Fan-ning the flame: Representations of lesbian romance on cult television, from subtext to main text

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dc.contributor.authorDove-Viebahn, Aviva
dc.contributor.editorArnold, Sarahen
dc.contributor.editorO'Brien, Anneen
dc.date.accessioned2021-01-29T09:38:41Z
dc.date.available2021-01-29T09:38:41Z
dc.date.issued2021
dc.description.abstractWhile promoting recent seasons of supernatural Western horror series Wynonna Earp (2016), cable channel Syfy released several fan-style videos championing the show’s resident lesbian couple: the protagonist’s sister, Waverly, and police officer Nicole Haught (celebrated via the portmanteau “WayHaught”). In 2019, a network “shipping” its own queer characters in service of fans contrasts starkly with the televisual landscape twenty, or even ten, years prior, when viewers invested in lesbian characters and/or same-sex couples relied on subtext and fan paratexts to fuel their enthusiasm for mostly unacknowledged or thwarted relationships between female characters. In this article, I engage in a two-part interrogation of the representation of lesbian romance on cult television shows in the last twenty-five years, with a focus on Wynonna Earp and its historical antecedents—supernatural, sci-fi, and fantasy shows featuring women and their female companion(s) (whether close friends or lovers). This includes a historiography of the development of lesbian fan communities around certain shows from the late 1990s and early 2000s, as well as an analysis of the narrative stakes and character development in both historical and contemporary shows, like Earp, in order to interrogate their representations of subtext or main text romantic pairings.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationDove-Viebahn, A. (2021) 'Fan-ning the flame: Representations of lesbian romance on cult television, from subtext to main text', Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 20, pp. 87-103. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.20.07en
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.20.07
dc.identifier.endpage86
dc.identifier.issn2009-4078
dc.identifier.issued20
dc.identifier.journalabbrevAlphavilleen
dc.identifier.journaltitleAlphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Mediaen
dc.identifier.startpage71
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/10998
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherFilm and Screen Media, University College Corken
dc.relation.urihttp://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue20/HTML/ArticleDove-Viebahn.html
dc.rights© 2021, the Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.en
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subjectFandomqueerbaitingen
dc.subjectSubtexten
dc.subjectLesbian romance on televisionen
dc.subjectLGBTQ televisionen
dc.titleFan-ning the flame: Representations of lesbian romance on cult television, from subtext to main texten
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. Issue 20: Doing Women's Film and Television History