‘Oh my god this is happening’: how Our Flag Means Death staged an empathic mutiny against the labour of queer reading practices

Abstract

Our Flag Means Death ( OFMD) premiered to critical acclaim and unprecedented audience engagement. It can be argued that it is a romantic queer reading of historical facts. In this article, we reflect on the social function of storytelling and audience labour within the context of queer screen representations. We theorise queer reading as a practice of learning to recognise, identify and create patterns of semiotic resources. This practice is a reaction to a history of being erased or relegated to subtext. We argue queer reading is a particular form of audience labour, in that readers are asked to do extra work. This is especially important in cases where identities and communities are regularly symbolically annihilated. Season One of OFMD is a unique case study where we explore how the show achieves a low/easy labour environment for a vulnerable viewer and how this is an act of care and empathy.