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Abstract
This dissertation is a critical consideration of the phrases ‘representation matters’ and ‘reading too much into it’ and their consequences for the queer reading and interpretive practices of slash fanfiction in light of an influx of LGBT+ mainstream media storytelling over the last 20 years. I contend that, with the advent of more and more dynamic representation of LGBT+ characters and storylines in mainstream media, the expectations for what ‘representations’ of queerness may be said to ‘matter’ have likewise shifted, resulting in disciplinary action taken against those readers who still insist upon the presence of extracanonical queer potentials in a given media text. By considering the temporal codes through which LGBT+ characters come to matter in media narratives, I will evaluate the limitations of such storytelling and argue that extrapolative fanfiction is a means by which practitioners “[turn] to the fringe of political and cultural production to offset the tyranny of the homonormative,” which has expanded to include many depictions of LGBT+ experience on television and in film (Muñoz 2009). By focusing on characters and stories that are frequently taken up by queer fanfiction communities despite lack of intention or confirmation of canonical representation from the media producers, I want to explore the ways in which queer utopian possibilities defy material representation and resist the finitude of contemporary narrative structures. I argue that the queer possibilities of mainstream narrative media objects—even those that are produced in arguably the most normative and rigid production economies—coalesce around characters and in stories that bear important formal and thematic similarities. I will examine queer pairings from several contemporary media narratives, including Supernatural, Sherlock, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. By considering some of the most popular and prolific queer fanfiction pairings of the last few decades, I explicate these similarities and suggest queer excessivity and temporality as key determining factors in what futures are imaginable for which bodies.
