What Constitutes Success for Queer and Trans Media Productions in the Streaming Era?

This was an invited 30-minute talk followed by Q&A. This paper draws on two US films from summer and fall 2022, Bros and Fire Island, released respectively in theatrical distribution with a saturation release and on streaming on Hulu, and Netflix’s 2019 revival of Tales of the City, to question how queer producers and screen industries define “success.” I suggest that more attention to the tensions between representational success and economic success are necessary for scholars, critics, and audiences to think through the messy intersections of queer/trans labor and content, economic and representational justice. Bros’ failure at the box office has a palpable effect on queer and trans above- and below-the-line workers; while its failure can be attributed in part to its privileging of a white cisgender gay male love plot, almost everyone in the cast, and a large percentage of below-the-line workers, are LGBTQ . Fire Island’s success is shrouded in the data secrecy of streaming and platforms, raising questions about how much the film does for the future of Asian American and queer of color representation. And Tales of the City’s Netflix revival tells us a great deal about how the stakes of representing, re-representing, and widening the parameters of queer and trans communities shape evaluations and discussions of streaming constructions of queer and trans lives.