Indifference and queer television studies: distinguishing norms of existence and coexistence

ABSTRACT

This paper deploys a case study of the first transgender lead character in Flemish television fiction—Kaat Bomans in the soap opera Thuis [Home] (één, 1995–)—to engage an underexplored distinction between the televisual dissemination of identity norms that regulate the embodied difference of sexual and gender minorities and ethical norms that prescribe moral modes of interacting with social difference. Conceived of as a representation normative to transgender existence, Kaat reifies identity norms that dictate how transpeople may legitimately embody difference. These reduce the diversity of transgender subjectivities into a singular and stable identity premised on binary gender conformity. Approached as a narrative that produces normative frames for cisgender people too, however, the case study shows that Kaat’s storyline propagates ethical norms on moral modes of coexistence and the negotiation of difference. Prescribing ethical indifference as a moral framework to negotiate difference in interpersonal interactions, Thuis invites viewers to acknowledge others’ difference without centralizing it as the central modality to social interaction. Supplementing identity-based television critique with reflection on ethical frameworks, the essay argues in conclusion, allows scholarship to not only critique what television is doing wrong, but to formulate what television should be doing to make things better.

KEYWORDS:

• Queer television studies
• transgender portrayals
• queer ethics
• Flemish television fiction
• cultural studies

Notes on contributor

Dr. Florian Hendrik Jakob Vanlee holds a BA in Stage and Media Arts from Ghent University and a MA in Film Studies and Visual Culture from Antwerp University. Since March 2015, he worked on a FWO-funded PhD project titled ‘Sexual Diversity on the Small Screen: a qualitative research into the representation of and public debate about LGBTs in Flemish television fiction series’, supervised by professor Sofie Van Bauwel and professor Frederik Dhaenens. Using a multi-methodological approach, his research analyzed the ways in which sexual and gender diversity are constructed in Flemish television fiction, how LGBT+ characters and narratives are negotiated by television professionals and how queer television theory relates to smaller national contexts. After obtaining his doctoral title, he started working as a postdoctoral researcher for ECOOM Brussels, with a focus on artistic research and its evaluation in the Flemish higher education context.

Notes

1 Aligning with Julia Serano’s (2013, pp. 19–20) discussion of suitable terminologies when writing about trans identities, this essay employs the term “trans woman” to refer to Kaat’s gender identity—by virtue of the fact that she socially and physically transitions on the male-to-female spectrum. Because Flemish discourses on non-cisgendered subjectivities forward surgical transition and successful “passing”, however, the essay refers to “transsexual” at times. In those instances, its use serves to accentuate the medicalization, binarism and essentialism of mainstream Flemish constructions of trans subjectivities.

2 This essay refers to “LGBT+” rather than other acronyms, because it reflects the situation in Flemish television fiction most aptly (see Vanlee et al., 2018a): domestic television in Flanders seems to favor established identity categories over less binary or fluid conceptions of gender and sexuality.

3 Flemish Radio and Television Broadcasting Organization [Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie].

4 This quote was translated verbatim from the original lines in Dutch.

5 With a keywords-based search, we collected all newspaper articles on trans themes from June 25 2015 to June 26 2016 in the four major Flemish newspapers (De Morgen, De Standaard, Het Laatste Nieuws, and Het Nieuwsblad) (N = 127). This temporal frame corresponds to the first announcement of Kaat’s introduction to Thuis to the finale of the first season with Kaat present. Analysis showed that 89 (70.08%) of the 127 articles related to trans issues in the four largest Flemish newspapers, whether related to Thuis or not, explicitly mention male-to-female trans identities, whereas female-to-male (1.57%) and non-binary (1.57%) identifications account for two articles respectively. The 34 (26.77%) remaining articles broadly mention the term “transgender” in general coverage on diversity or in relation to policy. Notably, 79 articles (62.60%)—all related to trans women—explicitly mention surgical transitions in their discussion of trans issues.

6 This quote was translated verbatim from the original text in Dutch.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek.