CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Rynkevich, Karalina |
|---|---|
| Title | Visibility Over Seeability: The 2024 Mainstream 'Lesbian Renaissance' Discourse Within the U.S. War on Gender |
| Summary | This thesis critically analyzes the ‘Lesbian Renaissance’ discourse of 2024, challenging the celebratory narrative of “visibility win.” Focusing on its construction in popular media outlets and on the social media platform TikTok, the study examines how this visibility is often selective, commodified, and homonormative, particularly within the precarious U.S. socio-political context of ongoing “war on gender” (Butler, 2023). Using critical discourse analysis, the research contrasts the frequently depoliticized representations in mainstream media with the more dynamic and diverse engagements on TikTok. While popular media often reinforced a narrow “lesbian normal” (McNicholas Smith, 2020), TikTok users showed a potentiality to foster a broader communal “seeability” (Hennessy, 1994), critiquing limited portrayals and forging spaces for connection and queer futurity (Muñoz, 2009). This study unearths the tensions between superficial visibility and meaningful recognition, arguing that while mainstream representation can obscure structural issues, digital platforms like TikTok, despite algorithmic constraints (Blackman, 2019), offer crucial sites for community validation and the articulation of alternative lesbian experiences and futures. |
| Supervisor | Erzsébet Barát |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/rynkevich_caroline.pdf |
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