Chuck: A Queer Reading

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Title:	Chuck: A Queer Reading
Creator:	Lautael
Date(s):	August 22, 2020
Medium:	Online
Fandom:	Chuck
Topic:	Shipping, queer reading, slash, femslash, analysis
External Links:	https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_G2Kk-k-QUXVyf--GBYoh8WDXy5UbYu3/view?usp=sharing
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Chuck: A Queer Reading is an essay written by Lautael. It posits itself as a queer reading of the show, and suggests multiple shipping possibilities. Each mention of a specific event is annotated with its corresponding episode.

Ships analyzed include Chuck/Casey, Chuck/Bryce, Chuck/Morgan, then Sarah/Carina, Sarah/Alex Forrest, Sarah/Ellie, and finally, Casey/Morgan and Jeffster.

Excerpts

That's the real tragedy of their relationship. Bryce tried his hardest to protect his best friend, going as far as to doom their friendship. And when he comes back, he can't have a good relationship with Chuck because their history and current feelings for everyone involved are messy. It's especially harrowing because they have have a great chemistry.

I.2 Chuck and Bryce: the typical bromance

Their whole dynamic is that of ambiguity and playful adversaries. When they're together on screen, they often smile at each other knowingly, in a shared complicity. And like Chuck and Bryce, they speak shared languages (Polish and Swedish) and use them so no other people in the room can understand them. [..] Carina and Sarah are a mirror of Bryce and Chuck, in that way.

II.1 Sarah and Carina: friends or foes?

Their relationship is pretty much symbiotic, one doesn't work properly without the other. [...] It's quite difficult to not see Jeff and Lester as a single entity, and their stage name further reinforces this. [...] The scene just before they do their first performance at the Buy More is very romantic in nature.

III.2. Jeff, Lester and Jeffster: the evocative portmanteau