The Queer Fantasies of the American Family Sitcom

Description

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. TISON PUGH is a professor of English at University of Central Florida in Orlando. He is the author of several books including Precious Perversions: Humor, Homosexuality, and the Southern Literary Canon. Introduction: TV’s Three Queer Fantasies 1 1 The Queer Times of Leave It to Beaver: Beaver’s Present, Ward’s Past, and June’s Future 26 2 Queer Innocence and Kitsch Nostalgia in The Brady Bunch 51 3 No Sex Please, We’re African American: The Cosby Show’s Queer Fear of Black Sexuality 79 4 Feminism, Homosexuality, and Blue-Collar Perversity in Roseanne 107 5 Allegory, Queer Authenticity, and Marketing Tween Sexuality in Hannah Montana 134 6 Conservative Narratology, Queer Politics, and the Humor of Gay Stereotypes in Modern Family 161 Conclusion: Tolstoy Was Wrong; or, On the Queer Reception of Television’s Happy Families 190 Acknowledgments 197 List of Television Programs 199 Notes 205 Works Cited 227 Index 241