ABSTRACT
Although queer investigations of popular cultures and, in particular, television are both fashionable and flourishing at present, interconnections with audience studies are largely unexplored. The available research on sexuality is yet to provide a more complex interpretation of the multifaceted TV viewing practises and capricious interactions amongst co-present viewers. To date, research in this field remains mostly attached to textuality as well as Anglophone knowledge and contexts. Since the 1990s the increasing representation of sexual dissidence on mainstream TV in Italy has placed families, surfing and zapping through TV channels, in “awkward” situations, being often challenged by alternative and innovative gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) narratives, subjects, and lifestyles. What are the reactions of normative people? What does it mean for closeted GLBT viewers to witness representations of sexual nonconformity in the living room with other viewers? Through a triangulation of two qualitative online questionnaires administrated respectively in 2008 and 2009 to a total of 350 participants, I show different approaches, responses, and interactions of both GLBT-identified and heterosexually identified participants (parents but also relatives and friends of GLBT people). Participants provided fascinating stories of coming out, collective negotiations of meaning, and different attitudes towards the limits of what is considered representable on TV. I demonstrate that television has functioned as a core site of debate and struggle between mainstream and minoritised sexualities and, when available and accurate, queer representations have challenged the traditional and heteronormative perception of viewers.
