Ethereal queer

Amy Villarejo's Ethereal Queer traces how queer characters have appeared on American television from the 1950s onward. Her starting point is the common belief that LGBT people were largely absent from TV until the 1980s. Working from close readings of programs and material drawn from network archives, she argues that queer presence on the small screen has a much longer and more varied past.

Rather than measuring shows only by how accurately they portray queer lives, Villarejo follows how these portrayals shift alongside the economics and technology of the medium. Her examples range from Our Miss Brooks to The L Word. She connects changes in representation to new business models and to the ways audiences receive and watch television, including cable, digital video recording and online streaming.

The book blends historical research with theoretical analysis and personal reflection. It will interest readers of television studies, queer media scholarship and the history of broadcasting, and it offers a new way of understanding how television itself has developed.