Made for TV? Marriage and Family Politics and Policy in the (Post) Pandemic Era

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The APSA 2020 theme, " Rethink, Restructure, and Reconnect: Towards A Post-Pandemic Political Science" challenges political scientists to “to rethink almost everything about our discipline” in light of the “global pandemic, deepening political polarization, and mass organized protests demanding social justice and systemic change.” Our panel gathers scholars who are rethinking how we analyze and understand the politics of marriage and family life in the United States. While we often think of the end of bans on interracial marriage (Loving v. Virginia, 1967) and the legalization of same-sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015) as major historical and political milestones here, the Covid-19 pandemic brought marital and other familial issues to the fore in an unprecedented way. Not only were many weddings canceled or postponed, but many Americans spent more—or less—time with their family units than ever before, working, going to school, and conducting much of the other business of daily life at home. Showing, as feminist scholars have long argued, that the distinction between the public and private spheres has always been tenuous at best, the pandemic lockdowns brought into sharp relief how broader issues of domestic labor, violence, and economic strain, among so many others, are deeply linked to marital and family life.

United by their focus on marriage and/or family policy issues, broadly defined, the papers on this panel re-think and re-imagine how we consider marital and family politics and policy, particularly from the perspective of popular culture. This focus is important because during the lockdowns, many Americans spent more time watching television and movies; therefore, their time with families (or lack thereof) was often defined by and represented through their engagement with popular culture. This panel therefore considers how popular cultural products such as television shows, movies, and celebrity gossip reflect, complicate, and shape how we understand marriage and families in the United States, with a focus on the elevation of certain types of normative marriage and/or family configurations. Specifically, the papers consider how the growing popularity of the Lifetime show "Married at First Sight" tracks the declining appeal of marriage “off screen,” and what this teaches us about the broader politics of race, gender, class, and sexuality in the US; gay and lesbian celebrities’ efforts to further LGBTQ family legislation at the state level and the implications of this activism for LGBTQ family policy in the wake of Obergefell; and, finally, how popular culture helped transform LGBT people from dangerous perverts who threatened family and state, to military heroes and respectable parents. Altogether, by examining the growing interplay between marriage and family policy and politics and popular culture, this panel will provide important insights into APSA 2022’s central concern with politics and political science in the post-pandemic era.

Sub Unit

• Related Groups / Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Caucus

Cosponsor

• Division 47: Sexuality & Politics

Individual Presentations

• The Role of Celebrity in Queer Policy after Obergefell v. Hodges - Erin Mayo-Adam, Hunter College, CUNY

• The Decision of Your Life(Time)? The Politics of Married at First Sight - Samantha Ann Majic, CUNY-John Jay College; Zein Murib, Fordham University-Lincoln Center

• Pop Culture, Political Imagination, and Critical Civil Rights - Susan R. Burgess, Ohio University

• What Is Heteronormativity?: Toward Analyzing Sexual Regimes - Mark Blasius, The City University of New York Graduate Center

Chair

• Anthony Nownes

Discussants

• Anthony Nownes

• Renee A. Cramer Drake University

• Jerry Thomas University of Wisconsin Oshkosh