Since Trajan and Decebalus: online media reporting of the 2010 GayFest in Bucharest

Abstract

The current study uses critical discourse analysis to examine how a high-profile gay pride event in Romania, the annual Bucharest GayFest, is represented by online media outlets. Same-gender relationships were only decriminalised in Romania a decade ago, and research on Romanian sexualities is scarce. In order to examine the construction of homosexualities in Romania, we employed critical discourse analysis on 23 internet news reports of a gay pride event. Three major themes emerged: the GayFest as exotic, the GayFest as a political event and the link between sexuality and national identity. Both exoticising and politicising discourses contribute to the positioning of gay people outside the nation. Pro-gay voices complement this marginalising perspective by reproducing political discourse. Only one statement in the news reports could be read against minoritising discourses: an ironic banner construed the trope of founding fathers (Trajan and Decebalus, in the case of Romania) as a potentially homoerotic motif, and thus undermined the relationship between nationalism and homophobia. The implications of these findings are discussed; the link of nationalism to homophobia and the almost unquestioned marginalisation of gay people are especially scrutinised.

Keywords:

• gay culture
• homophobia
• nationalism
• Romania
• gay pride
• media representation

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Dr Andreea Mogoş (Babeş-Bolyai University) for her suggestions on data collection, Dr Peter Hegarty (University of Surrey) for his comments on the analysis, and Mihai Varga (Babeş-Bolyai University) for his help with legislation.

Notes

1. We use the term ‘homosexualities’ here to refer to romantic and sexual attraction, contact and relationships between people who are perceived by others to be the same gender. This is not intended to be exclusive of bisexuality nor heterosexual-identified people who also have sex with people of the same gender. Additionally, although bisexual- and trans-identified people and ‘allies’ may attend GayFest, the event is usually construed as a ‘gay’ event rather than LGB or LGBT.

2. Note the pun on the association of Transylvania with Dracula, the ‘undead’ vampire.

3. We have chosen to focus on ‘[blatant] homophobia’ (Weinberg, 1972) and ‘modern homophobia’ (Raja & Stokes, 1998), because displays of these attitudes are prominent in the data, rather than more subtle forms of exclusion such as heterosexism (Herek, 1990, 2000).

4. All translations of news article extracts are the authors’.

5. Many Romanians do business in or holiday in Barcelona, as opposed to other ‘gay centres’ of Europe such as Amsterdam or Paris. Barcelona thus represents gay culture to Romanians as San Francisco does to Americans and Tel Aviv does to Israelis. Barcelona may also represent European influence and EU membership, of which nationalists across Europe are strongly critical.

6. We are aware of the irony of this juxtaposition of nationalist and post-Marxist thought and wish only to credit the authors with a useful construct, not to engage in a nationalism-versus-communism debate.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sebastian E. Bartoş

Sebastian E. Bartoş is currently teaching and pursuing doctoral research at the University of Surrey. He holds an MA in Clinical Psychology from the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. His PhD thesis, supervised by Dr Peter Hegarty, focuses on strategies to reduce homophobia. Sebastian’s primary interest is in Eastern European sexualities, and he has published papers on diverse topics such as online personals advertisements and gay men’s bereavement.

Marius A. Balş

Marius A. Balş is a clinical psychologist and cognitive behavioural psychotherapist and holds a BA in Psychology from the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He is engaged in the master’s programme in Clinical Psychology, Counseling Psychology and Psychotherapy, and the master’s programme in Health Psychology at the Babes-Bolyai University. His research interests include three main areas: body dissatisfaction and muscle dysmorphia, the perception of minorities and cognitive behavioural treatment of clinical perfectionism.

Israel Berger

Israel Berger received his PhD in psychology from the University of Roehampton. His research examines areas of health communication and social determinants of health.