Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Feminist Media Studies on 02/02/2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14680777.2017.1282883
Accepted author manuscript, 556 KB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Lesbian brides
T2 - post-queer popular culture
AU - McNicholas Smith, Kate May
AU - Tyler, Imogen Elizabeth
N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Feminist Media Studies on 02/02/2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14680777.2017.1282883
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - 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 affirms 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” (Warner 2000), 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 effects, 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.
AB - 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 affirms 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” (Warner 2000), 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 effects, 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.
KW - Lesbian
KW - television
KW - queer
KW - post-feminist
KW - romance
KW - soap opera
U2 - 10.1080/14680777.2017.1282883
DO - 10.1080/14680777.2017.1282883
M3 - Journal article
VL - 17
SP - 315
EP - 331
JO - Feminist Media Studies
JF - Feminist Media Studies
SN - 1468-0777
IS - 3
ER -