Les instabilités quantiques de la masculinité blanche dans Code Quantum

Abstract

This article examines Quantum Leap (NBC, 1989-1993) from a cultural perspective, focusing on its representations of gender and race identities and relations. The aim is to highlight the profound ideological ambivalence in the way the series represents white masculinity, through analysis of gender-bending plotlines and by placing it in the socio-historical context of its production, which occurred at a pivotal moment in the decades-long development of contemporary identity politics. After examining the episodes in which the hero changes gender and/or race, which are particularly representative of the ideological tensions that run through this TV show, the article highlights the ambivalent and contradictory effects of the show’s rhetoric on the crisis of white masculinity, which is reinforced here by the “semi-serialized, formulaic structure” of the series.

Keywords

• cultural studies
• identity
• gender
• masculinity
• performance
• race