Description
Stuart Hall (1997) posits that representation creates codes of understanding in culture that serve as social conventions for signalling meaning or community. This codified language was utilised in the Hollywood Production Code era to include queer identity, most notably with Disney villains, or by using alternate worlds and imagery to represent queerness. Since then, both queer coding and queer readings of media have gained significant popularity. Upon its release earlier this year, BBC’s Domino Day (2024-) was praised as this generation’s answer to Buffy. Press for the show described the protagonist’s search for community to help her understand herself, which she finds in a coven of witches. Domino Day presents what Alexander Doty refers to as an ‘articulation of the complex range of queerness’ . My paper explores coven member Sammie’s presence as the openly queer character of this series, and the titular Domino’s representation as queer-coded: feeling monstrous and wrong for her innate being and needs, meeting her found family, and coming into her power as a witch. Domino’s struggles mirror queer identity and provide viewers with a rich queer reading. Through Domino and Sammie’s relationship too, the viewer glimpses an intimacy which works in direct contrast to Domino’s transactional relationships with men. Therefore, this paper aims to interrogate the simultaneous queer representation and queer coding present in Domino Day, and how this impacts the queer/platonic relationships present within it.| Period | 7 Jun 2024 |
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| Event title | Queer/ing Research at Ulster University |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | BelfastShow on map |