Lesbian brides: post-queer popular culture

McNicholas Smith, K. and Tyler, I. 2017. Lesbian brides: post-queer popular culture. Feminist Media Studies. 17 (3), pp. 315-331. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2017.1282883

TitleLesbian brides: post-queer popular culture
TypeJournal article
AuthorsMcNicholas Smith, K. and Tyler, I.
Abstract

The last decade has witnessed a proliferation of lesbian representations in European and North American popular culture, particularly within television drama and broader celebrity culture. The abundance of “positive” and “ordinary” representations of lesbians is widely celebrated as signifying progress in queer struggles for social equality. Yet, as this article details, the terms of the visibility extended to lesbians within popular culture often a rm ideals of hetero-patriarchal, white femininity. Focusing on the visual and narrative registers within which lesbian romances are mediated within television drama, this article examines the emergence of what we describe as “the lesbian normal.” Tracking the ways in which the lesbian normal is anchored in a longer history of “the normal gay,” it argues that the lesbian normal is indicative of the emergence of a broader post-feminist and post-queer popular culture, in which feminist and queer struggles are imagined as completed and belonging to the past. Post-queer popular culture is depoliticising in its e ects, diminishing the critical potential of feminist and queer politics, and silencing the actually existing conditions of inequality, prejudice, and stigma that continue to shape lesbian lives.

KeywordsLesbian
Television
Queer
Post-feminist
Romance
Soap opera
JournalFeminist Media Studies
Journal citation17 (3), pp. 315-331
ISSN1468-0777
1471-5902
Year2017
PublisherTaylor & Francis
Accepted author manuscript
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2017.1282883
Web address (URL)https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2017.1282883
Publication dates
Published02 Feb 2017

Related outputs

‘Time for all of us to Walk into the Sunshine Together’: Glee, the same-sex wedding spectacle and the imagining of queer futures
McNicholas Smith, K. 2020. ‘Time for all of us to Walk into the Sunshine Together’: Glee, the same-sex wedding spectacle and the imagining of queer futures. in: Jay, J., Kennedy, M. and Wood, H. (ed.) The Wedding Spectacle Across Contemporary Media and Culture: Something Old, Something New London Routledge.

Lesbians On Television: New Queer Visibility and The Lesbian Normal
McNicholas Smith, K. 2020. Lesbians On Television: New Queer Visibility and The Lesbian Normal. Bristol Intellect.

Sexualisation, or the queer feminist provocations of Miley Cyrus
McNicholas Smith, K. 2017. Sexualisation, or the queer feminist provocations of Miley Cyrus. Feminist Theory. 18 (3), pp. 281-298. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700117721880

Ethereal queer: Television, historicity, desire, Amy Villarejo
McNicholas Smith, K. 2016. Ethereal queer: Television, historicity, desire, Amy Villarejo. Feminist Theory. 17 (1), pp. 131-132. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700115621252b

Book Review: Reality TV, June Deery, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2015, £15.99, 200pp.
Kate McNicholas Smith 2016. Book Review: Reality TV, June Deery, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2015, £15.99, 200pp. Sociological Review. 64 (1), pp. 204-206. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954x.12352

Permalink - https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/item/qqz9q/lesbian-brides-post-queer-popular-culture


Share this

Usage statistics

118 total views
1234 total downloads
These values cover views and downloads from WestminsterResearch and are for the period from September 2nd 2018, when this repository was created.