This Article Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 1527476408315114v1 9/5/355    most recent References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Google Scholar Articles by Griffin, H. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Queerness, the Quality Audience, and Comedy Central's Reno 911!

Northwestern University

Comedy Central currently attracts the same kind of quality audience that broadcast television networks courted in the 1990s, one that resulted in the sharp increase in gaythemed content on the networks at that time. Yet the parodic mode of address that so permeates the cable network's content makes the different levels of gay cultural competency a heterogeneous viewership brings to a program like Reno 911! an issue of considerable import. A parodic situation-comedy based on reality crime programming, Reno 911! narrativizes an ambiguously gay police detective who, in turn, provides different viewing pleasures for differently situated viewers. As such, the character foregrounds questions about the political consequences of television's use of queer cultural signifiers and the pleasures that viewers take in a parodic representation of queerness on television.

Key Words: gay • queer • masculinity • television • quality audience • Comedy Central • Reno 911!

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?