MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Queer culture has been theorized as having a special relationship with urban space and the majority of writing on LGBTQ issues has focused on the city. John D’Emilio points out that queer identities emerged together with the historical development of urban capitalism, and rural to urban migration, which ultimately altered (heterosexual) family relations. Within this urban (mostly New York City) queer writing tradition, “rural” – has been infused with tales of isolation, prejudice, and physical violence characterizing the experiences of the queers who live there. Interestingly, whereas the realities of non-urban queer individuals have largely been ignored, the symbolic positioning of the rural space of uncontrolled violence has been solidified by a few particular celebrity cases of violence against gender nonconforming people: Matthew Shepard and Brandon Teena. This paper will discuss the filmic and popular culture representations of these celebrity cases and connect them to perspectives of LGBTQ people in the South. More specifically, I will draw on the oral histories that I’ve conducted with the members of a multi-gender and multi-cultural Southern queer activist organization SONG: Southerners on New Ground. Putting mainstream narratives in conversation with the perspectives of mostly non-urban queer people of color, this paper will explore how the latter view such iconic representations of anti-LGBTQ violence, and what are the experiences and images (in film, news, fiction) that have shaped their understandings of queer life.