A Queer Undertaking: Uncanny Attachments in the HBO Television Drama Series Six Feet Under

Munt, Sally R.

doi:10.4324/9781315245478-7

Cited by 3 publications

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“…Flanders is a television context wherein the mere presence of non-heterosexual and/or non-cisgendered characters – regardless of their prominence in the text – does not offer differentiation between texts. Contrary to the United States, where the relation between the televisibility of LGBTQ+ identities and distinction is largely affirmative and situated at the level of consumption (see Becker, 2006; Chambers, 2009; Munt, 2006; Walters, 2003), Flemish prestige television fiction presents an inverse image. The series discussed in this essay relate to their socially liberal audiences not by affirming their tastes and socio-cultural dispositions, but by textually delegitimizing those of the demographics they distinguish themselves from.…”

Section: Distinctive Queernessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, producers’ discourses on Flemish prestige television fiction naturalize the envisioned socio-cultural deficit in mainstream Flanders by claiming to emphasize ‘authenticity, recognition and Flemishness’ (Dhoest, 2015: 15). By pointing to the deficiencies of what is commonly understood as ‘ordinary Flemishness’ and portraying LGBTQ+ characters as morally superior, the series discussed in this article could also be understood as deconstructions of the normal, a core point in queer television studies (see Chambers, 2009; Joyrich, 2014; Munt, 2006). In their engagement with sexual and gender diversity, however, texts employing distinctive queers reduce LGBTQ+ identities to their sexual or gendered difference, and transform LGBTQ+ inclusivity from an ethical disposition to a matter of taste and legitimate socio-cultural sensibilities.…”

Section: Distinctive Queernessmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Distinctively queer in the Parish: Performances of distinction and LGBTQ+ representations in Flemish prestige television fiction

Vanlee

Bauwel

Dhaenens

2019

European Journal of Cultural Studies

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This article troubles the intuitive link between emancipatory portrayals of sexual and gender diversity and ‘quality television’ by focusing on three Flemish ‘prestige’ dramas: Met Man en Macht (VIER, 2013), Bevergem (Canvas, 2015) and Den Elfde Van Den Elfde (één, 2016). Contrary to the United States, Flemish quality television portrays fewer LGBTQ+ characters and narratives than less ‘prestigious’ content. Approached from a Bourdieusian perspective, the cases discussed show that when LGBTQ+ characters are featured in prestigious domestic fiction content, they function as distinctive queers. This article argues that, whereas LGBTQ+ characters in US quality television affirm the socio-cultural disposition of the target audience, Flemish prestige television fiction delegitimizes that of the group from which the imagined audience distinguishes itself. Distinctive queers circulate in a larger cultural repertoire associated with Flemish prestige television fiction, recasting markers of ordinary Flemishness found in domestic content. This repertoire is organized around the motif of the parish, and discursively separates Flanders into two distinct temporal configurations: one decidedly pre-modern and inferior, the other expressively modern and superior. A synecdoche for ‘common Flanders’, the parish constructs the majority of Flemings as culturally coarse, backwards and innately unable to be legitimately modern. As the analysis shows, distinctive queers accentuate the social deficit of mundane communities, and textually perform the distinction of fashionable, socially liberal urban-minded Flemings. In consonance with the hyperbolic representations that recast ‘ordinary Flemish cultural life’ as grotesque and ridiculous, distinctive queers frame LGBTQ+ inclusivity as the prerogative of conspicuously absent urban, socio-culturally progressive Flemings.

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Section: Distinctive Queernessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Distinctive Queernessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinctively queer in the Parish: Performances of distinction and LGBTQ+ representations in Flemish prestige television fiction

Vanlee

Bauwel

Dhaenens

2019

European Journal of Cultural Studies

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“…This is not to say, of course, that static normality is never disavowed through popular television fiction. Premium cable series, such as those under the HBO or Showtime banners, for example, are often cited in queer television studies scholarship as examples of pop-cultural products with a decidedly more subversive and nuanced approach to gender and sexuality (e.g., Chambers 2003Chambers , 2009Dhaenens and Van Bauwel 2012;Munt 2006). Genres such as fantasy and science fiction with a fraught relationship to the mainstream, often with a certain cult sensibility to them, are constructed as another site of queerly antinormative articulations.…”

Section: Television Fiction and Normality/normativitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Queer Normality: LGBT+ Representations in Millennial Flemish Television Fiction

Vanlee

Dhaenens

Bauwel

2018

Television & New Media

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Queer television studies scholarship tends to construct "queerness" and "normality" as incommensurable concepts, defining queer "against the normal rather than the heterosexual." In this article, we show how this construction is specifically intertwined with highly liberalized media contexts, and generates a fundamentally static understanding and operationalization of the concept of normality in queer television studies. Turning to Flemish television fiction of the late 1990s, we point to a dynamic and open-ended approach toward sexual and gender diversity, and illustrate how televised normality itself can be a queer phenomenon. In doing so, we offer a framework to understand the proliferation of LGBT+ characters and storylines in twenty-first-century Flemish television fiction, and contribute to a nuanced understanding of the dynamics of normalization and television fiction in a western European television industry.

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“…Dow 2001; Avila-Saavedra 2009; Kies 2016) or, conversely, subvert heteronormality by queering established representational strategies (e.g. Munt 2006;Dhaenens & Van Bauwel 2012). This is not to say that queer television analyses adopt exclusively textual perspectives.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Vanlee¹,

Kerrigan²

2021

Gender and Sexuality in the European Media

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The term 'televisibility' refers to instances of explicit rather than implicit attention for sexual and gender diversity. As such, when the term is used, it does not allude to portrayals that invite queer readings or suggest same-sex desire/non-binary gender identification, but to representations overtly coded as such.2 Vlaamse Radio-en Televisieomroeporganisatie [Flemish Radio & Television Broadcasting Organization] 3 At the time, VRT was not yet regionalized, and was called NIR. For the sake of clarity, this chapter will consistently address the Flemish PSB by its current name. 4 Raidió Teilifís Éireann [Radio-Television of Ireland] prominent, main characters with full-fledged storylines.

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A Queer Undertaking: Uncanny Attachments in the HBO Television Drama Series Six Feet Under

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Distinctively queer in the Parish: Performances of distinction and LGBTQ+ representations in Flemish prestige television fiction

Distinctively queer in the Parish: Performances of distinction and LGBTQ+ representations in Flemish prestige television fiction

Understanding Queer Normality: LGBT+ Representations in Millennial Flemish Television Fiction

Un/fit for young viewers

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