The construction of gender roles and sexual dissidence on TV: using Anglo-Saxon paradigms to re-read Catalan and Spanish texts

Taking as a starting point an interpretation of the television medium as an Ideological State Apparatus, in my thesis I examine how gender roles and sexual dissidence are constructed in Spanish and Catalan television series. I focus on a corpus of narrative materials through a perspective informed by theories elaborated by Anglo-Saxon scholars in gender studies and studies of sexual dissidence. In my first chapter, which focuses on the construction of gender roles in Catalan soap operas, I apply the analytical paradigms that Anglo-Saxon feminist scholars have elaborated for the content of soap operas and the viewing practices of their audiences to a corpus of material which has rarely been analysed through this perspective. In the second chapter, which focuses on the construction of sexual dissidence in Spanish and Catalan television series, I aim to challenge ‘essentialist’ paradigms which have so far dominated the examination of the construction of sexual dissidence in television series. Moreover, I query the pedagogical aspirations of public-funded television and the contradictions often involved in the application of this remit. My theoretical base encompasses the work of scholars as diverse as Christine Geraghty and Alberto Mira. Studies by Ricardo Llamas, Charlotte Brundson, and Dorothy Hobson, in particular, help me to articulate my comparative analysis of television content in Spanish and Catalan contexts. In conclusion, the aim of my thesis is to address the role performed by television in the construction of meanings which surround gender issues and sexual dissidence. This is a timely exercise because gender studies and studies of sexual dissidence are fairly recent fields in Spanish and Catalan academia and television has been largely disregarded, especially as far as the analysis of characters and storylines is concerned. My thesis aims to be a contribution to these fields in the Spanish and Catalan contexts.