#queertheory

Time. Is something that is as omnipresent as life itself. In the popular Western understanding, time is important, precious, and must be saved and utilised throughout one's life.

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Is queerness sometimes most visible in the soft moments, a glance, a pause, a touch, rather than in any spoken confession?

I watched Queers (BBC, 2017) in the first week of this module; each episode features a character alone in a room, basically telling a story. This approach - using monologue - makes queerness feel intimate and close; they are filled with small movements, glances, and gestures that reveal much more than what they’re actually saying, inviting you to read between the lines and ‘queer’ what you’re seeing and hearing. ‘Missing Alice’, for example, is an episode that was written to mark 50 years since the 1967 sexual offences act, where Alice talks about her gay husband. Her body language - her stiffness portrays her as someone who has learnt to keep everything in, small hand movements voicing her anxiety, breaking eye contact when she edges towards the truth - conveys the fear and heartbreak of loving a man she will never fully reach and exposes what I like to call the ‘invisible’ Women of queer history, the wives who knew and therefore lived their lives restrained by laws that werent even about them. Glyn Davis’s (2009) idea of “queer intimacies of the everyday”: queerness expressed not through spectacle, but through small, human gestures that carry emotional truth, echoes these small instances we see in the monologues. 

Recently watching God’s Own Country (Francis Lee, 2017) made me come back to these episodes of Queers (BBC, 2017), where in one we get monologues, the other gives us silence. Johnny and Gheorge say very little at the beginning; instead, queerness pokes through touch and the space they share. Their intimacy isn’t addressed aloud, but felt in their rhythm and glances. I felt these two texts could be connected through their commitment to subtlety, to the little, personal moments in which queer experience comes to light, not through dramatic turning points, but through the everyday textures of life. 

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What does it mean to queer film and television?

Before we get to that, we should know what ‘queer’ means: “having or relating to a gender identity or a sexuality that does not fit society's traditional ideas about gender or sexuality” (Cambridge University Press, 2025). Essentially, ‘queer’ is mostly used as an adjective, which might have you thinking: what does it mean to queer film and television, and how does one go about doing so? Well, that’s where I come in; this blog is a space to think through these questions — not only by explicitly identifying queer stories or characters but by looking into how films and shows themselves might behave queerly. Queerness, as Hall (2003) describes, is not simply about who appears on screen, but about a critical stance — a “strategy of resistance” that questions normativity and the structures that define what counts as normal.

Sometimes, queerness surfaces directly through representation; other times, it peaks through tone, aesthetics, and what we film snobs like to call mise-en-scène (its French 🙄) Sedgwick (1993, p. 3) reminds us that queer theory begins “where the meanings don’t stay still.” To queer, then, is to destabilise, to question, to refuse fixed categories and to interpret film and television against their grain.

Davis and Needham (2009) suggest that queering television involves not only studying queer characters or plots but understanding television itself as a queer medium: one defined by intimacy, repetition, and the everyday. In this blog, I aim to explore these logics, trying to link theory to films and shows I'm studying this term.

Judith Butler is one of the most influential figures in contemporary philosophy and gender theory. Renowned for their groundbreaking ideas, Butler has challenged traditional notions of gender, identity, and power, reshaping global conversations around these critical concepts.

Their most notable work, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, introduced the idea that gender is not a fixed or natural category but a performative construct. This revolutionary perspective has opened up new ways of thinking about how identities are formed, reinforced, and resisted in different cultural contexts.

Beyond gender theory, Butler’s contributions extend to human rights, power dynamics, and queer theory, offering profound insights into the ways societies marginalize or exclude certain identities. Their work also emphasizes justice and resistance, encouraging cultural and political strategies to challenge oppression and violence.

Today, Butler’s ideas remain a cornerstone for scholars, activists, and individuals seeking to question traditional structures of power. Their books, including Bodies That Matter and Undoing Gender, continue to inspire global movements toward greater equity and inclusion.

Why Should You Read Judith Butler?

Transformative Perspective: Butler redefines fundamental concepts of identity and gender.

Global Relevance: Their work addresses pressing issues such as LGBTQ+ rights, systemic inequality, and social justice.

Multidisciplinary Impact: Butler’s ideas influence philosophy, sociology, politics, and the arts alike.