What’s So Queer about The Nanny?

During my break between the fall and spring semester of classes, I binge watched all six seasons of The Nanny in about three weeks. In the final stretch of episodes, I slowed down my pace because I dreaded leaving the world of this little show behind. Sure enough, by the time Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were” played over Fran’s last moments in the Sheffield brownstone, I was sobbing. I don’t usually react so viscerally to fiction, and the intensity of my feelings worried me as days passed and my chest still ached every time my thoughts wandered to the show. It wasn’t until after the Capitol riots shocked me out of my fugue that I was able to put my feelings in perspective. Still, I wondered: Why does this show have such a hold on me and so many other queer people?