ABSTRACT
The study of queer representation emerged as something of a niche interest in the 1970s, licensed and inspired by feminist criticism and the burgeoning gay liberation movement. Now, a rough half-century later, it has developed into a field in its own right, filling hundreds of books and dedicated journals. Debates about queer representation have also flourished beyond the academy, in magazines, in documentaries and online. What unites all these discussions is the shared assumption that representation matters. This is the notion that representations have implications for social life – that images and narratives, both fiction and non-fiction, offer the stories, symbols and myths through which we form a common culture, including what it means and how it feels to inhabit a sexed, gendered and sexually coded body.
