Textual Analysis Of The Documentary 'Out In The Night'

Prompt 3 “Out in the Night” is a moving documentary, which shows how seven black lesbians were sensualized by the media and the prosecution. The scene that happened on August 18, 2006 on the streets of Greenwich Village in New York City exhibit how race, class, gender, and sexuality all play significant roles in the criminal justice system. These women were not considered to be “mainstream” since they were lower class black lesbians. They were considered to identify with a subculture since they dressed and acted in opposing ways than those in mainstream. They presented themselves with oppositional identities and went against society’s standards. Using a cultural studies approach to dissect “Out in the Night” will critically analyze what

Cultural studies is a field that has emerged as a set of approaches to the study of culture, society, and politics. Cultural studies can show how media culture presents its most dominant values and ideologies of its era. Lastly, cultural studies consist of having comprehensive perspectives such as political economy, textual analysis, and audience research. These critical and political perspectives provide information to our society that allows individuals to analyze the meanings and effects of dominant cultural forms. Since heterosexuality is the dominant value in our society the media and judicial system favored it against the

Semiotics is the study how meaning is created or communicated through visual and linguistic symbols. Since these women were dressed like “thugs” people can be quick to assume they are violent and dangerous. Because of this police officers and the media were quick to describe these women as a “gang”. The media coverage for this story was completely one sided and framed the women as “killer lesbians”. A large newspaper company like New York Daily News had a headline of “Lesbian Wolf Pack Guilty”. However in reality, the women had no previous criminal records and were defending themselves from a man who was hollering at them. Headlines like this highlight the idea that these women are dangerous because they are lesbians. There is no need for the media to include their sexual orientation on newspapers. From analyzing the text of the newspapers, some key features that occurred throughout the incident are left unsaid because as Kellner states Marxist methods tend to focus on class. The authors should have written with the intersectionality theory because it could influence the public to think more openly about this incident. The way the media and newspaper outlets portrayed this story has a huge influence on the public’s