Publishers Weekly
06/24/2024
Journalist Warner debuts with an astute account of how depictions of LGBTQ characters on TV have evolved since the 1970s. Early queer characters were often threadbare stereotypes, Warner contends, noting that the “first openly gay recurring character on American TV” was an ascot-wearing, “flamboyant... Broadway set designer” who appeared on the short-lived 1970s sitcom The Corner Bar. Nineties comedies Ellen and Will & Grace were notable for putting sympathetic gay characters in leading roles, but Warner suggests the shows were still “written for straight people in majority straight series.” The author posits that more recent shows include more nuanced representation, commending Better Things for giving a teenage character whose gender remains fluid throughout the series room “to evolve without having to fully define who they are to the audience.” The history makes clear how advances in representation were often halting and double-edged (Warner celebrates Transparent for its psychologically complex trans characters but laments that a cis actor played its trans lead), and interviews with queer television creators offer behind-the-scenes insights, as when Lilly Wachowski recounts how transitioning while making her show Sense8 informed how she wrote the trans character Nomi. The result is a sharply observed chronicle of the small screen. Agent: Robert E. Guinsler, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Aug.)
author of Boyslut: A Memoir and Manifesto Zachary Zane
Warner is that telephile bestie with an absurd wealth of knowledge about queer TV. Still, The Rainbow Age of Television isn’t just a history book; Warner’s cultural analysis of representation and its everlasting impact makes their book a must-read for every media-consuming queer person alive!”
Sav Rodgers
A true gem. Warner’s incisive analysis, detailed research, and wry humor make for a genuine page-turner chronicling American LGBTQIA+ TV history. Warner seamlessly navigates between critiquing the institutions that hold LGBTQIA+ television back and appropriately contextualizing and paying homage to those who laid the foundation for all we have now. The Rainbow Age of Television is an essential read for every queer storyteller.”
journalist and author of The 30 Rock Book Mike Roe
The Rainbow Age of Television is such a wonderful survey of the big, beautiful expanse of LGBTQIA+ identities as represented on TV. It’s a medium that brings characters so close to us, into our homes for episode after episode, which has been vital as queer people have fought to be accepted and embraced. Reading this book is like having your smart queer friend watching with you and guiding you through it all.
I love how author Shayna Maci Warner talks about intersectional identity, showing that the struggle isn’t just one for queer people—it’s for everyone. This book examines an age when LGBTQIA+ characters were finally able to at least occasionally flourish on television and is a tool to put in your quiver as queer representation faces an uncertain future thanks to everything from the economy and our political scene to shifting priorities from the tech platforms now controlling our media consumption. Let it be your guide to better understanding your LGBTQIA+ friends and neighbors, along with why they can’t stop talking about this one show that you just absolutely have to watch.”
From the Publisher
The Rainbow Age of Television is such a wonderful survey of the big, beautiful expanse of LGBTQIA+ identities as represented on TV. It’s a medium that brings characters so close to us, into our homes for episode after episode, which has been vital as queer people have fought to be accepted and embraced. Reading this book is like having your smart queer friend watching with you and guiding you through it all.
I love how author Shayna Maci Warner talks about intersectional identity, showing that the struggle isn’t just one for queer people—it’s for everyone. This book examines an age when LGBTQIA+ characters were finally able to at least occasionally flourish on television and is a tool to put in your quiver as queer representation faces an uncertain future thanks to everything from the economy and our political scene to shifting priorities from the tech platforms now controlling our media consumption. Let it be your guide to better understanding your LGBTQIA+ friends and neighbors, along with why they can’t stop talking about this one show that you just absolutely have to watch.”
—Mike Roe, journalist and author of The 30 Rock Book
“Warner is that telephile bestie with an absurd wealth of knowledge about queer TV. Still, The Rainbow Age of Television isn’t just a history book; Warner’s cultural analysis of representation and its everlasting impact makes their book a must-read for every media-consuming queer person alive!”
—Zachary Zane, author of Boyslut: A Memoir and Manifesto
“A true gem. Warner’s incisive analysis, detailed research, and wry humor make for a genuine page-turner chronicling American LGBTQIA+ TV history. Warner seamlessly navigates between critiquing the institutions that hold LGBTQIA+ television back and appropriately contextualizing and paying homage to those who laid the foundation for all we have now. The Rainbow Age of Television is an essential read for every queer storyteller.”
—Sav Rodgers, filmmaker and founder, Transgender Film Center
“An astute account of how depictions of LGBTQ characters on TV have evolved since the 1970s…The history makes clear how advances in representation were often halting and double-edged…and interviews with queer television creators offer behind-the-scenes insights…a sharply observed chronicle of the small screen.”—Publishers Weekly
“A thoughtful, well-researched cultural study”—Kirkus Reviews
Library Journal
07/01/2024
This journey through decades of the LGBTQIA+ television landscape offers new perspectives on favorite queer characters and TV shows and introduces pop culture and queer-history readers to ones they may have missed. Film critic and curator Warner shares popular sentiments, like when calling Sara Ramirez's portrayal of Che (a nonbinary character in the Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That) "utterly divisive." But the book also contains less-common analyses of well-known queer characters. Warner's reframing of Bugs Bunny's drag personas as powerful "transfeminine possibility" is at once convincing, charming, and triumphant. Well-cited and concluding with an extensive bibliography, this sprawling queer TV history also features several clever and original interviews with Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Stephanie Beatriz, The L Word's Jennifer Beals, RuPaul's Drag Race winner Sasha Colby, and film director Lilly Wachowski, among others. VERDICT Including older selections (Norman Lear's All That Glitters) alongside new ones (the A League of Their Own reboot), Warner will have readers searching streaming services to find the referenced shows. A delightful, nostalgic, and thought-provoking retrospective of a collective LGBTQIA+ history.—Ingrid Conley-Abrams
Kirkus Reviews
2024-06-15
An examination of queer representation in the TV industry.
“My first loves were television and women,” writes Warner, a bisexual writer from Brooklyn, at the beginning of this spotlight of the history of queer people in TV. The author investigates how queer characters have evolved on screen over the years and how media representation has affected the community, and they highlight a new “rainbow” roster of openly queer and gender-fluid characters making their way to the screen. Drawing on more than 70 years of history, Warner explores the limitations so frequently placed on queer people trying to make it in the industry and calls for audiences to not only pay attention to queer artists, but celebrate them and allow for evolution. With the mass production of content and ubiquity of streaming services, queer representation is deviating from being an exception to the rule; instead, it is becoming prominent and praised. Although there is always more space to be made for characters across the spectrum of the queer community, Warner shows how the industry has evolved since the early days. Especially interesting are the author’s discussions of a refreshing variety of actors and the roles that stood out, including Rosie O’Donnell onThe L Word and Nancy McKeon onThe Facts of Life. “On November 19, 1980,” writes Warner, McKeon “rode her motorcycle ontoDiff’rent Strokes, a spin-off ofThe Facts of Life, and into the hearts of burgeoning dykes across America.” Ending the journey on a bittersweet note, they write, “no matter how dire Hollywood’s queer landscape may seem, regardless of whether the glittering, briefly prolific Rainbow Age of Television has actually come to its close, that doesn’t change the fact that we, flesh and blood queer people, are never really alone.”
A thoughtful, well-researched cultural study.
