LGBTQ Visibility, Media and Sexuality in Ireland

Description

This book traces the turbulent history of queer visibility in the Irish media to explore the processes by which a regionally based media system shaped queer identities within a highly conservative and religious population. The book details the emergence of an LGBTQ rights movement in Ireland and charts how this burgeoning movement utilised the media for the liberatory potential of advancing LGBTQ rights. However, mainstream media institutions also exploited queer identities for economic purposes, which, coupled with the eruption of the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s, disrupted the mainstreaming goals of queer visibility. Drawing on industrial, societal and production culture determinants, the author identifies the shifting contours of queer visibility in the Irish media, uncovering the longstanding relationship between LGBTQ organising and the Irish media. This book is suitable for students and scholars in gender studies, media studies, cultural studies and LGBTQ studies. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents List of Figures Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations 1. LGBTQ visibility, media and sexuality in Ireland Breaking silence Queer media studies, queer production studies and media activism Theorising queer visibility Irish media industries and LGBTQ civil rights movements Mapping the book Notes 2. Respectably gay?: Gay male visibility on current-affairs television (1974-1980) Introduction Mainstreaming and the confessional Coming out of the closet on Last House (1975) Documenting the confessional: Tuesday Report (1977) Locating the homodomestic on Week In (1980) Conclusion Notes 3. Fifty shades of gay: Lesbian and gay visibility on The Late Late Show (1980-1989) Introduction The LLS: cultural contexts and programming conventions Changing the contours of queer visibility Lesbians: the lavender women of Irish television The curious case of the lesbian nuns Debating homosexuality on the LLS Conclusion Notes 4. AIDS and the disruption of queer visibility (1983-1994) Introduction Hegemonic news media and media institutions Alternative media economies: OUT magazine Queer alliances and community documentary activism Conclusion Notes 5. Coitus interruptus: Queer visibility on the sitcom and soap opera (1995-1998) Introduction Developing an Irish sitcom and soap opera Representing queerness on the Irish sitcom Sitcom conventions and writing a queer character Coding a queer character on the Irish sitcom Cautious and uncertain: writing a queer Irish sitcom character 'Where the guys are so pretty': gay visibility on Fair City Tentative emergence of gayness Televising and producing the first gay kiss: a tug-of-war Institutional treatment of the gay kiss Conclusion Notes 6. Queer visibility, television drama and the Celtic Tiger (1999-2007) Introduction The Celtic Tiger and LGBTQ politics Globalisation of Irish television and mainstreaming queer visibility Cosmopolitanism and the 'international gay' on The Clinic The cosmopolitan gay citizen 'Transglobal coolness' and Dublin as a cosmopolitan space The global gay, local struggles and the homodomestic space Haunting the tiger from the edges: Proof Scandal, corruption and queer dalliances Queerness on the fringes of the Celtic Tiger economy Conclusion Notes Conclusion: Queer visibility beyond marriage equality and Leo Varadkar Notes Index