| Description |
1 online resource (227 pages) : illustrations |
| Series |
Post 45 |
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Post 45.
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| Contents |
James Baldwin and celebrity shame -- Baldwin and the celebrity novel -- Susan Sontag's impersonal stardom -- From camp to counterculture -- The moment of Myra Breckinridge -- Gore Vidal's sexuality in the public sphere -- Afterword : visibility, revisited; or, delete the closet? |
| Summary |
The first sustained study of the relations between literary celebrity and queer sexuality, Categorically Famous looks at the careers of three celebrity writers--James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, and Gore Vidal--in relation to the gay and lesbian liberation movement of the 1960s. While none of these writers "came out" in our current sense, all contributed, through their public images and their writing, to a greater openness toward homosexuality that was an important precondition of liberation. Their fame was crucial, for instance, to the growing conception of homosexuals as an oppressed minority rather than as individuals with a psychological problem. Challenging scholarly orthodoxies, Guy Davidson urges us to rethink the usual opposition to liberation and to gay and lesbian visibility within queer studies as well as standard definitions of celebrity. The conventional ban on openly discussing the homosexuality of public figures meant that media reporting at the time did not focus on his protagonists' private lives. At the same time, the careers of these "semi-visible" gay celebrities should be understood as a crucial halfway point between the era of the open secret and the present-day post-liberation era in which queer people, celebrities very much included, are enjoined to come out |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on December 18, 2020) |
| Subject |
Gay authors -- United States -- History -- 20th century
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Celebrities -- Sexual behavior -- United States -- History
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Sexual minorities -- United States -- Identity -- History
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Gay liberation movement -- United States -- History
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Fame -- Social aspects -- United States -- History
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Celebrities -- Sexual behavior
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Fame -- Social aspects
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Gay authors
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Gay liberation movement
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Sexual minorities -- Identity
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Social conditions
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Gay authors
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Sexual minorities
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| SUBJECT |
United States -- Social conditions -- 1960-1980. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85140520
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| Subject |
United States
|
| Genre/Form |
History
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| LC no. |
2018049525 |
| ISBN |
9781503609204 |
|
1503609200 |
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