[Guest Post] What Does It Mean to Call a TV Show Queer?

On queer femininity, community, and happiness in ‘A League of Their Own’

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Hi all, today we have a guest post at Paging Dr. Lesbian. Lina Heimann (they/them) holds an MA in Applied Cultural Studies and Semiotics and is a freelance writer based in Berlin, Germany. They love (queer) television, especially unhinged female characters, and are always on the verge of rewatching The Americans. Their writing in English has been published on Talking Shorts, the tv scholar newsletter, and sporadically on their Substack Gaywatch.

This piece is a condensed version of Lina’s Master’s thesis, which explores what it means when we call a show queer, using the Prime series A League of Their Own as a case study. As someone who also got a Master’s degree and was frustrated by the constraints of academia, I’m happy to publish Lina’s project in Paging Dr. Lesbian. Enjoy!

The starting point for my MA thesis was not scientific but emotional, a feeling that some TV shows with LGBTQ+ characters feel queer, but others do not. This made me wonder what it means to call a TV show queer and to talk about queer representation. Does this merely mean depictions in which characters appear who are not cisgender and/or heterosexual, or can queer representation also imply that heteronormative social structures are questioned, and alternatives are presented? Some shows include a character that falls under the LGBTQ+ acronym, but the only difference between them and a non-LGBTQ character is that they are not heterosexual and/or cisgender. While obviously some gay or lesbian people live their lives like this, it feels far away from my own reality and experience of queerness. My research assumes that, in general, queer representation has the potential to destabilise normative categories, but this potential isn’t always utilised. This led me to ask the question: (How) can queerness be located in A League of Their Own, and does its queer representation destabilise normative categories?

Several ideas motivated me to analyse A League of Their Own in particular. The show includes multiple queer characters in the cast, meaning it provides a depiction of queer community instead of isolated characters. Critics praised the show for its queer representation, but it also isn’t a show that was only geared towards a queer audience — like The L-Word (and reboot Generation Q) or niche queer shows like Work in Progress or Somebody, Somewhere — which means it exists in an area of tension between mainstream appeal and nuanced queer depictions. Ultimately, I also chose this show because I enjoyed it, but didn’t have nostalgic attachments, meaning it was okay if I ended up always remembering the show in connection to my thesis. Over a year later, I can confidently say that while the show obviously reminds me of my thesis, I have also gained a more profound appreciation. Still, my analysis isn’t a comment on whether the series is good or provides good queer representation; it’s an attempt to understand how queerness functions within the show.

Many people and mainstream institutions use the term queer, both as an identity marker and to describe a wider community. As such, the most basic and now common use of the word is as a catch-all term for a variety of non-straight and non-cis gender identities, and this is partly how I use “queer” in my thesis. However, because queer was once used derogatively and then subsequently appropriated and used by queer activists in the late 80s and early 90s, the term inhabits a richer and more complex meaning, which can get lost in the mainstream use: There is an inherently political connotation that doesn’t aim for tolerance but implies resistance against that which has been deemed “normal” by societies. In “Saint Foucault: towards a gay hagiography” queer theorist David M. Halperin fittingly describes queer as “whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant.”

Being queer can influence how we perceive the world or how we are perceived, and together with factors like race, class, or disability, it affects how we move through society. This more complex and political use of “queer” is often absent in TV representations. Apart from occasional homophobia, queer characters tend to look similar and live similarly to their straight counterparts.

LGBTQ+ representation on TV has drastically increased, and problematic tropes (queerbaiting, Bury Your Gays, etc.) are less frequent. But a rise of queer representation doesn’t equal straightforward progress. In particular, lesbian visibility is often reduced to a white middle-class femininity. Scholars Kate McNicholas Smith and Imogen Tyler call this phenomenon “post-queer popular culture”, marking a disconnect between current depictions and queer-feminist politics and more radical media movements of the past, like the “New Queer Cinema”. According to McNicholas Smith, these representations can be classified as a “lesbian normal”, which she describes with the following three criteria: “(1) ‘she doesn’t look like a lesbian’, the decoding of the lesbian through the visual codes of normative femininity; (2) ‘that’s so old fashioned’, the discursive distancing from particular forms of LGBTQ+/queer/feminist histories, lives and politics; and (3) ‘happily ever after’, romantic narratives of marriage and motherhood”.

The first aspect of the “lesbian normal” describes the overrepresentation of normative femininity on TV while female masculinity is devalued, an effort to make lesbians more palatable for a straight mainstream audience. This is not a new criticism, as it was predominantly discussed with reference to the mostly white, rich, and feminine women in The L-Word. Essentially, the queer women characters look the same as the straight women, which leaves no space for subcultural codes and expression of identity through clothing.

This is not the case in A League of Their Own: The queer characters aren’t all (hyper) feminine, and several are more masculine-presenting — namely, Jess, Lupe, and Jo. While these characters don’t receive the most screen time, there is no negative connotation connected to their gender presentation. Most importantly, there are consequences for breaking gendered norms, and there is a clear connection between looking queer and being queer. One rule of the women’s baseball league is that women aren’t allowed to wear pants outside the team house. Both Lupe and Jess wear pants despite this, even though it means having to pay a fee. Clothes and gender performance can be an integral part of one’s gender performance and a necessity for survival, even if it comes with negative consequences. Additionally, a queer gender performance is not only marked by the kind of clothes but also by the way clothes are worn. Lupe and Jess both cuff their sleeves, and Jess wears the team dress as a skirt, with a white t-shirt and cuffed sleeves, thus “queering” their uniforms.

As previously mentioned, feminine-presenting queer women are overrepresented in TV shows, but rarely would I use the term “Femme” to describe them. They are mostly conventionally beautiful women who present feminine, but their femininity isn’t a specific part of their identity. Even though the term “Femme” is never used in A League of Their Own (Carson only learns “butch” when she visits the secret gay bar), I’d argue that it’s a fitting term for Greta: Greta is clearly established as a lesbian, and the way she dresses isn’t for cis het men. She appears confident and secure in her attitude; her gender performance seems to be a choice rather than a disguise to appear less queer. Additionally, she wears a pinky ring that can be read as a queer code to signal one’s lesbian identity in the 1940s, although this is never made explicit in the show. Overall, A League of Their Own depicts a spectrum of gender expressions and clear references to period-specific queer cultural codes. The fact that not all characters roll up their sleeves, for example, characterises these instances as specific character choices rather than a general style and function to emphasise queerness on a visual level.

Despite an increase in queer TV shows, queer characters —especially if they’re not cis men— appear in isolation, and the common reference for a group of queer women on TV still seems to be The L-Word. Additionally, there has been a trend of portraying lesbian or gay families in a way that’s modeled after straight families, thereby reproducing the appeal of the nuclear family. This leaves little room for alternative concepts of families and kinship that can be an essential part of living as a queer person. Queer identities don’t exist in a vacuum; they are often formed and transformed through community and in spaces where people are able to access knowledge and form relationships. This process is not often depicted on television.

A League of Their Own does not solely focus on queer lives and community, but it is a relevant part of the series, and, crucially, the show also reveals some of the spaces where these kinds of queer relationships are formed. Three main aspects are particularly important to how community is portrayed in A League of Their Own: First, moments of queer recognition and arrival in queer relationships, second, queer (safe) spaces, and third, queer knowledge and identity. Together, these aspects contribute to a depiction of queer lives where characters find each other, spend time in queer spaces, and develop their own queer identity through relationships with others.

Over the course of the season, both Carson and Max come into their queer identities, even if their starting points and processes are distinct. While Max is introduced as queer early on in the season, Carson is introduced as straight and then discovers her queerness through her relationship with Greta. Both characters meet a person who recognizes their queerness and is crucial to their queer development — for Carson, this is Greta, and for Max, it’s her uncle Bert. They also gain access to queer spaces, Carson by finding a secret gay bar and Max through Bert’s and Gracie’s home parties, which function as a safe space for Black queer people. In these spaces, by meeting other queer people and at times through their relationships to each other, both Carson and Max gather knowledge of what it can mean to live as a queer person and what being queer means to them individually. Queer relationships and knowledge are essential to their character development, and their storylines are connected to queer cultural spaces and histories.

What does it mean when society’s vision of a “happily-ever-after” is not an achievable future for everyone? In “The Promise of Happiness,” Sarah Ahmed questions whether happiness is always good or positive: To be happy is to be morally good, and happiness is connected to normative institutions like family and marriage. But because not everyone can or wants to adhere to these norms, unhappiness is viewed as a condition of marginalisation. Central to this critique is the erasure of unhappiness as a consequence of living as a marginalised person. The point isn’t to discredit positive and happy depictions and yearn for tragic representations of the past, but instead not to erase (historical) pain and suffering as a result of societal conditions. To question happiness narratives isn’t the same as to wish for unhappiness; instead, Ahmed proposes a way to accept unhappiness and still live happily: “The queer who is happily queer still encounters the world that is unhappy with queer love, but refuses to be made unhappy by that encounter. […] To be happily queer can also recognize that unhappiness; indeed to be happily queer can be to recognize the unhappiness that is concealed by the promotion of happy normativity.”

To live a queer life and to opt out of normative happiness narratives comes with consequences. Greta and Bert exemplify these risks. The homophobia Greta experienced as a teen heavily influences the way she lives as an adult, especially in her romantic relationships. What brings her happiness in the present, like her relationship to Carson or visiting a gay bar, also causes her pain. In the end, Greta’s queer happiness seems to be located somewhere between the willingness to take risks and the endurance of possible consequences. Bertie’s line, “For some of us safe isn’t safe,” is one of the most memorable of the show for me. What his sister deems a safe life would’ve been unbearable for him, as it would’ve meant denying his trans identity for the sake of his family. For Bert, the more liveable option is the one that means being estranged from his sister and brings greater risks because of his identity as a Black trans man. I think the reason this line always makes me emotional is that it describes an essential and universal queer experience: Surviving within normative structures can be impossible for some queer people, even if breaking out of these structures feels painful.

A League of Their Own is full of queer potential, and I mostly focused on the parts where queerness shines through. But there are limitations to the queerness depicted. Normative structures are destabilised but never truly broken, partly because this isn’t something characters strive for as part of the plot. For the most part, characters act out of necessity and not because of political or ideological beliefs, and more focus is given to the arcs of characters that can adhere to at least some normative categories.

Still, writing my thesis brought me closer to understanding what I meant by saying the show feels queer: The characters appear queer, they are in queer relationships (romantic and otherwise), and ultimately live queer lives, despite risks and consequences.

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