Lecture 4-Learning Love: Heteronormativity, Relationships, Intersectional Identities

(2014) and Dell & Boyer (2015), and the critical theories we’ve learned about Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield from Sweet Valley

•  Blond, thin, drive a red Fiat, “good” vs. “bad” twin

• Responsible, sweet, patient, confident, sexy, smart, a “girl everyone wanted to be around”

• White, talks “normal”

• Straight

“There is nothing more desperate and unrequited than the love an unpopular girl nurtures for the cool kids” Gay, 2014, p. 63)

sociopolitical and intersectional contents in which we seek and express love

•“Slavery, Jim Crow (laws to enforce racial segregation), discrimination and systemic racism influence how Black people have able to express and experience love”

• this is built through our environment, societal structures and views of love 

• money plays a big role in relationships, talked about in Kunda 2022 and who is allowed to be the breadwinner

• ex. video from lecture with Martin and his wife 

What’s [Black] Love Got to Do with It? bell hooks and BlackLove in Popular Culture, Lily Kunda

• Kunda (2022) article focuses on the expression of Black love in popular culture 

• positive Black love is rare in mainstream media 

• ex. sitcom martian 

• media influences how Black communities imagine love and equality in their own lives 

• more shifts in the media showing love, black-ish, this is us that depict these great love stories, but it is still lacking and there are limitations in their representation in the media

Radical Love in a Time of Heteronormativity: Glee, Gaga and Getting Better by Erin Brownlee Dell & Sabrina Boyer

• Brownlee & Boyer (2015) article focuses on expressive love for those of minorities

• article addresses bullying, isolation, and suicides among LGBTQ youyth framing these ideas as national crisis

• discuss that schools often remain unsafe for heteronormative chidlrena s LGBTQ stusnts feel invisible, marginalised and not supported in these spaces

• tie into pop culture because when schools fail, pop cutlure acts as an alternative culture for these youth

• pop culture such as Glee, Lady Gaga and the it gets better project students feel liek they have a voice through this representation

• this ex demonstrate how pop culture can emnody radical love by valdiating marginalized identities and fostering home for them

I Once Was Miss America by Roxane Gay (2014):

• Gay (2014) reflection on her personal connection to the Sweet Valley High book series which shaped her understanding of girlhood, identity and cultural ideals growing up 

• these books idelaized a white woman, middle class and unattainable beauty, popularity and perfection standards

• Gay, a Black girl was not represented in these books and revealed how powerful representation is in shaping self-image and beeligning for youth 

• Gay calls fore more inclusive representation of girlhood and that will show young girls how to have love for themselves through representation

learning love video

• from the TV show Martian 

• clip shows his wife Gina making more money than her, breadwinner 

• he is upset about this and embarrassed

• states that money is power and no one has power over his woman 

• Gina felt she had to hide that she made more money than Martian because she knew it would upset him 

radical love

• at the basis of the real transformation of education, societies and individuals 

• addressing inequalities, people in power shifts this power as they do not want us talking about radical love 

• those who believe in a world with love and home as the foundations for social change are often labeled as naive and out of touch with reality (Dell & Boyer, 2015).

• must learn to shift our norms away from this and celebrate all forms of love