AustLit

'Despite an often‐repeated cliché that gender and sexually diverse characters are relatively absent from film and television, Australian screen production has a very rich history of representing sexual and gender diversity: greater than nineteen wide‐release films since 1993, including internationally recognized films such as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), The Sum of Us (1994), Head On (1998), and The Monkey’s Mask (2000), portray gender and sexual diversity. Nine Australian films with LGBTQ, gender, and sexually diverse themes were released between 2013 and 2018, indicating an entrenchment of LGBTQ representation on Australian screens. Characters in major Australian television dramas and soap operas, such as Home and Away and Neighbours, have increased in regularity and complexity over the past two decades. Sexual stories, including narratives of minority sexual lives, have never, of course, been repressed or invisible, but according to Ken Plummer, they have long been central to contemporary Western culture (4). Stories representing gender and sexually diverse subjects depicting identity struggles and articulating minority health outcomes are a major and ongoing part of Australian creative production. What is significant in cultural analysis is not questions of visibility or invisibility but how the continuities and disruptions of depictions of gender and sexual minorities play a significant, pedagogical role in social participation, social harmony, acceptance, individual health and wellbeing, and community belonging (Cover, Queer Youth Suicide; Emergent Identities).' (Introduction)

'Communication, culture and media are embedded in our everyday lives in ways we are often unaware of. Whether we wake up and reach for our phone or think carefully about how to phrase a difficult sentence in an email, these multiple forms of communication, culture and media are embedded in our everyday. At conception and the first ultrasound image, a gender designation is ascribed that affects our everyday lives in innumerable ways – from the toys we are given, to sports that we play, to conceptions of self and the life choices available to us. Our gender inflects our everyday experiences and engagements with our bodies and those around us, and this becomes more and more evident as we manoeuvre into public, private and digital spaces. This special issue shares a handful of the papers initially presented at the “Gender and the Everyday: Contemporary Communication, Culture and Media” conference hosted by The Western Australian Communication, Culture and Media group (WACCM) and held at Murdoch University in September 2017.' (Introduction)