Will&Grace&Lucy: A Close Look at Intertextuality at Odds with Representing Homosexuality — The American Sitcom Main Menu Will&Grace&Lucy A Close Look at Intertextuality at Odds with Representing Homosexuality — The American Sitcom Table of Contents Introduction: More Intertextual than Political An introduction to the themes and arguments of the book: separating the show from political views. Chapter One - Lucy and Grace I Love Lucy intertextually informs the watching/reading of Will and Grace. Chapter Two - Self-intertextualization Infantilization vs. Stereotyping If Grace and Lucy are infantilized, Ricky and Will are stereotyped. An Intertextual Reminder Explicit vs. Implied Intertextuality

Introduction (Cont'd)

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Intertextuality has much to do with how an object (piece of text/ technology) survives/is survived – how life changes in and around it; from a performance theory perspective, time is frame which affects the reception of a performance. In “Farewell to the Information Age” researcher and linguist Geoffrey Nunberg discusses the common errors in apprehension of technology and innovations’ lasting effects, using a 1950 article on waterproof furniture as an example. He says the first error made is “taking some recent innovation at the steepest point of its curve and projecting it linearly to a point where it has swept all its predecessors aside” (Nunberg 2).

Placing gay characters in a familiar setting to the mainstream was new and innovative when the pilot for Will and Grace came out, but now we have an “LGBTQ kaleidoscope… on television” (Madison 9).  One benefit of making the gay experience palatable to mainstream America was that writers were able to create a sustainable structure for their show. 



The shift in how intertextuality of older models has been in part due to more accepting audiences. Will & Grace is  mutable – current events and modern pop references are staple in the show, almost more so in the renewed version. Megan Garber from The Atlantic called Donald Trump the show’s invisible cast member after Will & Grace re-premiered September 28, 2017 in her article released the following day – Will & Grace & Donald (Garber 1). The new historicist political lean in the renewed version of the show (evidenced in the above video annotations) has also led to more three dimensional representations of the four main characters Jack, Karen, Will, and Grace. 

The reboot has made major strides in terms of splitting from the model of heternormative storytelling, and exploring homonormative storytelling as well as depth of boundary-pushing side characters Jack and Karen.

This page has paths:

  1. Introduction: More Intertextual than Political Fernando Rivera

Contents of this path:

  1. Chapter One - Lucy and Grace
  2. Table of Contents

This page references: