Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Griffin, F. Hollis

Titel

Introduction: Queer Tools for Studying Digital Television

Ist Teil von

• Television Studies in Queer Times, 2023, Vol.1, p.1-10

Auflage

1

Ort / Verlag

United Kingdom: Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• I had just finished my first year as a graduate student in media studies when I attended a high school friend's wedding in June 2006. During the reception, I was seated with a bunch of the bride and groom's friends, none of whom were students or worked in higher education, though all were fascinated by the fact that I was starting a dissertation on the relationship between lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ+) politics and television. "Is there even enough to study?" they wondered, asking me what it meant to write about such a topic. Between the soup and salad courses, the conversation turned to the other wedding guests listing as many LGBTQ+ characters and LGBTQ+-themed "very special episodes" as they could recall. In that conversation, people remembered classic, one-off episodes, like the episode of All in the Family (CBS, 1971-1979) wherein the homophobic main character's best friend turns out to be gay, and the episode of Roseanne (ABC, 1988-1997, 2018) in which the main character goes to a lesbian bar. They also recalled recurring queer characters from programs in eras past, like Jodie Dallas on the 1970s-era sitcom Soap (ABC, 1977-1981) and Stephen Carrington on the 1980s primetime soap opera Dynasty (ABC, 1981-1987)-though all were quick to point out that neither character actually stayed queer over the course of the series. Still others remembered problematic episodes that dealt with LGBTQ+ issues, like the AIDS-themed episodes of programs like Touched by an Angel (CBS, 1994-2003) and Designing Women (CBS, 1986-1993) in which HIV+ gay men appear only to die by the end of the narrative, or the murderous bisexuals of 24 (Fox, 2001-2010) and Nip/Tuck (FX, 2003-2010), or Buffy the Vampire Slayer (WB, 1997-2001; UPN, 2001-2003). My fellow guests agreed that they loved the network sitcom Will & Grace (NBC, 1998-2006; 2017-2020), liked the music in the cable drama Queer as Folk (Showtime, 2000-2005; Peacock, 2022), and thought Ellen DeGeneres's comeback after the cancellation of her sitcoms in the 1990s and 2000s as a talk show host was long overdue. As the wedding segued from salad to the main course, the table had decided that if I were to study LGBTQ+ issues as they are made manifest on television, my archive would be small and a little sad-and the project itself was noble if also perhaps somewhat pointless. Aren't things "better now," with entire programs and television networks devoted to LGBTQ+-themed content? Isn't the internet going to replace television anyway? I attempted to launch a spirited defense: But there are many ways of studying LGBTQ+ politics and television beyond merely looking at characters and episodes! What about industries and audiences? What about the changes to television production and consumption precipitated by the development of digital technologies? What about the centrality of television to discussions of LGBTQ+ activism? What did it mean that they could all rattle off all of these programs and episodes and characters and they were not even studying them? None of them were receptive to what I had to say. No one even asked me what I thought of any of the programs and episodes and characters they mentioned because whatever knowledge there was to be gleaned from them was treated as being self-evident. And while my investments were treated as being honorable, they did not think I was doing anything important.