Distinctively queer in the Parish: Performances of distinction and LGBTQ+ representations in Flemish prestige television fiction

Distinction and slumps

Pierre Bourdieu’s (1984, 1993, 1998) ideas on distinction based on class and taste, and his subsequent work on the field of cultural production in general – and television journalism in particular – have had various degrees of traction in the study of television. David Hesmondhalgh (2006) explicitly points to the limitations of Bourdieu’s thought for the analysis of cultural industries such as television, discussing the author’s interest in restricted production associated with the generation of high symbolic capital (p. 218) and his exclusive focus on television journalism (p. 221). Conversely, Hesmondhalgh convincingly illustrates that the schemes proposed by Bourdieu behave differently in the field of mass cultural production, arguing that ‘restricted production has become introduced into the field of mass production’ (p. 222), alluding to the conceptual problems created by ‘quality television’. Unsurprisingly, Bourdieu’s field theory has been engaged with most profoundly in relation to prestigious television programming (e.g. Dhoest, 2014; Lavie and Dhoest, 2015; McCabe and Akass, 2008; Santo, 2008), as quality status is the result of creators with different field positions struggling for cultural legitimacy in the field of television production. In line with the specifically sociological perspectives of Bourdieu’s (1984, 1993, 1998) work focusing on class-based consumption in relation to distinction and the autonomy or heteronomy of cultural production when conceptualizing the field of cultural production or the subfield of television journalism, the use of his ideas in television studies follows similar lines. His thought is deployed in discussions on the production and legitimation of quality television content (e.g. Lotz, 2007; McCabe and Akass, 2008; Santo, 2008), concerned with strategies used by companies to gain access to the coveted prestige television status. Conversely, Bourdieu’s ideas also offer a useful framework for discussions on the audiences of quality television (e.g. Bury, 2008; McMurria, 2007), clarifying the distinctive discourses underlying audiences consumption of ‘tasteful television’.

Owing to his sociological outlook, concerned with how and why groups of creators produce culture or groups of consumers use culture, Bourdieu’s theory seems less suitable for studying culture on a textual level. He does hint at textual emanations of the dynamics he describes, however: ‘differences between works are predisposed to express differences between authors […] because […] they bear the mark of their authors’ socially constituted dispositions’ (Bourdieu, 1984: 20), opening a conceptual space to reflect on distinction’s relation to textual qualities. In her work, Dana Polan (2007) expands on the performance of distinction by HBO programming and illustrates how the television text is deployed to tap into the socio-cultural identities of the well-off urban audiences it targets. Crucially, whereas Polan’s arguments are based on a more traditional conception of cultural taste in the performance of distinction – citing, for example, The Sopranos’ (HBO, 1999–2007) reference to a relatively obscure Scorcese film (p. 280) – the textual performance of distinction relies on socio-political predispositions too. Rather than affirming distinctions between ‘elite’ and ‘vulgar’ cultural tastes or between ‘high’ and ‘low’ cultural forms, but between ‘high’ and ‘low’ socio-cultural dispositions too, television texts can invite audiences to distinguish themselves based on a supposedly superior outlook on certain polarized themes.

While often not explicitly addressed in (queer) television studies, the textual performance of distinction has specific relationships to the televisibility of socio-cultural themes marginalized in the mainstream, such as sexual and gender diversity. In the United States, the noted focus on diversity of premium cable television drama like The Wire (HBO, 2002–2008) or Queer as Folk (Showtime, 2000–2005) or The L Word (Showtime, 2004–2009) has contributed to their status as ‘quality drama’ (Hilmes, 2003: 99; Santo, 2008). In queer television studies, quality or niche drama produced in the United States are the privileged sites wherein scholars locate queer representational strategies (e.g. Dhaenens, 2013; Dhaenens and Van Bauwel, 2012; Chambers, 2003), although the prestige of these series is often less of focal point than textual articulations of non-normative genders and sexualities. Tapping into viewer distinction based on the representation of sexual and/or gender diversity is not confined to fiction content perceived as quality, though. While less prestigious content, like soap operas, sitcoms or run-of-the-mill crime series are often conceived of as heteronormative and heterosexist (e.g. Doran, 2013; Kies, 2016), their affirmation of certain group predispositions towards sexual and gender diversity on a textual level is often undeniable. Ron Becker (2006) for instance, expanding on the differences concerning LGBTQ+ representation between US mainstream and niche television content, describes how the inclusion of non-heterosexual characters should be understood as an attempt to capitalize on the desire of socially liberal urban minded professionals (SLUMPs) in the United States to perform their socio-cultural identity through pop-cultural consumption (p. 80). In his view, both mainstream network channels and premium cable providers strategically included gay, lesbian and – to a lesser extent – bisexual characters in fiction content to invite a specific demographic to adopt ‘progressive television’ as an affirmation of its cultural identity. Similarly, Suzanna Danuta Walters (2003) points to the use of ‘incidental queers’ in mainstream popular culture at the turn of the millennium: LGBTQ+ characters merely included as signs of the hipness of heterosexual leads, again facilitating the use of popular culture in identity building by SLUMPs (p. 149). Notwithstanding qualitative differences in textual LGBTQ+ representations, whether homonormative and reductionist in mainstream content (e.g. Battles & Hilton Morrow, 2002; Becker, 2006; Doran, 2013; Walters, 2003) or counternormative and queer (e.g. Dhaenens, 2013; Chambers, 2009), the mechanisms of distinction concerning the envisioned reception by audiences are based on affirming their own socio-cultural dispositions rather than negating their adoption by others.

These distinctive discourses found in the popular culture of the United States are affirmatory in their facilitation of performing a socially liberal identity that confirms one’s engagement with the emancipation of sexual and gender diversity. Scholarly work expanding on the emerging televisibility of LGBTQ+ identities such as that of Walters (2003), Becker (2006) or Chambers (2009) especially emphasizes the importance of the culture wars, the political polarization of socio-cultural themes – such as sexual and gender diversity or abortion – in the United States as an explanatory framework, providing a sociological basis for this phenomenon. A climate wherein the legitimacy of sexual and gender diversity was and often still is a contentious social issue, and political institutions behave conservatively, facilitates binary distinction. Self-proclaimed socially progressive audiences can distinguish themselves by consuming mainstream or niche content that affirms the acceptance of sexual and gender identity, regardless of normative or queer representational strategies. Because – in abstract terms – the mainstream visibility of sexual and gender diversity is still subject to heated debate, this facilitates a dichotomous socio-cultural division into pro and contra, resulting in specific cultural translations. Considerable qualitative differences exist between white suburban upper-class gay male couples such as Modern Family’s (ABC, 2009-) Cameron and Mitchell (see Doran, 2013) and black queer inner city characters like The Wire’s (HBO, 2002–2008) Kima Greggs (see Dhaenens and Van Bauwel, 2012). Both representations, however, allow identification with LGBTQ+ inclusivity as a socio-cultural stance, and distinguish between progressive viewing and conservative viewing without necessarily implying that this distinction is performed in the text.

The context of the United States is thus key in understanding how this affirmative appeal to distinction operates. The polarization of socio-cultural issues like gender and sexual diversity, but also race, class and (dis-)ability allow television makers to adopt specifically affirmative representational strategies to invite SLUMPs to consume popular culture that underscores their socio-cultural outlook. It affirms a temporal socio-cultural frame based on the social legitimacy of sexual and gender diversity. Of course, this concurrently implies that this situation might differ quite specifically in other contexts. Given queer television studies’ decidedly North-American outlook, it has rarely been explicitly touched upon, but notions such as cultural proximity (Straubhaar, 1991, 2003), and banal or everyday nationalism (Billig, 1995) as inconspicuous localization strategies in television fiction must display a specific relationship to television portrayals of sexual and gender diversity. Indeed, while American discourses of quality travel globally (see Dhoest, 2014; Kuipers, 2011), their relationship to LGBTQ+ representation in popular television fiction cannot simply be transposed. In Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern region of Belgium, for instance, the distinctive performance of LGBTQ+ representations is decidedly negative.

Flemish socio-cultural identity, domestic television fiction and LGBTQ+ televisibility

Contrary to the United States, the growing visibility of sexual and gender diversity in Flemish society at large in the 1990s was never situated in a heavily polarized debate between progressives and conservatives (see Borghs, 2016). The emerging attention for LGBTQ+ identities and themes by mainstream media, moreover, was general not sensationalist. Early recurring lesbian and gay characters introduced to Flemish domestic television fiction did not spark public controversy, gathering positive responses if any (Vanlee et al., 2018a). Even Steve, an openly homosexual lead character in W8A2nd [W817] (KETNET, 1999–2003), a Flemish children’s sitcom on public broadcasting youth channel KETNET, did not elicit any outcry on the acceptability of openly queer representations in children’s television (see Vanlee et al., 2018a).

Notwithstanding pervasive issues – LGBTQ+ narratives are overwhelmingly white in Flemish media, for instance – one could argue that the acceptance of sexual and gender diversity has increasingly become a part and parcel of Flemish national identity. Overt homo- and transphobia are generally absent from the public debate, and when derogatory speech on LGBTQ+ identities finds its way to the public debate, it is univocally condemned. Reactions were almost unanimously positive when television journalist Boudewijn Van Spilbeeck came out as a transwoman in January 2018, for instance (see Beel, 2018; Van Regenmortel, 2018). When Filip Brusselmans, president of the Antwerp chapter of the conservative student organization Catholic College Students Union (Katholiek Hoogstudentenverbond, KVHV) posted an article criticizing the media attention that supposedly ‘normalizes a psychiatric pathology’ (see Brusselmans, 2018), conservative and progressive politicians alike harshly condemned his reaction (see Van Damme, 2018; Vankersschaever, 2018). Though this example obviously does not allude to the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ subjects in Flanders, it does illustrate the consensus in the public debate that sexual and gender diversity occupy a legitimate place in Flemish society. This broader discourse of constructing, on an abstract level at least, sexual and gender diversity as mere facts of contemporary life translates into domestic television fiction. For the period between 2001 and 2016, of the 156 domestic fiction series produced in Flanders, 60 included at least one LGBTQ+ character, amounting to 38.46 percent (see Vanlee et al., 2018a, 2018b). When only considering those series with a non-heterosexual and/or non-cisgendered lead, this still totals 36 individual series or 23.04 percent of the total (see Vanlee et al., 2018a, 2018b).

Figures only provide a broad and abstract overview, but do allude to the fact that to some extent, sexual and gender diversity have become a salient element to what Alexander Dhoest (2007) dubs the national everyday in Flemish domestic television fiction. With this concept, Dhoest refers to a specific set of representational strategies that allow Flemish fiction series to tap into what Joseph Straubhaar (1991, 2003) describes as cultural proximity: the desire of local audiences to consume recognizably local fiction content. Logically, a set of material cues serve as its representational backbone: the portrayal of Flemish food and beverage cultures, architectural or geographical markers and so forth. Linguistic cues add further local flavour to Flemish television fiction narratives, with most of the series featuring characters who speak the vernacular Flemish version of Dutch, often with highly specific dialects. In a subsequent study, Dhoest (2011) illustrates how Flemish television professionals rely explicitly on this formal discourse of Flemish ordinariness in contrast to American content distributed on the Flemish market, which domestic audiences deem less credible (p. 20). To Flemish viewers and producers alike, realism, banality and recognition are key qualities that set locally created content apart from glossy American imports. Of course, this ties into salient non-fictional discourses on Flemishness too, emphasizing ‘typically Flemish’ modesty and realism over ‘typically American’ flashiness and idealism (see Willems, 2015). More importantly, cultural proximity in Flemish television fiction also thrives on the reflection of contemporary social issues. Dhoest describes how his study’s sample week featured ‘the use of Viagra, drug dealing, illegal immigration and Valentine’s Day […] addressed because they are or have been the subject of public debate, so they signal trends and discussions in contemporary Flanders’ (p. 69). As LGBTQ+ inclusivity has been a prominent social dynamic since the 1990s, culminating in the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2003, sexual and gender diversity do seem an element of the national everyday. Moreover, considering the fact that overtly homophobic discourse has been increasingly marginalized since the 1990s (see Vanlee et al., 2017), the mobilization of sexual and gender diversity in fostering a sense of cultural proximity with Flemish audiences has been characterized by affirmative representations that underscore LGBTQ+ identities as part and parcel of a fundamentally dynamic understanding of normality (see Vanlee et al., 2018a).

In the majority of mainstream television series, this subtly decenters sexual and/or gender identity as a central notion of interpersonal relations between Flemish characters, whether straight and cisgender or otherwise, stressing similarity rather than difference. LGBTQ+ characters in Flemish television fiction narratives were and are generally not depicted as explicitly urban or middle class, as has often been the case in television series originating in the United States (e.g. Battles & Hilton-Morrow, 2002; Becker, 2006; Doran, 2013), but rather as a banal aspect of ordinary Flemish life. From Jo De Klein, a gay male band member in musical teen soap opera Jump (Spring) (KETNET, 2002–2008) to Liese Meerhout, a female bisexual police commissioner in commercial police procedural Coppers (Coppers) (VTM, 2016): Flemish LGBTQ+ characters are portrayed as organic members of the communities they inhabit, unmarked by their sexual and/or gender difference from their peers. Effeminate gay hairdresser Anthony De Keersmaecker in telenovela Ella (Ella) (VTM, 2010–2011), for instance, stands out because of his affectionate mannerisms and colourful sense of fashion, but is nonetheless constructed as occupying a legitimate position as a community member belonging in his peer group. While associated with diva-like gay male subculture, his broader cultural identity is aligned with that of the community depicted. Similarly, teenage female bisexual character Kathy in teen sitcom And That’s That (En Daarmee Basta) (KETNET, 2005–2008) looks out of the ordinary with her hyped enthusiasm and tomboyish looks, but no more than her eccentric and slightly disoriented father. Nevertheless, both are represented as having an equal, valid place in their immediate surroundings.

Distinguishing socio-cultural temporal dimensions

Dhoest (2007) argues that the translation of socio-cultural issues from the public debate into domestic Flemish television fiction is less of a fundamental element in the national everyday’s appeal to cultural proximity than material culture (p. 69). Referring to ‘familiar beverage brands’ (p. 71), fictional news broadcasts with ‘the voice of long-time newsreader Martine Tanghe, familiar to all Flemish viewers’ (p. 72) and ‘street views with familiar landscapes, city and village views, road marks, trash bins, number plates…’ (p. 72), he illustrates how inconspicuous markers of locality contribute to the construction of a universally Flemish fictional setting. Inconspicuous as they may be, these material cues are not only markers of locality, but also of actuality. These tangible cultural cues geographically situate narratives as recognizably Flemish, and emphasize the contemporaneity of the stories and people depicted. It situates Flemish television fiction not only in the here, but in the now too. Consequently, LGBTQ+ characters communicate a specific temporality. Having a female bisexual character in a television series – regardless of whether this identity is portrayed in a normative or subversive way – affirms the socio-cultural reality of LGBTQ+ visibility in a particular temporal and spatial frame. Combined with the geographical dimension derived from the locality of Flemish television fiction, its LGBTQ+ characters can, to a certain extent, be conceived of as affirmative articulations of a specifically spatial and temporal socio-cultural consensus. Characters like the ones described earlier act as inconspicuous markers of late modernity, and affirm a particular state of late modernity supposedly present in Flanders at large.

It is precisely the mobilization of sexual and gender diversity in the inconspicuous construction of the socio-cultural Flemish everyday that explains its particular role in negative distinction. The majority of Flemish television fiction series construct ordinary Flemings, regardless of class and ethnicity, as accepting towards LGBTQ+ identities, exemplified by the little attention given to homo- or transphobic violence in domestic television fiction series (see Vanlee et al., 2018b). Flemish television fiction constructs LGBTQ+ inclusivity as something all Flemings can indiscriminately lay claim to, affirming Flanders to be a place of tolerance. If this affirmation is distinctive, it implicitly distinguishes Flanders from other regions, rather than between different Flemish demographics. A specific subset of prestigious domestic fiction series negates this affirmatory discourse, however, with LGBTQ+ representations performing internal distinctions between a spatially and temporally defined morally superior minority and a similarly specified morally inferior majority. Such series – most often tragicomedies – highlight sexual and gender diversity along with representations of cultural life in general to construct LGBTQ+ inclusivity as an intrinsic prerogative of Flemish SLUMPs and delegitimize the authenticity of LGBTQ+ inclusivity with the supposedly conservative majority living outside of large cities. Flemish prestige series offer socially liberal and urban-minded audiences the possibility to imagine two distinct spatial and temporal Flemish socio-cultural realities. One imaginary Flemish identity is centred around the urban, around notions of socio-cultural late modernity, and is explicitly validated as morally superior. The other is projected on the rural and highlights the supposedly premodern socio-cultural reality of much of Flanders, distinctly performed as morally and culturally inferior.

While sexuality and gender occupy a specific position in this performance of distinction, discussed later by focusing on the cases of At All Costs (Met Man en Macht) (VIER, 2013), Bevergem (Bevergem) (Canvas, 2015) and The Eleventh of the Eleventh (Den Elfde van den Elfde) (één, 2016), the derision of ordinary Flemishness is more generally construed by deploying the grotesque cultural motif of the parish. The focus on rurality is an established element in the historical repertoire of Flemish audiovisual fiction (see Dhoest, 2001; Willems, 2015), and more than half of all series have a non-urban setting (see Vanlee et al., 2018b); the parish motif presents a hyperbole of Flemish non-urban life in serial tragicomedies. The Flemish non-urban community has always functioned as a powerful reference to ordinary Flemishness, but in the case of parish fiction, serves to comically differentiate between premodern and contemporary Flemishness. Paradoxically yet crucially, these two forms of Flemishness are physically coexistent, but are constructed as differing temporally in a socio-cultural sense. In abstract terms, a conceptual dichotomy is formed between two embodiments of Flemishness displaying different degrees of socio-cultural progression. The notion of the parish is more of a motif than a generic component in Flemish television fiction, however; it is not solely deployed in prestige television fiction and neither is all prestige television fiction characterized by a parish motif. Several examples of historical fiction, like In Flemish Fields (In Vlaamse Velden) (één, 2012–2013) or The Emperor of Taste (De Smaak Van De Keyser) (één, 2008–2009), are prestigious but wholly incongruent with the parish motif. Contrariwise, several series without prestige recognition do use the parish motif, like the absurdist Duts (Duts) (Canvas, 2010) or the weed-farming comedy Homegrown (Eigen Kweek) (één, 2013, 2016). The motif of the parish is a set of formal, stylistic and narrative cues often found in Flemish prestigious fiction series, but open to appropriation by less prestigious content on grounds of its established popularity.

Contemporary cultural premodernity in the Parish

At All Costs takes place in the non-existent village of Ranzegem, Bevergem in the eponymous fictional village of Bevergem and The Eleventh of the Eleventh in the imaginary hamlet of Kerke, more commonly referred to as Knorrendonk. While none of the places in these tragicomedies are real, all three are topologically specified using typical landscapes and dialects, ensuring the recognizability of Ranzegem as a village in the Campine region, Bevergem as located in the south of Western Flanders and Kerke as situated in the polders of Eastern Flanders. Each of the series feature ample shots of the landscapes surrounding the communities, often in wide angles that highlight the isolated nature of the respective villages, seemingly little more than a church tower surrounded by several houses.

That the villages presented here do not act as an inconspicuous reference to ‘the everyday experiences of living within a nation’ (Dhoest, 2007: 61) is obvious from the linguistic connotations of their names. ‘Ranze’ in Ranzegem refers to ‘ranzig’, meaning rancid in Flemish. ‘Bever’ in Bevergem literally translates as beaver, but is narratively explained to have etymological grounds in ‘beer’, the Flemish word for hog. ‘Knorren’ in Knorrendonk, finally, means to oink. Needless to say, names like Rancidville, Hogtown and Oinkton create specific connotations with audiences, and serve to resignify Flemish rurality from unmarked and everyday to a specifically urban perspective on Flanders at large. Of course, the toponymy of the villages depicted is merely a stylistic detail in a broader representational regime oriented at the derision of ‘ordinary Flanders’ and its inhabitants. Commenting on the soap opera Thuis (één, 1995–Present), Dhoest (2007) refers to the contrast between working class soap character’s ‘Simone and Frank’s slightly kitschy dining room, with floral wallpaper, bright colours, chequered plastic tablecloths and a Lourdes Maria statue’ and upper-class ‘Marianne’s tasteful living room with its polished wooden furniture, silver picture frames and Flemish tapestry on the wall’ (p. 69) to illustrate mainstream Flemish television fiction’s engagement with a diverse and seemingly naturalistic image of Flanders. At All Costs, Bevergem and The Eleventh of the Eleventh, however, indiscriminately depict interiors with bombastic oaken furniture, outdated wallpapers, Formica kitchen tables and the likes. Lottery winners Danny and Anja’s modernist house in Bevergem is a clear exception. But the two characters are shown to be utterly unable to adapt to their new home fitted with cutting edge technology, and each episode contains humorous scenes of the two struggling with mundane tasks like turning on their lights or closing their windows with an array of remote controls. Their ineptitude above all highlights their inability to adapt to modern life.

With representations like these, prestigious series such as At All Costs, Bevergem and the Eleventh of the Eleventh construct a highly derogatory image of ordinary Flanders as a site where cultural modernity has not fully taken hold yet. Above all other formal, narrative and stylistic choices, this is underscored by the comedic narrative centrality of what could be described as communal culture. At All Costs, a drama expanding on local politics, reserves its apotheosis for the festivities surrounding rivalling political campaigns. Bevergem’s finale is constructed around a village festival called the ‘sow feasts’, with a rather heavy focus on swine-related amusement. The Eleventh of the Eleventh, finally, is a carnival-themed tragicomedy centred on the election of the carnival prince, an event primarily characterized by excessive drinking and related debauchery. Notwithstanding the overt lack of any ‘high-cultural’ activities in any of these series, in itself a strong allusion to the perceived backwardness of ordinary Flanders, these cultural events all act to underscore the fundamentally laughable outdatedness of everyday Flemings. The election of the carnival prince in The Eleventh of the Eleventh, for instance, leads friends and family members alike to engage in absurd intrigues to strengthen their claim, constructing the title as the apex accomplishment to the inhabitants of Oinkton. Similarly, Bevergem’s ‘sow feasts’ feature an event to determine the ‘hog of hogtown’; a fierce competition wherein the male villagers re-enact a medieval village legend involving the transportation of – mock – pig’s semen in their mouths through an obstacle course. Communal activities in the parish are hardly elegant, and portray communities as coarse and boorish. Series like At All Costs, Bevergem and The Eleventh of the Eleventh thrive on the notion of cultural proximity (Straubhaar, 1991, 2003); and a banal sense of nationalism (Billig, 1995) as a strategy to localize fiction for specific national audiences. Often, however, the focus on both perspectives rests on an unmarked portrayal of both locality and national culture. In the case of Flemish prestige television fiction, though, cultural proximity seems to translate more into the opportunity to distinguish from one’s own ‘ordinary’ culture in a form of cultural disdain, and banal nationalism is mostly deployed to highlight the pettiness of everyday national culture.

Due to this specific construction of what material and immaterial culture are like in the parish, prestige fiction series such as At All Costs, Bevergem and The Eleventh of the Eleventh do not altogether deny the physical contemporary coexistence of premodern Flemishness and modern Flemishness. Parishioners inhabit the exact same physical temporal frame as modern, socially liberal urban Flemings. Their position in the socio-cultural temporal frame, however, is presented as hierarchically lower by using specific cultural cues. By having a character such as Bevergem’s Claude struggling with his smartphone in a living room seemingly decorated the 1970s, the series effectively distinguishes contemporary Flemishness at different speeds. It asserts that physical temporality may be an almost egalitarian, objective truth, but access to evolved socio-cultural temporality is reserved for the socially liberal and urban-minded. In doing so, prestige fiction based on the motif of the parish communicates that most ordinary Flemings cannot legitimately claim a late modern socio-cultural identity.

Contemporary social premodernity in the Parish

Although it might seem intuitive to imagine that parishioners would be represented as downright homophobic bigots, their attitudes are derided in more subtle ways. Instead of focusing on their supposed lack of acceptance regarding sexual and/or gender diversity, parish fiction constructs ordinary Flemings in the parish as simple souls willing but unable to adapt to modern socio-cultural attitudes towards LGBTQ+ identities. This results in characters who evidently attempt to adapt to the modern imperative of LGBTQ+ inclusivity, but fail because of their naïve and limited insights into modernity. Consider for instance a short monologue by Danny, Bevergem’s lottery winner:

I also used to know a gay at my old job. He always had to pass me lightbulbs when I was on my ladder [Danny was responsible for the maintenance of highway lamp posts]. And I’m sure that, when I turned around, he was staring at my butt. I’m sure. Now, he was a great guy, of course, but he was just a gay. (Bevergem, Se.01Ep.02, 07 September 2015)

Similarly, in a conversation with straight male Chris, At All Costs’ Carl Backx, both display similar attitudes towards sexual and gender diversity. They attempt to conform to modern discourses of LGBTQ+ acceptance, but are unable to do so in a proper manner:

Through these conversations, prestige series like Bevergem and At All Costs present an entirely different ordinary Flanders than most Flemish television fiction series, portraying sexual diversity as foreign and strange. Although all characters conform to the imperative against homophobia, their specific discourse signifies their unease with sexual and gender diversity. By referring to sexual and gender identities with a noun, characters like Chris, Carl and Danny affirm the centrality of sexual desire or gender identity in the realm of the social. Thus, LGBTQ+ people in the parish are not merely ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’, ‘bisexual’ or ‘transgender’, but ‘a gay’, ‘a lesbian’, ‘a bisexual’ or ‘a transgender’. And, more importantly, while characters do not use slurs or derogatory discourse, especially Chris and Carl’s conversation illustrates how people in the parish would not want others to think they might be non-heterosexual and/or non-cisgendered.

LGBTQ+ identities are as such not explicitly discriminated against in the parish, but are constructed as other, with an awkward position in the community. At All Costs’ Tony, for instance, maintains the outward appearance of traditional masculinity expected from a small-town barkeeper and senior militant of the conservative nationalist party. Unbeknownst to most of his friends and family members, however, he revels in wearing women’s clothes. Under the guise of weekly night fishing trips, he heads off to Brussels to go out in drag, usually with a friend who maintained an affair there. Notwithstanding the fact that this narrative construction portrays extramarital affairs and transvestitism as equally shameful activities in the parish, it implicitly privileges urban life as the locus where sexual and gender diversity are ordinary. This does not mean that none of the people of Rancidville ever get to see Tony in drag. During a fundraising event for the impending elections, Tony performs a drag act while play backing A Far L’Amore Comince Tu by Rafaella Carra, complete with her fabulous silver gown. Perceived as a hilarious bid by the townspeople, though, his performance mocks rather than emancipates the possibility of someone born male honestly enjoying the performance of such a feminine song, which starkly contrasts the apparent indifference to his transvestitism in Brussels. A drag act is something to ridiculed in the parish, yet unnoticeable in the city. Similarly, Sam and Lode, respectively a Christian democrat and conservative nationalist council member in At All Costs, project an outward appearance of traditional heterosexual respectability. Seemingly straight, and explicitly dismissive of anything outside of the norm, these two side characters constantly affirm the socio-cultural outdatedness of the parish, and make offhand inside jokes on ‘socialists’ and ‘ecohippies’. The final shot of the series, however, shows them as a closeted gay couple, lovingly feeding each other oysters and drinking champagne dressed in satin robes. Again, this underscores the impossibility of public gayness in the parish, portraying non-heterosexuality as something that can only be a secretive and private phenomenon.

Whereas Sam and Lode communicate the demand of secrecy concerning same-sex relationships in the parish, and Tony implicitly contributes to the idea that only urban areas are socio-culturally modern, Bevergem’s couple Hilde and Elise make this claim rather explicit. They are introduced as contemporary, not only because of their less vernacular way of talking and fashionable outfits – as opposed to the inhabitants of the village – but most of all because they move from the city to Bevergem. Living in Ghent, Hilde is offered a position as thrift store manager in Bevergem, prompting her to move there with her girlfriend Elise. This new position that among other tasks entails the coordination of the ‘sow feasts’, offers countless narrative possibilities to have Hilde’s ‘late modern’ socio-cultural identity clash with the premodern norms and values of Bevergem. Seeing an opportunity to have the festival funded by the province, for instance, Hilde suggests introducing a vegetarian option and reusable cups to the organization, as this would be expected in return for subsidies. After lengthily mocking the very idea of vegetarianism, the rest of the organizers suggest using the subsidies to pay themselves for their volunteer work, resulting in baffled looks from Hilde. With cues like these, Hilde is perpetually underscored to be more modern than the people of Bevergem, exemplified by her care for the environment and professional integrity. Her moral demeanour, moreover, contrasts with the petty scheming of the parishioners, who are all engaged in trying to defraud someone or something for their own benefit.

Throughout Bevergem’s narrative, Hilde and Elise are perpetually reduced to their sexual and socio-cultural identity by other characters, forging strong articulations between their emancipated non-heterosexuality and its supposed natural position in a late modern temporal socio-cultural frame. With the women’s relationship slowly becoming public knowledge in the parish of Bevergem, their interaction with the inhabitants reinforces their status as urban outsiders with their position as sexual outsiders. When Elise is suggestively asked by Amar with whom she would rather sleep between him and Claude, Elise responds with, ‘Difficult … If I’d be into guys, I would probably go for both of you at the same time!’ (Bevergem, Se01Ep04). Overcoming their initial shock, Amar and Claude assess the two women with a look that can only be described as lusty, before scurrying off to their respective wives for gossiping purposes. Again, parishioners are not portrayed as fostering explicitly negative attitudes towards non-heterosexual subjectivities. Rather, they are underscored as quite simply unable to adopt a respectful or indifferent stance regarding LGBTQ+ identities, approaching them as legitimate but ultimately othered. The women of Bevergem display similar ambivalences in their demeanour to Hilde and Elise as a couple. Anja, for instance, considers the revelation that Hilde is not just friends with Elise, but is in fact a lesbian, the year’s hottest piece of gossip: ‘Say, I’ve got news that will blow you away! I’ve heard from several sources that, Hilde and her friend … They say that they are, uhm … They are lesbians!’ (Bevergem, Se01Ep07). Claudine, on the other hand, interprets the disclosure as a permission to pose to Hilde and Elise rather personal questions about how sex would work between two women: ‘There’s always a more female and male person in those relationships, right? But what I wonder sometimes, with two women … How does that work, then, exactly?’ (Bevergem, Se01Ep08). Again, Claudine’s demeanour does not allude to dismissive attitudes towards Hilde and Elise’s relationship, praising their ‘bravery for being themselves’ earlier. Her questions, however, are invasive to say the least, and emphasize her as someone genuinely attempting to be LGBTQ+ friendly, but failing to do so because of her location in a premodern socio-cultural temporal frame.

Distinctive queerness

As more than 20 percent of all Flemish television fiction series include an LGBTQ+ lead character, and almost 40 percent include LGBTQ+ characters overall (see Vanlee et al. 2018b: 40), sexual and gender diversity are a banal component of Flemish mainstream television fiction. Most LGBTQ+ characters are inconspicuously embedded in various genres and narratives without specifically catering to particular demographics. Flanders is a television context wherein the mere presence of non-heterosexual and/or non-cisgendered characters – regardless of their prominence in the text – does not offer differentiation between texts. Contrary to the United States, where the relation between the televisibility of LGBTQ+ identities and distinction is largely affirmative and situated at the level of consumption (see Becker, 2006; Chambers, 2009; Munt, 2006; Walters, 2003), Flemish prestige television fiction presents an inverse image. The series discussed in this essay relate to their socially liberal audiences not by affirming their tastes and socio-cultural dispositions, but by textually delegitimizing those of the demographics they distinguish themselves from. Accordingly, the derision of ordinary Flemishness though the motif of the parish in general, and the function of LGBTQ+ characters and narratives herein specifically relate to Bourdieu’s (1984) comments on the aesthetic sense:

Tastes are perhaps first and foremost distastes, disgust provoked by horror or visceral intolerance of the tastes of others. […] The most intolerable thing for those who regard themselves as the possessors of legitimate culture is the sacrilegious reuniting of tastes which taste dictates shall be separated. (pp. 56–57)

The function of characters like Hilde and Elise in Bevergem or Sam and Lode in At All Costs is then to textually articulate distaste for an imaginary set of ‘ordinary’ Flemish tastes and socio-cultural predispositions. They are, to borrow from Suzanna Danuta Walters (2003: 149), distinctive queers. Their purpose is not to affirm the hipness – or ‘good taste’ – of straight lead characters, but rather to negate the socio-cultural significance of the majority of the Flemish population. They are distinctive textual performances that mobilize LGBTQ+ inclusivity as moral currency in a ploy to reify the legitimacy of one particular form of Flemishness over all others.

Moreover, producers’ discourses on Flemish prestige television fiction naturalize the envisioned socio-cultural deficit in mainstream Flanders by claiming to emphasize ‘authenticity, recognition and Flemishness’ (Dhoest, 2015: 15). By pointing to the deficiencies of what is commonly understood as ‘ordinary Flemishness’ and portraying LGBTQ+ characters as morally superior, the series discussed in this article could also be understood as deconstructions of the normal, a core point in queer television studies (see Chambers, 2009; Joyrich, 2014; Munt, 2006). In their engagement with sexual and gender diversity, however, texts employing distinctive queers reduce LGBTQ+ identities to their sexual or gendered difference, and transform LGBTQ+ inclusivity from an ethical disposition to a matter of taste and legitimate socio-cultural sensibilities. They reiterate an ideology of cultural disdain, wherein a perceived lack of cultural refinement and taste naturally leads to a stunted disposition towards sexual and gender identity.

Accordingly, distinctive queers do not articulate deconstructions of normative discourses shaping gender and sexuality, by unmasking the veiled logics that support hegemonic heteronormativity (see Castro et al., 2011). Nor do they contribute to reparative counterdiscourses that offer queer reconstructions (see Dhaenens and Van Bauwel, 2012), establishing queer identities as valid articulations of gender and sexuality. First and foremost, distinctive queers solidify the legitimacy of fashionable, urban minded and socially liberal Flemings and construct these traits as inextricably linked to valid forms of LGBTQ+ inclusivity. In doing so, they perpetuate stereotypical imaginaries of the supposed incommensurability between lowbrow cultural tastes and an ethical disposition towards sexual and gender diversity. Ultimately, distinctive queers reduce LGBTQ+ inclusivity to a mere matter of good taste, and function to reassert not only the exclusive cultural legitimacy of one particular demographic, but its exclusive moral legitimacy too.