Homoheroic or homophobic? Leo Varadkar, LGBTQ politics and contemporary news narratives

Abstract

This article explores Irish and international news reporting on the gay Irish politician Leo Varadkar during his term as Irish Prime Minister (2017–2020). Focusing on two media events occurring in 2019–first, the outing of Varadkar as a Kylie Minogue fan in the KylieGate scandal and, second, his St. Patrick's Day meeting with then U.S. Vice President Mike Pence–the article argues that the Irish and international media differentially employed both homoheroic and homophobic narratives in their accounts. The article introduces the concept of homoheroism, which exists in tension with lingering homophobic scripts, as a structuring dynamic for understanding the contemporary media's affirmative rendering of the cultural capital associated with being an out LGBTQ politician. Whereas the international press hailed Varadkar as a homoheroic intersectional leader capable of challenging homophobia internationally and forging a progressive internationally respected identity for Ireland, the Irish press treated Varadkar's gay, Indian-Irish identities as evidence of political illegitimacy in coverage laced with anti-gay stereotypes. The Varadkar case speaks more broadly to the emergence of a generation of global political leaders whose LGBTQ status poses challenges for media representation, may raise expectations around homonationalism, and carries geopolitical implications for the branding of the politicians and their countries.