ABSTRACT

Streaming television is often seen as a progressive space for queer representation, due to the wealth of queer people and stories found across its programmes. Yet for queer people to be seen on streaming television, they must first be made visible at the level of the interface, which determines which programmes are presented to users and in what ways. Through the organisation of the interface, streaming television acts as a discursive formation that creates knowledge about what it means to be queer. Borrowing from both Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Lynne Joyrich, I argue that streaming television constructs an epistemology of the category, in which queerness is presented as categorisable and predictable. I explore how the two key features of streaming television’s interfaces – categories and algorithms – produce an understanding of queerness as normatively visible and inseparable from consumer choice. Yet while streaming giants generate a neoliberal conception of normatively visible and consumable queerness, queer-specific streaming services such as Revry offer a different, ‘messier’ understanding of queer lives, suggesting that streaming television holds the potential for a more radical interface with queerness.

摘要

由于节目中丰富的酷儿人群和故事，流媒体电视通常被视为酷儿代表性的进步空间。然而，要在流媒体电视上看到酷儿，他们必须首先在界面层面上可见，这决定了向用户呈现哪些节目以及以何种方式呈现。通过界面的组织，流媒体电视充当了一种话语形式，创造了关于酷儿意味着什么的知识。借用伊芙·科索夫斯基·塞奇威克和林恩·乔伊里奇的观点，我认为流媒体电视构建了该类别的认识论，其中酷儿性被​​呈现为可分类和可预测的。我探讨了流媒体电视界面的两个关键特征——类别和算法——如何产生对酷儿的理解，将其视为规范可见的且与消费者选择密不可分的。然而，尽管流媒体巨头产生了一种规范可见且可消费的酷儿身份的新自由主义概念，但 Revry 等专门针对酷儿的流媒体服务却对酷儿生活提供了一种不同的、“更混乱”的理解，这表明流媒体电视具有与酷儿身份建立更激进接口的潜力。