The League of Gentlemen and 1990s England: Conflicts and complexities in sexuality and gender at the turn of the century

Abstract

ABSTRACTReading The League of Gentlemen (BBC, 1999–2002) as a social text, this article will explore the show's portrayal of 1990s England in terms of sexual identities and gender relations. Many English media texts in the 1990s reflected the absence of a unified national or personal identity. There was a ‘crisis’ of masculinity. Depictions of unemployment and industrial decay in the north of England particularly abound with ‘a wider, cross-class range of male experience’, and reflected ‘a wider range of insecurities and fears’ (Monk 2000: 161). How was this represented in comedy? Focusing on the vampire segment of the Christmas Special, the article will examine how The League of Gentlemen portrays and challenges the ideas around sexuality and gender in the millennial landscape of England, highlighting the complexities of the show's deployment of a sense of'a fin de millennium crisis' (Farrell 2003: 120) of sexuality and gender in English culture and society. It will offer a detailed textual analysis of a key sequence informed and supported by the production process. This, then, will provide a rounded understanding of how this particular type of horror — comedy hybrid contributes images and ideas to sexuality and gender through its catastrophic and grotesque style, as well as its diverse and complex representations of sexual identities.