Coming Out of the Sarcophagus: Queering Mumm-Ra in ThunderCats

Gaston, L ORCID: 0000-0002-5706-1635 Coming Out of the Sarcophagus: Queering Mumm-Ra in ThunderCats. Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture, 11 (3). ISSN 2055-5695 (Accepted)

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Abstract

Using queer theory and media analysis, this article re-examines a 1980s animated series to reinterpret its central antagonist as a figure shaped by internalised homophobia, performative identity, and the strain of concealment. Drawing on paranoid and reparative reading practices alongside gender performativity, the study conducts close textual analysis of early episodes to track the character’s shifting embodiments, from frail figure to hypermasculine force, socially acceptable persona, and exaggerated feminine guise. These transformations are read as negotiations of visibility, passing, repression, and excess within a historical context that precluded explicit LGBTQ+ representation in children’s television. The findings argue that villainous coding operates both as a site of stigma and as a covert archive of queer affect. A reparative approach reveals that such figures can embody desire, shame, and the search for self-recognition, demonstrating that nostalgic media texts can be reclaimed as spaces of queer survival, identification, and resistance and resilience.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	4405 Gender studies; 4701 Communication and media studies; 4702 Cultural studies
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN1990 Broadcasting
Divisions:	Liverpool Business School
Publisher:	Intellect
Date of acceptance:	5 October 2026
Date Deposited:	20 Oct 2026 09:11
Last Modified:	20 Oct 2026 09:11
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/29679

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