Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Theatre Arts

First Advisor

Dr. Dorothy Holland

Abstract

The assertions of this work are rather broad: that there is a trend in a certain segment of queer nightlife towards hierarchy and commercialization, and that this may be a result of absorption of queerness into mainstream societal structures. As a first step in a research series, the purpose of this work is to establish that there is a trend in queer nightlife towards hierarchy and commercialization, and speculate about the potential consequences and manifestations of such a change. By establishing the presence and potential manifestations/consequences of hierarchy and commercialization within queer club culture, it is my hope that future research questions and methods for examining how such changes are manifest will surface in the process of creating this work alongside my continued maturation within the nightlife scene.

This work is meant to identify a trend and to speculate about its manifestations and consequences. It is not meant to imply that the assertions found within apply to the queer community in totality, but rather that a growing segment of the queer community has fallen prey to the seeping hierarchies and commercialization of mainstream society. This is meant to imply that there is a danger in the seeping to only a part of the queer community. A division within the community threatens its ability to put forward a single movement agenda or to critique social structures as a block. This seeping sterilization of nightlife may be the beginning of a loss of solidarity in the queer community, which is a threat to the community as a whole. Furthermore, in a claim that “the personal is a political,” a threat to the culture of queer nightlife is a threat to queerness as a means of political resistance.

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