Drawing on the notion of popular culture as a form of queer emotional provocation, in this paper I suggest that attending to the material enactment of queer pedagogies in context enables an understanding of the importance of attending more fully to the emotional ramifications of queer pedagogies. Working within the context of a research project intended to explore the possibilities of destabilising normalising representations of sexualities and genders in a Year 12 New Zealand high school Health classroom, I explore one of several instances of emotionality that characterised the study, and its effects. Despite our best intentions, in the moment, the students, their teacher and I as a researcher experienced challenges in working with the emotional provocations that queer pedagogies engendered. I close by suggesting that attending more closely to the emotional implications of queer pedagogies would have enabled us to mine their pedagogical possibilities more fully.