How Conservative newspapers use language to describe homosexual people in the 1950s, the 1980s and in recent years.
Introduction
“That’s so gay” has been an insult for years, being yelled spitefully in the playground at primary school to describing an outfit in later years. Being homosexual is considered insulting and an affront to the heteronormality of our world. The implication that homosexuality is wrong, immoral and imprisonable still rings true in some countries and many hold the opinion that being part of the LGBT community makes you a lesser person. Despite the offensive language that has plagued people's personal language, the media, the epitome of standard and precise English, is a major part of the problem.
Although the purpose of the media is to inform and educate people, misinformation, slander, and all-around upsetting coverage has perpetuated newspapers through time. Newspapers are commended, approved with high regard, and are relied on for information as people take the news as gospel, not stopping to recognise that writing can be biased. The Media Insight Project (1) believes that blind trust was a vital part of the success of the news industry. “It’s not only a journalistic aspiration but a business imperative. People who put a higher premium on trust‑related factors are more engaged with news, are more likely to pay for it, install news apps, or share and promote news with their friends.”
However, since the 50s, newspapers have written about homosexual people that have affected views of them: in the 1950s, before homosexuality was legalised after the Sexual Offenses Act of 1967 and homosexuality was still considered sinful and wrong; in the 1980s, during the AIDS epidemic where misinformation was spread about gay people causing the spread of disease; in the modern age, where homosexuality is legal, yet negative opinions are still held from earlier years.
I aim to look at what role media has in shaping these negative ideals within certain papers: The Birmingham Post, Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, and Truth from the 50s; The Mail on Sunday, The Sun, and News of the World from the 80s; The Daily Mail and Sunday Sun for the modern era. To gain an understanding of people's perspectives of the LGBT community, one must first look at the most influential structure in society: the media.
Hypothesis
I predict my findings will include:
Null Hypothesis
Newspapers purposefully create divides between ‘normal people’ (the readers) and those who are not (LGBT folk in this scenario)
Language against homosexual people has softened over time with the legalisation of both homosexuality and gay marriage/same-sex partnership since people are concerned about being accused of discriminatory behaviour – from the introduction of the Equality Act in 2010
Harsher language was used in the past since more people shared the same opinion on homosexual people
Alternative Hypothesis
Newspapers are not purposefully creating divides between ‘normal people’ (the readers) and those who are not (LGBT folk in this scenario)
Language against homosexual people has not softened over time
Harsher language was not used in the past against homosexual people
Methodology
The data used in this investigation was found through multiple sources. I utilised British Newspaper Archives (BNA) (2) to find articles from the 50s. Since the BNA has been cited as a reliable source, I made use of the free subscription to find articles that fit my brief.
I used a Buzzfeed news article (3) to find the headlines from the 1980s, where the majority spoke about the AIDS crisis and the flurry of misinformation spread. I chose to write about how these headlines helped draw readers in, as well as spreading misinformation and deceit.
The modern age news stories were easy to find since the 2018 story, written by Richard Littlejohn (4), was still up on the Daily Mail website. In 2008, there was a scandal where Jon Qwelane wrote an offensive article in which he compared homosexuality to bestiality: ‘Call me names, but gay is not okay’ (5) and the article was helpful in my study.
Once I had these articles, I analysed them individually, focussing on how homosexuality was described. I intended to investigate the lexis, specifically how the manipulation of words created preferred readings, as suggested in Stuart Hall’s reception theory (6). Choosing three-time frames, each with a thirty-year difference, allowed for a range of data and to explain how opinions and beliefs on the LGBT community change.
I divided my investigation into the sections of time they were collated from:
The 1950s and the illegality of homosexuality
The 1980s and the AIDS crisis in which people’s views on homosexuality were skewed by a biased press
The modern era of softened homophobia, often excusing it as an ‘opinion’
Analysis
The 1950s
Although homosexuality was outlawed in the 1950s, it didn’t stop the LGBT community from existing. The underground scene was booming and, with the help of Lavender Language (William Leap, 1993) (7) - commonly referred to as Polari, the LGBT folk in England could survive without detection. Paul Baker (8) found that a large proportion of Polari words are still used today such as ‘camp’, ‘naff and ‘fantabulousa' emphasising the impact the language had on modern language today. Judith Butler (1991) (9) believed that heteronormativity is reinforced through socio-cultural conditioning, but more so through visual culture which promotes homo-invisibility. Through the perpetuating negativity of the media and the lack of exposure to positive LGBT representation, heteronormativity is sustained, with others holding their negative views of homosexual people as they haven’t seen any difference.
Since being gay was illegal in the UK in the 50s, the media had no fear in reporting negatively on it assuming everyone, save the gays, shared the same opinion. The Birmingham Daily Post was amongst the papers that did refer to homosexuals with harsh adjectives such as “more evil”, “filthy” and “disgusting”. It compared them to something unclean and repulsive, an opinion shared by many of its conservative readers. A study conducted by Bouton et al (1989) (10) found political and religious conservative thinkers were more likely to be homophobic than others. These beliefs were shown through their media consumption and Bouton found a correlation between these ideas. In the article written for the Birmingham Post, the heading of “Tolerance towards the homosexual deplored” connotes a negative perspective, obviously shared by their audience. The abstract noun “tolerance” paired with “towards” to create alliteration to be more appealing to the audience, elucidates that people have been putting up with homosexuality. By using “the homosexual” in singular instead of as a plural, creates a sense of alienation: using the definite article “the” makes homosexual people seem like a different species and separates them from the readers and “deplored” is an emotive transitive verb expressing strong disapproval of something – relating to the LGBT community
The 1980s
Since the legalisation of homosexuality in 1967 under the Sexual Offenses Act, the LGBT community begun to grow, with people becoming more open about their sexualities. However, the 80s brought the AIDS epidemic, which disproportionately affected the LGBT community. It gave newspapers reason to discriminate against homosexuals seen in the Mail on Sunday headlined “Britain threatened by gay virus plague”. The past participle verb of “threatened” is hyperbolic, personifying AIDS and, with reference to homosexuality (“gay virus plague”), it blames LGBT people. The phrase itself of “gay virus plague” surrounded many papers, including News of the World with “gay plague agony”. Not only was this the beginning of the spread of misinformation – homosexuals were not the only people who contracted the disease – but the metaphorical comparison to a “plague” is hyperbolic and, paired with “gay”, creates a negative connotation. The blame for the illness fell on homosexuals and, when the media created a moral panic, the LGBT community were the scapegoats. J.H Gilligan and A.P.M Coxon (1985) (11) believed that the growing media attention and fear-mongering AIDS allured, was the main cause of the moral panic.
Newspapers personified the disease like the “deadly invader” in News of the World with the adjective “deadly” used to connote to death and as a force to be reckoned with. The noun “invader” is suggestive of a foreign force and creates semantics of attacks from another nation. Personification is seen too in the Mail on Sunday with “Killer blood” where the adjective “killer” suggests that both the virus and the carrier are dangerous, again, scapegoating those with AIDS, which the headline had equated as homosexuals. Terry Sanderson, a writer for Gay Times for twenty-five years, documented the homophobia within British newspapers: “Sanderson chronicles not merely slurs and AIDS-baiting headlines, but calls for re-prohibition, pogroms and executions–all delivered in the same blurting, jokey yet seething-angry tabloid cadence that foreshadows the reactionary right's approach to social media now.” (12). News coverage made it obvious between the ‘innocent’ victims of the disease, those who have not contracted AIDS through gay contact, and ‘guilty’ victims who had, (13) and this was promoted through newspapers with The Sun’s article with “I’d shoot my son if he had AIDS”. Shock value was used to vilify the son as the criminal and the juxtaposition of religious semantics surrounding “vicar” and the violent verb “shoots” suggests that being dead was worth more than living with AIDS and being known as having contracted it through homosexual behaviours. Linda Steiner (2009) (14) argues however that increased contact with LGBT people helped educate people about their issues with Stonewall and other political riots leading to social change and to LGBT folk getting the rights they deserved.
Modern Times
Gwendolyn Audrey Foster (2012) said, “We may still live in a world of white dominance and heterocentrism, but I think we can agree that we are in the midst of postmodern destabilising forces when it comes to sexuality and race.” (15) To a certain extent, I agree with her when applying it to the media. However, certain newspapers, specifically the Sunday Sun and the Daily Mail, have forced a stalemate since their hate-ensuing articles have brought distraught into society. In Jon Qwelane’s article for the Sunday Sun ‘Call me names, but gay is NOT okay...’, the article equates being gay to bestiality, in the final sentence of the article a rhetorical question says: “...how soon before some idiot demands to ‘marry’ an animal and argues that this constitution ‘allows’ it?”. The use of “’marry’” in quotation marks mirrors the way he refers to homosexual marriage before (“which give license to men ‘marrying’ other men”) suggesting that he sees these as equally disgusting and immoral. Qwelane utilises punctuation throughout his article which perpetuates hate towards LGBT people by suggesting sarcasm and therefore invalidating their identity. This is seen with parentheses of ‘“lifestyle”’ and ‘“sexual preferences”’ which makes them seem insincere and purposefully is trying to be offensive. In 2017 however, Qwelane was found guilty of hate speech and inciting propaganda, intending his article to be hateful against the LGBT community (16). This language was in his article with negative connotations and inferences such as the opening “Oh dear, here we go again”, the exclamation “Oh dear” suggesting at his resignation of the topic; seemingly to him, undesirable events are reoccurring.
However, Qwelane, much like Littlejohn, did not specifically use directly offensive language to describe the act of homosexuality and this is because euphemistic language is expected more in the media. Roger Fowler (1991) found that language used in the media is not neutral and is instead “a highly constructed mediator”. (17) This idea of mediator suggests that news reporters and journalists should be neutral to be more accommodating, yet Littlejohns’s article begins by imploring the audience with the adverb “Please”, when referring to not wanting two men to be fathers, immediately allying himself with them to appear approachable. This is continued throughout the opinion article using tag questions – “Would you?” - and humour – “I’ve got a picture of my last colonoscopy somewhere” - to both engage audiences and assume they share the same opinion. Despite him having certain opinions, his euphemistic language seems to create a more risqué opinion article than specifically homophobic something that, if he had done, may have given him the same outcome as Qwelane.
Conclusion
From the research that I have conducted throughout this language investigation, it becomes increasingly obvious that my hypotheses were accurate for the most part. All the newspaper articles constantly referred to homosexuality as wrong but specifically something different, unlike the heteronormativity of society. These ideas were seen across the times and the newspapers with the “problem” of homosexuality in the 50s, creating negative connotations surrounding same-sex relationships; “deadly invader” in the 80s, suggestive that the disease, which they blamed on homosexuals, was horrific but also unknown and an infiltration to our nation; saying “wrong is wrong” in terms of homosexuality as well as comparing homosexuality to bestiality.
My ideas about language against homosexuality having softened overtime was also true to a certain extent. What I found was that although the language used has softened, the opinions have not as much. In the article in the Birmingham Daily Post, the heading was “Tolerance towards the homosexual deplored” with the transitive emotive verb “deplored” expressing strong disapproval of tolerance. As a heading, it suggests that journalists weren’t afraid of prejudiced behaviour towards homosexuals as their audience are likely to share similar beliefs, but in later publications of newspapers, this isn’t the case with Littlejohn going as far as to say he wasn’t homophobic and “supported civil partnership before it was fashionable” before proceeding to say a child should be brought up by a man and a woman. Some may argue this as his opinion, yet it ostracises an entire group of people, not limited to single parents, same-sex couples and intersex people. Despite his delivery being more gentil, avoiding hash adjectives like “filthy” and “disgusting”, he blankets his statements with humour and excuses to hide it.
Every newspaper I used was conservative, and those newspapers tend to have a more nuclear vision of the family, seeing same-sex marriage and civil partnership as unnatural, despite humans being the only mammals in the animal kingdom who have ceremonies to prove partnership. However, in the newspapers from the 50s and 80s, the harsher language such as “doomed” and “agony”, “propaganda” and “radically wrong” was also likely the audience’s opinion, since they are indulging in the newspaper, and therefore supported the misdemeanour of homosexuals in the paper.
The fact that these newspapers, save News of the World for unrelated reasons, are still running and popular despite the unsavoury remarks made about the LGBT community, is unjust. The comments and positioning of gay people throughout the years have had incredibly negative and lasting impacts on the mental health of many. However, in recent years, the LGBT community have made huge strides in the work towards equality with the Civil Partnership Act, allowing for same-sex civil partnership, in 2004 and gay marriage, legalised in 2014. Although work still needs to be done, the community is closer than ever before to equality and the media needs to catch up too.
References
Media Insight Project, study on audience trust in the news: https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/survey-research/trust-news/single-page/
British Newspaper Archives: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/
Homophobia in the British News: https://www.buzzfeed.com/patrickstrudwick/this-man-spent-25-years-fighting-newspapers-over-their
‘Please don’t pretend two dads is the new normal’ article – Richard Littlejohn, Daily Mail: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-5397713/Please-dont-pretend-two-dads-new-normal.html
‘Call me names, but gay is not okay’ article – Jon Qwelane, Sunday Sun: https://www.mambaonline.com/images/sundaysun_small.pdf
Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory: https://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/media-studies-level-revision/reception-theory
William Leap (1993): https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/conference/fac-arts/english/lavlang24/why-lavender.aspx
Paul Baker and Polari usage now: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jul/14/referenceandlanguages.gayrights
J.H Gilligan and A.P.M Coxon (1985): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic#1980s:_HIV/AIDS
Terry Sanderson on homophobia in British newspapers: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/18/the-british-press-used-to-be-a.html
1980s and the emergence of the AIDS epidemic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_portrayal_of_LGBT_people#1980s_and_the_emergence_of_the_AIDS_epidemic
Linda Steiner (2009): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15295039309366878
Qwelane’s Prison Conviction: https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/jon-qwelanes-call-me-names-but-gay-is-not-okay-article-was-hurtful-court-hears/
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