Finding domestic LGBT+ television in Western Europe: Methodological challenges for queer critics

Abstract

ABSTRACTTo challenge the Americentrism of contemporary Western queer television studies, this paper offers a peripheral perspective on the introduction of non-heterosexual and non-cisgendered subjectivities to Western European television cultures, and their subsequent mainstreaming through public service broadcasting fiction. Having established this distinct trajectory, the essay points to the challenges of bringing domestic television fiction to academic interest, discussing particular differences with European queer cinema and American television fiction. Reflecting on how these challenges can be overcome, the paper cautions against the localization of established methodological discourses, and argues for the use of descriptive methods as a way to negotiate the invisibility of domestic representations of sexual and gender diversity on television. Relating descriptive methods to public service broadcasting policies, moreover, it contends that such modes of doing research have queer political potential, and may allow for a direct engagement between queer media scholarship and public service broadcaster programming.