In approximately 600-800 words, analyze how the episode you’ve selected draws upon universalizing and minoritizing discourses of race, sexuality, and/or gender.
On September 25, 2010, Saturday Night Live broadcasted, Wedding Venue, a short commercial skit satirically pointing out the controversial idea of an Islamic center being built at ground zero. This skit focuses on the discourses of sexuality and race from both a minoritizing and universalizing lens. The skit begins with a woman walking down the isle on her wedding day. Instead of being met at the alter by a man, the bride is face to face with another woman. As the narrator states, “you’ve dreamed about this day forever, the day of your gay wedding” the audience is full of laughter. This particular example minoritizes discourses on sexuality. Using Lull’s idea of hegemony, the power or dominance that one social group hold over the other, we initially assume that the bride walking down the isle is part of a heterosexual marriage, “we situate heterosexuality as norm, homosexual/bisexuality as exceptions to the norm” (Refiguring Gender on the Small Screen 3). The audience laughing symbolizes how the media interprets and shapes our ideas of marriage. This gives the audience an initiative that we are supposed to laugh at the idea of a homosexual marriage and reaffirms negative stereotypes. Today’s society is more liberal than it has ever been before, but individuals nowadays still tend to see through a minoritizing lens, “we see categories in terms of black and white, or either/or” (4). We continue rely on fixed and predictable meanings—ideas don’t change.
Not only does this skit minoritize discourses on sexuality, but we are also confronted with the issue of race other than the white male. The parody jokes that an Islamic center built in the vicinity of ground zero would be the premiere place for gay weddings, pregnancy terminations, as well as the naturalization of illegal Mexican immigrants. Americans views on Muslims and Arabs after the September 11th attacks are very biased; therefore, building an Islamic center is a very controversial issue. This view is strengthened by mass media, “owners and managers of media industries can produce and reproduce the content, inflections, and tones of ideas favorable to them far more easily than other social groups…guaranteeing that their points of view are constantly and attractively cast into the public arena” (Lull 62). Because these ethnicities and races are portrayed as “deviant” or “freakish” the skit portrays the idea that everything associated with the ‘abnormalities’ in society are also associated with the future Mosque. Gay weddings, pregnancy terminations, and the naturalization of illegal Mexican immigrants are all issues that shatter the primacy of a norm. These marginalized ideas can be more discussed through a universalizing discourse lens, “we don’t read categories as fixed or set in stone, but as fluid and open to interpretation” (Refiguring Gender on the Small Screen 4). This idea focuses on non-normative identities and bodies. By looking through this lens, putting an Islamic center by ground zero would include everyone and race in society, reaffirming the idea that meanings are always changing and contingent.
Giving a satirical message lets the writers portray controversial political issues. Individuals nowadays see through both minoritizing or universalizing lens. Although this particular skit emphasizes a minoritizing discourse, the ‘fluid like’ ideas, which are now becoming more present in society, represent the universalizing discourses. The skit’s satirical view might also be read as offering a universalizing lens by implicitly critiquing the minoritizing discourses that it depicts. Writers critique the minoritizing discourse by using modern ideas of religionized racism, gay marriage, abortions, and immigration issues—which animate much debate in America. The issues that Bill Hader presents are either unchanging or open to interpretation. It is important to represent marginalized groups in the media in order to be able to understand and gain knowledge. Hopefully in the near future individuals begin to universalize categories of sexual identity and race in order to think about the ways in which identity is fluid, changing, and more complex than how we typically view it.
Works Cited
Brown, Adriane. "Refiguring Gender on the Small Screen.” Women’s Studies 230 Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Popular Culture. 09 May 2011.
Lull, James. "Hegemony." Media, Communication, Culture: A Global Approach. New York and Chichester, UK: Columbia University Press, 1995. Print.
