Lesbians On Television: New Queer Visibility and The Lesbian Normal
- Submitting institution
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The University of Westminster
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- qv165
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
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- Publisher
- Intellect
- ISBN
- 9781789382808
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- November
- Year of publication
- 2020
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This book explores the mediation of contemporary LGBTQ+ inclusion: as same-sex marriage took centre stage in LGBTQ+ rights, televisual representations increasingly featured LGBTQ+ characters, and worked to imagine lesbian brides and mothers. Lesbians on Television develops a queer feminist analysis of the limits and possibilities of this new queer visibility; tracking contemporary figurations of lesbian, bisexual and queer women across multiple platforms - from teen dramas to soap operas to Tumblr pages and fanfiction stories to news and magazine media - and drawing on interviews with queer fans. This methodological approach is unusual in both queer analysis and television studies, where these approaches tend to be more distinct. Undertaking empirical research expands the scope of the research, developing a layered account of the significance of this media to audiences, as well as tracking its digital and transnational spread within contemporary media cultures.
Lesbians on Television builds on the author’s previously published work on representations of the same-sex wedding in popular television, tracking here the contemporary lesbian/queer figure from contemporary coming out narratives to marriage to motherhood. The book tracks the trajectory of this figure as she moves through this newly legitimated life-cycle, and maps this trajectory onto a shifting socio-political context.
Whilst other works have considered this homonormative shift, few focus on the distinctly gendered implications of this debate. This is one of the few works in this field to centre lesbian/bisexual/queer women in its analysis, foregrounding a feminist critique of contemporary sexuality politics. The analysis developed speaks to the homonormative critique – but asks what the specifically gendered implications of this are. In doing so it develops new conceptual frames: ‘post-queer popular culture’ and ‘the lesbian normal’. Lesbians on Television contributes to this debate, arguing for the continued significance of the postfeminist framework in its contemporary iterations.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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