The paradoxes of Guillaume Dustan on French television at the turn of the new millennium: when queer deviance meets neoliberalism

Using television archives, this paper analyses the media presence of Guillaume Dustan in France and how he was treated on television talk shows in the period 1999–2001 through several lenses: drugs, gender and sexuality, and queer theory. Gaillard investigates how Dustan was received on those shows in relation to his views on drugs and queer male sexual cultures, as he would be invited alongside various figures to polemicise on the subject. As an HIV-positive person, he would be presented as the number one gay agitator of his time, notably due to his positions on drug use, but also barebacking, at a time when the AIDS crisis was still vivid in France. In this paper, Gaillard explores the articulation of Dustan’s ideas, which were often paradoxical, characteristic of his complex and enigmatic persona. Dustan’s opinions were often framed as controversial in that he defended and advocated for porn and the decriminalisation of drugs, essentially celebrating pleasure and refusing resolute self-governance. Furthermore, in the paper, Gaillard demonstrates how Dustan was a precursor in exposing queer theory to heteronormative popular audiences at a time when such a theory was invisible on television and out of the range of said audiences.