Core Response #2: So...what’s the function of streaming Gay Porn on TV at the local bar? (Phil Miller)

After reading the McCarthy article, even though I found her analysis of the TV used in medical waiting rooms to be quite illuminating, I couldn’t help but think of how the TV functions within another space—the gay bar.  The material ignited my interest in regards to the kind of material that is broadcasted at various gay bar venues around the Los Angeles area.  Of course in every gay bar, no matter where and what type it is, will always show RuPaul’s Drag Race because that is such a staple and powerhouse of a show for LGBT representation.  However, the additional material that’s shown within the context of these bars ranges depending on the time of day, the event that night, and the overall theme of such an establishment.  Most of the time, such as gay bars in West Hollywood such as Mickey’s and Revolver, they tend to play a plethora of music videos while the DJ of the night plays their remixes of top 40 songs.  These music videos, of course, tend to be divas considered ‘gay icons’ such as Beyonce or Madonna.  However, certain bars actually push the boundaries even further by playing pornography.  These types of bars tend to be referred to as ‘leather bars,’ essentially catering to the leather fetish underground community and the ‘bear’ community itself.  I don’t necessarily think that the streaming of porn would have a kind of economic goal (basically assuming that the people that visit gay bars are capitalistic subjects) or a way to relieve crisis within the context of medical waiting rooms (as it would be argued as its function in the STD testing LGBT center in Hollywood).  I would think that the viewing of porn, in its own strange way, caters to a more politicized goal.  Many gay bars aren’t just simply bars to LGBT people.  They have and continue to serve as institutions of creating community and finding a place where many LGBT people could go and feel accepted and safe in a public space.  Therefore, I would say that the use of porn within the settings of such bars are in reference to what McCarthy says that TV can both “work to reinforce the institutional identity of the space” (McCarthy 214) and “make the space seem like an oasis of privacy, an escape and retreat from the pace and crowd of city life” (McCarthy 222).  Of course, when it comes to gay bars, it doesn’t mean an escape from crowded city life but instead a retreat from the perceived restrictive protocols of heteronormative society that doesn’t understand you nor accepts you for who you are.

Work Cited

McCarthy, Anna.  "Chapter 6: Television While You Wait."  Ambient Television: Visual Culture and Public Space, edited by Anna McCarthy, Duke University Press, 2001, pp. 195-223.