Peppa Pig has introduced a pair of lesbian polar bears, but Aussie kids’ TV has been leading the way in queer representation (original) (raw)
LGBTV - A look into queer representation in television
2020
In 50 years, the LGBTQ+ portrayals on tv have come along way but with only 6.8% of characters being members of the queer community, there is still a significant amount of work to be done. A look into the rich queer history, the problem and triumph areas and the current state of queer television. https://daisywilliams.github.io/dw\_capstone
"PAL can Just Be Themself": Children in the US Respond to Annedroids' Genderless TV Character
The innovative Canadian children’s program Annedroids introduces viewers to “PAL,” a human-like android, whom a child scientist named Anne programmed to choose its own gender. Viewers witness PAL’s explorations of what girlhood or boyhood would mean, culminating in PAL’s series-finale decision to eschew a binary gender identity and “just be me.” While some research has examined counter-stereotypical characters’ influence on children’s thinking, the impact of characters actively constructing gender identities is unknown. To address this gap, we showed twenty-one children (ages 8 to 10) in the US selected Annedroids segments highlighting PAL’s gender exploration. We identified themes in their reactions to PAL’s characterization and tracked their reactions to PAL’s decision, measuring the flexibility of their attitudes about gender before and after viewing. We found that children who believed PAL should choose a gender (as opposed to those comfortable with PAL remaining ungendered) showed increased flexibility in thinking about gender after viewing the selected clips.
LGBT Themes in Children’s Media and Literature: Mirroring the Contemporary Culture and Society
Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities
Queer theory in the context of cultural studies looks at a variety of cultural structures of the gay or lesbian as divergent, and prompts us to question the traditions in which an entire variety of sexuality has been omitted by the ‘politics of identity’, a politics that informs and polices popular cultural representations of the Queer. Moreover, it focuses on the limiting nature of identity and has primarily functioned as denaturalizing discourses. Culture is related to questions of collective social connotations, i.e., the many ways we make meaning of the ways of the world. However, meanings are not merely floating, rather they are produced. While watching cartoons might seem an innocent pastime, it has a lot more to do with the child’s psychology. Compared with other genres, cartoons can potentially trivialize and bring humor to adult themes and contribute to an atmosphere in which children view these depictions as normative and acceptable. Television shows, books, and movies wit...
The Journal of Popular Culture, 2018
Since the turn of the millennium, queer characters and storylines on US television have received increasing and public recognition. LGBT characters play more significant parts in programs directed at a mainstream audience; series from Queer As Folk to Looking put a spotlight on queer communities; while "niche" shows like Rick & Steve specifically target gay viewers. At the same time, LGBT representation continues to be restricted both by producers' concerns about audience reactions and social norms and stereotypes regarding acceptable forms of queerness. Edited by Kylo-Patrick R. Hart, Queer TV in the 21 st Century brings together twelve essays about LGBT visibility on US television after the millennial turn. The collection defines queer television primarily in terms of representation and audiences, as opposed to more theoretical approaches that consider television's queer aesthetics or temporality. 1 Inevitably, it overlaps in focus somewhat with other anthologies on contemporary queer screen culture, 2 but it also includes contributions on shows that have rarely been discussed in recent scholarship. The result is an interesting mix of examples across distribution platforms (broadcast, cable, premium, and pay-on-demand) and genres (sitcom, drama, reality TV, and infotainment) that tells the story of queer televisual representation over the past two decades. Organized chronologically, the articles offer thematic intersections. Several essays demonstrate how representation of LGBT themes and characters in series for general audiences often oscillates
Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 2015
As children's consumption of media increases, examining the messages prevalent in popular TV programs is central to understanding how children learn to view and understand gender. A coding scheme of themes of the "heterosexual script" related to gender, sexuality, and relationships developed by Kim et al. (2007) was applied to 7 popular American children's TV programs. The prevalence of the script varied across program, with certain programs depicting gender stereotypes as frequently as adult prime-time TV programs. Across programs, the most common theme was boys objectifying and valuing girls solely for their appearance and girls engaging in selfobjectification and ego-stroking of boys. Programs with leads who are boys were more likely to enact these stereotypes, especially in the presence of other-gender peers, indicating that this script is linked to expectations within heterosexual relationships.
Adult animation and gender representation – A case study on The Simpsons
2014
From its creation The Simpsons proved different, but how the irreverence of a show can be enough for the American public to select this sitcom as it preferred primetime watching time? How the show confronts capital issues of our decadent society as race, gender, religion sex and first, family and marriage. It’s not all in the humor or the quality of color or maybe selecting aggressive topics like the environment of corruption. How the gender representation in topics like homosexuality in majority of male characters on the show affect the way the audience react to them. Multiple recog-nitions around the world, but also critics about their political agenda and controversy. This show create a momentum for success on television for shows oriented to social aspect and adult anima-tion, awakening also a wave of copycats around the world. The success of the sitcom resides in big part in how the show presents actual social topics that make them attractive for all. Now society is moving on, moral decay is all around and a family show, with a very dysfunctional family, agree, it’s getting behind. Are we seeing the last of them or the team have more surprises under their hat? Will see. That’s the reason of the few ideas put together in this paper.
Raised on TV: A Queer Teen's Guide to Syndicated Sexualities
2019
This thesis explores the contemporary landscape of LGBTQ adolescent television programming over the past decade. Applying a three-pronged approach to media content analysis-emphasizing a textual reading of the series, the networks' political economy of production, and audience reception among scholars, culture critics and fans-the author provides both surface and symptomatic readings of Freeform's Pretty Little Liars (2010-2017), MTV's Faking It (2014-2016), and ABC's The Real O'Neals (2016-2017). Thematically and chronologically, this period of programming spans the end of what has been called the gay-positive era, characterized by the politics of anti-bullying campaigns, and the emerging post-gay genre, born after the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the Defense Of Marriage Act. This new, often controversial generation of post-gay programming appears untethered to what Ellis Hanson dubbed the "moralistic politics of representation," and is instead free to satire the traditional signifiers of the gay experience in adolescence, including the coming-out story arc, social disenfranchisement at school, and familial rejection. On the contrary, the post-gay genre offers queer queen bees and bullies, teenagers pretending and learning to be gay for popularity, sexually fluid adolescents who evade labels and never perform coming-out, and kitsch cultural insiders at the heart of mainstream, middle American family sitcoms. As is common for declarations of temporal distance from an historical v struggle, (post-race, for example), the introduction of post-gay television was met with skepticism, and outright rejection. Faking It and The Real O'Neals were skewered by activist-journalists and online fandom communities, and both were canceled prematurely. Despite the short shelf life of this generation of queer teen television, these series reveal the polyvalence of the discourse of sexuality, fluctuating between past and future, pride and shame, progressive and regressive, and reimagining the "gay experience" for Generation Z. Weaving the theoretical interventions of Esther Saxey, Jason Jacobs, Jack Halberstam, Tison Pugh, and Ann Pellegrini throughout, the author playfully interrogates the relationship between popular culture, homosexuality and mainstream American values. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor Jim Wilson, a kindred spirit who has supported me since that fateful first day at the GC when I sat in his joyful Intro to Gender and Sexuality Studies course. Our love of musical theater and smart scatological humor brought us together, and his warm words, that "an advisor is for life," carried me through. I am deeply grateful to the Liberal Studies Department, especially our cackling Kathy Koutsis, the best Assistant Program Officer on this side of the Jersey Shore, and her generous heart and curious mind. Kathy and our resident rabbit aficionado, Executive Officer Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis, made this MA program feel like home. Thank you to my dear friends, colleagues and superiors (though they hate when I call them that) in the Registrar's Office, for their constant support and eagerness to engage in spirited discussion over Kinder Bueno, ginger tea, and undressed kale. In The Queer Fantasies of the American Family Sitcom, Tison Pugh expands John Ellis's conception of television's flow to account not merely for the medium of consumption (from a shared TV in the family living room, to an iPhone screen streaming Netflix) but to encompass "the periods of one's personal viewing history" (24). Pugh riffs, "not only do television's technological iterations affect the perception of a program, but so, too, do the shifts in identity registered in the individuals consuming television programs-a likelihood given that viewers might watch the same show over several decades of their lives." (24). vii For this reason, I am compelled to thank weepy nights in high school watching Dawson's Creek's Jack McPhee on DVD, as he masochistically ordered his father to "ask me the question." I am indebted to seven years of Pretty Little Liars, which carried me from the summer of my high school graduation, to the first year of graduate school, with its motley crew of vengeful queer girls who traded victimhood for the black hoodie of the A team. I am grateful to everyone, throughout the flow of my life, who watched queer teen TV with me, from my family, my fidanzata, my elder dykes in Maine, the Lamont NAT Club at Smith College, and my associates scattered around the world who despite different time zones, always found ways to stream our shows. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Introduction to The Guide………………………………………………………1 Chapter 2: "If we're faking it, would I do this?": Queer Performance and Identity on MTV's Faking It ……………………………………………………………………….17 Chapter 3: "Just your typical all-American, Catholic, divorcing, disgraced, lawbreaking, gay family": Queering the Sitcom with ABC's The Real O'Neals …………………47 Chapter 4: Conclusion-The Specter of Stonewall in the Post-Gay Era ………………….. 79 Works Cited ……………………………………………………………………………… 87 Chapter 1: Introduction to The Guide Kenny O'Neal, altar boy, class treasurer, and Elks Club teen of the month, has so many questions about being gay. Is he a bear, a wolf, a silver fox, a dolphin, a giraffe? He'd be a deer in headlights without the guidance of queer teen TV! Those of us who grew up with the slushy stained, musical misfits of Glee might be surprised to see what makes the cut for Generation Z. While the late 90's and early 2000's constituted the era of gay-positive programing, emphasizing that this crush is so not a phase, with Gaga singing that we were born this way, more recent programming is challenging ontologized gay identity. This thesis closely examines three such TV shows which reveal shifting American attitudes towards sexuality and so-called gay subculture. Long gone are the story arcs about the marginality of gay teenagers, on the outskirts of the church and the family, instead we have ABC's The Real O'Neals, "Just your typical all-American, Catholic, divorcing, disgraced, lawbreaking, gay family." This series effectively queers the American sitcom, infusing camp and kitsch with formulaic family fiascos. ABC brings gay subculture to the center of mainstream, Middle America, with protagonist and narrator Kenny O'Neal, a sweet, sassy, self-absorbed gay teen Moses as our guide through his wacky family of straight oafs and original Catholic gangsters. Long gone are the story arcs about the traditional coming-out narrative of an adolescent who has a queer feeling and struggles to communicate her new identity to the world. Instead we have Faking It, MTV's romantic comedy about two best friends who are mistakenly presumed to be lesbian by their progressive high school, and must contemplate coming-out as straight. Described by the token conservative mean girl from Dallas, who happens to be the first Intersex series regular on television played by an intersex actor, Hester is a "Kumbaya, socialist freakshow of a high school" where diversity is a prerequisite to popularity. Childhood BFFs Karma and Amy
The futures of queer televisions
Jump Cut, 2021
The futures of queer televisions by Jack Halberstam with Joëlle Rouleau Jack Halberstam: Good afternoon. I'm Jack Halberstam, a professor of English and gender studies at Columbia University. And I'm excited to be talking to you about queer television today. Joëlle Rouleau: We are looking at this paradox of queer television about 'what's happening with television?' or 'what's happening with queer and trans identities regarding television?' JH: If you think back, I don't know maybe 10 years, it seemed like television was going into a decline. Netflix primarily functioned as a service to deliver movies into people's homes, and it seemed possible that people wouldn't go to cinemas any longer. They'd just stay home and watch a range of pre-selected products. Then along came streaming platforms to revitalize TV. This shift has had good and bad implications for the representation of queer and trans bodies.