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Podcast: New Books in Popular Culture
Episode: Karen Tongson, "Normporn: Queer Viewers and the TV That Soothes Us" (NYU Press, 2023)
Description: InĀ Normporn: Queer Viewers and the TV That Soothes UsĀ (NYU Press, 2023), Karen TongsonĀ presents an irreverent look at the love-hate relationship between queer viewers and mainstream family TV shows likeĀ Gilmore GirlsĀ andĀ This Is Us.Ā After personal loss, political upheaval, and the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us craved a return to business as usual, the mundane, the middlebrow. We turned to TV to find these things. For nearly forty years, network television has produced a constant stream of ācry-alongā sentimental-realist dramedies designed to appeal to liberal, heterosexual, white America. But what makes us keep watching, e...