ABOUT THIS BOOK

A look at the emergence of queer women characters in popular storytelling and the wide-ranging effects of this mainstream representation.

The twenty-first century has seen LGBTQ+ rights emerge at the forefront of public discourse and national politics in ways that would once have been hard to imagine. In Lesbians on Television, Kate McNicholas Smith maps concurrent contemporary shifts in lesbian visibility within popular media, focusing on the small screens of Europe and North America. Central to these shifts has been a re-imagining of queer lives—or a “new queer visibility”—as LGBTQ+ characters have become increasingly visible within popular culture. Kate McNicholas Smith explores this increased visibility through the lens of television, and in doing so, she identifies a “new lesbian normal”—a normalization of lesbian subjects that both helps and hinders those it represents.

Structured around five central case studies of popular British and American television shows featuring lesbian, bisexual, and queer women characters—The L Word, Skins, Glee, Coronation Street, and The Fosters—the book develops a detailed analysis of the shaping of a new “lesbian normal” through representations of LGBTQ+ figures and examines their televisual representation and reception. Presenting critical queer and feminist theory alongside empirical research that includes interviews and multi-platform media analyses, McNicholas Smith works to untangle the social, political, and cultural implications of new visibility in a period of significant social change in the LGBTQ+ experience.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Kate McNicholas Smith is a lecturer in television theory at the University of Westminster in London.

REVIEWS

“A nuanced look at the gender and racial politics which underpin a number of relevant queer televisual works, interrogating and illuminating the often-contradictory ideologies which pervade them. McNicholas Smith’s notion of ‘the lesbian normal’ is also useful to other researchers examining contemporary queer representation, as it emphasizes the postfeminist and homonormative discourses which are often found in queer media works. As such, Lesbians on Television is a welcome contribution to the study of how lesbians are depicted in contemporary representation. As McNicholas Smith writes in the book’s conclusion, contemporary lesbian representation has given us cause for both optimism and concern, with her monograph serving as a detailed account of precisely the discursive tension inherent in many queer televisual works.”

— Anamarija Horvat, Journal of Popular Television

"The book takes a nuanced look at the gender and racial politics which underpin a selection of relevant lesbian televisual works, interrogating and illuminating the often-contradictory ideologies which pervade them. [McNicholas Smith] emphasizes the postfeminist and homonormative discourses which have been found in these selected queer media works. As such, Lesbians on Television is a welcome contribution to the exclusive and detailed study of how lesbians are depicted in contemporary representation. [...] Such a well-researched book as Lesbians on Television is an invitation for researchers to do an analysis of queer folk in the media in the global South."

— Dolar Vasani, AwaaZ Magazine

"McNicholas Smith analyses the consistent repetition of lesbian stereotypes which are detrimental to the positive progress of their representation, including, for instance, what she identifies as ‘the temporary lesbian’, ‘the dead lesbian’, and ‘the evil lesbian’. Each example is diligently examined by McNicholas Smith in her consideration of the development of lesbian visibility over time, and the extent to which progress has been made, with arguments that remain clear, engaging and accessible throughout. Whilst the scope of analysis may be limited somewhat through its primary focus on examining case studies of teenage lesbians who are both white and cis-gendered, McNicholas Smith’s research provides an overview of the current state of lesbian representation, introducing the subject to researchers interested in queer studies or, more specifically, lesbian representation and becoming a useful foundation for further research."

— Jade Evans, Critical Studies on Television

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

'Previously…': Queer women on screen

‘The way that we live and love’: The L Word and the tensions of visibility

‘Homophobia is so old fashioned’: Skins and the lesbian normal

‘Skins’ truest legacy’: The counterpublics of the Naomily fandom

‘The nation’s favourite lesbian’: Coronation Street and the ‘everyday’ soap lesbian

‘New Directions’: Glee, new queer visibility and post-queer popular culture

‘A new kind of family’: The Fosters and the radical potential of the lesbian normal

Afterword: Reflections on the limits and possibilities of new queer visibility and the lesbian normal