Queer resistances in the adult animated sitcom

This article studies the representation of queer characters and themes in the contemporary adult animated sitcom. We argue that even though popular culture is often assumed to reiterate and consolidate the discourse of heteronormativity, adult animated sitcoms create space for queer resistance. Since the genre draws on postmodern strategies of representation, we argue that queer resistance is subversively articulated through instances of pastiche and parody. It is embedded in content that is both complicit with and critical of the heteronormal. Through a textual thematic analysis of Family Guy, this case study illustrates how postmodern textual strategies create deconstructionist instances that expose and subvert the hegemony of heteronormativity

Gay representation, queer resistance, and the small screen : a reception study of gay representations among Flemish fans of contemporary television fiction

Drawing on the fruitful insights of queer theory, this study departs from the notion that popular culture can function as articulations of resistance to the discourse of heteronormativity that is being reiterated and consolidated in popular culture products. In particular, this study focuses on the potential of gay representation (representations of those who are identified and/or self-identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual) in contemporary television fiction to resist heteronormative institutions, practices, norms and values. Previous textual studies on popular series (namely The Wire, Family Guy, Six Feet Under, Brothers & Sisters, Torchwood and True Blood) have argued that these series represent gay characters and gay-related themes that, on the one hand, expose how the discursive practices of heteronormativity function, and on the other, transgress social and cultural assumptions about gender, sexuality and identity and thereby function as queer and viable alternatives to the heteronormative way of living. Since articulations of resistance only become resistant in the act of reading, this study wants to explore how television audiences negotiate the meaning of gay representation and its potential to resist. First, it studies how Flemish fans of contemporary television fiction read gay representation, and in particular, how they read the articulations of resistance embedded in the text. Second, it inquires whether or not the fans assume a heteronormative or resistant discursive position in their readings of the gay representations. To this end, an exploratory reception analysis confronts the results of a sample of textual analyses that have illustrated how popular series can resist to the discourse of heteronormativity, with the readings of the fans

Gay male domesticity on the small screen: queer representations of gay homemaking in six feet under and brothers & sisters

This article acknowledges that contemporary representations of gay domesticity in popular television fiction are often shaped by the discourse of heteronormativity. However, drawing on the potential of popular culture to resist heteronormativity, this article argues that representations of gay domesticity can also be interpreted in terms of queer resistance. To this end, a textual thematic analysis of Brothers & Sisters and Six Feet Under was conducted to illustrate how these instances of resistance are articulated. This analysis has shown that the series rely on strategies of queer deconstructions to expose how heteronormativity governs and restrains gay domestic arrangements. They also rely on strategies of queer reconstructions to renegotiate gay domesticities in which the boundaries defined by the discourse of heteronormativity are defied, transgressed, and queered

Teenage queerness: negotiating heteronormativity in the representation of gay teenagers in Glee

Despite a significant increase in gay representation in contemporary television fiction, many media scholars argue that the representation of gay men and women is governed by heteronormativity. They postulate that even rounded and heterogeneous representations of gay men and women are characters that desireto participate in institutions, practices, norms, and values that consolidate the heterosexual matrix. Yet, within a cultural studies tradition, television is considered an ambiguous medium that is able to both consent to and contest normative assumptions about sexuality. Taking into account this ambivalence, the study is interested in how popular teen television portrays gay teenagers and to what extent it negotiates heteronormativity in its representation of gay youth. As the objective is an in-depth investigation of representational strategies, the study examines one teen series that is authoritative in its representation of gay teens, namely the American musical series Glee. By means of a qualitative textual analysis, the article demonstrates that Glee represents gay youth as suffering victims or as teens aspiring to heteronormative values. On the other hand, Glee also provides counter-narratives in which gay teens are represented as happy, self-confident, and able to position themselves beyond the boundaries of the heterosexual matrix

Pink programming across Europe : exploring identity politics at European LGBT film festivals

Engaging in identity-based programming, LGBTQ film festivals are nudged into finding a balance between a program that is attentive to LGBTQ identity politics and a program that adheres to a normative cinematic standard set by European film festivals (see Loist, 2012). This balance is further complicated by the manifold desires of its audiences (see Rich, 2013). It seems inevitable that choices and compromises are made. A symbolic role in this process is reserved for the programmers. Taking on Roya Rastegar’s (2012) recommendation to direct more attention to the programming practices of film festivals, this paper presents the results of a study that inquired how European programmers conceptualize their LGBT film festival in relation to ongoing identity politics and how they negotiate these identity politics with particular cinematic demands on the one hand, and desires of audiences on the other. To this end, I conducted in-depth expert interviews with 24 film programmers from 17 film festivals in 18 European countries. Reflecting on the way the interviewees discussed their programming practices, I note that each programmer employs a bricolage of various and sometimes contradictory programming practices. For many, this bricolage is the most common way to program for an LGBTQ film festival today. On the one hand, many programmers agree that LGBTQ film festivals still need to be engaged in political and emancipatory work. Many point out how the fight for equal rights continues and look for films and events to raise pertinent issues. Even though some festivals are more inclusive than others, many try to represent the spectrum of gender and sexual diversity. On the other hand, money and audiences exert much power and affect certain programming practices. Programmers of established and well-attended LGBTQ film festivals all stress that they deliberately follow commercial logics to ensure their festival becomes a commercial success. Similarly, the taste of audiences is another factor able to persuade some programmers in including outdated or traditionalist films and excluding challenging or queer films. I further show how some festivals see themselves as primarily film festivals and use this position to reject films of poor quality dealing with niche identities and mainly showcase qualitative LGBTQ films. Last, I conclude that regional differences throughout Europe mostly manifest themselves in the organizational aspects rather than the programmers’ discourses on programming

Queer cuttings on YouTube: re-editing soap operas as a form of fan-produced queer resistance

Despite the increasing efforts of representing gay main characters, popular soap operas still hinge on the discourse of heteronormativity. Queer theorists have uttered the necessity for exposing the oppressiveness of heteronormative practices and offering viable alternatives to the heteronormative way of living. This article argues that fan-produced re-edited videos of soap operas may embed the potential to expose and challenge the way that heteronormativity functions. By a textual analysis of Christian & Oliver, a fan-produced YouTube series based on the German soap Verbotene Liebe (Forbidden Love), the article enquires how subversive practices of rearticulating narrative conventions of soap operas may function as strategies of resistance. Since texts only become resistant through reading practices, this article discusses the fragility of resistance by elaborating on the negotiated position of resistance within popular culture, discussing the role of fans as producers of new texts and differentiating the role of audiences as readers of resistance

Sexual diversity on the small screen : mapping LGBT+ characters in Flemish television fiction (2001 – 2016)

Apart from figures on LGBT+ characters in television fiction produced by the American television industry, such as the ‘Where We Are On TV’ – reports by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), quantitative data on LGBT+ representation television fiction series remains scarce internationally. With this working paper, we aim to address this lack in the context of Flemish television fiction. To meet the challenges posed by a lack of centralized data on Flemish television fiction in general, and LGBT+ characters and storylines specifically, we constructed a three-tiered database. Comprising of all 156 domestic television fiction series between 2001 and 2016, the quantitative presence of LGBT+ characters in these series, and individual traits of the 117 collected LGBT+ characters respectively. In doing so, we provide an overview of Flemish television fiction in general, the distribution in these series of characters who identify as LGBT+ and the storylines that relate to sexual and gender diversity, and offer a tool to identify individual pertinent characters. Flanders presents itself as having a dynamic television fiction industry in the past fifteen years, with genre diversity and a sizeable output. In its general output, LGBT+ characters have had a significant habitual presence since 2001, with a noted correlation to specific ‘lowbrow’ genres, and a noted lack in ‘quality’ series. The collected characters display a severe lack of diversity, with most LGBT+ characters being gay male characters, a significant majority being middle class, and few non- white LGBT+ characters

Franky Reborn : discourses on the first transgender character in the Flemish soap Thuis

This paper argues through a textual and contextual analysis of the first trans character in the Flemish soap opera Thuis that in Flanders, trans identities and practices are rendered intelligible trough inherently homogenizing and normative discourses. While these identities and practices are diverse by definition, this research shows that only a very specific configuration of them is validated and privileged – such as post-op transwomen – while all others – like transmen and genderqueer identities – are symbolically annihilated. Specifically, discourses on trans identities subscribe to hegemonic conceptions of gender, prescribing a full surgical transition from one monolithic gender to the other, while denying the possibility of a radically subversive queer space in between. This gender conformity is further enforced by the construction of physical beauty as the defining feature of a successful transition, and the representation of trans identities as simply “longing to be on the other side.” Finally, the apparent positive representation of trans identities collide with articulations of homonationalism – or transnationalism – that construct Flanders as a safe space for transpeople, while relegating all internal instances of transphobic violence to ethnic-cultural minorities