Review by Choice Review
How does a nondominant culture transmit to the next generation its values, its norms, and its very cultural identity? What complications arise if the dominant culture actively attempts to subvert the nondominant culture and prevent said transmission? These are the questions that Halperin (Michigan) asks in this sociological review, which grew out of a course he offered in which these topics were discussed. While the study specifically only covers the subculture--or, more, accurately, subcultures--of gay men, there are many inferences that can be drawn for lesbian, transgender/transsexual, and bisexual subcultures. Parallels can be seen with the unsuccessful suppressions of various indigenous cultures around the world. How does a gay man know what is fabulous? What makes him connect with Judy Garland or Elizabeth Taylor? What makes him an interior decorator? Of course, not all gay men fit these stereotypes. But, there is still some indefinable thing that sets gay men apart--and it is not just sexual orientation. How this "indefinable thing" is transmitted across generations and across various ethnic and religious cultures, and how it is projected or not into the dominant culture, are questions well worth thought and discussion. This book provides a great starting point. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. S. J. Stillwell Jr. University of Arizona
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Halperin is an openly gay University of Michigan professor who achieved notoriety in 2000 when his class How to Be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation was included in the school's online-course catalog. Angry e-mails and outrage quickly followed, with the Michigan chapter of the ultraconservative American Family Association launching a crusade against a perceived militant homosexual political agenda. Based on that same controversial college course, How to Be Gay posits that gayness is not simply the act of two men having sex but a mode of perception that must be learned from and shared by other gay men. Halperin homes in on, among many topics, the yin and yang of gay male existence: the beauty and the camp. A pivotal scene from the 1945 Joan Crawford melodrama Mildred Pierce is used, repeatedly and somewhat jarringly, throughout the text as a musty yet still potent example of how gay subjectivity is shaped by heteronormative society. If this sounds a bit like reading a dry, sprawling textbook, to some degree it is, but the provocative subject matter ensures a strong niche audience.--Keech, Chris Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Rather than the how-to guide his title suggests, Halperin (Saint Foucault), a professor of the history and theory of sexuality at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, offers a response to the controversy surrounding a class he taught there in 2000. While conservatives charged Halperin with "initiating" straight students into a new sexual orientation, some gay rights advocates saw him as reinforcing hurtful stereotypes. This long-delayed answer proves to be not a polemic but an attempt to unpack his basic observation that there's far more to gay male American identity than a same-sex preference. Halperin interprets gayness through traditional pop culture preoccupations like golden age Hollywood, opera, and Broadway musicals, focusing on Joan Crawford (in particular her role in Mildred Pierce) and Faye Dunaway's notoriously over-the-top portrayal of the star in Mommie Dearest. Identifying the source of the camp appeal exerted by these ostensibly serious films, Halperin asks why gay men continue to be drawn to coded representations of their experience. He arrives at an apologia for such cliched signposts of gayness in an era of domestic partnerships and Born This Way. Halperin persuasively defuses charges of misogyny lobbed against gay male culture, but may alienate some by too narrowly defining his vision of what that culture should be. Nonetheless, this book should appeal to specialists and general readers alike with its academically rigorous but accessible argument. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In 2000, the University of Michigan course catalog listed a class to be taught by Halperin (history & theory of sexuality, Univ. of Michigan; How To Do the History of Homosexuality), titled "How To Be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation." Halperin found himself attacked in the press both from the left (for perpetrating unflattering stereotypes) and the right (for attempting to recruit and convert straights to the joys of the gay). In fact, the course did neither, but examined the evolution of the social and cultural (as opposed to sexual) orientation of gay men in modern North American society. This book, with the same provocative title, serves both as an apologia and an amplification of that course. Halperin parses the pop culture of movies, music, style, camp, drag, and those totemic figures known as gay icons, to reveal the dirty little secret that many gay people may not wish to hear: there's a hard little kernel of truth behind the stereotypes. VERDICT Not exactly the light read that the title implies, this thoroughly researched work is nevertheless more accessible than the typical scholarly tome. Recommended for serious readers interested in the sociology and psychology of human sexuality and gender politics.-Richard J. Violette, Greater Victoria P.L., B.C., Canada (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Halperin (History and Theory of Sexuality/Univ. of Michigan; What Do Gay Men Want?, 2010, etc.) attempts to deconstruct various aspects of gay male culture. In 2000, a catalog description of the author's undergraduate English course, "How To Be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation," appeared on the National Review website and caused a storm of controversy. The course aimed to "explore gay men's unique, characteristic relation to mainstream culture." Likely due to its provocative title, the course drew fire from across the political spectrum. Conservative critics charged that the university was "promoting" a gay "lifestyle," while others charged that the course was trafficking in and perpetuating gay stereotypes. Halperin wrote this book, he writes, to "make clear the genuineness of the intellectual stakes in [his] inquiry into gay male culture." To that end, the author narrows his focus, perhaps too drastically, by largely concentrating on a few scenes from the Oscar-winning 1945 Joan Crawford film Mildred Pierce and the bizarre 1981 Crawford film bio Mommie Dearest. Along the way, he makes occasionally interesting, if repetitive, points about the roles that melodrama and the pop-cultural portrayal of women play in gay male culture. But he also embarks on unnecessary digressions, as when he criticizes at length a 4-year-old Time Out New York article that implied that some aspects of gay culture might be on the wane. He also oddly spends several pages analyzing Sonic Youth's 1990 song and video "Mildred Pierce" and lambasting "hipsterism." Throughout, Halperin struggles unproductively with many of the questions he raises, while also leaning heavily on academic social-science jargon. An unsatisfying and scattered analysis.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
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