English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

In a special report for  Entertainment Weekly  in January 2011, Jennifer Armstrong noted that ‘gay characters have gone from one time guest stars, whispered tragedies, and silly sidekicks to not just an accepted but an  expected  part of teen-centric television’ (36, original emphasis). Within this genre, the coming out narrative has gained prominence as the dominant means of articulating and representing LGBTIQ+ identities and experience. This article traces a lineage of teen texts that negotiate authenticity and queer identity through LGBTIQ+ coming out stories where queer-coded characters attempt to pass as heterosexual, performing ‘fakery’ for personal safety and as a means of fitting in to the teen social milieu. MTV’s  Faking It  (2014–2016) flips the script on this queer teen narrative, following two unpopular best friends, Karma (Katie Stevens) and Amy (Rita Volk), who pretend to be lesbians to climb the high school hierarchy. While controversial upon its release,  Faking It  has since been credited with ‘changing the nature of queer representation on TV’ through its novel representations of gender and sexual diversity. This article examines how teen sexualities are articulated and understood in the series. Through close textual analysis, this article demonstrates how  Faking It  engages the theme of fakery to undermine classical notions of the coming out narrative as an expression of authenticity, which have long been central to LGBTIQ+ youth narratives in film and television.

Coming out in a ‘faux-lesbian comedy’: authenticity and queer identity in MTV’s Faking it