‘You Could Shame the Great Arthur Himself’: A Queer Reading of Lancelot from BBC’s Merlin with Respect to the Character in Malory, White, and Bradley

Abstract

A queer reading of the Lancelot character as he appears in BBC television series Merlin (2008–12) and the works of Malory, White, and Bradley, situates the cult series in the long heritage of Arthurian adaptation and reveals a secretive and troubled figure with a personal connection to his adaptors.

Queerbaiting: The ‘playful’ possibilities of homoeroticism

“…My recent queer readings of Lancelot (2015a) and Mordred (2015b) as they appear in Merlin lend legitimacy to fan readings of the series as full of homoerotic potential. As I argue, such readings should be considered in light of the value of queer theory in making sense of ‘peculiar’ depictions of male same-sex relations in texts of, or set in, the Middle Ages (Brennan, 2015a: 38).…”

“…My recent queer readings of Lancelot (2015a) and Mordred (2015b) as they appear in Merlin lend legitimacy to fan readings of the series as full of homoerotic potential. As I argue, such readings should be considered in light of the value of queer theory in making sense of ‘peculiar’ depictions of male same-sex relations in texts of, or set in, the Middle Ages (Brennan, 2015a: 38). Determining whether readings of homoeroticism ‘are suggested and supported by the text itself’, or in fact an ‘oppositional resistance to a heterosexual’ norm (as Tosenberger [2008] explores with regard to incestuous readings in Supernatural ) 7 speaks to a key caveat employed in the definition of terms such as ‘hoyay’, namely ‘the actual’.…”

“…I avoid such a stance, favouring Sedgwick’s notion of a continuum, and positioning homoeroticism between poles of homosocial and homosexual, or suggestion and actualisation/validation. Further, it is worth noting with respect to my case study, that whether latent or manifest in the series, that is, whether Merlin is homosocial or homosexual or somewhere in between, the literature from which it beckons is rich in homosexual text and subtext (see Brennan, 2015a: 21–2). This ‘homoerotic tradition’ (see Burger and Kruger, 2001; Zeikowitz, 2003) is particularly pronounced among Arthur and his knights, which will form the basis of my study in the second half of this article.…”

“…She makes the point that the empathic phrase, short for ‘homoeroticism, yay!’, describes a process of viewing that swiftly evolves from being a descriptive device used to chart ‘longing looks and touches’ to become a ‘desired way of seeing, a spectatorial position actively sought out’ by likeminded fans (2008: 211). Consideration of the term ‘hoyay’ – and what Kohnen describes as ‘seeing queerly’ (2008: 212) – in the context of Merlin is productive given the number of parallels between Smallville and Merlin , the former of which served as principal inspiration for the latter (Brennan, 2015a: 39). Further, such conceptualisation of the active viewing process behind the term encourages reconsideration of ‘queerbaiting’ and the more recent shift toward a ‘harm’ view of texts that employ it, such as Merlin .…”

“…True to chivalric tradition (see Brennan, 2015a: 25–6), Merlin valorises conventional signifiers of masculinity, as gratuitous shots of Arthur’s knights reveal (see V.1). In Merlin , the Knights of the Round Table are honourable, handsome, brave, large, strong, loyal, courteous and skilled in battle.…”