Representing Queer in Popular Literature: Reader Analysis on Casey McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue

Abstract

Following the increasing public awareness of gender issues nowadays, this also has an impact on the increasing frequency of topics that arise regarding gender in popular literary works, one of which is the queer representations in the LGBTQ+ community as shown in Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue. How the queer community presented in this novel is also related to how the reader ultimately forms perceptions about the people in the community itself. This study aim to see how readers respond based on their interpretation and judgement of queer representations that appear in the main characters of the novel Red, White & Royal Blue. This study uses a qualitative approach, main data source in this study are in the form of readers' comments on the novel Red, White & Royal Blue taken from the Goodreads website. Specifically, this study uses the Encoding-Decoding reception theory model by Stuart Hall to see how readers respond to queer representations that appear in the novel, and what aspects attract readers that have an impact on the popularity of the novel. From the analysis conducted, it was concluded that (1) readers of Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue regarding their response to queer representations that appear in the novel, are divided into 3 groups namely the dominant-hegemonic position, the negotiated position, and the oppositional position, (2) the queer representation that appears in the two main characters of this novel is the main factor that makes this novel so popular, besides that there are several aspects that are criticized by readers, but these do not really have an impact on the popularity of the novel.