(Re)presentations of (hetero)sexualized gender in Two and a Half Men: a content analysis

Abstract

This paper seeks to highlight gender enactment and desire as it relates to Butler's ‘heterosexual matrix’ within a nationally syndicated television show. By focusing on gender performativity – the impression of gender through repetitive stylized manners of interaction grounded in cultural norms – and discourse, this paper scrutinizes heteronormativity in a popular situation-based comedy in the US. Content analysis was utilized as a way of examining how gender transgression and gender performance are linked to (hetero)sexuality, and how they are constructed, in the sitcom Two and a Half Men created by Lee Aronsohn and Chuck Lorre. Two and a Half Men premiered on 22 September 2003 for the United States network, CBS.

Keywords:

• heteronormativity
• gender
• sexuality
• performativity
• media

Notes

1. An epistemic model of gender intelligibility which is culturally defined in that oppositional attraction is perceived as ‘normal’. In order to be understood by others there must a ‘stable’ or ‘normal’ sex that is followed by a ‘stable’ or ‘normal’ gender that is crystallized through heterosexual desire.