1.

Record Nr.

UNISA996449440303316

Autore

Pugh Tison

Titolo

The Queer Fantasies of the American Family Sitcom / / Tison Pugh

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Brunswick, NJ : , : Rutgers University Press, , [2018]

©2018

ISBN

0-8135-9175-9

0-8135-9173-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (248 pages)

Disciplina

791.45/617

Soggetti

Television programs - Social aspects - United States

Sex role on television

Homosexuality on television

Homosexuality and television

Situation comedies (Television programs) - United States - History and criticism

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction: TV's Three Queer Fantasies -- 1. The Queer Times of Leave It to Beaver: Beaver's Present, Ward's Past, and June's Future -- 2. Queer Innocence and Kitsch Nostalgia in The Brady Bunch -- 3. No Sex Please, We're African American: The Cosby Show's Queer Fear of Black Sexuality -- 4. Feminism, Homosexuality, and Blue-Collar Perversity in Roseanne -- 5. Allegory, Queer Authenticity, and Marketing Tween Sexuality in Hannah Montana -- 6. Conservative Narratology, Queer Politics, and the Humor of Gay Stereotypes in Modern Family -- Conclusion: Tolstoy Was Wrong; or, On the Queer Reception of Television's Happy Families -- Acknowledgments -- Television Programs -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index -- About the Author

Sommario/riassunto

The Queer Fantasies of the American Family Sitcom examines the evasive depictions of sexuality in domestic and family-friendly sitcoms. Tison Pugh charts the history of increasing sexual depiction in this genre while also unpacking how sitcoms use sexuality as a source of



power, as a kind of camouflage, and as a foundation for family building. The book examines how queerness, at first latent, became a vibrant yet continually conflicted part of the family-sitcom tradition.  Taking into account elements such as the casting of child actors, the use of and experimentation with plot traditions, the contradictory interpretive valences of comedy, and the subtle subversions of moral standards by writers and directors, Pugh points out how innocence and sexuality conflict on television. As older sitcoms often sit on a pedestal of nostalgia as representative of the Golden Age of the American Family, television history reveals a deeper, queerer vision of family bonds.