Esmé FransenDoktorand
Om mig
Esmé is a PhD candidate in Cinema Studies at the Department of Media Studies. Her research interests include queer reception, queer female stardom, lesbian (in)visibility and audience-industry relations in Hollywood.
Forskning
Esme's dissertation, "I want to be a lesbian icon:" Constructing and (Re)Negotiating Queer Female Stardoms in the Age of Visibility investigates the construction of female stars, including Jodie Foster, Cate Blanchett, and Rachel Weisz, as lesbian icons in contemporary Hollywood. Placing industry and audience in dialogue with each other, it explores who gets to be a lesbian icon and how this particular aspect of their stardom is constructed through a constant dialogical process between the star and the audience.
By situating these developments within larger frameworks of queer visibility politics, political economy and changing understandings of sexuality, the project aims to expose some of the ways in which the industry navigates the relatively new, but increasingly emancipated, queer female market, and ultimately shed light on the possibilities and limitations of queer politics of visibility within commodity culture.
