Fictional Archetypes: A Straight-Queer Story
Fehr, Ashley
Fehr, Ashley
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Abstract
Visibility in media is pivotal for adolescents' identity development and for broadening societal views of gender and sexuality. Queer visibility has increased but damaging stereotypes and tropes persist in queer representation. We focus on queer portrayal in fictional stories (TV, film, and literature) by studying a data-driven operationalization of the concept of archetypes. Using the Archetypometrics dataset and Fandom's LGBTQIA+ characters dataset, we create samples of characters along the trait differential spanning straight to queer. These subsets include �Most Straight' and �Most Queer' from the poles of the anchor trait, and their �Straight Neighbors' and �Queer Neighbors', using similar characters by archetype space distance. We observe a multitude of archetypes among queer characters and their nearest neighbors, demonstrating a paradoxical breadth of representation while the queer direction of the trait itself surfaces some persist societal biases.
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Date
1/1/2026
Student Status
Graduate Student
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Poster
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Complex Systems & Data Science
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College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
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Mathematical Science