of which can usually be "objectively and definitively evaluated"( Carroll, 2015, p. 4). It remains to be explored whether the individual authenticity (the authentic self) we discuss in this paper is a kind of nominal authenticity that can be evaluated, but only subjectively, or if it is culturally contingent, or both.

Given that we have developed our model in the area of personality psychology, we do not see it as representing a different category, but as an additional dimension that, together with Lehman et al.'s three Cs, applies mainly to Newman's category of values authenticity. We hope that our model will be helpful in further research on authenticity not only in individuals, but perhaps also in communities and populations. Such extension of our model from the realm of personal to social psychology, however, is clearly beyond the scope of this paper.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author Contributions

OD is the primary contributor regarding the proposed 4-C model and its outline. KL contributed to the overall idea and specific topic of this publication. All authors contributed to the writing of article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

References

Congruous (2020). In Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary Available at: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/congruous (Accessed January 02, 2021).

Hochschild A. R. (2012). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press. [Google Scholar]

Parfit D. (1984). Reasons and persons. Oxford: Clarendon Press. [Google Scholar]

Rogers C. R. (1951). Client-centered therapy: Its current practice, implications, and theory. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 560. [Google Scholar]

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In this paper, we build upon the model of authenticity proposed by Lehman and colleagues, which includes the dimensions consistency, conformity, and connection. We expand this "3C-view" by adding a fourth dimension, continuity, which results in what we have come to call "4C-view of authenticity."

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The gay one from Glee – positive role model or dangerous cliché?

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Kurt Hummel is a popular gay character that broke through the Fox filter. But does his brand of Fox-approved homosexuality serve to reinforce stereotypes?

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Why Seeing Yourself Represented on Screen Is So Important

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"Black Panther" has been hailed as a model success story for depicting diversity on screen. According to past research, the representation of minority groups in mass media has a powerful educational impact on audiences.

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Members of disliked minority groups are often stereotyped as representing a danger to the majority's most vulnerable members. For example, Jews in the Middle Ages were accused of murdering Christian babies in ritual sacrifices. Black men in the United States were often lynched after being falsely accused of raping White women.

In a similar fashion, gay people have often been portrayed as a threat to children. Back in 1977, when Anita Bryant campaigned successfully to repeal a Dade County (FL) ordinance prohibiting anti-gay discrimination, she named her organization "Save Our Children," and warned that "a particularly deviant-minded [gay] teacher could sexually molest children" (Bryant, 1977, p. 114). [Bibliographic references are on a different web page]

In recent years, antigay activists have routinely asserted that gay people are child molesters. This argument was often made in debates about the Boy Scouts of America's policy to exclude gay scouts and scoutmasters. More recently, in the wake of Rep. Mark Foley's resignation from the US House of Representatives in 2006, antigay activists and their supporters seized on the scandal to revive this canard.

It has also been raised in connection with scandals about the Catholic church's attempts to cover up the abuse of young males by priests. Indeed, the Vatican's early response to the 2002 revelations of widespread Church cover-ups of sexual abuse by priests was to declare that gay men should not be ordained.

The number of Americans who believe the myth that gay people are child molesters has declined substantially. In a 1970 national survey, more than 70% of respondents agreed with the assertions that "Homosexuals are dangerous as teachers or youth leaders because they try to get sexually involved with children" or that "Homosexuals try to play sexually with children if they cannot get an adult partner."1

By contrast, in a 1999 national poll, the belief that most gay men are likely to molest or abuse children was endorsed by only 19% of heterosexual men and 10% of heterosexual women. Even fewer – 9% of men and 6% of women – regarded most lesbians as child molesters.

Consistent with these findings, Gallup polls have found that an increasing number of Americans would allow gay people to be elementary school teachers. For example, the proportion was 54% in 2005, compared to 27% in 1977.

Even though most Americans don't regard gay people as child molesters, confusion remains widespread in this area. To understand the facts, it is important to examine the results of scientific research. However, when we evaluate research on child molestation, our task is complicated by several problems.

One problem is that none of the studies in this area have obtained data from a probability sample, that is, a sample that can be assumed to be representative of the population of all child molesters. Rather, most research has been conducted only with convicted perpetrators or with pedophiles who sought professional help. Consequently, they may not accurately describe child molesters who have never been caught or have not sought treatment.

Terminology

A second problem is that the terminology used in this area is often confusing and can even be misleading. We can begin to address that problem by defining some basic terms.

Pedophilia and child molestation are used in different ways, even by professionals. Pedophilia usually refers to an adult psychological disorder characterized by a preference for prepubescent children as sexual partners; this preference may or may not be acted upon. The term hebephilia is sometimes used to describe adult sexual attractions to adolescents or children who have reached puberty.

Whereas pedophilia and hebephilia refer to psychological propensities, child molestation and child sexual abuse are used to describe actual sexual contact between an adult and someone who has not reached the legal age of consent. In this context, the latter individual is referred to as a child, even though he or she may be a teenager.

Although the terms are not always applied consistently, it is useful to distinguish between pedophiles/hebephiles and child molesters/abusers. Pedophilia and hebephilia are diagnostic labels that refer to psychological attractions. Not all pedophiles and hebephiles actually molest children; an adult can be attracted to children or adolescents without ever actually engaging in sexual contact with them.

Child molestation and child sexual abuse refer to actions, and don't imply a particular psychological makeup or motive on the part of the perpetrator. Not all incidents of child sexual abuse are perpetrated by pedophiles or hebephiles; in some cases, the perpetrator has other motives for his or her actions and does not manifest an ongoing pattern of sexual attraction to children.

Thus, not all child sexual abuse is perpetrated by pedophiles (or hebephiles) and not all pedophiles and hebephiles actually commit abuse. Consequently, it is important to use terminology carefully.

Another problem related to terminology arises because sexual abuse of male children by adult men2 is often referred to as "homosexual molestation." The adjective "homosexual" (or "heterosexual" when a man abuses a female child) refers to the victim's gender in relation to that of the perpetrator. Unfortunately, people sometimes mistakenly interpret it as referring to the perpetrator's sexual orientation.

As an expert panel of researchers convened by the National Academy of Sciences noted in a 1993 report: "The distinction between homosexual and heterosexual child molesters relies on the premise that male molesters of male victims are homosexual in orientation. Most molesters of boys do not report sexual interest in adult men, however" (National Research Council, 1993, p. 143, citation omitted).

To avoid this confusion, it is preferable to refer to men's sexual abuse of boys with the more accurate label of male-male molestation. Similarly, it is preferable to refer to men's abuse of girls as male-female molestation. These labels are more accurate because they describe the sex of the individuals involved but don't implicitly convey unwarranted assumptions about the perpetrator's sexual orientation.

The distinction between a victim's gender and a perpetrator's sexual orientation is important because many child molesters don't really have an adult sexual orientation. They have never developed the capacity for mature sexual relationships with other adults, either men or women. Instead, their sexual attractions focus on children – boys, girls, or children of both sexes.

Over the years, this fact has been incorporated into various systems for categorizing child molesters. For example, Finkelhor and Araji (1986) proposed that perpetrators' sexual attractions should be conceptualized as ranging along a continuum – from exclusive interest in children at one extreme, to exclusive interest in adult partners at the other end.

Typologies of offenders have often included a distinction between those with an enduring primary preference for children as sexual partners and those who have established age-appropriate relationships but become sexually involved with children under unusual circumstances of extreme stress. Perpetrators in the first category – those with a more or less exclusive interest in children – have been labeled fixated. Fixation means "a temporary or permanent arrestment of psychological maturation resulting from unresolved formative issues which persist and underlie the organization of subsequent phases of development" (Groth & Birnbaum, 1978, p. 176). Many clinicians view fixated offenders as being "stuck" at an early stage of psychological development.

By contrast, other molesters are described as regressed. Regression is "a temporary or permanent appearance of primitive behavior after more mature forms of expression had been attained, regardless of whether the immature behavior was actually manifested earlier in the individual's development" (Groth & Birnbaum, 1978, p. 177). Regressed offenders have developed an adult sexual orientation but under certain conditions (such as extreme stress) they return to an earlier, less mature psychological state and engage in sexual contact with children.

Some typologies of child molesters divide the fixation-regression distinction into multiple categories, and some include additional categories as well (e.g., Knight, 1989).

For the present discussion, the important point is that many child molesters cannot be meaningfully described as homosexuals, heterosexuals, or bisexuals (in the usual sense of those terms) because they are not really capable of a relationship with an adult man or woman. Instead of gender, their sexual attractions are based primarily on age. These individuals – who are often characterized as fixated – are attracted to children, not to men or women.

Using the fixated-regressed distinction, Groth and Birnbaum (1978) studied 175 adult males who were convicted in Massachusetts of sexual assault against a child. None of the men had an exclusively homosexual adult sexual orientation. 83 (47%) were classified as "fixated;" 70 others (40%) were classified as regressed adult heterosexuals; the remaining 22 (13%) were classified as regressed adult bisexuals. Of the last group, Groth and Birnbaum observed that "in their adult relationships they engaged in sex on occasion with men as well as with women. However, in no case did this attraction to men exceed their preference for women....There were no men who were primarily sexually attracted to other adult males..." (p.180).

Other researchers have taken different approaches, but have similarly failed to find a connection between homosexuality and child molestation. Dr. Carole Jenny and her colleagues reviewed 352 medical charts, representing all of the sexually abused children seen in the emergency room or child abuse clinic of a Denver children's hospital during a one-year period (from July 1, 1991 to June 30, 1992). The molester was a gay or lesbian adult in fewer than 1% of cases in which an adult molester could be identified – only 2 of the 269 cases (Jenny et al., 1994).

In yet another approach to studying adult sexual attraction to children, some Canadian researchers observed how homosexual and heterosexual adult men responded to slides of males and females of various ages (child, pubescent, and mature adult). All of the research subjects were first screened to ensure that they preferred physically mature sexual partners. In some of the slides shown to subjects, the model was clothed; in others, he or she was nude. The slides were accompanied by audio recordings. The recordings paired with the nude models described an imaginary sexual interaction between the model and the subject. The recordings paired with the pictures of clothed models described the model engaging in neutral activities (e.g., swimming). To measure sexual arousal, changes in the subjects' penis volume were monitored while they watched the slides and listened to the audiotapes. The researchers found that homosexual males responded no more to male children than heterosexual males responded to female children (Freund et al., 1989).

In summary, each of these studies failed to support the hypothesis that homosexual males are more likely than heterosexual men to molest children or to be sexually attracted to children or adolescents.

Reflecting the results of these and other studies, as well as clinical experience, the mainstream view among researchers and professionals who work in the area of child sexual abuse is that homosexual and bisexual men do not pose any special threat to children. For example, in one review of the scientific literature, noted authority Dr. A. Nicholas Groth wrote:

Are homosexual adults in general sexually attracted to children and are preadolescent children at greater risk of molestation from homosexual adults than from heterosexual adults? There is no reason to believe so. The research to date all points to there being no significant relationship between a homosexual lifestyle and child molestation. There appears to be practically no reportage of sexual molestation of girls by lesbian adults, and the adult male who sexually molests young boys is not likely to be homosexual (Groth & Gary, 1982, p. 147).

In a later literature review, Dr. Nathaniel McConaghy (1998) similarly cautioned against confusing homosexuality with pedophilia. He noted, "The man who offends against prepubertal or immediately postpubertal boys is typically not sexually interested in older men or in women" (p. 259).

This well known lack of a linkage between homosexuality and child molestation accounts for why relatively little research has directly addressed the issue. For example, a 1998 comprehensive review of published empirical research on the sexual abuse of boys reported only one study (the 1994 study by Jenny and colleagues, cited above) that included data about the self-reported sexual orientation of perpetrators (Holmes & Slap, 1998).

Proving something that is already widely known simply isn't a priority for scientists. Indeed, a commentary that accompanied publication of the study by Jenny et al. in Pediatrics noted that debates about gay people as molesters "have little to do with everyday child abuse" and lamented that they distract lawmakers and the public from dealing with the real problem of children's sexual mistreatment (Krugman, 1994).

In scandals involving the Catholic church, the victims of sexual abuse were often adolescent boys rather than small children. Similarly, the 2006 congressional page scandal involved males who were at least 16 years old.

These are cases in which the term pedophilia – referring as it does to attractions to prepubescent children – can cause confusion. Rather than pedophilia, the accusations stemming from these scandals raised the question of whether gay people shouldn't be trusted in positions of authority where there is any opportunity for sexually harassing or abusing others.

Here again, there is no inherent connection between an adult's sexual orientation and her or his propensity for endangering others. Scientific research provides no evidence that homosexual people are less likely than heterosexuals to exercise good judgment and appropriate discretion in their employment settings. There are no data, for example, showing that gay men and lesbians are more likely than heterosexual men and women to sexually harass their subordinates in the workplace. Data from studies using a variety of psychological measures do not indicate that gay people are more likely than heterosexuals to possess any psychological characteristics that would make them less capable of controlling their sexual urges, refraining from the abuse of power, obeying rules and laws, interacting effectively with others, or exercising good judgment in handling authority. As explained elsewhere on this site, sexual orientation is not a mental illness nor is it inherently associated with impaired psychological functioning.

Gay men and lesbians function effectively in a wide variety of employment settings. The research literature doesn't reveal any differences between heterosexuals, bisexuals, and homosexuals in job performance or ability to properly exercise authority in supervisory roles. As indicated by workplace policies around the United States, a large and growing number of private and public employers do not perceive a problem with hiring gay and bisexual people as employees or managers. Many corporations, educational institutions, and local governments have adopted policies that prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation. Many of those organizations provide benefits such as health insurance for employees' same-sex partners. Indeed, one widely cited reason for offering such benefits is that they enable a company to remain competitive by attracting high quality employees who happen to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual.

Thus, there is no factual basis for organizations to avoid hiring homosexual or bisexual people, simply on the basis of their sexual orientation, for positions that involve responsibility for or supervision of others, whether children, adolescents, or adults.

What About Claims That Scientific Research Proves Gay Men Are Likely To Molest Children?

Some conservative groups have argued that scientific research strongly supports their claims that homosexuality and pedophilia are linked. The Family Research Council has produced what is perhaps the most extensive attempt to document this claim. It is an article by Timothy J. Dailey titledHomosexuality and Child Abuse.

With 76 footnotes, many of them referring to papers in scientific journals, it appears at first glance to be a thorough and scholarly discussion of the issue. On further examination, however, its central argument - that "the evidence indicates that homosexual men molest boys at rates grossly disproportionate to the rates at which heterosexual men molest girls" - doesn't hold up.

In the following section, the main sources cited by Dailey and the FRC to support their claim are reviewed. The papers are listed in the same order in which they are first cited by the FRC article.

1. Freund et al. (1989). Heterosexuality, homosexuality, and erotic age preference. Journal of Sex Research, 26, 107-117.
This article is discussed above in the "Other Approaches" section. As the FRC concedes, it contradicts their argument. The abstract summarizes the authors' conclusion: "Findings indicate that homosexual males who preferred mature partners responded no more to male children than heterosexual males who preferred mature partners responded to female children."

2. Silverthorne & Quinsey. (2000). Sexual partner age preferences of homosexual and heterosexual men and women. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 29, 67-76.
The FRC cites this study to challenge the Freund et al. data (see the previous paper above). However, the methodologies were quite different. Freund and his colleagues used a sample that included sex offenders and they assessed sexual arousal with a physiological measure similar to that described below for the 1988 Marshall et al. study. Silverthorne and Quinsey used a sample of community volunteers who were asked to view pictures of human faces and use a 7-point scale to rate their sexual attractiveness. The apparent ages of the people portrayed in the pictures was originally estimated by Dr. Silverthorne to range from 15 to 50. However, a group of independent raters perceived the male faces to range in age from 18 to 58, and the female faces to range from 19 to 60.

The article doesn't report the data in great detail (e.g., average ratings are depicted only in a graphic; the actual numbers aren't reported) and the authors provide contradictory information about the rating scale (they describe it as a 7-point scale but also say it ranged from 0 to 7, which constitutes an 8-point scale). In either case, it appears that none of the pictures was rated as "very sexually attractive" (a rating of 7). Rather, the highest average ratings were approximately 5.

On average, gay men rated the 18-year old male faces the most attractive (average rating = about 5), with attractiveness ratings declining steadily for older faces. They rated the 58-year old male faces 2, on average. By contrast, heterosexual men rated the 25-year old female faces the most attractive (about 5), with the 18- and 28-year old female faces rated lower (between 2 and 3) and the 60-year old female faces rated the least attractive (about 1).

A serious problem with this study is that the researchers didn't control for the possibility that some of the faces pictured in the photos might simply have been more or less physically attractive than the others, independent of their age or gender. The researchers explicitly acknowledged this shortcoming, speculating that the women's faces in the 25-year old group might have been more attractive than women's faces in the other age groups. But they didn't address the possibility that the attractiveness of the male and female faces may not have been comparable.

This issue could have been addressed in various ways. For example, prior to collecting data, the researchers could have started with a large number of photographs and asked a group of independent raters to evaluate the general physical attractiveness of the face in each photo; these ratings could have been used to select photos for the experiment that were equivalent in attractiveness. Getting independent ratings of experimental stimuli in this way is a common procedure in social psychological research.

Thus, even if one accepts the questionable assumption that this study is relevant, it doesn't support the FRC's contention that gay men are more likely than heterosexual men to be child molesters for several reasons:

the researchers failed to control for the varying attractiveness of the different photos;

all of the faces portrayed in the photos were perceived to be at least 18; and

the study merely assessed judgments of sexual attractiveness rather than the research participants' sexual arousal.

3. Blanchard et al. (2000). Fraternal birth order and sexual orientation in pedophiles. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 29, 463-478.
This study categorized convicted sex offenders according to whether they molested or reported sexual attraction to boys only, girls only, or both boys and girls. These groups were labeled, respectively, homosexual pedophiles, heterosexual pedophiles, and bisexual pedophiles. This classification referred to their attractions to children. Adult sexual orientation (or even whether the men had an adult sexual orientation) wasn't assessed.

4. Elliott et al. (1995). Child sexual abuse prevention: What offenders tell us. Child Abuse & Neglect, 19, 579-594.
In this study, child sex offenders were interviewed. Their sexual orientation (gay, heterosexual, bisexual) wasn't assessed. The authors drew from their findings to suggest strategies for how parents and children can prevent sexual victimization. It is noteworthy that none of those strategies involved avoiding gay men.

5. Jenny et al. (1994). Are children at risk for sexual abuse by homosexuals? Pediatrics, 94, 41-44.
This study, described above in the section on "Other Approaches," contradicts the FRC's argument. The FRC faults the study because the researchers didn't directly interview perpetrators but instead relied on the victims' medical charts for information about the offender's sexual orientation. However, other studies cited favorably by the FRC (and summarized in this section) similarly relied on chart data (Erickson et al., 1988) or did not directly assess the sexual orientation of perpetrators (Blanchard et al. 2000; Elliott et al. 1995; Marshall et al., 1988). Thus, the FRC apparently considers this method a weakness only when it leads to results they dislike.

6. Marshall et al. (1988). Sexual offenders against male children: Sexual preference. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 26, 383-391.
In this study, the researchers compared 21 men who had sexually molested a male under 16 years (and at least 5 years younger than themselves) to 18 unemployed men who were not known to have molested a child. Over a series of sessions, each man watched color slides of nude males and females of various ages and listened to audiotaped descriptions of both coercive and consensual sexual interactions between a man and a boy. During the sessions, each man sat in a private booth, where he was instructed to lower his trousers and underwear and attach a rubber tube to his penis. The tube detected any changes in penis circumference, with increases interpreted as indicating sexual arousal.

The FRC cites this study as showing that "a homosexual and a heterosexual subgroup can be delineated among these offenders." This is true but hardly relevant to their claims.

The researchers categorized 7 offenders who were more aroused overall by the male nudes than the female nudes as the homosexual subgroup. They categorized 14 offenders who were more aroused overall by the female nudes as the heterosexual subgroup. The offenders were not asked their sexual orientation (gay, straight, bisexual) and the paper does not report any information about the nature of the offenders' adult sexual relationships, or even if they had any such relationships.

7. Bickley & Beech. (2001). Classifying child abusers: Its relevance to theory and clinical practice. International Journal Of Offender Therapy And Comparative Criminology, 45, 51-69.
This is a literature review and theoretical paper that discusses the strengths and weaknesses of various systems for classifying child molesters. In citing this study, the FRC says it:

refers to homosexual pedophiles as a "distinct group." The victims of homosexual pedophiles "were more likely to be strangers, that they were more likely to have engaged in paraphiliac behavior separate from that involved in the offence, and that they were more likely to have past convictions for sexual offences.... Other studies [showed a] greater risk of reoffending than those who had offended against girls" and that the "recidivism rate for male-victim offenders is approximately twice that for female-victim offenders."

In reality, however, the paper was summarizing the findings of other studies, not reporting new data. In the passage excerpted by the FRC, the authors were discussing published papers that used a classification system focusing entirely on the sex of victims (not whether the perpetrator is straight or gay). Here is the complete text (the passages that FRC omitted are highlighted):

"Grubin and Kennedy (1991) reported that when dividing sex offenders based simply on the sex of their victims, offenders against boys stood out as a distinct group. They noted that their victims were more likely to be strangers, that they were more likely to have engaged in paraphiliac behavior separate from that involved in the offence, and they were more likely to have past convictions for sexual offences. Other studies have employed the sex-of-victim approach in the prediction of future risk, with offenders who have sexually abused boys or both boys and girls reported as having more victims and being at greater risk of reoffending than those who had offended against girls only [bibliographic references omitted]. In the nondiagnostic remarks, DSM-IV (APA, 1994) claims that the recidivism rate for male-victim offenders is approximately twice that for female-victim offenders, and although not demonstrating such a marked difference, Furby, Weinrott, and Blackshaw (1989), in an extensive review of recidivism rates, found that reoffending was higher for male victim offenders. [¶] However, the sex-of-victim distinction has not been consistently found, and contrasting findings have been reported in studies that have demonstrated no differences in recidivism rates between the groups [bibliographic references omitted]. Furthermore, Abel, Becker, Murphy, and Flanagan (1981) found that those child molesters who offended against girls reported more than twice as many victims as those who had offended against boys, a finding contrary to the hypothesized outcome." (p. 56)

8. Jay & Young. (1977). The gay report: Lesbians and gay men speak out about sexual experiences and lifestyles. New York: Summit.
This book, published more than 30 years ago by a team of writer-activists, is not a scientific study. The authors' survey methodology is not reported in detail and, because it was a journalistic work, the survey was never subjected to scientific peer review.

9. Erickson et al. (1988). Behavior patterns of child molesters. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 17, 77-86.
This study was based on a retrospective review of the medical records of male sex offenders admitted to the Minnesota Security Hospital between 1975 and 1984. Apparently, 70% of the men abused girls, 26% abused boys, and 4% abused children of both sexes. (The paper is unclear in that it doesn't explain how perpetrators with multiple victims were counted.) The paper asserts in passing that "Eighty-six percent of offenders against males described themselves as homosexual or bisexual" (p. 83). However, no details are provided about how this information was ascertained, making it difficult to interpret or evaluate. Nor did the authors report the number of homosexual versus bisexual offenders, a distinction that the Groth and Birnbaum study (described above) indicates is relevant.

In summary, the scientific sources cited by the FRC report do not support their argument. Most of the studies they referenced did not even assess the sexual orientation of abusers. Two studies explicitly concluded that sexual orientation and child molestation are unrelated. Notably, the FRC failed to cite the 1978 study by Groth and Birnbaum, which also contradicted their argument. Only one study (Erickson et al., 1988) might be interpreted as supporting the FRC argument, and it failed to detail its measurement procedures and did not differentiate bisexual from homosexual offenders.

Do Any Studies Claim To Show That Homosexuals Are More Likely To Molest Children?

One individual has claimed to have data that prove homosexuals to be child molesters at a higher rate than heterosexuals. That person is Paul Cameron. As detailed elsewhere on this site, Cameron's survey data are subject to so many methodological flaws as to be virtually meaningless. Even so, his assertions are sometimes quoted by antigay organizations in their attempts to link homosexuality with child sexual abuse.

In a 1985 article published in Psychological Reports, Cameron purported to review published data to answer the question, "Do those who commit homosexual acts disproportionately incorporate children into their sexual practices?" (p. 1227). He concluded that "at least one-third of the sexual attacks upon youth are homosexual" (p. 1228) and that "those who are bi- to homosexual are proportionately much more apt to molest youth" than are heterosexuals (p. 1231).

Cameron's claims hinge on the fallacious assumption that all male-male molestations are committed by homosexuals. Moreover, a careful reading of Cameron's paper reveals several false statements about the literature he claimed to have reviewed.

For example, he cited the Groth and Birnbaum (1978) study mentioned previously as evidencing a 3:2 ratio of "heterosexual" (i.e., female victim) to "homosexual" (i.e., male victim) molestations, and he noted that "54% of all the molestations in this study were performed by bisexual or homosexual practitioners" (p. 1231). However, Groth and Birnbaum reported that none of the men in their sample had an exclusively homosexual adult sexual orientation, and that none of the 22 bisexual men were more attracted to adult males than to adult females. The "54%" statistic reported by Cameron doesn't appear anywhere in the Groth and Birnbaum (1978) article, nor does Cameron explain its derivation.

It is also noteworthy that, although Cameron assumed that the perpetrators of male-male molestations were all homosexual, he assumed that not all male-female molestations were committed by heterosexuals. He incorporated a "bisexual correction" into his data manipulations to increase further his estimate of the risk posed to children by homosexual/bisexual men.

In the latter half of his paper, Cameron considered whether "homosexual teachers have more frequent sexual interaction with their pupils" (p. 1231). Based on 30 instances of sexual contact between a teacher and pupil reported in ten different sources published between 1920 and 1982, Cameron concluded that "a pupil would appear about 90 times more likely to be sexually assaulted by a homosexual practitioner" (p.1232); the ratio rose to 100 times when Cameron added his bisexual correction.

This ratio is meaningless because no data were obtained concerning the actual sexual orientation of the teachers involved; as before, Cameron assumed that male-male contacts were perpetrated by homosexuals. Furthermore, Cameron's rationale for selecting particular sources appears to have been completely arbitrary. He described no systematic method for reviewing the literature, and apparently never reviewed the voluminous literature on the sexual development of children and adolescents. His final choice of sources appears to have slanted his findings toward what Cameron described as "the relative absence in the scientific literature of heterosexual teacher-pupil sexual events coupled with persistent, albeit infrequent, homosexual teacher-pupil sexual interactions" (p. 1232).

A subsequent paper by Cameron and others (Cameron, Proctor, Coburn, Forde, Larson, & Cameron, 1986) described data collected in a door-to-door survey in seven U.S. cities and towns, and generally repeated the conclusions reached in Cameron (1985). Even Cameron himself admitted that his conclusions in this study are "based upon small numbers of data points" (Cameron, 2005, p. 230). As before, male-male sexual assaults were referred to as "homosexual" molestations (e.g., Abstract, p.327) and the perpetrators' sexual orientation apparently was not assessed. This study also suffers from fatal methodological problems, which are detailed elsewhere on this site.

In yet another article published in Psychological Reports, Cameron claimed to have reviewed data about sexual abuse by foster parents in Illinois and found that 34% of the perpetrators had abused a foster child of their own sex, that is, female-female or male-male abuse (Cameron, 2005). Not only did Cameron again make the fallacious claim that all male-male molestations are committed by homosexuals, he also made the same claim about female-female molestations. Once again, he had no data about the actual sexual orientations of the molesters.

Cameron continues to produce reports that essentially repeat the same inaccurate claims. Perhaps one of the best indicators of his diminished credibility in this area is that his work was not even cited in the 2004 FRC report discussed in detail above.

Conclusion

The empirical research does not show that gay or bisexual men are any more likely than heterosexual men to molest children. This is not to argue that homosexual and bisexual men never molest children. But there is no scientific basis for asserting that they are more likely than heterosexual men to do so. And, as explained above, many child molesters cannot be characterized as having an adult sexual orientation at all; they are fixated on children.

Notes

1.

The survey was conducted under the auspices of the Kinsey Institute (Klassen, Williams, & Levitt, 1989). (return to text)

2.

Sexual abuse by women occurs but has not been well documented. Perhaps it is not surprising, therefore, that the child molester stereotype is applied more often to gay men than to lesbians.(return to text)

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Facts About Homosexuality and Child Molestation

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Prof. Herek's blog Subscribe to Prof. Herek's blog Follow @DrGregoryHerek Open bibliography in a separate window Members of disliked minority groups are often stereotyped as representing a danger to the majority's most vulnerable members. For example, Jews in the Middle Ages were accused of murdering Christian babies in ritual sacrifices.

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One in five LGBT people have experienced a hate crime or incident because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity in the last 12 months

Two in five trans people have experienced a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity in the last 12 months

Four in five anti-LGBT hate crimes and incidents go unreported, with younger LGBT people particularly reluctant to go to the police

LGBT in Britain - Hate Crime and Discrimination is Stonewall's new research highlighting the shocking levels of hate crime and discrimination that LGBT people still face in Britain today.

Based on YouGov polling of over 5000 LGBT people, the research reveals that anti-LGBT abuse extends far beyond acts of hate and violence on our streets. Many LGBT people still endure poor treatment while using public services and going about their lives, whether in their local shop, gym, school or place of worship.

Download the report

Scotland and Cymru

Key findings

Hate crime

One in five LGBT people (21 per cent) have experienced a hate crime or incident due to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity in the last 12 months

Two in five trans people (41 per cent) have experienced a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity in the last 12 months and one in six LGB people, who aren't trans (16 per cent), have experienced a hate crime or incident due to their sexual orientation in the same period

The number of lesbian, gay and bi people who have experienced a hate crime or incident in the last year because of their sexual orientation has risen by 78 per cent from nine per cent in 2013 to 16 per cent in 2017

Four in five LGBT people (81 per cent) who experienced a hate crime or incident didn't report it to the police

Three in 10 LGBT people (29 per cent) avoid certain streets because they do not feel safe there as an LGBT person

More than a third of LGBT people (36 per cent) say they don't feel comfortable walking down the street while holding their partner's hand. This increases to three in five gay men (58 per cent)

One in 10 LGBT people (10 per cent) have experienced homophobic, biphobic or transphobic abuse online directed towards them personally in the last month. This number increases to one in four for trans people (26 per cent) directly experiencing transphobic abuse online in the last month

Discrimination in daily life

One in 10 LGBT people (10 per cent) who were looking for a house or flat to rent or buy in the last year were discriminated against because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity

One in six LGBT people (17 per cent) who visited a café, restaurant, bar or nightclub in the last 12 months have been discriminated against based on their sexual orientation and/or gender identity

One in four black, Asian and minority ethnic LGBT people (24 per cent) accessing social services in the last year have been discriminated against because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity

Almost three in 10 LGBT people (28 per cent) who visited a faith service or place of worship in the past 12 months experienced discrimination

One in ten LGBT people (10 per cent) who attended a live sporting event in the last year experienced discrimination because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity

What respondents said

I had one incident where girls did not want to enter the bathroom stall I had used despite a large queue, like as if I was infected. Straight people don't know how privileged they are to not have their love questioned, or to have romantic days out and not think about who is around you or how safe you are.

Rachel, 22 (London)

I was assaulted by a man whilst I was holding hands with my lesbian partner. He grabbed me from behind and thrust himself into me, then verbally attacked me.

Freya, 21 (Wales)

I had occasion to report that I had been harassed and suffered an injury. I talked, they listened, but it was their attitude and I got the impression that it was not being taken seriously.

Leo, 53 (North East)

What you can do

Stonewall has made the following recommendations for all individuals who want to help tackle anti-LGBT hate crime and discrimination:

Take a visible stand against LGBT hate crime, join Stonewall's 'Come Out for LGBT' campaign and show your support for LGBT equality in all forms. Encourage your friends, family and colleagues to join the campaign

Call out online anti-LGBT abuse whenever you see it, so long as it is safe to do so. Support those being targeted by letting them know you are an ally

Let local business owners know if you witness an anti-LGBT incident from staff or other customers so that they can tackle it. Make clear that they could risk losing you and others as customers if they don't

Report incidents of homophobic, biphobic or transphobic discrimination you experience when accessing public services like housing or social services to the service provider or local council so they can take action. Contact Stonewall's Information Service on 08000 50 20 20 for advice and support

Related Articles

Learn how you can help LGBTQ+ people Sign up for news

Related Information

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LGBT in Britain - Hate Crime and Discrimination

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One in five LGBT people have experienced a hate crime or incident because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity in the last 12 months Two in five trans people have experienced a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity in the last 12...

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Stuart Hall was born and raised in Jamaica and arrived in Britain on a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford in 1950. In 1958, he left his PhD on Henry James to found the New Left Review, which did much to open a debate about immigration and the politics of identity. Along with Raymond Williams and Richard Hoggart he established the first Cultural Studies programme at a British university in Birmingham in 1964, bringing the study of popular culture into the understanding of political and social change.

After spending more than four decades as one of the UK's leading public intellectuals, Hall retired from formal academic life in 1997 and since then has continued to devote himself to questions of representation, creativity and difference. He became the chair of two foundations, Iniva, the Institute of International Visual Arts, and Autograph ABP, which seeks to promote photographers from culturally diverse backgrounds, and championed the opening of Iniva's new Rivington Place arts complex in east London in 2007.

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This broad-ranging text offers a comprehensive outline of how visual images, language and discourse work as 'systems of representation'. Combining examples with activities and selected readings it offers a unique resource for teachers and students in cultural studies and related fields as an introduction to this complex and central theme.

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23. Queer Theory and Gender Performativity

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Queer Television Studies: Currents, Flows, and (Main)streams

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Screenwriting Representation: Teaching Approaches to Writing Queer Characters on JSTOR

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Michael Green, Screenwriting Representation: Teaching Approaches to Writing Queer Characters, Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 65, No. 1-2 (Spring/Summer 2013), pp. 30-42

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Starting in 1861, with the abolition of the death penalty for sodomy, and ending in 1967, when the act between consenting men was decriminalised in England and Wales, the new exhibition Queer British Art at Tate Britain in London offers just over a century of works exploring fluid gender identities and same-sex desire.

You might expect the show to display a gradual opening up, with increasingly explicit or unabashed imagery. Not so: the work of one of the first artists featured, Simeon Solomon - part of the Aesthetic movement and a youthful figure on the fringes of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - potently telegraphs homosexual desire from as early as the mid-1800s.

Witness The Bride, The Bridegroom and Sad Love, a drawing from 1865. While the bride and bridegroom canoodle, the man's hand reaches behind him to a winged male youth, looking sad indeed. The groom may be turning away from same-sex love in favour of a respectable, heterosexual marriage, but the men's fingers intertwine intimately in front of a naked crotch... As an image of forbidden, thwarted love and lust, today it seems pretty explicit.

But was it so for 19th Century audiences? In the case of this particular drawing, it probably was - it's from a private collection - but Simeon was a notably fashionable, mainstream artist too, who exhibited at the Royal Academy, the institution at the centre of the Victorian art establishment. Much of his public work also carried a surprisingly bold homoerotic charge. Homosexual desire is a coded presence in many of his paintings, which in portraying classical myths, usually feature effeminate or androgynous young male nudes.

He even painted overt depictions of lesbian love, as in his watercolour Sappho and Erinna in a Garden at Mytilene, from 1864. "It's a really explicit depiction of female same-sex desire," says Tate curator Clare Barlow. "Not explicit as in pornographic, but the passionate kiss, the swooning, the flushed cheeks... it's all there for the reading. I think he goes further than others at the time."
Raised eyebrows
Even if Solomon was celebrated by the Pre-Raphaelites and regularly exhibited in major galleries, critical responses were often uneasy. Barlow points out that reactions to the highly sensuous style of the Pre-Raphaelites and the Aesthetic movement - all those languorously draped youthful bodies and heavy-lidded, languid expressions - were always shot through with contemporary anxieties. While critics might not have been able to come out and frame or label these works as homoerotic or deviant, they nonetheless frequently got their knickers in a twist about them.

"Words like decadent or feminine or sickly often come up - there are lots of suspicions," says Barlow, speaking of not only Solomon but also artists like Frederic Leighton (who remained unmarried and whose sexuality was a subject of much speculation) and Edward Burne-Jones (who appears to have been primarily heterosexual). In 1865, the Pall Mall Gazette saw in Burne-Jones's style "something seductive but it is not masculine"; the Spectator sniffed at a "repulsive sentiment which too frequently marks Mr Solomon's compositions". Of Leighton's Daedalus and Icarus, the Times fretted that the nude Icarus had the air of "a maiden rather than a youth", noting anxiously the "soft rounded contour of a feminine breast" in his plump pecs.

But as long as there was a degree of ambiguity - in both the work, and the artist's proclivities - 19th Century society was prepared to turn a blind eye. Or, at least, confine themselves to a raised eyebrow. Even works which, to the modern viewer, look blatantly homoerotic could be respectably contained within the framework of the classical male nude, the ideal of Hellenic youthful beauty, or celebration of noble male friendship. Such narratives "veiled the potential homoeroticism of the works," suggests Barlow.
Notes on a scandal
In 1873, however, Solomon rather publicly confirmed all whispered suspicions: he was caught having sex with a man in a public toilet off Oxford Street. It caused a scandal, with the 32-year-old Solomon charged with "attempted buggery" and given a £100 fine; a successful career was abruptly derailed. After once more being arrested for "indecent touching" in a lavatory in Paris the following year, he spent three months in jail. Solomon was admitted to lunatic asylums, and would for rest of his life battle alcoholism, spending the latter part of it penniless and destitute. It was a very public fall from grace.

"Artists at this time can get away with [suggesting] quite a lot providing there's no hard proof," points out Barlow. "It's only when Solomon gets caught that all these rumours that have been swirling about decadence and sickliness crystallise into a specific sexual act."

Although there is a sadness to Solomon's story - famous friends dropped him, and he died in a workhouse in Covent Garden in 1905 - the artist did continue to produce work with impressive tenacity and creative conviction. And, later in life, he also achieved something of a cult status within gay circles. Frederick Hollyer, the great populariser of the Pre-Raphaelites, sold photographs of his work, and collectors included Oscar Wilde, essayist and critic Walter Pater, and the writer John Addington Symonds. "If you're trying to seduce elegant young men in the 1890s, showing them your Simeon Solomon Hollyer editions is not likely to do you any harm," says Barlow wryly.
Queer eye
Queer British Art is a show that, necessarily, often invites us to read (or re-read) work through the frame of the artist's life, allowing what we know - or guess - about their sexual desires to open up fresh potential meanings. "It's always tempting to read the biography into the work - that's something which can be illuminating but can also be problematic. But he does produce these incredibly agonised series of highly symbolist works at the end of his life," says Barlow. She refers to a series of depictions of very tortured Medusa heads, cross-gendered male. They're referred to as masculine in the Latin inscriptions, which say things like "it is the worst thing for the best to become corrupted" or given titles such as The Tormented Conscience.

The Tate's exhibition may start with Solomon, but it goes right up to David Hockney and Francis Bacon, taking in cross-dressing music hall stars, Oscar Wilde's trial, and the Bloomsbury Group's experiments in art and living along the way. The show aims to highlight "lots of different points of connection between the works and the queer narrative that surround them: some are autobiographical, sometimes the queerness is in the eyes of the beholder, or comes from a queer sensibility perhaps," elaborates Barlow.

"What we're doing is seeing what happens when you put these readings front and foremost: does it add to our understanding, or are they distracting? That's certainly a possibility. We're not trying to propose that these are the only ways these works should be read, but the queer narratives often help you see things in the work you didn't see before."

Still, when it comes to some of Solomon's paintings, the thing that may prove most striking to the modern viewer in how little explanation or explication they need, how readily these works from the 19th Century offer up queer readings. And how they bring a note of tragedy in: it's hard not to feel for Solomon, rejected from society, left out in the cold.

If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our page or message us on

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Starting in 1861, with the abolition of the death penalty for sodomy, and ending in 1967, when the act between consenting men was decriminalised in England and Wales, the new exhibition Queer British Art at Tate Britain in London offers just over a century of works exploring fluid gender identities and same-sex desire.

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Yas, Queen! Zhuzh It, Henny!The Representation of Homosexuality in Bravo’s Original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (2003) and Netflix’s Reboot Queer Eye (2018)

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Yas, Queen! Zhuzh It, Henny!The Representation of Homosexuality in Bravo’s Original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (2003) and Netflix’s Reboot Queer Eye (2018)

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A Content Analysis of Minority Representation on Broadcast and Streaming Television in 2019-2020

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A Content Analysis of Minority Representation on Broadcast and Streaming Television in 2019-2020

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We need to see realistic LGBT people on our screens, not toxic caricatures

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We need to see realistic LGBT people on our screens, not toxic caricatures

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ne-dimensional uber-camp clowns, storylines centred on "being gay", potential sexual menaces who want to get into the pants of straight men, lesbians whose sexuality makes them a challenge for men to turn: here are how LGBT characters often appear on our screens. But that's if they even appear at all. According to a new study by Glaad - which campaigns for LGBT representation in the media - there has been a small increase in films with LGBT characters, but from a low base. Out of 114 films they looked at, released in 2014, 17.5% featured non-straight characters, up from 16.7% the year before. Many of these depictions were problematic, with only just over half passing the " Vito Russo test ", which measures the quality of the representations. (A film only passes the Vito Russo test if it includes a LGBT character, where they are not entirely defined by their sexual orientation or gender, and they have a significant impact on the plot.)

Take Get Hard, the new so-called "comedy" starring Will Ferrell, which taps into the revulsion of some straight men at the very idea of gay sex. The release of such films is a salutary experience for many LGBT people. Look how far we have come, we often rightly think: the overturning of anti-LGBT laws across the western world, the transformation of once overwhelmingly hostile public opinions. And then, in 2015, it is still acceptable to release a film that taps into the very much still present fears and prejudices that many have about LGBT people.

With trans people, the situation is even worse. Attitudes towards trans people are stuck roughly where they were for gay men back in the 1980s: a toxic rhetoric of disgust abounds, with a frightening prejudice that trans people are sexual predators who will somehow trick the unassuming into having sex with them. As well as facing violence - sometimes murder - there are still legislative attempts to oppress and stigmatise them, like a bill submitted by a rightwing Miami Republican to ban trans people from using public toilets. And according to Glaad, there are all too few films featuring trans people. The need to show the reality of life for trans people is surely desperately needed.

Let's face it: representation of LGBT people on our screens is comparable to how it was for those one-dimensional, insulting portrayals of black people that used to be so widespread in mainstream popular culture. Not that I'm saying that battle has been won either: Lenny Henry has been leading a campaign to tackle the lack of black and minority people in the entire media industry. The entertainment industry remains institutionally racist. But many gay writers have suggested that the portrayal of gay characters is sometimes analogous to those old minstrel shows, which are now rightly seen as unacceptable. Silly, cardboard cut-out gay men, comically mincing around for our general amusement.

Both TV and film reflect society's general attitudes, but they also help reinforce them

Both TV and film reflect society's general attitudes, but they also help reinforce them. More nuanced and complex takes on LGBT life are all too often ghettoised with shows such as Cucumber and Banana. A character being gay is often a storyline in and of itself: surely we need characters who simply happen to be gay, rather than being defined by it. Yes, some men are camp - loudly and proudly so - and all of us need to get over that. But others are football-obsessed, or metalheads, or any other repudiation of the pervasive stereotypes that exist. Some are bisexuals, facing prejudice from all sides and airbrushed out of existence. Orange is the New Black, with its mostly lesbian characters, has rightly won accolades and awards, but how often are lesbians otherwise portrayed on our screens?

LGBT people are as complex and varied as anybody else. They are still all too often invisible on our screens, and portrayed simplistically and problematically when they do appear. That will only change when we overcome the general prejudices in society that still exist. But that's not an excuse. The films and TV shows of today will surely provoke bafflement in the future: "Where are all the realistic gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans people?" they will ask. It will be a good question.

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We need to see realistic LGBT people on our screens, not toxic caricatures | Owen Jones

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ne-dimensional uber-camp clowns, storylines centred on "being gay", potential sexual menaces who want to get into the pants of straight men, lesbians whose sexuality makes them a challenge for men to turn: here are how LGBT characters often appear on our screens. But that's if they even appear at all.

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F eaturing LGBT+ characters on television has many benefits: it affords LGBT+ individuals visibility, offers them role models, promotes tolerance, and can help advance genuine progress within society. However, failing to look past stereotypes or treating characters as 'the gay/bi/trans/ace one' doesn't reflect reality, creating a type of misunderstanding that furthers prejudice instead of progress.

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How to Develop Good Characters in a Script: Tips From Hollywood's Best Writers

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Abstract

Perceptions of authenticity (or, inauthenticity) have been shown to affect people's judgments and behavior across a wide variety of domains. However, there is still ambiguity about how the concept should be defined. This is attributable, at least in part, to a growing list of different "kinds of authenticity" with little discussion of the potential overlaps between them. The goal of this paper is to reduce these various notions of authenticity into a more manageable set of constructs. Building on the work of Newman and Smith (2016a), three broad kinds of authenticity are proposed: Historical, Categorical, and Values authenticity. Two studies then examine the extent to which people's conceptions of authenticity naturally segment into these three types. Specifically, Study 1 asks participants about the various ways in which they might assess authenticity, whereas Study 2 examines individual differences in sensitivity to different kinds of inauthenticity. The results from both studies indicate a striking degree of convergence in support of these three broad dimensions. Moreover, different populations appear to be differentially concerned about these various ways of evaluating authenticity. The implications of this framework for existing and future work in this area are discussed.

Authenticity is an important dimension that people use to evaluate a vast number of goods and experiences. Even young children are sensitive to notions of authenticity and value originals more than identical duplicates ( Frazier & Gelman, 2009; Gelman, Frazier, Noles, Manczak, & Stilwell, 2015; Hood & Bloom, 2008; Olson & Shaw, 2011). Authenticity plays a key role in the pleasure that people derive from a variety of experiences, ranging from dining ( Kovács, Carroll, & Lehman, 2014, 2016), to visiting museums ( Grayson & Martinec, 2004; Howard, 1992), to watching TV ( Rose & Wood, 2005; Vosgerau, Wertenbroch, & Carmon, 2006). And, authenticity drives consumer preferences across a number of domains, including art, clothing, luxury goods, collectables, food and beverage, and everyday household products (e.g., Anthony & Joshi, 2016; Beverland, 2005, 2006; Beverland & Farrelly, 2010; Botterill, 2007; Bullot & Reber, 2013; Dutton, 2003; Frazier, Gelman, Wilson, & Hood, 2009; Grayson & Shulman, 2000; Kivy, 1995; Kozinets et al., 2002; Newman & Dhar, 2014; Newman, Diesendruck, & Bloom, 2011; Newman & Bloom, 2012; O' Guinn, 1991; Smith, Newman, & Dhar, 2016; Wang, 1999).

The topic of authenticity is also fascinating for reasons that transcend its practical significance. Consider, for example, the difference between an original Picasso painting and a perceptually indistinguishable forgery. Provided that the viewer is unaware of which one is which, both paintings will inspire the same cognitive and affective responses. As such, the value assigned to each painting should (in theory) be the same, corresponding to the utility that the image provides. Yet, learning about a painting's true history-that is, whether it is an original or a forgery-results in a dramatic difference in how people value the paintings and moreover, a difference in the pleasure that people get when viewing them. For example, subtly manipulating whether a painting is said to be an original Rembrandt versus a forgery changes activation in pleasure centers of the brain ( Huang, Bridge, Kemp, & Parker, 2011).

This combination of practical importance and theoretical puzzle has inspired research on the topic of authenticity across a number of disciplines including psychology, philosophy, sociology, management studies, and anthropology. At first, scholars were wrestling with a basic question: Do perceptions of authenticity have consequential effects for individuals, producers, and consumers? Indeed, perceptions of authenticity (or, inauthenticity) have been shown to affect people's judgments and behavior across a wide range of domains (e.g., Beverland, 2005; Carroll & Swaminathan, 2000; Castéran & Roederer, 2013; Grayson & Martinec, 2004; Lehman, Kovács, & Carroll, 2014; Kovács et al., 2014, 2016; Newman & Bloom, 2014; Smith, Newman, & Dhar, 2016).

However, scholars in this area are now facing an even more fundamental question: How should authenticity be defined? This lack of definitional clarity is due in part to the diversity of contexts in which authenticity is studied. One common approach has been for researchers to conduct structured interviews, asking people how they define authenticity for a particular domain-for example, for tourist experiences ( Cohen, 1988; Wang, 1999), beer ( Beverland, Lindgreen, & Vink, 2008) or consumer products ( Beverland & Farrelly, 2010). In each of these cases, researchers have sought to identify and categorize similar patterns of reasoning. As one example, Carroll and Wheaton (2009) examined the restaurant industry and found that people seem to apply two very different notions of authenticity. One sense, which they call "Type Authenticity," refers to judgments about whether the cuisine is consistent with beliefs about the category-for example, Is it authentic Mexican food? The other, which they call "Moral Authenticity," describes a different set of judgments about whether the producer is genuinely committed to their craft-for example, does the chef care about the cuisine or are they solely trying to maximize profits? Approaches such as this have resulted in a growing list of kinds of authenticity for different domains-one for food, another for beer, and so on. Unfortunately, however, these papers seldom reference one another, which has resulted in a fragmented set of terms and definitions.

Another feature of these existing approaches is that the categories themselves tend to be post hoc. In other words, researchers have often constructed these categories using qualitative methods, conducting structured interviews and classifying similar justifications among participants. Although this approach has certainly yielded important advances (discussed in greater detail below), it is unclear whether nonexperts actually see these categories as importantly distinct. In other words, do the different "kinds of authenticity" identified by researchers actually reflect differences in people's lay psychology?

The goal of this paper, therefore, is to identify a framework that synthesizes existing research under a common theoretical umbrella. Building on the work of Newman and Smith (2016a), I propose that evaluations of authenticity tend to fall into one of three broad dimensions-what I refer to as Historical, Categorical, and Values Authenticity. I then report the results of the two studies that test this classification. Study 1 asks participants about the various ways in which they might assess authenticity. Study 2 asks about sensitivity to different kinds of inauthenticity and examines heterogeneity across participants. The results indicate a high degree of convergence: both studies find evidence for the same three dimensions of authenticity. Moreover, different groups of participants appear to be differentially concerned about these various ways of evaluating authenticity. I conclude by discussing the implications of this framework for existing and future work in this area.

At the broadest level, authenticity is a concept aimed at capturing dimensions of truth or verification-that is, it is an assessment of whether a good or experience is "true with respect to some property or dimension" ( Newman & Dhar, 2014). Within the existing literature on authenticity, there seems to be general consensus about this broad definition. For example, Beverland and Farrelly (2010) write, "despite the multiplicity of terms and interpretations applied to authenticity, ultimately what is consistent across the literature is that authenticity encapsulates what is genuine, real, and/or true (p. 839)."

Reflecting on the concept further, however, reveals the limitations of this very general definition. Consider the difference between an authentic Picasso versus authentic country music. Even though people use the same word to describe both of these cases, it seems that the meaning of the term authenticity and the manner in which authenticity is evaluated, are very different ( Dutton, 2003; Peterson, 1997). In other words, people can evaluate the authenticity of many different types of goods and experiences, but the dimensions used for assessing authenticity may vary substantially across these different contexts ( Leigh, Peters, & Shelton, 2006). Moreover, even when people have similar beliefs about which dimensions are relevant for authenticity, they may not place the same value on those dimensions ( Rose & Wood, 2005).

Thus, on the one hand, there is the general sense that the concept of authenticity refers to some evaluation of truth. On the other hand, this observation seems insufficient to capture the complex and varied ways in which the concept is often used. This tension has pushed several researchers to look for instances in which authenticity is defined or evaluated in similar ways, an approach which has resulted in a growing list of kinds of authenticity. However, because researchers working on the topic of authenticity span several disciplines and have often constructed typologies that best describe their particular phenomenon of interest, these various kinds of authenticity are seldom discussed in relation to one another. This disconnect has even led some researchers to suggest that the term "authenticity" should be abandoned outright in favor of more specialized terms corresponding to the particular domain of interest ( Reisinger & Steiner, 2006).

A review by Newman and Smith (2016a) attempted to collapse these different approaches intro a more manageable set of constructs. By noting places of overlap across the existing typologies, Newman and Smith (2016a) argue that evaluations of authenticity fall into one of three broad categories: Historical, Categorical, and Values Authenticity.

For the reasons outlined above, I expected that authenticity judgments may fall into three broad categories: Historical, Categorical, and Values authenticity. To test this, I created a list of 100 goods and experiences that could be rated as "authentic." I then asked participants to rate each of the items in terms of how relevant a given piece of factual information would be for determining authenticity (i.e., who, what, when, where, why, how). For example, a single participant was asked to consider learning information about who touched or created an item. They then considered a randomly selected subset of the items, and for each one rated how important learning that information would be for evaluating the item's authenticity. Presumably, in cases such as Jacqueline Onassis sunglasses (one item from the study), who touched would be rated as quite relevant for authenticity, whereas for other items (e.g., eco-friendly soap) that particular information would be seen as less relevant. By iterating this process for all items, across all types of factual considerations, I could then perform a corresponding cluster analysis to determine whether in fact, three categories of authenticity emerge.

Cluster Assignments for All Items in Study 1

Mean Rating of Information Relevance Across the Three Authenticity Categories

Study 1 asked about different ways in which one might determine authenticity and looked for relevant clusters at the item-level-that is, instances in which authenticity might be evaluated in similar ways. The approach of Study 2 was to identify different kinds of authenticity at the participant-level using factor analysis. In this case, participants saw a subset of the items from Study 1, and for each item were asked to report how upset they would be if they learned that the item was not authentic. It was hypothesized that the three different types of authenticity-Historical, Categorical, and Values-would emerge as distinct factors such that a person who was, for example, concerned about owning an authentic relic from the Titanic would also be concerned about owning an authentic Babe Ruth baseball (both instances of Historical Authenticity).

I then further looked for clusters of participants who selectively valued each type of authenticity and tried to identify important demographic differences among them. In addition to basic demographic information (age, gender, income), I also examined responses to several commonly used measures of consumer motivations, including the need for belonging ( Leary, Kelly, Cottrell, & Schreindorfer, 2013), the need for control ( Burger & Cooper, 1979), and the need for uniqueness ( Ruvio, Shoham, & Brenčič, 2008). These particular scales were selected because of recent empirical research linking the need for belonging to the valuation of some authentic items ( Newman & Smith, 2016b), as well as research ( Beverland & Farrelly, 2010) which has suggested authenticity consumption involves three consumer motivations of connection, control, and virtue.

Factor Loadings for Items in Study 2

Average Factor Scores Associated With Each of the Participant Clusters (PC) in Study 2

Standardized Beta Coefficients From Linear Regression Analyses Predicting the Historical, Categorical, and Values Authenticity Factors

Arguably, one of the primary questions facing researchers working on the topic of authenticity concerns how the concept itself should be defined. To date, researchers have attempted to answer this by constructing various typologies that best explain their domain of interest. From an analysis of the existing literature, three broad kinds of authenticity were hypothesized: Historical, Categorical, and Values authenticity. Using converging methods, empirical support was obtained for the existence of this tripartite classification.

It should be noted, however, that I conceptualize these three kinds of authenticity as different dimensions of consideration, or "lenses," rather than as exclusive categories. That is, each type of authenticity focuses on a unique aspect of verification: verifying an object's history and its connection to certain people, places or events (Historical Authenticity); verifying that an entity conforms to beliefs and expectations about a particular category (Categorical Authenticity); and, verifying that the motivations and values of the producer are Values with certain expectations (Values Authenticity). A particular dimension may spontaneously arise when considering a particular type of object. However, the same object may also be evaluated according to all three of these dimensions.

A second main goal was methodological. As noted in the Introduction, the typologies arising from previous papers have been largely been identified using qualitative methods. That is, researchers have often proceeded by identifying similar patterns of reasoning among participants (often via structured interviews) and categorizing them. Although this approach has yielded important advances, it was unclear whether lay participants themselves distinguish between these various kinds authenticity or view them as importantly different from one another. The present studies instead had large numbers of participants provide responses to multiple items (spanning many different types of objects and experiences) and then used various quantitative techniques to identify latent constructs in the data. What is remarkable is that this approach does find evidence for the same basic clusters that were theorized from more qualitative analyses. This is heartening both for establishing the ecological validity of these three kinds of authenticity, as well as more broadly, suggesting important complementarities across different research approaches.

Of the three clusters, Values authenticity seems to be the broadest and, for that reason, perhaps the least defined of the categories. The types goods and experiences captured by this construct seem to include performances, experiences, and products that are manufactured in a particular way, and licensed and brand-name products. The common theme among these various types of items seems to be that to assess authenticity, observers take into account some information about the producer's intentions. That said, the relevant type of intention may vary widely across different domains, and for that reason, Values authenticity may readily decompose into more nuanced subsets (as was observed in Study 1). For example, one item having to do with licensing (Harvard Sweatshirt) was part of the Values authenticity cluster in Study 1, while it was part of the Categorical cluster in Study 2. This difference could be attributable to different methodologies the two studies. Or, it may be that these the "licensing" items do not neatly conform to any of the constructs.

One interesting avenue for future research may be to explore Values authenticity further to identify how notions of this type of authenticity may change depending on the good or experience that is evaluated. Indeed, Spiggle, Nguyen, and Caravella (2012) found that within considerations of brand extensions, consumers focus on several distinct dimensions including maintaining brand standards and style, honoring brand heritage, preserving brand essence, and avoiding brand exploitation. Several of these would seem to draw on assessments of intentions and the producer's values and yet, there also seems to be important nuanced differences across them. Therefore, Values Authenticity may be unique in the sense that it may comprise many different but interrelated subtypes of authenticity.

Finally, existing research on authenticity has been relatively silent on consumer motivations or antecedent processes. For example, it is unclear whether different individuals are more concerned about one type of authenticity versus another, or whether different motivations may encourage people to focus on different kinds of authenticity. Drawing on the qualitative analysis of Beverland and Farrelly (2010) and Newman and Smith (2016b), I identified the importance of three motivational factors (connection, control, uniqueness), which appear to play different roles in people's sensitivity to different kinds of authenticity.

One promising avenue for future research may be to examine these antecedent processes further to identify what motivates people to seek out different kinds of authenticity. For example, the motivations examined here were inspired by existing research ( Beverland & Farrelly, 2010), but perhaps there are additional antecedent processes that enhance sensitivity to authenticity more generally or relate more precisely to the specific subtypes identified here.

One example might include preferences for retro products. Existing research has shown that people have a psychological motivation to view their broader social system as just, fair, and good (i.e., system justification theory; Jost & Banaji, 1994). Moreover, several studies have identified an import causal link between system justifying ideologies and a preference toward "essential" explanations. For example, recent experiments have shown that threats to the social system enhance preferences for products that provide a source of stability, such as brand name products ( Cutright, Wu, Banfield, Kay, & Fitzsimons, 2011). Some preliminary evidence suggests that retro products may serve to satisfy system justifying motives because those products are seen as reflecting the core, or essence of the particular product category and therefore, consuming them provides a source of stability when the broader social system is threatened.

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The Psychology of Authenticity - George E. Newman, 2019

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Abstract Perceptions of authenticity (or, inauthenticity) have been shown to affect people's judgments and behavior across a wide variety of domains. However, there is still ambiguity about how the concept should be defined. This is attributable, at least in part, to a growing list of different "kinds of authenticity" with little discussion of the potential overlaps between them.

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Almost wherever we look, depictions of sexuality, both subtle and not-so-subtle, are omnipresent. Whatever the medium, popular culture representations tell us something about ourselves and about the ideologies of which they are symptomatic. These essays examine the strategies of power implicit in popular representations of sexuality. The authors-scholars in fields such as sociology, philosophy, biology, political science, history, and English literature- eschew rigid disciplinary boundaries.

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Almost wherever we look, depictions of sexuality, both subtle and not-so-subtle, are omnipresent. Whatever the medium, popular culture representations tell us something about ourselves and about the ideologies of which they are symptomatic. These essays examine the strategies of power implicit in popular representations of sexuality.

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Stereotype or success? Prime-time television’s portrayals of gay male, lesbian, and bisexual characters - PubMed

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The current content analysis of prime-time network television during the fall of 2001 seeks to identify the representation of Gay male, Lesbian, and Bisexual characters in shows known to have one reoccurring homosexual character based on the theories of Clark and Berry. Clark (1969) established four…

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t feels as if the 00s are having a bit of a moment right now. Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are back together, a Gossip Girl reboot just dropped, and the cast of Sex and the City - minus Kim Cattrall - are busy filming on the streets of New York City. But a lot has changed since the 00s: as I studied the familiar image of an impeccably dressed Ms Bradshaw with her pal Stanford Blatch, I couldn't help but wonder ... is the "gay best friend" now a thing of the past?

In the 2000s - long before Lil Nas X was giving the devil a lap dance in PVC boots - representations of gay men in films and TV shows often revolved round the "gay best friend" stereotype. From Damian ("too gay to function!") in Mean Girls to Stanley Tucci in The Devil Wears Prada and Burlesque, the GBF often played the sidekick to a woman, providing emotional support and fashion tips along the way. SATC's Stanford Blatch and Anthony Marentino, a colourfully dressed talent agent and sharp-tongued wedding planner respectively, were the quintessential gay best friends. They worked in creative jobs, were armed with witty one-liners and rarely had their own storylines.

Reality TV leaned into this trope, too. When Paris Hilton - a 00s cultural phenomenon - filmed her quest to find her "new BFF", the winners of her US and UK competition shows were both gay men. But it feels like scripted TV shows and films had a particular love for the GBF. The screenwriter Amrou Al-Kadhi (Little America, Hollyoaks, The Watch) says that it was "the perfect way" for platforms to represent gay characters without having to think of them sexually. "The GBF was always a bit of a eunuch: sexually harmless, more a court jester than anything else," Al-Kadhi says. "Commercial platforms felt they were doing their bit for 'inclusion' without potentially upsetting advertisers. It's an unthreatening gay representation that was intrinsically tied to commerciality."

Dapper laughs ... Andrew Rannells as Elijah Krantz in Girls. Photograph: HBO

Looking back, Al-Kadhi thinks that this stereotype did more harm than good. "I think it was quite harmful for younger queer audiences to only see themselves in this way, as Shakespearean fools; not intrinsic to the story, but more there to offer the straights some comic relief."

So what's changed? From the mid-2000s and towards the start of the 2010s, gay characters began evolving. Television led the way: in Ugly Betty, the stereotype of gay men as fashion-obsessed and bitchy remained. But the show spotlighted several LGBTQ+ characters and afforded its gay leads - fashion assistant turned editor Marc St James and Betty's nephew Justin - a depth to which audiences had previously been unaccustomed. Similarly, in Ryan Murphy's Gle e, fashion-obsessed Kurt Hummel's relationship with his dad and teenage romance storylines were handled with a new level of openness and sensitivity. In the UK, the soaps also became noticeably gayer, with Hollyoaks in particular becoming home to a wide spectrum of queer storylines.

Now characters from a variety of LGBTQ+ identities are increasingly seen in bigger roles. Elijah from Girls, played by Andrew Rannells, had a character arc that represents this shift. He started the show off as a "best friend", of sorts, but ended as an integral part of the story, having gone on a journey in his romantic relationships, friendships and career. From Schitt's Creek to Pose, it feels as if there's a move away from shallow stereotypes towards a greater embrace of fluidity across the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

Make a song and dance about it ... Chris Colfer (centre) as Kurt Hummel in Glee. Photograph: AA Film Archive/Alamy

An important part of the move from witty-but-shallow sidekick to protagonist is that queer characters aren't confined to being "good guys" either: Killing Eve and The Assassination of Gianni Versace spotlight terrifying villains. This newfound complexity coincides with an exploration of queer history too: Russell T Davies followed the success of Queer As Folk and Cucumber with critically acclaimed drama It's a Sin, which starred a group of mostly gay characters in 1980s London. In a similar style to the 2014 film Pride, the Channel 4 drama depicted a group of friends who were each a combination of flaws, redeeming traits and struggles. Jill - a character who was presumed to be straight - occupied the role of "best friend", emphasising just how much has changed.

Al-Kadhi thinks that stereotypes such as the GBF are dying out because more LGBTQ+ characters are being created by queer people. "Queer people are able to take charge of their own stories a lot more, and gay representation has massively improved as audiences have come to expect distinct authorship in storytelling," they say. "People can tell when something is phony, and authenticity is what sells a show to audiences these days."

As someone who grew up being starved of any vaguely realistic portrayals of gay life on screen, I'm glad that shows such as the new Gossip Girl- which promises to be " queer AF " compared to its astonishingly heterosexual 00s predecessor - are moving with the times. Perhaps when Carrie Bradshaw slips on her Manolo Blahniks once again for the SATC reboot, it'll be a chance to give GBFs Stanford and Anthony a little more depth. My fingers are crossed, because gay men are a lot more than chic outfits and one-liners - and the "gay best friend" is a trend I'm hoping won't be back in fashion any time soon.
Gossip Girl airs later this year on BBC One and BBC iPlayer

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The 'gay best friend': has TV's laziest cliche finally fallen out of fashion?

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t feels as if the 00s are having a bit of a moment right now. Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are back together, a Gossip Girl reboot just dropped, and the cast of Sex and the City - minus Kim Cattrall - are busy filming on the streets of New York City.

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Queer Representation, Visibility, and Race in American Film and Television : Screening the Closet.

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Queer Representation, Visibility, and Race in American Film and Television : Screening the Closet.

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There's a key scene in the second episode of the new ITV drama Bob And Rose, in which the hero - about to go out on a first date - hesitates beside a bowl of assorted condoms next to his bed. He first picks up one of the squishy squares and then drops it, before changing his mind again and grabbing a prophylactic for luck.

In a conventional television romance, this sequence would establish that the central character was modest (no immediate assumption of sex with someone he's just met) but also responsible, while reassuring the television regulators that the broadcaster is not encouraging unwanted pregnancies. In Bob And Rose, though, this brief scene with the sheaths has more layers than the most super-strong condom.

Bob (Alan Davies) is gay. During the first episode, set at most over a few days, he has sex (off-screen, for this is ITV) with two men picked up in clubs. Yet he is about to go for dinner with Rose (Lesley Sharp), an intense heterosexual who has surprised Bob by giving him a stiffie when they kissed goodnight. So, in this context, Bob's worrying over whether to take a rubber neatly establishes his bodily apostasy - he is thinking of having sex with a woman - while also reassuring the viewer that Rose is at no risk of infection. Bob uses protection on both sides of the fence. A single condom hasn't carried this much weight except in the stress tests at the factory.

This multi-loaded moment is a sign of the economy and quality of the script: Bob And Rose is written by Russell T Davies, who brilliantly extended the sexual range of British television in Channel 4's Queer As Folk. The commission of Bob And Rose by ITV was cited by its controller of channels David Liddiment, in a speech at the Edinburgh Television Festival attacking the BBC for cynical populism, as an example of the kind of brave programming he was prepared to impose on his advertisers.

The plot of a gay man turned round by love has already been explored in the movies The Object Of My Affection and The Next Best Thing. In the ITV version, the duo meet late at night while searching for a taxi after failed evenings which have left them both thinking "bloody men", although Rose assumes he's thinking "bloody women". The main challenge - as it was for the Hollywood screenwriters - is to make convincing a gay man's surprise at what's happening in his trousers, without looking like a commercial for one of those American Bible-study courses which promise to "cure" gay men.

The script's evidence that Bob and Rose are falling in love is that they make each other laugh a lot. I'm not sure that's enough, as the gay man as jester or laughter-track for thirtysomething straight women is an accepted role in modern fiction and modern life. In those cases, the power of the relationship is that there's no genital potential.

You feel that on Channel 4, Davies would have been more explicit about the physical and mental mechanics of what's happening. Is Bob's female-inspired erection unprecedented? Do vaginas frighten him? But all that the writer Davies and the actor Davies can give us on a mainstream channel is decorous incomprehension resembling that of a man who thought he'd put out the downstairs light then found he hadn't.

Even so, Bob and Rose further confirms that Russell T Davies is a very clever writer. A mark of his talent for television drama is that he makes the moment of Rose's realisation that Bob is gay visual rather than verbal. He's forced to remove his shirt to reveal an undertop with the slogan: I Can't Even Think Straight.

In dialogue, direction and acting, there's no doubt that Bob and Rose is a classy product of which David Liddiment and the ITV network should be proud. Yet Liddiment cited it as an example of "risk-taking" on commercial television. What, though, is the risk?

Diligent in illustrating that Bob practices safe sex, Bob And Rose is itself never at risk dramatically of anything but a conventional conception. Two people overcoming an obstacle to pursue true love is a plot for which advertisers have been paying millions on ITV for decades. In the past, the barrier to romance has been class, a marriage, an illness, a misunderstanding. In this case, it happens to be that the boy used to prefer boys before he met the girl.

The past-tense verb, however, is crucial. Even the most homophobic Joe Six-Pack in the ITV audience could watch the opening episodes nodding happily that the queer has seen sense and decided to play for the first team. Madonna's The Next Best Thing was realistic in its depiction of the likely outcome of a gay-straight romance and the key question is how psychologically accurate ITV has allowed Davies to be in predicting the couple's future.

This is exceptionally well-written popular drama, but the slogan on its T-shirt is more reassuring than it initially appears. Real risk-taking on ITV would be, for example, a series about a married man or woman leaving their partner for a same-sex relationship. It seems unlikely that Mr Liddiment will be frightening advertisers with that.

Like the American sitcom Will And Grace - to which its title seems to send a friendly wave - Bob And Rose seems to occupy the Portillo Position on homosexuality: it's something a man gets over before settling down. One reason Portillo failed to become Tory leader is that he made two constituencies suspicious. Homophobic people thought he was gay; gay people thought he was homophobic. By apparently following the plot of the former Defence Secretary's life, Bob And Rose may face the same double jeopardy with the audience.

* Bob And Rose, tonight, 9pm, ITV1.

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There's a key scene in the second episode of the new ITV drama Bob And Rose, in which the hero - about to go out on a first date - hesitates beside a bowl of assorted condoms next to his bed.

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George R.R. Martin on Writing Gay Characters

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DIVA INTERVIEW: SURANNE ON STRAIGHT ACTORS PLAYING QUEER ROLES

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Nearly one in five people are unhappy about the depiction of gay, lesbian and bisexual people on TV and radio, according to a report commissioned by the BBC.

A survey found that 18% feel "uncomfortable" or "very uncomfortable" with it, even after the 9pm watershed. Just under half of respondents said they were either comfortable or ambivalent.

Around a fifth of straight people said there was too much content relating to gay people on TV generally, although 46% said the volume was about right. Many lesbians felt there were not enough gay women on TV and most were portrayed either as "butch" or "lipstick lesbians".

Gay men said they would welcome a more realistic portrayal of gay life and criticised a tendency to feature camp men, though they said this was improving.

The research also found that landmark gay storylines were regarded as hugely important by gay respondents. Gay characters on soaps such as EastEnders and Coronation Street were also seen as important. The study is one the biggest of its kind, based on a survey of more than 1,600 people and discussion groups involving 500. A BBC public consultation had more than 9,400 responses. The findings will shape coverage for years to come and could lead to the introduction of more lesbian characters in the corporation's dramas.

Tim Davie, the BBC's head of audio, who chairs a working group on improving coverage of the gay community, said the research would help achieve more "authentic and diverse" portrayals. "The BBC has a responsibility to serve all our audiences as best we can and there are clear commitments we are taking from this study. We have already begun to share the research with content teams across the BBC in order to continue the progress we have made towards achieving more authentic and diverse portrayal of lesbian, gay and bisexual people."

Lesbians also felt there is was far too little coverage of gay female characters. The research also found that landmark storylines and "standout" moments on TV and radio are regarded as hugely important by gay respondents.

They include a rare pre-watershed on-screen kiss on Channel 4's Brookside in 1994, now regarded as one of the most memorable scenes in British TV history. More recent examples mentioned by respondents typically took place in dramas such as Channel 4's Shameless and Skins, and the US drama The Wire, which was broadcast on BBC2 last year. Gay men regarded Queer as Folk, another Channel 4 series, as the most influential show of its type, while lesbians cited Sugar Rush and Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, among others.

There was a recognition that soaps such as EastEnders and Coronation Street, which have prominent gay characters, also play an important role.

Channel 4 was widely praised for its portrayal of gay men, with 52% describing its coverage as quite or very good compared with 43% who said the same about the BBC's. Channel's 4's output was called "ground-breaking" by 44% of gay men.

Two previous Channel 4 series, Queer as Folk and Armistead Maupim's Tales of the City, based on the author's books based in San Francisco, were both singled out for praise.

Gay women said lesbians were often British broadcasters were guilty of portraying lesbians as either "butch" or "lipstick lesbians" and said they should follow the examples of their US counterparts, which they said programmes tended to convey a more nuanced view of the community.

The BBC will now make recommendations to the BBC Trust. They include introducing "incidental" gay characters whose sexuality is not their defining feature.
Topics

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One in five unhappy with portrayal of homosexuality on TV, report claims

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Nearly one in five people are unhappy about the depiction of gay, lesbian and bisexual people on TV and radio, according to a report commissioned by the BBC. A survey found that 18% feel "uncomfortable" or "very uncomfortable" with it, even after the 9pm watershed.

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Russell T Davis's groundbreaking drama set in and around the Manchester gay scene

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Watch It’s A Sin | Stream free on Channel 4

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Drama from Russell T Davies about five friends. With their lives tested as they grow up in the shadow of AIDS, they’re determined to live and love more fiercely than ever.

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Russell T Davies Talk Responsibility of the writer 

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Russell T Davies Talk Responsibility of the writer 

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Russell T Davies : It’s a Sin, Queer as Folk and the responsibility of a writer

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an evening with it’s a sin’s russell t davies and omari douglas

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an evening with it’s a sin’s russell t davies and omari douglas tickets

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An evening with It's a Sin's Russell T Davies and Omari Douglas

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Eventbrite - The Guardian Live presents An evening with It's a Sin's Russell T Davies and Omari Douglas - Wednesday, 16 June 2021 - Find event and ticket information.

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Octavia Spencer has said she struggled to win leading roles in Hollywood after securing an Oscar for race drama The Help in 2012. The 44-year-old star also told The Beast that black and ethnic-minority actors often found it difficult to win high-profile parts on the big screen.

Spencer, who has since made the shift to television in search of starring roles, said she found herself constantly offered supporting parts despite her status as an Oscar winner. The actor will play Nurse Jackson, matron of a hospital ward for sick teenagers, in the drama Red Band Society on the US Fox network this Autumn.

"The roles I'm being offered in film are too small to sink your teeth into, and I thought it was time to be able to live with a character at inception and travel with her to fruition, and allow myself to evolve as an actress," said Spencer of her decision to move to the small screen. "I don't get that opportunity in movies, where they ask me, 'Will you play the distraught mom of this boy?' I say, 'Sure, but I've played it before.'"

Asked if she felt black actors in particular struggled to find acceptance from film studios, Spencer suggested all ethnic minorities found the going tough on the big screen.

"There are so few roles out there," she said. "And even if it is a film that could be led by a black actress, how many times is that film going to get funded? Let's just be real.

"But it's not just black people. It's Asians, it's Hispanic people if you're not Salma Hayek. It's hard. It's hard to get films funded. It's a business thing, and you have to change the mindset of people around here."

Spencer went on to praise blockbuster superhero movies such as Thor, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 for boasting diverse casts. But she said television remained "light years ahead".

"Little kids need to be able to turn on the TV and see real-world representations of themselves," she said. "It's very important. You need that representation." Spencer said she would like to see decisions based on "the best actor for the part", adding: "Who cares if the lead is an Asian male? If this is the best actor for that role, why does the role have to be indicative of a person's ethnicity?"

Spencer won the Oscar for best supporting actress in 2012 for her role as Minny Jackson, an African-American maid working for a white employer in Tate Taylor's 60s-set civil-rights drama.

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Ethnic-minority actors still struggling in Hollywood, says Octavia Spencer

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Octavia Spencer has said she struggled to win leading roles in Hollywood after securing an Oscar for race drama The Help in 2012. The 44-year-old star also told The Beast that black and ethnic-minority actors often found it difficult to win high-profile parts on the big screen.

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Journal Information

Current issues are now on the Chicago Journals website. Read the latest issue.Recognized as the leading international journal in women's studies, Signs is at the forefront of new directions in feminist scholarship. The journal publishes pathbreaking articles, review essays, comparative perspectives, and retrospectives of interdisciplinary interest addressing gender, race, culture, class, nation, and sexuality. Special issue and section topics cover a broad range of geopolitical processes, conditions, and effects; cultural and social configurations; and scholarly and theoretical developments.

Publisher Information

Since its origins in 1890 as one of the three main divisions of the University of Chicago, The University of Chicago Press has embraced as its mission the obligation to disseminate scholarship of the highest standard and to publish serious works that promote education, foster public understanding, and enrich cultural life. Today, the Journals Division publishes more than 70 journals and hardcover serials, in a wide range of academic disciplines, including the social sciences, the humanities, education, the biological and medical sciences, and the physical sciences.

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Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence on JSTOR

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Journal Information Current issues are now on the Chicago Journals website. Read the latest issue.Recognized as the leading international journal in women's studies, Signs is at the forefront of new directions in feminist scholarship. The journal publishes pathbreaking articles, review essays, comparative perspectives, and retrospectives of interdisciplinary interest addressing gender, race, culture, class, nation, and sexuality.

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Authenticity in culture, self and society

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Authenticity in culture, self and society

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Authenticity in Culture, Self, and Society addresses the problems surrounding the concept of authenticity by offering its first sociological analysis. Compiled by a team of experts from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, it provides readers with a survey of original empirical studies focused on its experience, negotiation, and social relevance at the levels of self, culture, and specific social settings.

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Authenticity in Culture, Self, and Society

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Authenticity in Culture, Self, and Society addresses the problems surrounding the concept of authenticity by offering its first sociological analysis. Compiled by a team of experts from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, it provides readers with a survey of original empirical studies focused on its experience, negotiation, and social relevance at the levels of self, culture, and specific social settings.

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ussell T Davies's new drama, It's a Sin (Channel 4), is something of a companion piece, 20 years on, to his groundbreaking masterpiece Queer as Folk. The latter was the riotous celebration of gay urban life as led by three friends broadly representing different stages of exploration as they embraced life as hot single men. In essence it was a gorgeous fantasy, designed to counteract both the historic worthiness and prejudice surrounding such depictions.

What it did not do was look much at the darkness out of which such freedom had emerged and which still shadowed the lives of its Canal Street party people. It didn't, in short, deal with the effects of Aids on the gay community.

It's a Sin does. Without losing any of Davies's gusto, irreverence, joy or subtlety, it follows the lives of three young gay men, Ritchie (Olly Alexander), Roscoe (Omari Douglas) and Colin (Callum Scott Howells) who move to London. They evolve into - in Armistead Maupin's lovely phrase - each other's logical family (along with Ritchie's university best friend Jill, played by Lydia West) as they commit themselves to the enjoyment of every freedom the city has to offer.

But the group arrive in 1981, just as the first reports of a new disease are making their way across the Atlantic. The shadows are starting to gather by the end of the first episode, which is mostly devoted to establishing the characters and their relationships in full measure. It is Davies's great gift to be able to create real, flawed, entirely credible bundles of humanity and make it clear, without even momentary preachiness, how much they have to lose.

The most hedonistic are Ritchie - who has left a loving, unthinkingly homophobic home in the Isle of Wight to study at university - and Roscoe, who had to flee (in fantastically defiant fashion) a deeply religious household set on driving the homosexuality out of him even if they had to return to their native Nigeria. Colin, from the Welsh valleys, is quieter, thrilled by his new job at a tailor's and befriended by an older colleague, Henry (Neil Patrick Harris), a sweet, gentle man who has been living with his partner, Pablo, for 30 years.

Henry and Pablo both fall ill at the same time with ... cancer? Tuberculosis? Pneumonia? No one really knows, but Pablo's mother forces him home to Portugal and Henry is left brutally isolated in a hospital ward. At one point, the doctors think it might be psittacosis, a lung disease contracted from, among other birds, parrots. "You haven't got a parrot though, have you?" says Colin. "Of course I haven't got a fucking parrot," replies his friend.

This all takes on a special resonance, of course, in the time of Covid. We can empathise that bit more with the fear, uncertainty and responses rational and irrational to the emergence of a new disease. Ritchie favours denial. Jill, her slight distance from what was seen by many as "the gay plague" giving her a different perspective, begins to arm herself with knowledge. We can also identify with endless, mindless joys coming to a painful halt, the jostling within oneself of reason and unreason - and perhaps in episodes to come, the wrestling with woefully inadequate and incompetent government responses to a proliferating crisis.

As the series moves through the decade, the subject matter naturally darkens but never loses its funniness or fleetness. It's possible some will complain that Davies does not treat the subject as sombrely as it deserves. This is nonsense. Fleetness and funniness are the essence of life, and only by making them as central to characters, as Davies does, can you convey the depth of the tragedy about to unfold. It's a Sin looks set not just to be to Queer as Folk's companion piece but its companion masterpiece.

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It's a Sin review - Russell T Davies has created a masterpiece of poignancy

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ussell T Davies's new drama, It's a Sin (Channel 4), is something of a companion piece, 20 years on, to his groundbreaking masterpiece Queer as Folk. The latter was the riotous celebration of gay urban life as led by three friends broadly representing different stages of exploration as they embraced life as hot single men.

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Russell T Davies "its all about authenticity"

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Russell T Davies "its all about authenticity"

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It's A Sin creator Russell T Davies has said he believes gay roles should be played by gay actors.

The writer and showrunner, who also worked on Queer As Folk and A Very English Scandal, said "it's about authenticity" when discussing the ongoing debate.

Ahead of his upcoming Channel 4 series It's A Sin, following a group of young gay men who move to London during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, Davies spoke of his decision to cast gay actors.

The show is set to star Years & Years ' Olly Alexander, as well as Neil Patrick Harris and Stephen Fry.

"I'm not being woke about this... but I feel strongly that if I cast someone in a story, I am casting them to act as a lover, or an enemy, or someone on drugs or a criminal or a saint... they are not there to 'act gay' because 'acting gay' is a bunch of codes for a performance," Davies told Radio Times.

"It's about authenticity, the taste of 2020. You wouldn't cast someone able-bodied and put them in a wheelchair, you wouldn't black someone up. Authenticity is leading us to joyous places."

Reflecting on his casting in the show back in 2019, Alexander had said: "I feel like the luckiest boy in the world to be a part of this project. I've been a fan of Russell T Davies ever since I watched Queer As Folk in secret at 14 years old.

"His work helped shape my identity as a gay person so I'm absolutely over the moon we'll be working together. The script was amazing to read, I laughed and I cried a lot, it's a privilege to be helping to tell this story and I'm so excited."

It's A Sin will premiere on Channel 4 on January 22.

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Russell T Davies says gay roles should be played by gay actors

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It's A Sin creator Russell T Davies has said he believes gay roles should be played by gay actors. The writer and showrunner, who also worked on Queer As Folk and A Very English Scandal, said "it's about authenticity" when discussing the ongoing debate.

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The Authenticity Paradox | Professor Herminia Ibarra | TEDxLondonBusinessSchool

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Neil Patrick Harris

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On the subject of "Queer as Folk," the groundbreaking early 2000s drama that featured mostly straight actors playing gay, Harris said he was a big fan.

"It was one of the real true turning points for me as examples of sexy guys behaving as leads in something of import, not as comic sidekicks," the "Doogie Howser, M.D." star said. "I think there's something sexy about casting a straight actor to play a gay role, if they're willing to invest a lot into it. There's a nervousness that comes from the newness of it all. To declare that you'd never do that, you might miss opportunities."

But not everyone obviously agrees. Back in November, out actor Wentworth Miller said he wouldn't participate in a "Prison Break" revival, if one happens, because he is done playing straight characters.

"At this point in my life/career, it's what feels interesting, inspiring, right," he wrote. "That said, do I want to see more gay parts played by gay actors? Yes. It makes a difference performance-wise (IMO), but also bec straight actors playing 'gay' centers straightness. Doesn't matter if they're 'acting' - I still know what I'm looking at."

Kristen Stewart also recently opened up about the topic of straight actors playing gay, saying she thinks "about this all the time."

"I would never want to tell a story that really should be told by somebody who's lived that experience," Stewart said. "Having said that, it's a slippery slope conversation because that means I could never play another straight character if I'm going to hold everyone to the letter of this particular law. I think it's such a gray area."

For Harris, he intends to continue playing straight characters.

"In our world that we live in you can't really as a director demand that (an actor be gay or straight)," he said, adding the question: "Who's to determine how gay someone is?"

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Neil Patrick Harris shares his thoughts on straight actors playing gay characters

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On the subject of "Queer as Folk," the groundbreaking early 2000s drama that featured mostly straight actors playing gay, Harris said he was a big fan. "It was one of the real true turning points for me as examples of sexy guys behaving as leads in something of import, not as comic sidekicks," the "Doogie Howser, M.D."