LMBTQIA reprezentáció a fikcióban: (Félre)ábrázolási minták a brit fikciós narratívákban 1885 óta

The thesis explores LGBTQIA representation in fictional narratives in literature, film, television and theatre since 1885 in Britain, with brief mentions of Irish and American influences distributed in Britain, and with particular focus on recurring issues and patterns in queer representation, or rather misrepresentation. Chapter 1 is an account of the laws on homosexuality and on obscenity laws to establish how and why censorship could shape queer fiction radically before decriminalization (1967). In the first half of Chapter 1, laws against homosexual practices are revised, while in its second half obscenity laws and censorship across media are detailed. In Chapter 2, issues of queer representation are collected and categorized, which originate in pre-decriminalization conventions necessitated by censorship that is no longer in effect: erasure, subtext, negative portrayal and narrative punishment. Furthermore, since historical accuracy is often claimed by contemporary creators to excuse a focus on persecution, punishment and death, authentic pre-1967 views on living and writing in criminality and censorship are uncovered, which are life-affirming and see happy endings as plausible, contrary to what post-censorship, retrospectively written historical fiction mistakenly assumes. Among others, the fiction and correspondence of Oscar Wilde, Siegfried Sassoon, E. M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, Christopher Isherwood, and Jeremy Wolfenden evidence that pre-decriminalization fiction would have been less tragic and elegiac, had censorship not prohibited their publication, lest they recommended what was crime at the time. The thesis therefore challenges issues in post-censorship LGBTQIA representation in fictional narratives, questioning the disproportionateness of tragic storylines and a lack of change in patterns of (mis)representation, which had been necessitated by now revoked laws of criminality and censorship, arguing that the prevalence of tragic endings, violence, and death in queer fictional narratives across media outweighs what is justifiably necessitated by either contemporary or historical experiences.BSc/BAAnglisztik