Skip to main content

An update on the Berena project




For most of 2017, I’ve been working on a research project related to the BBC Holby City characters Bernie Wolfe and Serena Campbell, known by the ship name ‘Berena’. My research has always focused around questions of gender, sexuality, and media representation, and it was hard to miss the buzz around these older women-loving women falling in love. (How often does that happen on your telly on a Tuesday night?!) In particular, I was struck by the way that viewers talked about the impact that Berena had had on their lives – and I knew from personal experience that the storyline had been a source of joy and comfort (and sometimes virtually shared frustration and sadness) through a difficult time in my own life. I wanted to explore that.

I currently have a journal article under peer review that reports on the key themes that emerged from a survey of Berena fans that I ran at the start of the summer; what was striking was how many of the survey participants talked about the impact of the story – and of their involvement in the fandom – on their mental health and wellbeing, whether because they had made sense of their own same-sex attraction, or been able to come out, or had felt empowered to overcome mental illness, or had simply felt visible and validated.

Participants ranged in age from their late teens to women in their 70s and beyond, and I feel privileged to have been given their stories. As well as being marginalised on screen, older wlw are also less visible in research on the relationship between queer identities, media representation, and mental health, which is typically focused on youth and adolescence. So I am really keen for my participants’ voices not to be lost: the next stage of the project is about putting the means of production and dissemination of knowledge into their hands, by working collaboratively to create a zine about Berena, media representation more generally, and mental health and wellbeing.

Now that I have funding in place, I’m making plans to host a number of people in Liverpool on 10 February 2018, as well as making arrangements for anyone who wants to contribute remotely to do so. Just now I’m working on information packs that tell people a bit more about making zines and all the different forms that contributions can take, and about my research, so if you are interested in taking part, please send me an email and I’ll make sure I send this to you once it’s ready. (You’re under no obligation to take part just because you’ve emailed, and participants are free to drop out at any time.) I’ll also use this blog to circulate the information and a contact address for anyone who would like to put something into the zine but who wants to remain completely anonymous.


I look forward to sharing more news soon!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First, Do No Harm

I’ve been working on a research project with fans of  Holby City ’s Berena for almost two years now, and in that time I’ve had the opportunity to get to know a global network of viewers who have found something special in this rare onscreen romance between two older, professional women. I’ve written about the way that women talk about the impact of this storyline on their mental health and wellbeing  here . We’ve also worked together to produce a zine about these experiences, which you can  read online   too. For a number of people, the Berena storyline has been life-changing. Though we have often been talking about dark moments in our lives, this project has been an overwhelmingly positive experience, with a community of women who are funny and argumentative as well as extraordinarily caring and tender.  Spending the last several weeks seeing many of them in anguish, sometimes withdrawing from their social media accounts to try and protect themse...
15 comments
Read more

BBC shies away from 'representation' in response to Berena complaint?

Since posting my thoughts on the denouement of the Berena storyline on Holby City and where the BBC had failed LGBTQ audiences, I’ve been more active on Twitter than I have on here. First and foremost my attention has been on the community of women most hurt by what happened, but I too am grieving the loss of characters that I cherished, so some time away during the holiday period was welcome. I have also been talking to a number of women about action(s) that can be taken now in order to ensure that the BBC recognises what has happened, and that the corporation and other programme makers can avoid doing such harm to an LGBTQ audience again. The campaign website,  # BerenaDeservedBetter , launched on Monday 7 January 2019. Having this week seen the BBC’s response to a Berena fan’s complaint about the handling of the storyline in the latter part of 2018, the importance of getting the BBC to engage with us is clear. This is, verbatim, what was sent back: " H...
5 comments
Read more