Event Title
A’Lotta Masculine Guys Like’m with a Tank Full of Sugar’: Black Guy Male Effeminacy in Noah’s Arc
Location
Panel 10: Kearney 312
Start Date
27-10-2012 8:30 AM
End Date
27-10-2012 10:00 AM
Description
This paper explores the ways that black male effeminacy is articulated and embodied in Ian-Patrick Polk’s Noah’s Arc. Airing only two seasons before being cancelled by the cable network LOGO and later making its big screen debut as Noah’s Arc: Jumping the Broom, Noah’s Arc represents the first television drama centered on the lives of Black gay men: Noah, Alex, Ricky and Chance, hence the ARC. These representations are not static, but dynamic and confronts a culture of desire that conflates black male effeminacy with social stigma and perpetuates the black masculine ideal. The show depicts character relationships through feminine/ masculine dichotomies, especially the relationship between its central characters, Noah and Wade: Noah is feminine while Wade is masculine. Yet, as I argue, black male effeminacy both anchor relationships and structure transformation, which then enable character development. Through textual analysis of episodes and commentary provided on DVD “extras,” I will discuss how black male effeminacy and its association with “bottom” sexual identity politics reworks scripts of stigma and becomes the ideal mode for a liberating (black) empowerment, which manifests and culminates in “jumping the broom.”
Additional Files
A’Lotta Masculine Guys Like’m with a Tank Full of Sugar’: Black Guy Male Effeminacy in Noah’s Arc
Panel 10: Kearney 312
This paper explores the ways that black male effeminacy is articulated and embodied in Ian-Patrick Polk’s Noah’s Arc. Airing only two seasons before being cancelled by the cable network LOGO and later making its big screen debut as Noah’s Arc: Jumping the Broom, Noah’s Arc represents the first television drama centered on the lives of Black gay men: Noah, Alex, Ricky and Chance, hence the ARC. These representations are not static, but dynamic and confronts a culture of desire that conflates black male effeminacy with social stigma and perpetuates the black masculine ideal. The show depicts character relationships through feminine/ masculine dichotomies, especially the relationship between its central characters, Noah and Wade: Noah is feminine while Wade is masculine. Yet, as I argue, black male effeminacy both anchor relationships and structure transformation, which then enable character development. Through textual analysis of episodes and commentary provided on DVD “extras,” I will discuss how black male effeminacy and its association with “bottom” sexual identity politics reworks scripts of stigma and becomes the ideal mode for a liberating (black) empowerment, which manifests and culminates in “jumping the broom.”