The fantastic queer: reading gay representations in Torchwood and True Blood as articulations of queer resistance
- Author
- Frederik Dhaenens (UGent)
- Organization
- Abstract
- Fantasy films and television series have generally taken an ambivalent position toward homosexuality. On the one hand, the genre has omitted representations of gay characters or displaced homosexuality onto the victims, villains, or nonhuman others. Hence, from a queer theoretical perspective, homosexuality has been represented as a threat to the hegemonic discourse of heteronormativity. On the other hand, deconstructionist practices have revealed how the other may be read as a form of cultural resistance and a powerful metaphor for gay men and women. However, a few 21st-century fantasy series are breaking the tradition by representing characters and themes explicitly marked as gay.Using a textual analysis of two contemporary fantasy series (Torchwood and True Blood), this study illustrates how the inclusion of gay characters rearticulates this ambivalent position of the fantasy genre toward homosexuality. The ambivalence no longer serves to read the others as metaphors for homosexuality and/or queerness, but allows us to imagine queer subject positions and transgressive norms and values in close relation to actual gay characters.
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Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-4190318
- MLA
- Dhaenens, Frederik. “The Fantastic Queer: Reading Gay Representations in Torchwood and True Blood as Articulations of Queer Resistance.” CRITICAL STUDIES IN MEDIA COMMUNICATION, vol. 30, no. 2, 2013, pp. 102–16, doi:10.1080/15295036.2012.755055.
- APA
- Dhaenens, F. (2013). The fantastic queer: reading gay representations in Torchwood and True Blood as articulations of queer resistance. CRITICAL STUDIES IN MEDIA COMMUNICATION, 30(2), 102–116. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2012.755055
- Chicago author-date
- Dhaenens, Frederik. 2013. “The Fantastic Queer: Reading Gay Representations in Torchwood and True Blood as Articulations of Queer Resistance.” CRITICAL STUDIES IN MEDIA COMMUNICATION 30 (2): 102–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2012.755055.
- Chicago author-date (all authors)
- Dhaenens, Frederik. 2013. “The Fantastic Queer: Reading Gay Representations in Torchwood and True Blood as Articulations of Queer Resistance.” CRITICAL STUDIES IN MEDIA COMMUNICATION 30 (2): 102–116. doi:10.1080/15295036.2012.755055.
- Vancouver
- 1.Dhaenens F. The fantastic queer: reading gay representations in Torchwood and True Blood as articulations of queer resistance. CRITICAL STUDIES IN MEDIA COMMUNICATION. 2013;30(2):102–16.
- IEEE
- [1]F. Dhaenens, “The fantastic queer: reading gay representations in Torchwood and True Blood as articulations of queer resistance,” CRITICAL STUDIES IN MEDIA COMMUNICATION, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 102–116, 2013.
@article{4190318,
abstract = {{Fantasy films and television series have generally taken an ambivalent position toward homosexuality. On the one hand, the genre has omitted representations of gay characters or displaced homosexuality onto the victims, villains, or nonhuman others. Hence, from a queer theoretical perspective, homosexuality has been represented as a threat to the hegemonic discourse of heteronormativity. On the other hand, deconstructionist practices have revealed how the other may be read as a form of cultural resistance and a powerful metaphor for gay men and women. However, a few 21st-century fantasy series are breaking the tradition by representing characters and themes explicitly marked as gay.Using a textual analysis of two contemporary fantasy series (Torchwood and True Blood), this study illustrates how the inclusion of gay characters rearticulates this ambivalent position of the fantasy genre toward homosexuality. The ambivalence no longer serves to read the others as metaphors for homosexuality and/or queerness, but allows us to imagine queer subject positions and transgressive norms and values in close relation to actual gay characters.}},
author = {{Dhaenens, Frederik}},
issn = {{1529-5036}},
journal = {{CRITICAL STUDIES IN MEDIA COMMUNICATION}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{2}},
pages = {{102--116}},
title = {{The fantastic queer: reading gay representations in Torchwood and True Blood as articulations of queer resistance}},
url = {{http://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2012.755055}},
volume = {{30}},
year = {{2013}},
}
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