The course examines LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) representation (political and aesthetic) in audiovisual media cultural products around the globe: films, TV dramas, music videos, and new media. The course would go through LGBTQ history and queer theories to pave the foundation for students to comprehend the representations of gender non-conformity and sexual dissidence in various media. We would visit LGBTQ-centred cultural products as well as products that include LGBT characters on the side. We would examine the content, production and circulation of these products in their social-cultural contexts. In other words, besides the storyline, we will critically analyse the market reception and making process of these LGBTQ cultural products. Queer is not confined to the totality of non-heteronormative desire and practices, but an ongoing reflection and transgression towards the orthodoxies and taken-for-granted.

The course would be filled with joy and killjoy, both of which critical strategies for LGBTQ to survive and thrive. Students are expected to read, watch and listen to the required materials for the course before each class. The process is doomed to be eye-opening and perhaps a bit discomforting. But it is in discomfort that we challenge the normalities and become the strange, the marginalised, the subaltern and fundamentally the queer.