Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/803387
- Title
- Lesbian pulp television: torment, trauma and transformations in The L Word
- Author/Creator
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Beirne, Rebecca
- Description
- Discussing the 1950s and 60s in a paper on lesbian pulp fiction, Yvonne Keller characterises the era as a time where “Dominant culture sought a return to a mythical pre-War, pre-Depression ‘normality’ visioned in ideologically conservative terms,” a time of increased paranoia and suspicion (about communism and homosexuality), and as having a focus on surveillance (1999: 1). The 2000s have shared remarkable similarities to this period including a rise in the power of the Christian right in dominant culture, championing ‘family values,’ and calling for a return to a mythical, nostalgic vision of the 1950s. So too have recent years been marked by paranoia and suspicion – fear-mongering over the threat of ‘terrorism’ has subdued the public and suppressed civil liberties in much the same way as the threat of ‘communism’ once did. And while significant progress has been made in GLBT rights and visibility around the world since the 1950s and 1960s, in nations such as the United States and Australia, homosexuality has also been utilised to whip up public fear, with constitutions being changed and anti-gay laws being passed in the name of a ‘threat’ to the institution of marriage – so dear to the hearts of 1950s and 2000s lawmakers. In this paper, I would like to outline the similarities in circumstances, themes and images Showtime’s lesbian drama series The L Word (2004-) shares with lesbian pulp fiction from the 1950s and 1960s, proposing that The L Word functions in a similar fashion to lesbian pulp novels in that it hearkens back to these texts, mediating its depictions of lesbian life in order to relate to the mainstream and depict lesbianism in a popular cultural medium.
- Relation
- Refractory: a Journal of Entertainment Media Vol. 11
- Relation
- http://blogs.arts.unimelb.edu.au/refractory/category/browse-past-volumes/volume-11
- Date
- 2007
- Publisher
- University of Melbourne
- Keyword(s)
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lesbianism;
media representations;
The L Word;
pulp fiction
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/803387
- Identifier
- ISSN:1447-4905
- Reviewed
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