Textual orientation: queer female fandom online

Abstract

At the end of 2011, an editorial column on the pop culture blog AfterEllen.com posed the question: “Does lesbian subtext still matter?” (Hogan 2012). AfterEllennamed in tribute to the 1997 milestone when both US comedian Ellen DeGeneres and her eponymous television sitcom character came out (Ellen, ABC 1994-8)—is a website that covers lesbian and bisexual women and characters in TV, film, entertainment, and independent media. This article exemplifies new questions facing LGBTQ audiences in the era of gay representation on mainstream television. In her book All the Rage, Susanna Danuta Walters chronicles the contradictions of what a 1995 Entertainment Weekly cover story famously called the “gay 90s,” writing that while “visibility has indeed opened up public awareness and an appreciation of gay and lesbian rights, it has also circumscribed those rights into categories that may themselves become new kinds of ‘closets’” (2003: 18). In the ensuing decade, the number and range of LGBTQ characters and figures in the mass media in the US has continued to grow, and so has the debate about the politics of representation. In the aforementioned blog post, this debate is framed in terms of an oppositionbetween “subtext”—homoerotic elements of characterization, narrative, mise-en scene, and their surrounding discourses-and “maintext”—explicit portrayals of LGBT individuals. In the several pages of reader comments on the AfterEllen post, some people insist on the social value of positive images. User WaxLionMonkeyBookends, for example, argues that “AfterEllen has a responsibility to passionately put itself behind projects that promote progressive visibility … to openly encourage (or at least comment on) shows that DO portray gay women as maintext.” Other commenters agree with the piece’s author that “subtext matters because it creates a virtual playground for lesbian fans to interact with each other … because lesbians can use that subtext, that chemistry between two female characters, to create their own versions of the story.” Are we really, as WaxLionMonkeyBookends and others argue, on a path of historical evolution, wherein lesbians become ever more visible? Or do same-sex romances and same-sex subtext-relationships that are only implied or perceived to be more than platonic-serve different but simultaneously vital roles within our culture? Or might we wonder, rather, if the dichotomy this discussionposits between “subtext” and “maintext” is as transparent and unambiguous as it appears to be? Growing gay visibility in the media is due not just to social change but also toindustrial and technological change. The US broadcast model of network television has been under pressure for decades from innovations like cable (increasing the number of channels and competition between them) and the VCR (the first of many devices offering audiences more choice and control in scheduling TV viewing). The internet and digital video have only intensified these trends. In the context of proliferating channels and multiple streams of distribution (Lotz 2007), the industry has responded at the level of marketing and content by shifting toward “narrowcasting” (targeting ever more specific niche demographics) and distinction (promoting its legitimacy and status by dealing with controversial topics like sexuality) (Levine 2007). DeGeneres’s sitcom was groundbreaking because it bucked a general trajectory whereby US TV’s tentative ventures onto the delicate terrain of LGBT lead characters have migrated from premium channels (Queer as Folk, Showtime, 2000-5; Six Feet Under, HBO, 2001-5) to cable networks (Queer Eye, Bravo, 2003-7; South of Nowhere, The N, 2005-8) to prime time (Glee, Fox, 2009-; Modern Family, ABC, 2009-), while supplemented by new formations of fan networks and independent media online (Beirne 2007). This chapter focuses on queer female fandom from its pre-digital roots to its pre-sent-day internet bounty, emphasizing issues surrounding its internal diversity and external dynamics. The term “queer” is complex and contradictory, straddling the continuum from identity politics-the idea that queer people should band together on the basis of common interests to advocate for recognition and rights-to radical refusal of this notion of a stable identity and other normative categories. The phenomenon of fandom asks us to consider the value of subtext, pausing at this moment of techno-cultural transformation to consider what we have to gain and to lose. In mainstream media, boosting the visibility of marginalized groups goes hand in hand with boosting their commercial profile. Through a survey of the history of fan communities, how they have been framed in terms of gender and sexuality, and their current exploits and conflicts, I will point to some of the vitality and multiplicity of queer female fandom that we should be wary of exchanging for business as usual.