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The Queer Fantasies of the American Family Sitcom
Tison Pugh (Author)
9780813591728
Hardback, published 27 February 2018
258 pages, 34 photographs
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.513 kg
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.
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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
List of Television Programs
Notes
Works Cited
Index