Chandler Berke

           The media text I chose to analyze is the film Perks of Being A Wallflower and specifically the characters Patrick and Brad. This movie was released in 2012 and is based on a book by Stephen Chbosky. Not only is he the author of the book but Chbosky is also the director of the movie and the screenplay writer. The distributor is Summit Entertainment, LLC and produced by a production company called Mr. Mudd. My reason for choosing this media text is because of these two characters. They both represent the farthest ends on the queer spectrum and have a very complicated homosexual relationship.
          First you meet Patrick who is the stepbrother of Sam and friend to the main character Charlie. Patrick is characterized as being openly gay, feminine and accepted among the school. He is generally flamboyant but very comfortable in his skin, even comfortable enough to play the transgender character Frank ‘N Furter in the community presentation of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. His clearly queer characterization is beloved in the film and is even more defined by his closeted boyfriend, his opposite Brad.
          Brad is the popular jock, one of the best players on the football team. He is a white, privileged male who is so overpowered by his hegemonic masculinity he is afraid to come out as a gay male. He is so afraid to actually be known as a homosexual he needed to be inebriated in order to be with Patrick. Brad is also apart of a religious family, this adds to his fear of coming out. He fears that his father would disown him and possibly even hurt him. This all becomes a reality when Brad’s father catches Brad and Patrick making love and ends up beating him up out of disappointment and anger. When Patrick tried to stop his father from killing him, Brad just told him to leave and never to talk to him again. What made it even worse was that when Patrick and Brad were back in school after winter break, Brad made up the story that he was jumped in a park by some rival football team.
          This whole situation comes to a peak during a confrontation in the cafeteria. One of Brad’s football teammates trips Patrick in front of Brad and he doesn’t do anything. When Patrick asks him why he won’t do something, Brad says why would I “nothing” which was Patrick’s nickname around school after the first day of wood shop. When Patrick replies with “you know why” and Brad gets upset when Patrick implies that they are more than just acquaintances. Brad then calls Patrick a “faggot”, which is a derogatory word aimed at gay individuals and Patrick then punches Brad. This leads to a group beating from Brad’s football team against Patrick that is stopped by their friend Charlie.
          The representation of these characters and their relationship displays harsh gay stereotypes that are commonly seen in films. The overarching hegemonic masculinity that is present in the relationship is seen in a character afraid to come out as homosexual. The feminine gay stereotype is also represented in Patrick and this is usually how gay men are displayed. The consumption of this text is then problematic because the target audience of this film is high school students ages 13-19. This is teens are still developing and if an individual knows that he’s gay, he could think that if they come out their parents will hate them and maybe even beat them. Or they hate themselves for being who they are and have to be under an influence in order to be with their significant other.
          The significance of my analysis is that it affects the viewers of the text by making them fear themselves and others if they want to come out as gay. It also continues to exemplify bullying amongst the gay community, especially among teens and young adults. The fragile state of our society’s overwhelming hegemonic masculinity continues to present itself and in return makes the gay individual and the community as a whole the “other,” and makes them feel inferior to the heterosexual individuals.


References
"The Perks of Being a Wallflower / Characters." TV Tropes. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2017.

Ross, Karen. The Handbook of Gender, Sex, and Media. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2014. Print.

Wickens, Corrine M. "Codes, Silences, and Homophobia: Challenging Normative Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary LGBTQ Young Adult Literature." Children's Literature in Education 42.2 (2011): 148-64. Web.
 
 
 

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