Queer youth in Rural America, prt. 1

An interview from Henry Jenkins with Mary L. Gray.

Henry Jenkins is  Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. He did a lot of research on convergention in media, new media and social consecuentes. On his blog he posts all his thinking and interviews with people who contribute in his researches.

Mary L. Gray is the writer of the book 'out in the country: youth, media and queer visibility in Rural America'. In this book she captures stories of queer youth in the little villages and urban zones from America. If you think about gay communities its most of the time centred in big cities in America, but Mary L. Gray makes a cultural analyse about the queer youth living away from the city and how the situation is there. With this work she tries to show that there still can be a 'good queer life' without all the luxury that the citypeople are used too. Also she hopes that with this book she can help queer organisations throughoug the whole country that there is more then only the city resources. 

Growing up as a queer in Rural america is not by definition awful, claims Gray. While we allways assume that the gender roles and the sexual norms are more integrated in Rural america points Gray out that there are a lot of different investments in these norms. 

With this book of her she wides out previous studies, in which people belief that individuals start out different and create a new family instead of the family they left behind.

The first wellknown gay-man that entered the politics is Harvey Milk. He relied on his connections with local unions and other civil right organisations to take a leading role against the measure that banned gay and lesbian people from working in public schools. In 2008 Gus van Sant made a movie about him, Milk, with Sean Penn as head-actor.

She also examines the impact of new digital media in this situation. Internet can make a diference for this youth because it is a media where they can invest in: they can write their stories so that other people can make a objective view of this youth in Rural America. On the otherside the internet also plays the roll of a informationproviding medium: they can connect to broader communities. 

I think that Gray is right, most people have some preassumptions that growing up in Rural areas (not only in America) implies a very closed culture. People who want to change that shouldn't just project their ideas in this areas, without knowing how it really is to live there and to grow up. There is a clear difference between the cityculture and the rural culture, and both need to be treathened in another way.