Is the Price Right? The Mephistophelean Economics of Talking Tabloid on TV

As explained in this review, the book (see record 1998-07341-000) contends that today's "freaks" are lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered (LGBT) persons. It also notes that today's equivalent of the carnival is the television talk show. It also comments that that television as a public arena affords modern "freaks" not a place to live, but a vehicle through which they "talk back", by telling the stories of their own lives to mainstream culture. Although the nature of the freaks and the freak show has changed in 60 years, one thing has not. For today's sexual freaks, the price of being allowed to tell their story is still allowing themselves to be displayed to the straight world as abnormalities of environment or birth. The author examines the process by which talk shows help to determine which variations and aberrations of sexuality are to be deemed "freakish" within popular culture, and introduces us to issues of how questions of normality versus abnormality, "correct" responses to LGBT persons, and who qualifies as an "expert" are actually addressed, at least for the millions of persons who watch daytime talk shows on a regular basis. At the same time, his book raises anew disturbing questions that it does not directly address, those relating to the shows' psychological, rather than their sociological, impact. The reviewer found the book to be worthwhile reading material for psychologists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)