José Igor Prieto-Arranz, University of the Balearic Islands

Dr Prieto-Arranz holds a European PhD in English from the University of Oviedo (2002). Although his interests are wide-ranging and include EFLT, foreign language acquisition and translation, most of his research has centred on the manifestation and dissemination of (especially national) identity discourses, with publications in journals such as the Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change or the Journal of Popular Culture. A lecturer at the University of the Balearic Islands since 2003, he is also a member of two research teams working on Spanish-Government funded projects: COLE (HUM2007-66053-C02-02/FILO) and Dramaturgias televisivas contemporáneas (HUM2007-61753/FILO).

Televised masculinities in the 21st century. The case of Queer as Folk

Genre hybridity and narrative entrapment (through the combination of sitcom gags and the ‘cliffhanger’ narrative structure) seem to have become standard in contemporary television fiction. One such case is Showtime’s Queer as Folk (QAF). Based on an earlier British series, it has succeeded in making homosexuality the main theme of a television product widely consumed by international mainstream audiences. QAF, however, has not escaped controversy and has been criticised by gay and straight audiences alike, which points to interesting ideological issues.
This paper will depart from two main hypotheses: (1) there is a relationship between textual representation and the society that the text has emerged from, in that it provides evidence of the hegemonic discourses and counterdiscourses at play in it (Kellner 1990: 1-24; Hall, 1995; Marshall and Werndly 2002: 104; Mills 2005); and (2) the relationship above can be described as feedback between televised representation and television audience: the content of television products, as well as the way these are presented, largely depend on the demands on the audience (Berman 1987) but discursive constructions also develop and become hegemonic through them (Brewer et al. 2003; Coleman 1998; Slater et al. 2006).
Based on the hypotheses above, this paper will explore the rich audiovisual text provided by QAF and attempt to provide answers to the following questions:
(1) What kind of masculinity is constructed in the text and how is it constructed? Could it be argued that, rather than a liberating representation through which gayness has been made closer to mainstream audiences, QAF has entrapped the subcultures it is meant to represent?
(2) How has QAF, in spite of the surrounding controversy, managed to entrap international audiences?
(3) May QAF’s notorious success contribute to social harmonisation or could it be argued that it has further entrapped gayness in the straight gaze?