(Queer) Family Time: Brothers & Sisters and Managing Temporal Anxieties

Abstract

Temporal anxieties are pervasive in the 21st century, particularly within the context of the American family. Although scholars apply Kenneth Burke's “symbolic medicine” to explain how audiences manage these anxieties through consumption of popular media, I argue that representations of queer-inclusive families are a common form of symbolic medicine used to ameliorate time panics within the traditional family unit. Drawing upon the concept of “queer temporality” and the ABC television drama Brothers & Sisters, I explain how these texts function as “equipment for living,” arguing for the acceptance of queer-inclusive families, not as a moral necessity, but because such acceptance can return stability to a conservative family time currently under threat. As such, queer experiences of time are drained of their radical potential, and queer lives function to serve the very heteronormative structures they seek to resist.

Keywords:

• Family
• Queer
• Queer Temporality
• Queer Time
• Temporality

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas R. Dunn

Thomas R. Dunn is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Colorado State University.