A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
What does the presence of queer characters accomplish in historical shows? How much historicity do their depictions require? Britta Hanson explores the positive – and frequently negative – implications of modern-framed queer characters placed in the past.
Britta Hanson examines the politics of cross-dressing and gender-bending performance on the popular show Lip Sync Battle, which ultimately contains such performances and reifies heteronormative gender roles.
Wendy Peters explores the gendered boundaries of straight, closeted, and gay characters on 90210 and Glee.
Coco Zhou examines the male and female identification process and gender dynamics underlying the shojo figure in Japanese anime and visual and popular culture.
An investigation of Asian masculinities in Little Fish and Japanese Story.
Children Playing in Hollywood
by: Judith Halberstam / University of Southern California
Let’s see how Little Children manages to sneak normativity into the plot as resolution for the problem of the community enforcement of …normativity!
Queering Justin
by: Hector Amaya / Southwestern University
How does the Justin character on Ugly Betty factor into and complicate debates about queer representations on television?
Trauma Time: Family, Community and Criminality in Close to Home
by: Diane Negra / University of East Anglia
How CBS’ Close to Home redefines motherhood, community and family values.
Playboy Feminism? Hugh Hefner and The Girls Next Door
by: Moya Luckett / New York University
The Girls Next Door plays with significant ideological contradictions as it tries to address the prevailing popularity of the Playboy bunny image with a new generation of women while trying to remove any taint of sexual exploitation from its girls.
