In this chap­ter titled “Doing Time On Maple Dri­ve,” the author exam­ines the rev­o­lu­tion­ary changes regard­ing soci­etal per­cep­tions of LGBTQ+ rights, par­tic­u­lar­ly focus­ing on the bat­tle for mar­riage equal­i­ty in the Unit­ed States. The chap­ter opens with the polit­i­cal schol­ar Timur Kuran’s obser­va­tions on how unex­pect­ed rev­o­lu­tions can catch even the most knowl­edge­able indi­vid­u­als off guard. He illus­trates this by detail­ing reac­tions to the fall of com­mu­nism in East­ern Europe, where even dis­si­dents and aca­d­e­mics failed to fore­see the exact moment of change. Kuran high­lights the idea that major shifts often occur sud­den­ly, leav­ing many stunned in ret­ro­spect.

The nar­ra­tive shifts to Evan Wolf­son, who, inspired by John Boswell’s writ­ings on his­tor­i­cal atti­tudes toward homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, pro­pos­es that the insti­tu­tion of mar­riage should be the focal point for the fight for gay rights. Wolf­son believed that claim­ing mar­riage would sig­ni­fy equal­i­ty and chal­lenge soci­etal notions sur­round­ing gay indi­vid­u­als. How­ev­er, dur­ing the ear­ly dis­cus­sions and activism in the 1980s, the fight faced sig­nif­i­cant back­lash and indif­fer­ence, as pop­u­lar media por­trayed gay rela­tion­ships neg­a­tive­ly, often high­light­ing gay char­ac­ters’ iso­la­tion and strug­gles rather than depict­ing them as whole indi­vid­u­als.

The chap­ter reflects on the 1992 made-for-TV movie “Doing Time on Maple Dri­ve,” exam­in­ing how it pre­sent­ed LGBTQ+ nar­ra­tives. It high­lights the trag­ic sto­ry of Matt, a char­ac­ter grap­pling with his sex­u­al­i­ty and ulti­mate­ly attempt­ing to end his life rather than con­front his truth. The por­tray­al of gay char­ac­ters in media at that time fol­lowed cer­tain rules that min­i­mized their expe­ri­ences, often reduc­ing their iden­ti­ty to a prob­lem need­ing res­o­lu­tion. This hin­dered the move­ment for accep­tance and equal­i­ty.

Despite the strug­gles, there was a grad­ual shift in cul­tur­al norms, pro­pelled in part by the sit­com “Will & Grace,” which depict­ed gay indi­vid­u­als in a pos­i­tive light and helped alter pub­lic per­cep­tion. The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in the real­iza­tion that cul­tur­al por­tray­als can sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect soci­etal atti­tudes; hence, the suc­cess of LGBTQ+ mar­riage equal­i­ty in the U.S. ulti­mate­ly stemmed from per­sis­tent activism cou­pled with chang­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tions in pop­u­lar cul­ture, demon­strat­ing how nar­ra­tive shifts in media have the pow­er to rede­fine social struc­tures and beliefs.