Victory Stands On the Back of Sacrifice The representation of queer women in Netflix original series in relation to mainstream television Esmée Lavalette Supervisor: Amir Vodka Student number: 10362878 Second reader: Blandine Joret University of Amsterdam MA Thesis Film Studies Word count: 24.602 Date: 26-06-2017 Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to thank Alycia Debnam-Carey for portraying the character of Lexa, who was the inspiration for my thesis, so beautifully. Never before has a character made such an impact on me, to the extent that I still think of this character every so often and what would have become of her, had she not died. Furthermore, I would like to thank Jessie McGoff, Andra Geurtz, Sophie Dodsworth and Emem Umana for checking and proofreading my work. I would like to thank Marloes Koot for spending all those days at the library with me and who has seen me more than I have seen myself in the past five months. I would like to thank the Partygays for accepting I have not been much of a party gay lately. And last, but not least, I would like to thank my girlfriend, Anne Zasburg, for accepting that she was not able to spend as much time with me. Abstract The representation of queer women in the media has been quite negative throughout the years. However, the platform Netflix has opened new doors with their original series, and in the past few years many queer characters have emerged on these shows. This research attempts to determine how Netflix original series Orange is the New Black and Sense8 portray queer women in relation to mainstream television. By studying the way stereotypes and tropes are used to display these women, as well as the way their bodies are depicted, this thesis seeks to analyze through a close reading of the mise-en-scène and cinematography if queer women in Netflix original series are portrayed more positively than other queer female characters. By interrogating Lexa in The 100, multiple queer characters in Orange is the New Black, and Nomi and Amanita in Sense8, this thesis shows that there are indeed differences between mainstream television and Netflix when it comes to representing queer women. Generally, mainstream television depicts queer women in a more negative way. Nevertheless, even though Netflix is certainly portraying queer women more positively, this platform also requires improvement. Keywords The representation of queer women — Netflix — Orange is the New Black — Sense8 — The 100 — Stereotypes and tropes — Objectification of queer female sex — Transition from broadcasting to streaming Table of contents Introduction 1. Chapter 1: Theoretical framework The meaning of queer 5. Stereotypes and tropes 6. The depiction of the body 10. Chapter 2: The rise of queer female characters The history of queer characters in film and television 16. Queer women in contemporary television shows 20. Lexa in The 100 23. Chapter 3: Queer women in Netflix original series Orange is the New Black 28. Sense8 42. Conclusion 49. Bibliography 52. Introduction As a queer woman myself, I have always been more interested in seeing someone similar to me represented in the media. One character that profoundly influenced me is Lexa (Alycia Debnam-Carey) from the post-apocalyptic show The 100 (2014–). After Lexa was killed off in March of 2016, queer women all around the world started a movement to demand better representation for queer characters. It was then that it became apparent to me that queer characters are not handled nor treated the way straight characters are; they are treated far more negatively. This became the starting point for this thesis, which allowed me to dive deeper into this subject and figure out why this is happening. I then realized that, at first glance, Netflix original series seem to be doing better in representing minorities than regular shows. Netflix is an attractive platform, since it only relies on the Internet. It is still considerably new and is changing the way people watch television. Since this thesis will solely focus on queer women, I have chosen Orange is the New Black (2013—) and Sense8 (2015-2017) as research objects. Speaking from personal experience, I took pleasure in watching both shows. Furthermore, Orange is the New Black offers many queer female characters who are diverse in not only their sexualities, but their race and body types as well. Sense8 is entirely different from the former series and only has two queer female characters, which is why it is interesting to analyze both shows. The two shows offer a diverse set of characters which are analyzed to discover how these women are represented. That is why I have come to the following research question: how do Netflix originals series Orange is the New Black and Sense8 portray queer women in relation to mainstream television? In order to answer this question, different subquestions are answered. The first question to be answered is: how have queer women been portrayed in the media throughout the years? This is to form a basic understanding of the representation of queer women. The second question is: how does Netflix make use of stereotypes and tropes to portray queer women? The third question relates to this: in what way does Netflix display the bodies of queer women through mise-en-scène and cinematography? And the last question is: how does Netflix’s portrayal of queer women distance itself from other media? Netflix was founded in 1997 and started out as a DVD rental company. From 2007 on, it started with the video on demand via the Internet, as people know it now. It introduced a ‘streaming only’ plan, which by the end of 2012 surpassed its DVD rental option in its number of subscribers (Mcdonald, Smith-Rowsey 7). This streaming service allows subscribers to watch series and films on a variety of platforms, and Netflix invests billions 1 into the licenses of movies and television shows every year in maintaining its catalog up to date and keep every subscriber satisfied. This financial plan is part of Netflix’s success (Douglas 98). However, most of its success is due to the evolving of technology. Because of the growing approval of high-speed Internet connections, the streaming service was able to become a huge success (McDonald, Smith-Rowsey 2). “The proliferation of smartphones and wireless connections […] shifted expectations about accessibility and convenience, popularizing presumptions that culture circulates best on an on-demand basis” (2). This on-demand basis is now a reality. Netflix gives the user an individual freedom to choose whatever and when they want to watch its content. However, Netflix thought people would consume less entertainment because of this. The concerns were invalid, because the platform quickly found out that it triggered people to want to consume more. This caused for Netflix to intertwine with the term binge-watching (McDonald, Smith-Rowsey 8). This is when a user watches Netflix or other television networks for a longer timespan, generally regarding a single show. These days, Netflix has even become an independent studio, producing its own shows; its first show created was House of Cards (Beau Willimon, 2013–). In this way, Netflix evokes a revolution in television by producing quality serialized shows directly for the Internet (Douglas 96). It also brought a new programming approach to the table, namely launching all episodes of a season at once, which also ties in with binge-watching. It has also started making feature-length films; its first one was Beasts of No Nation (Cary Fakunaga, 2015). The platform is committed to only giving the subscriber high-quality media content and in this way threatens the existing media industries (Mcdonald, Smith-Rowsey 3). Netflix focuses less on creating shows for one particular audience. The platform wants to give creators the opportunity to show their small-scale and passionate projects to its audiences and in this way revolutionize storytelling. By showing its audience storylines that other networks are afraid to display, Netflix is reshaping what television looks like (164). Netflix can take greater risks than any other network or streaming service, but one of its strategies is still devoted to risk aversion. For example, Orange is the New Black is part of this strategy. Due to data analysis of what its users watch, the platform knew the critical connotations, and the multicultural cast of this show would do well (9). The profit Netflix makes off of this project and other similar projects gives it the opportunity to take more risks with other projects. Not even all of Netflix’s users need to watch the original programming content for Netflix to make a profit. As long as enough people watch, discuss and report on its shows to convince more people to buy a subscription to its platform, Netflix will benefit 2 (166). Netflix seems to be the future of not just television watching, but watching films as well, since there is a merging of media, technology, and entertainment going on (3). For my theoretical framework, I have collected different scholars from film and feminist studies to support my main claim. First of all, it is necessary to establish what ‘queer’ means in this thesis. Queer will be used as an umbrella term for women who identify as non-heterosexual (Randazzo et al 103). Furthermore, to support the use of stereotypes and tropes, work from Richard Dyer will be consulted. His work lays a foundation on how differently stereotypes and tropes can be used. He focuses on Lippmann’s ideas of stereotypes: an ordering process, a short cut, referring to the world, and expressing our values and beliefs (The Matter of Images 12).