Consuming Retrosexualities: The Past Live On Screen, Online Now

This essay explores the interrelationship of gender, feminism, and nostalgia in Life on Mars, paying particular attention to its online fans and their cultural practices. In doing so, it situates the drama within the context of UK popular culture and the contradictions that shape postfeminist media representations within it. The concept of retrosexuality holds particular purchase in this context because it ties together on-screen representations with both cultural practices and interpretative frameworks for comprehending the considerable changes to have taken place in gender relations since the seventies, when Life on Mars is (mostly) set.