Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2017
Abstract
This article considers how contemporary representations of child molesters in scholarly, political, and popular culture participate in projects that revolve around the recuperation of heteronormativity. I argue that these multimodal obsessions with child molestation displace the resilience of entrenched homophobic fears, prejudices, and dispositions, giving the lie to the commonplace that the political advance of same-sex marriage in the United States signals the apotheosis of gay rights. My analysis focuses on two representative popular and scholarly texts: the long-running television series Law and Order: SVU and a scholarly article about the Jerry Sandusky case published in jac. The former capitalizes on a combination of stranger and familiar child molester figures, reflecting a mix of popular sex panic mythology and social reality. The latter reenacts this combination, so the discourse about the Sandusky case becomes imbricated in the convergences between mythology and social reality that characterize the television show.
Recommended Citation
Barnard, Ian. “Rhetorical Commonsense and Child Molester Panic—A Queer Intervention.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 47.1 (2017): 3–25. doi: 10.1080/02773945.2016.1159720
Peer Reviewed
1
Copyright
Taylor & Francis
Included in
Criminology Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, Other Film and Media Studies Commons, Other Sociology Commons, Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons, Social Psychology and Interaction Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons, Television Commons
Comments
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Rhetoric Society Quarterly, volume 47, issue 1, in 2017, available online at DOI:10.1080/02773945.2016.1159720. It may differ slightly from the final version of record.