Un/fit for young viewers : LGBT+ representation in Flemish and Irish children’s television

Focusing on domestic youth TV programming in Ireland and Flanders, this chapter discusses how public service broadcasters structure the (in)visibility of queer sexualities in children’s television. First addressing institutional similarities, it subsequently shows how early instances of queer televisibility in youth content were facilitated by information and current affairs programming – sporadically offering spaces to address non-normative sexualities as legitimate topics. With its youth schedule comprising predominantly non-fiction content, Ireland witnessed comparatively more instances of... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Vanlee, Florian
Kerrigan, Páraic
Dokumenttyp: bookChapter
Erscheinungsdatum: 2021
Verlag/Hrsg.: Routledge
Schlagwörter: Social Sciences
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-27482319
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8716916

Focusing on domestic youth TV programming in Ireland and Flanders, this chapter discusses how public service broadcasters structure the (in)visibility of queer sexualities in children’s television. First addressing institutional similarities, it subsequently shows how early instances of queer televisibility in youth content were facilitated by information and current affairs programming – sporadically offering spaces to address non-normative sexualities as legitimate topics. With its youth schedule comprising predominantly non-fiction content, Ireland witnessed comparatively more instances of queer televisibility than Flanders before the 1990s, where informational and educational responsibilities were addressed in fiction series without openly LGBT+ characters. The rising globalisation of children’s TV content at the turn of the century subsequently increased LGBT+ televisibility in Flanders and Ireland, albeit differently. Where domestic Flemish PSB youth fiction productions started incorporating queer characters to counteract their absence in American imports scheduled by commercial broadcasters, youth blocks in the Irish PSB’s schedules emphasised foreign imports with openly LGBT+ characters to negotiate Ireland’s conservative climate with PSB values. While both cases are contingent and distinct, the chapter concludes, they illustrate shared discourses on sexual and gender diversity in PSB children’s programming, and highlight the particularity of the Western European context to queer TV studies.