A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
Horror scholar Andy Owens explores the genre’s complex relationship to gender, and delves into two recent films that are tackling toxic masculinity head-on.
Read moreMohammed Rashid explores methods of private queer activism through the material comic strip, Dhee, in challenging the dominant gender and sexual norms in Bangladesh.
Read moreWendy Peters argues that the contemporary and decentralized context of music production, distribution, and social media promotion diversified and transformed pop music by enabling Lil Nas X—a Black and openly gay star—to rise.
Read moreIn his final installment on television syndication, Taylor Cole Miller examines how particular first-run syndicated programs offered and embraced queerness.
Read moreWhat 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.
Read moreBritta 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.
Read moreWendy Peters explores the gendered boundaries of straight, closeted, and gay characters on 90210 and Glee.
Read moreCoco Zhou examines the male and female identification process and gender dynamics underlying the shojo figure in Japanese anime and visual and popular culture.
Read moreAn investigation of Asian masculinities in Little Fish and Japanese Story.
Read moreChildren 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.