Privacy, Porn, and Gay Sex Parties: The Carceral Governance of Homosexuality in Indonesia

This article examines how the recent Indonesian Pornography Law renders homosexuality and/or homosexual acts intelligible to the Indonesia state and society by institutionalising them as criminal offences. By drawing on insights from queer studies and exploring the cases of gay arrests in the country, I demonstrate that certain same-sex sexual acts are more susceptible to criminalisation, especially when those acts blur the distinction between public and private. The deployment of the Pornography Law against gay people, together with the anti-LGBT media environment in the country, has carried consequences for LGBT individuals, particularly gay people, by making them visible, legible, and thus subject to state surveillance and control.

Ideology and Media Framing: Stigmatisation of LGBT in Media Coverage in Indonesia

This essay analyzes how the ideology that is owned by the media influences the media's framing in reporting a reality. The framing dimension will always be related to the selection of issues, emphases, and projection on certain aspects of the issue. For this reason, this study will present the media cases of Republika.co.id and Tempo.co in informing LGBT reality. So, the reality of LGBT conveyed by Republika.co.id and Tempo.co cannot be seen separately, because it will be related to the interests that these two media outlets want to serve by reporting the reality. The analysis demonstrates that the reporting of Republika.co.id and Tempo.co on LGBT is influenced by each outlet's ideology. Republika.co.id, which embraces the ideology of nationalism and Islam, tends to report the rejection of LGBT presence in Indonesia. Republika.co.id provides a negative stigma against LGBT issues. It is considered that LGBT is a serious threat to the nation and state because behaviour is deemed not following religion, generally applicable social norms, and the laws of Indonesia. Tempo.co does not see LGBT as a serious problem for the Indonesian people. Tempo.co considers the behaviour and activities of LGBT people to be normal, which is part of human rights that must be respected by the Indonesian people. Keywords: Ideology, framing, LGBT, media coverage, Indonesia.

When the closet is the grave: A critical review of the Bruce McArthur case

The article investigates the social impossibilities and constructed killability of brown queers. It critically focuses on the Bruce McArthur case, which involved the serial killing of predominantly brown queer men between 2010 and 2017 in Toronto. The author analyzes mainstream (LGBT) media representations of the white serial killer as “ordinary, yet aberrant,” the queer victims of color as sexually and socially fuckable, and the murderous racism of the Canadian state. The article centers the concept of (queer)necropolitics in conversation with discourses of antiimmigration, anti-Muslim racism and racialized sexualities to situate the generative force of racialized sexualized violence in the case.

Between text, paratext, and context: Queerbaiting and the contemporary media landscape

I discuss the concept of queerbaiting as emergent from viewer readings of both textual and paratextual content at a particular juncture of LGBT media representation. While fan works as paratexts have attracted attention for their queered readings and narratives, there has been little scholarly consideration of how official paratexts that suggest or address queer readings, particularly promotional material and public commentary from producers, inform viewer engagement with media texts, and how they interact with contemporary conditions of media production and LGBT content. Examining F/F pairings from two television shows, Rizzoli & Isles (TNT, 2010–16) and The 100 (CW, 2014–), I propose a model that incorporates text, paratext, and the context of LGBT representation to account for how both noncanonical and canonically queer narratives can exemplify queerbaiting discourses, as well as where queer subtextual readings are positioned in this interpretative space. In addition, I highlight the historical contingency of queerbaiting in terms of shifts in producer/viewer interactions and the character of LGBT narratives in reshaping the contestation of media meaning making.