Open AccessEveryone has a secret: Closeting and secrecy fromSmallvilletoThe Flash,and from shame to algorithmic risk
Author(s) -
Anne Kustritz
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
sexualities
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.706
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1461-7382
pISSN - 1363-4607
DOI - 10.1177/1363460719850114
Subject(s) - shame , secrecy , erasure , computer security , set (abstract data type) , computer science , internet privacy , flash (photography) , representation (politics) , state (computer science) , social psychology , psychology , law , political science , art , algorithm , politics , visual arts , programming language
This article charts changes in the representation and encoding of superhero closeting metaphors from US television programs Smallville (2001–2011) to The Flash (2014–). Many theorists have noted that superheroes’ hidden secret identities resemble closeting. However, because of legal and social changes in LGBTQ acceptance, as well as intensification of the data-driven security state, closeting on The Flash connects to a fundamentally different set of algorithmic neoliberal social processes. As a result, The Flash portrays a form of post-shame closeting wherein secrecy is a practice of necessary self-defense against mechanized necropolitical violence and social erasure based on unpredictable data markers of risk.
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