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Abstract:
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Though largely overlooked in academia , Manhattan public access television became a forum that allowed a variety of behaviors , sexualities , and genders to invade a highly controlled hegemonic apparatus in the 1970s and early 1980s . In this thesis , I argue that Anton Perich’s Anton Perich Presents (1973 -c .1978 ) and Glenn O’Brien’s TV Party (1978 -1982 ) worked to actively queer the form and content of television . Since these shows grew from rather exclusive underground communities , I argue that the broadcasting of these fringe personalities , genders , sexualities , and behaviors to a broader , cable -viewing public formed unique queer counterpublics . I situate Anton Perich Presents and TV Party in relation to the norms of broadcast television in order to establish the limits , norms , and codes of these diverse genres and in order to ascertain viewer’s expectations of them . By positioning Anton Perich Presents and TV Party in conversation with mainstream television shows , I identify a queerness these public access shows lent to television and its viewers through their deliberate manipulations of the medium . |