Queering TV Conventions: LGBT Teen Narratives on Glee

Abstract

Queer teens have finally arrived on television.¹ Nowadays, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) teens feature as regular cast members, within varying broadcast, cable and premium content on tele-vision.² While television’s first daytime soap featuring recurring gay teen themes, One Life to Live (ABC, 1968–2012), premiered the character of Billy Douglas (played by Ryan Phillippe) in the early 1990s, after the character’s departure from the series in 1992 LGBT teens had a slow climb to become common TV characters, despite the popularity of both teen-centric and LGBT-themed content during the following decade. As many scholars (Becker 2006; Gross 2001; Walters 2001) have documented, the 1990s experienced a surge in queer visibility on television that focused primarily on well-adjusted adults as our friends, family and co-workers, mostly assimilated into heteronormative society to maintain the status quo. Ron Becker (2006) has attributed this shift to network and advertiser appeals to the lucrative ‘slumpy demographic’, foregrounding the socially liberal alongside urban minded professionals, while Katherine Sender (2004) adds that the construction of the gay market in the 1990s was a result of both business and political policies that targeted the stereotype of the affluent gay man.