About the Blog

The phrase “Big Brother is Watching” originated from George Orwell’s novel 1984. For those who are unfamiliar with the book: the book takes place in Oceania, which is a totalitarian society that’s tyrannized by The Party. The Party inflicts it’s subjects with psychological stimuli designed to overwhelm the mind’s capacity for independent thought. As a result (for the most part) the subjects of Oceania would do what the Party wanted and nothing else.

There was a television in every citizen’s room that blasted a constant stream of propaganda designed to make the failures and shortcomings of the Party appear to be triumphant successes. Not only did the television promote the Party, the television also monitored the behaviors of the citizens, so everything they did was monitored, thus influencing just about everything they do. The Party also forced individuals to suppress their sexual desires, treating sex as merely a procreative duty whose end is the creation of new Party members. In 1984, the citizens acted a certain way due to the way difference was treated. They were all expected to act the way the Party dictated and we’re not allowed to do anything that the Part didn’t. If they did do something that the Party didn’t approve of the Party would eventually find out as, “Big Brother is Watching”. Ultimately those citizens would be punished. Often times, in 1984, those who rebelled were made examples of: they were either reformed into the perfect citizen or never heard from again. Now what happened in 1984 was extreme however the extremes allowed certain themes to thrive.  2 major themes in 1984 were: that difference wasn’t tolerated and the media has a huge influence on those who are subject to it.

The media acts as a proxy, an authority, for public opinion in relationship to homosexuals and homosexuality. We all know that the media influences just about everything but I had to focus my blog and so I decided to focus primarily on the effect of the media in relationship to homosexuals/homosexuality in America.