Raymond2013a

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Raymond2013a
BibType ARTICLE
Key Raymond2013a
Author(s) Chase Wesley Raymond
Title Gender and sexuality in animated television sitcom interaction
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Conversation Analysis, discourse, gender, interaction, mass communication, methodology, norms, popular culture, sexuality, stereotyping, television
Publisher
Year 2013
Language
City
Month
Journal Discourse & Communication
Volume 7
Number 2
Pages 199–220
URL Link
DOI 10.1177/1750481312472971
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

The active ‘doing’ of gender and sexuality in and through social interaction has been a topic of academic inquiry for several decades. This study examines the cultural reproduction of that ‘doing’ through the onscreen discourse of the animated television sitcom. A conversation-analytic approach to various excerpts from two popular series reveals the ways in which the situated interactions of these programs make gender and sexuality overtly relevant to viewers through polarization of ‘the norm’ versus deviations from it at the level of talk. In temporarily deviating from their everyday, normative speech practices, characters tap into viewers’ preconceived notions of the behaviors of different gendered and sexual identities in interaction. These non-normative actions are then oriented to as such in the onscreen discourse, thereby making gender, sexuality, and the conduct associated with those identities simultaneously salient for the at-home viewer. It is hypothesized that, while these gender-/sexuality-based associations can be used as a tool through which to offer critiques of the social stereotypes that they parody, they can also serve to re-create those hegemonic divisions at a discursive level through homogenization of the complex range of human identities being represented.

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