Audio Description and Homoeroticism in the Miniseries Fellow Travelers

This study analyzes the audio description (AD) of sexual sequences in the television series Fellow Travelers. A central premise of the study is that contemporary telefiction draws from pornographic aesthetics to explore aspects of queer subjectivity and sexuality that earlier television narratives often neglected. To address this complexity, the study aims to complement the traditional narrative approach in AD with two additional approaches: the reflective and affect approaches. While the narrative approach highlights story progression, its limitations in conveying sexual intimacy led to exploring the reflective approach, which draws on gay porn studies to emphasize the symbolic dimensions of queer intimacy. Additionally, the affect approach, informed by Deleuzian film theory (Deleuze, 1986; 2009), considers how close-ups evoke emotional responses. Through a dual analysis—descriptive and prospective—this study proposes strategies to capture affective and symbolic elements, which can expand the potential of AD to address both narrative and subjective dimensions of contemporary queer telefiction.