The inclusion of queer identities into mainstream cultural productions involve the cultural subordination of homosexuality to heterosexuality through the reconstitution of queerness in a hetero image. The Kids Are All Right and The Fosters contribute to this subordination by projecting heterosexual gender roles onto an otherwise queer relationship. Their relationships replicate heterosexual patterns in normative structural terms and masculine and feminine roles (Hammock 2009). The gender differential is grafted into the character’s same-sex relationships in both productions, imposing not only a binary pattern of masculine/feminine, but also top/bottom (Dyer ####; Hammock 2009). Indeed, popular conceptions of masculinity cast subjects in a dominant,
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Specifically, the characters are affluent, cisgender, thin, beautiful, mostly White, productive, and able-bodied. As a result, these identity categories mobilize a homonormative discourse, erode queerness, and promote a model of ‘proper’ lesbian subjectivity. In both productions, each lesbian mother adheres to conventions of homonormativity in their class strata. Jules and Nic have a post-secondary education and Stef and Lena benefit from careers that safely assume they have obtained post-secondary education. They all work in authoritative, executive, and respectable occupations: a police officer, school principal, physician, and entrepreneurial business owner. This affords the families financial stability, but these occupations also grant the characters a politics of respectability through a discourse of productivity. Still, at varying levels, both productions marginalize lesbian and queer identities, lifestyles, and culture through the portrayal and suppression of their community. Presenting an unthreatening, largely unpolitical, homonormative discourse of lesbian motherhood is problematic because it erases evidence of …show more content…
With their blonde hair, blue eyes, and European facial features, they epitomize Whiteness. Representations of female masculinity commonly tether subjects to Blackness (see, for example, Fenwick ####), these productions use Whiteness to offset Stef and Lena’s masculinity. The character’s Whiteness also align them with family values. Racialized family structures narratives often portray them as dysfunctional and instable (Kelley). Conversely, family values are at the center of Whiteness (Farrow 2014). For instance, Stef forbids their adopted Latinx twins from using Spanish in their household. At face value, this ban reads as a ‘rehabilitative’ tactic, but the banning of their Hispanic roots is evident of imperialistic discourse. Stef and Nic’s Whiteness grants them greater agency and privilege which permits them a level of female masculinity, because they have attained other markers of
Specifically, the characters are affluent, cisgender, thin, beautiful, mostly White, productive, and able-bodied. As a result, these identity categories mobilize a homonormative discourse, erode queerness, and promote a model of ‘proper’ lesbian subjectivity. In both productions, each lesbian mother adheres to conventions of homonormativity in their class strata. Jules and Nic have a post-secondary education and Stef and Lena benefit from careers that safely assume they have obtained post-secondary education. They all work in authoritative, executive, and respectable occupations: a police officer, school principal, physician, and entrepreneurial business owner. This affords the families financial stability, but these occupations also grant the characters a politics of respectability through a discourse of productivity. Still, at varying levels, both productions marginalize lesbian and queer identities, lifestyles, and culture through the portrayal and suppression of their community. Presenting an unthreatening, largely unpolitical, homonormative discourse of lesbian motherhood is problematic because it erases evidence of …show more content…
With their blonde hair, blue eyes, and European facial features, they epitomize Whiteness. Representations of female masculinity commonly tether subjects to Blackness (see, for example, Fenwick ####), these productions use Whiteness to offset Stef and Lena’s masculinity. The character’s Whiteness also align them with family values. Racialized family structures narratives often portray them as dysfunctional and instable (Kelley). Conversely, family values are at the center of Whiteness (Farrow 2014). For instance, Stef forbids their adopted Latinx twins from using Spanish in their household. At face value, this ban reads as a ‘rehabilitative’ tactic, but the banning of their Hispanic roots is evident of imperialistic discourse. Stef and Nic’s Whiteness grants them greater agency and privilege which permits them a level of female masculinity, because they have attained other markers of