Stefan McLaughlin

Project 1: Homosexual More Like Stereotypical

The Commercialisation and Commodification of Queer Culture in Popular Sitcoms from the Late Nineties to Present Day

Sitcoms play a hugely important role to understanding how aspects of queer culture have been both commercialised and commodified as whilst many provide some of society’s first tastings of queer people on screen, they also perpetuate many of the stereotypes that queer people have been aiming to avoid and tear way from. This research analyses’, through a variety of texts and examples the exact role that sitcoms have played in perpetuating tropes, stereotypes and misrepresentations that only benefit the sitcom itself and not the community of which they are showcasing. In taking a pragmatic approach I examine and dissect the use of queer stereotypes within the texts and examples by inducting feminist and queer theories as well as theories that surround the power of the sitcom itself. Various characters and storylines assisted me in my analysis as well as many images from the examples that exemplify the issues of commodification and commercialisation through stereotypes. Within this research and analysis, I discovered that earlier presentations of queer stereotypes as a tool of enhancement were based off of ignorance, but later presentation began to understand the use and efficacy of queer stereotypes as a commodifiable gain and in many cases implemented them willingly. Overall, through my research I can conclude that whilst some instances were intentional and others not both held little to no regard on the impact that their presentations and commodification’s would hold over the queer community and how these would transcribe out of the T.V realm.