Studying “Up,” Studying Hollywood: Pop Culture and LGBTQ+ Social Change

• In Event: 30609 - Cultural Studies

Abstract

From late-2011 to early-2024, I interviewed 165 LGBTQ+ people and their allies in Hollywood and elite sports for a book about the connection between pop culture and LGBTQ+ social change. I spoke with these participants about the ways that they think about and do their work and the ways that they conceptualize the connection between their athletic or artistic work and their political commitments (or lack thereof). I spoke with a wide range of culture workers, including Super Bowl and Olympic champions; Academy Award, Emmy, and Tony Award nominees and winners; and many who are involved with some of the most iconic and groundbreaking television shows, films, and theater productions with respect to LGBTQ+ content, as well as those who will go into history books as forerunners and activists. This paper is a methodological reflection on this work, drawing on the work of anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner, whose ethnographic study of the independent film industry in the U.S. also prompted her helpful methodological reflections on Hollywood access. Ortner wrote that the dearth of academic studies of Hollywood can be attributed to access challenges in this relatively closed community: “[I]n the case of Hollywood, the problem of ‘access’ seems to be particularly acute and has bedeviled most outsiders.” Ortner argues, though, that interviewing Hollywood creatives is a form of “studying sideways” for academics, and this can be to our benefit: we often draw on a shared educational and class privilege and status that can help with access and rapport-building. Sharing methodological choices, reasoning, and stories from my study, I hope to contribute to a broader conversation about qualitative interviewing and qualitative data collection, and then with a focus on difficult-to-access industries like Hollywood and elite sports.

Author

• Lisa Michele Stulberg, New York University