...we’re Miles from where...

Born This Way

Sat, 28 May 2011 14:31:24 -0500

There are few things that make me smile as much as the Born This Way blog. For those of you unfamiliar, the site features pictures posted by LGBT adults of themselves as children. The photos are supposed to offer visual proof that it was readily apparent, at least in the minds of the people posting, they were always queer. These past clues to present day sexuality are in plain view, putting on display everything from boys in tiaras and Wonder Woman costumes to girls in cowboy outfits and hockey uniforms. The site is not affiliated with the Lady Gaga song of the same name, though both have been criticized for reifying essentialized notions of identity. Some critics have charged that by locating clearly demarcated features of sexual orientation in these youthful photos more fluid understandings of gender and sexual identity become eclipsed.

While essentialism is always a valid (if not staid and boring) critique to consider, I think it’s important not to fall into the trappings of take-it or leave-it criticism. The charge of essentialism is a strange one to me, especially considering how the photos illustrate a gender fluidity that is unparalleled in the adult world most of us occupy. Certainly, there must be more productive ways to understand the appeal and popularity of the blog, ways that might affirm how LGBT people narrate their own histories and the possibilities for altering an often hostile world occupied by queer youth. Far from a sense of certainty about sexual orientation that some observers see in the photos, I find myself thinking constantly about the degree of speculation and doubt reflected in these bygone images. This doubt has little to do with the ways the queer people in the photos see themselves and more to do with those family and friends, of every race and in every state in the nation, that are surrounding them. Did they never once see such pictures and not doubt the idea that these kids might not be straight? And if they did have doubts, what did they do to make their lives more livable? Indeed, the blog does not strike me as having anything to do with being born in any way. Rather, it seem as though posters are suggesting, “I feel like a part of me was always this person. Was I the only one to know this?” The ethics of such a question forces us to ask what productive role we might have in offering voice to these experiences and altering the world around us.

But first, let’s not lose the forest for the trees. Some of this shit is just funny.

The picture of “Jason” above (in a Wonder Woman costume at age four in 1979) reminded me of one of my favorite lines from Will and Grace (a program that has also seen its fair share of criticism). The title characters are discussing Will’s nephew Jordy, whose sexual orientation is in question because of his flamboyancy and love of musical theater. Grace accuses Will of jumping to conclusions simply because his nephew once dressed as Wonder Woman for Halloween. Will quips back, “He didn’t go as Wonder Woman, Grace. He went as Lynda Carter.” Jordy’s default sexual orientation as heterosexual until proven gay, despite all evidence to the contrary, is an important theme to reflect on in the BTW blog. More on that in a minute. Again, the humor. There are instance on the blog where you can’t help but roll your head back and giggle at the pictures of the boys and girls in the photos. It’s endearing, it’s sweet, and above all, everyone looks so fabulously comfortable with themselves. Take some of these examples:

And, one of the originals on the site, which remains my favorite (perhaps because I still own a vest just like his):

The pictures provoke smiles because of the shared identification many of us have with the signs. The photos provide an opportunity to utter phrases queers and their allies say to one another all the time: “How did they not know you were gay?” or “Seriously, you were never really in the closet.” The pictures render how visible queerness may have always been, despite discourses of the closet to the contrary. Importantly, not all pictures immediately strike me as being coded as overly queer. Because childhood allows for more freedom to play with cultural signs, sometimes the pictures just look like kids being kids. The gender differences between boys and girls is noteworthy, as those most “transgressive” photos seem to be of men in effeminate poses (see the four pictures above). My friend Jamie Skerski has written about the permissibility afforded to girls to act as tom boys up to a certain age before they are expected to conform to particular gender norms and the lesson carries over to the web site well. Still, the adults posting these pictures clearly see something identifiable that some readers might not.

(The person who posted the picture below said the football should have read “Butch.” Love it.)

These are all but one snapshot of a person’s life. They incite unlimited questions that might include: What did this person sense? What did they know? What did they not? And, most important in this instance, what did those (perhaps the people taking the pictures) always already know? We often discuss the past, especially as it relates to non-heterosexual histories, in the language of the closet. The metaphors of staying hidden, invisible, out of sight, and under the radar permeate the ways we still discuss sexual orientation. I posit that these pictures render such a discourse mute, telling us that the signs might have always been there, if only people were willing to take notice and admit the many possibilities. Rather than keep these discourses discreet among a community, as might be the case with something like gaydar, these images explode past understandings of the closet. They force us to ask why some of the people on the BTW blog, who have heart wrenching stories about to coming out, had to suffer at all?

Of course, this is not to say one should have to exhibit non-normative features, whatever that means, to transform the world into a more hospitable place. Recent amnesty cases that require visual proof of sexual orientation (as written by the fabulous Michaela Frischherz) illustrate that such discourses in particular circumstances come at a price. But rather than attack those queers who post to the BTW blog as being torchbearers of essentialism, why not look at the world they are attempting to critique and recreate?

I conjure the idea of “doubt” because it more productively interrogates the world queers live in. In looking at these photos, we need not ask if we were born gay, or when we knew we were lesbians, or if this part of our identities was sparked by nurture or nature. Doubt, and the visual presence of this evidence, asks the outward question: “You never thought I might be gay?” While Sedgwick posited that heteronormative cultures use the epistemology of the closet to manage the bodies of queers, either forcing us to stay in the proverbial closet or, after we come out, telling us someone else always harbored knowledge of our secrets, the BTW blog bends this idea. It inverts the epistemological question, asking, “Really, you didn’t know? How could you not? And what did you do to make such a violently cruel world better?” Even more important, it asks each of us, “What might you be doing about it now?”

Illness As...

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 23:02:58 -0500

The last couple of days I’ve been pretty sick. I don’t have the energy to write a lengthy treatise on illness, but here are a few thoughts:

1) If you have the choice between throwing up in the toilet and throwing up in the shower, go with the toilet. I’m not sure I should say much more.

2) Vomiting is horrible on the throat, but for an hour-and-twenty minutes my abs looked fucking amazing.

3) Diet Vernor’s is not the same as regular Vernor’s. Even as a diabetic, I am now willing to combat ketoacidosis to never have to drink Diet Vernor’s again.

4) Having two documentaries in the house from Netflix while sick feels like a moral failure. Inside Job and Waste Land are wonderful films, but watching garbage pickers when fighting off nausea is assuredly not a good idea. Nurse Jackie, Gossip Girl, and any other kind of mindless yet high-quality television that is not too real will do the trick.

5) If you get stuck watching the Hallmark Channel in the middle of the night you will be struck by how unfunny Cheers really was.

6) If you get stuck watching the Hallmark Channel in the middle of the night you will be struck by how unfunny Who’s the Boss really was.

7) If you get stuck watching the Hallmark Channel in the middle of the night you will be struck by how moving Touched by an Angel really was. If you catch Della Reese quip, “Nothin’ made by God is queer,” you really have been touched by an angel.

8) If you stumble across a Helen Hunt movie in the middle of the night, you’ll wonder a) what happened to her? b) why did we ever care? c) how unfunny she really was.

9) Doing academic labor like working on university “cluster hires” while feverish is an absolute advantage. You can almost approximate the insanity of the motive of such proposals while also having hallucinatory conversations with leprechauns on cereal boxes.

10) If your partner refuses to touch any surface you touched and uses his sleeve to grab door knobs or turn up the volume on stereo systems you might have touched, you are complete justified in running your contagious hands across all of his dresser-drawer handles. Oh, stop the gay panic, I’m just kidding…

11) Buy all the fruit you want, french fries are the only thing that will make you feel human again.

12) NightQuil is a sad substitute for rum. Still, avoid the rum and take the NightQuil.

13) DayQuil is a bad substitute for coffee. Avoid the DayQuil and drink the coffee.

14) Water isn’t half bad. Drink more of it when not sick (I’ve gone through a case in three days!).

15) The internet is my friend. How were people ever sick without it? I learned I might have the flu, food poisoning, botulism, mono, or be in the late stages of my first trimester.

Tomorrow will be better…

Dissemination and Demonstration

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:22:38 -0600

Last week I drove up to Madison to give a talk at the University of Wisconsin. I love the rhetoric people in the Department of Communication Arts up there, all of whom are thought-provoking scholars and pretty wonderful people to boot. Rob Asen, Karma Chavez, Sara McKinnon, Robert Glenn Howard, Sue Zaeske, and a slate of fabulous graduate students made for a truly wonderful visit. It was only my second time in Madison, but it’s one of those places that feels very familiar if you have spent any time in this part of the country. It has a unique vibe created from the combined energies of a Big Ten campus, the hustle and bustle of a capitol city, beautiful lakefront scenery, and a Midwest culture built on the glories of alcohol.

After my talk, the fabulous Sara McKinnon took Isaac and me up the road to the state Capitol. People had been in and out of the building for weeks at that point, adorning the walls inside with throngs of posters and signs protesting Republican attempts to destroy collective bargaining rights. The people of Wisconsin have been turning out by the thousands to protest Governor Scott Walker’s attempts at turning back a half-century of labor rights. The capitol was pretty sedate that Friday afternoon, but we still wanted to take a peek inside the building to see how things were going. To get into the capitol we had to be manually wanded by the (unionized) police force and they seemed to be taking the measures in stride. The officer who handed me a plastic dish for my belongings sarcastically commented, “Put anything metal in here. Coins, keys, bombs.” His words highlighted what everyone involved knew: the truly dangerous people in the capitol were not those protesting for their rights.

I found the inside of the capitol building oddly moving. The building itself is regal and to see it plastered with handmade posters from elementary teachers, graduate students, and government employees, made for a powerful experience. Many of the graphics were rhetorically compelling, not the least of which were the doors covered by post-it notes from protestors after they were briefly kicked out of the capitol.

The post-it notes (pictured above – I’d give credit, but no information is listed on-line) are a compelling and pragmatic symbol. On the one hand, they are exceptionally practical. They are mobile, do not require extra supplies like tape, and force a declarative message. On the other hand, they transcend the pragmatic, being a perfect symbol for the movement itself. Looking at them, it’s hard not to notice the overarching theme of unity in diversity. They are a uniform shape and size, but allow for individual messages to be communicated. Of course, post-it notes are also usually found in an office. For a protest that is attempting to combat the corporatization of government and the disenfranchisement of workers, they are a fun reclamation of typical workday symbolism (hey, not every part of a protest has to be deathly serious).

One of the bigger questions provoked by the post-its concerns the idea of audience. Who were the post-it notes intended for? My colleague John Durham Peters is perhaps best known for his ruminations about dissemination and the fact that communication is often not “effective” in its aims. We simply do not know who is going to appropriate a message or consume its content. The governor will assuredly never hear these pleas for reasonable labor laws, regardless of how many citizens demand them. After this last week, it is clear that the legislators did not pay attention. Are the displays meant to boost the morale of other demonstrators? Were they an addition to the spectacle of the demonstrations for the media? Or were the post-it notes a projection of hope that someone – anyone – would hear the cries of the people?

This question is not without serious consideration. The protests were supposed to block the trappings of this demonic legislation, but ideally the protests will have some effect in reconstituting the political landscape. After all, each member of the assembly and the senate (not to mention the governor himself) was elected to office by voters. Must these politics be understood as merely reactive, or can real change come from the collective efforts of the people?

Elections give “the people” a retort to the system and make sure that the government continues working for them. This is certainly not the case in Wisconsin, where bills such as this help rich people like the Koch brothers and their corporate ilk. These interests feed off of American tendencies to view elections as a way to vent our personal frustrations rather than think about collective public life. To be sure, scholars like Michael Schudson remind us that there has never been a golden age of democracy, and I have no desire to participate in a nostalgic rendering of the past that does not exist. At the same time, how do we overcome this electoral pathology that inadvertently leads to our government pandering to the richest among us. At every turn the powers-that-be want to take away our collective bargaining rights, our healthcare, and even our rights to elect our own officials (click here for more on that from my home state of Michigan).

FYI, I do not think electing only Democrats is the answer either. I voted for the President, but I think he has missed his mandate in reforming this country in ways that he was elected to do.

So what is to be done? How do we make the world a better place for the people when the Wisconsin governor takes calls from billionaires but not his constituents, when the Supreme Court makes corporations into people, and when the people themselves vote into office those who ultimately seek to destroy their livelihood?

I wish all citizens could see the conversations that were transpiring among the citizenry and the power gained by learning intricate details about policies. On Saturday, we went back to the capitol with Karma and Sara (on their seventh anniversary - happy anniversary!), where more protests were scheduled. Being a weekend, there were noticeably more people on site to protest. As we walked around, I was struck by the exchanges taking place. For example, a man who was handing out fliers calling for a general strike was both supported and challenged by others in the crowd. A person who was protesting approached him and explained that he did not support the idea of a strike (in light of recent events, I hope he changed his mind). And exchanges like this seemed consistently pleasant. People clapped politely at speeches being made by those who admitted they had never spoke in public before. The entire event was energizing, peaceful, and a fine example of collective action. The people, in whatever material and imaginary way we wish to position them, were truly attempting to make a difference.

I don’t want to overly romanticize something that I was involved with only fleetingly. Nor do I want to outright blame citizens for voting these people into office – we should hold officials responsible for their actions. Lets hope these protests can help instigate some long-term reform, whatever that might look like in the future. Recent comments from national labor activists highlight a reactionary discourse and I hope we can move past a shortsighted focus on the next election.

Isaac recalled one the post-it notes on the capitol door that said something to the effect of, “I’ve got more post-it notes than you do days left in office.” It’s funny. And it may be true. But I still worry about those who are next in line for office and the corporate forces seeking to control them. The CEO of industrial giant 3M recently said that President Obama was “anti-business” and did not understand “what it takes to create jobs.” 3M, of course, creates the Post-It Note.

I Really Loved the Acting

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:48:43 -0600

“I really loved the acting.”

I find myself saying that a lot at the conclusions of films these days. Frequently, however, I do not find myself loving the movies as completed works. Preparing for the sprawling awards season (as we queers do), I have made an effort to see films that include The Fighter, Black Swan, True Grit, Rabbit Hole, and The King’s Speech on the big screen. Add to that several movies at home, including The Kids Are Alright, Inception, Winter’s Bone, and The Social Network. In almost every case I thought the acting was quite good (save perhaps Inception), even as the film as an artistic work was not sublime. Indeed, I was actually entertained by most of these films and would recommend them to friends. But in this year of so-so films, I’ve been trying to figure out how things like directing, acting, cinematography, and the screenplay can be so striking, and yet the films feel so consistently underwhelming. At the risk of over generalizing (ok, I’m totally about to over generalize), I think the answer is in the generic narrative trapping of this group of films, many of which play off highly familiar cultural themes. The form of these stories are instantly recognizable, but those familiar narrative hauntings are preventing many of these films from being amazing, as opposed to being pretty good.

In most cases, the films follow traditional Hollywood themes that are discernable to audiences. The Social Network (whose critical acclaim continues to puzzle me a little) depicts the rise of a prominent contemporary genius marred by insecurity, jealously, and internal isolation only to betray his closest of friends. The King’s Speech looks to an important historical figure that overcomes an impediment to inspire a nation through war. The Fighter is a good old-fashioned pull-yourself-up-from-your-bootstraps success story. We have seen these narrative arches to excess in the past. They are stock resources for telling captivating stories to audiences who necessitate preexisting frames for consuming cultural tales. This is not to say that generic repetition is bad. Those of us invested in rhetoric recognize that form induces identification and arouses audience interest. That a form is recognizable does not suggest it is inherently bad and often audiences continue to enjoy stories based on previous cultural tales (Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet have been retold endlessly, in films like West Side Story and The Lion King respectively). It is common to note that Shakespeare only wrote three or four original works, using history, mythology, and folklore to shape most of his writings.

The standards for judgment are assuredly altered when audiences are assessing work based on narrative features they are accustomed to seeing repeatedly. People who are deeply committed to arts such as theater are perhaps most appreciative of this critical ability to nuance popular narratives. When we go to see a work by Shakespeare, for instance, many of us already know the endings of the plays. Still, knowing the end of a play does not prevent us from seeing it repeatedly. Often, there is great pleasure in seeing one work performed over and over again. In this sense, we are not assessing merely the narrative, but the way the narrative is executed.

Of the films listed above, the one that is perhaps most clichéd, and for that very reason the most interesting for my purposes, is Black Swan (major spoilers ahead). My friend Josh over at the Rosewater Chronicles has performed an excellent psychoanalytic critique of the film and I won’t take up those themes here. I find myself returning to Black Swan because of the way the film lets you know in advance how it is going to end, and hence offers a different way for assessing its worth as a cinematic feature. If you know anything about Darren Aronofsky, you pretty much know it’s going to be a rough two hours for the characters on screen.

Black Swan is about the struggle of ballerina Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) to overcome personal demons as she attempts to embody both the White Swan and the Black Swan in the Tchaikovsky ballet Swan Lake. While Sayers performs technique perfectly as the White Swan, she lacks the unbridled passion that characterizes the Black Swan (the tension between technique and artistry remind me of the debates over judging professional figure skating a couple of years ago. By the way, if you just laughed because I remember a debate about professional figure skating – please stop judging me. It’s what my people do). In Nina’s case, the perfect is the enemy of the sultry. Compounding Nina’s neuroses are her suspicions that newcomer Lily (Mila Kunis) is trying, at all costs, to replace her. Lily dances the part of the Black Swan fluidly and is ready to step in should the occasion arise.

If it is true that art imitates art, the play itself becomes an important structuring force in the film. For those of you unfamiliar with Swan Lake, here’s a brief overview of the standard tale (there are variations). In the ballet, a woman named Odette is under the spell of an evil man called von Rothbart. The spell transforms her into a swan by day, but she is a woman at night (this of course should not be confused with the 1985 cult classic Ladyhawke starring Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer). Odette is typically dressed in white, symbolizing her innocence and purity. After falling in love with a prince whose affections could break the spell (talk about cliché), von Rothbart intercedes to prevent them from being together. The sorcerer makes it so his daughter, Odile, looks identical to Odette, save the fact that spawn of Rothbart wears black. Odile seduces the prince. Convinced Odie is Odette, the prince proclaims his love for her. Odette witnesses the proclamation of love, runs off, and the prince chases after her to apologize. She buys it and they are magically in love again. After realizing that von Rothbart will always control them, the prince and Odette commit suicide by (literally) jumping in a lake. Yet even as the White Swam kills herself, the audience sees her descend into heaven where she is at last free.

(Again, MAJOR spoiler)

Knowing Swan Lake is the backdrop to the film, it is not surprising that Nina dies at the end of the movie. Indeed, she dies after simulating the fall into the lake at the conclusion of the ballet. We have seen in other films where plays are significant to the plot (think A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Dead Poets Society) that the narrative of the theatrical work often hints at or drives the arch of the film. Since Black Swan tells us early on that Swan Lake is the major focus of the film, it is expected that Nina will not make it to the end. The most intriguing element of the film is simply trying to determine if was always already the Black Swan? Of course, she is, like all of us, a little bit of both (for all you rhetoricians, think White Horse, Dark Horse). But in Nina’s case the perfection marked by the White Swan was as lethal as the passions of the Black Swan.

I’m certain someone will write a dissertation about the visual torture Natalie Portman’s character endures throughout the film. Again, I’ll leave that critique to some anonymous yet-to-be-named graduate student. Though, it should be noted that the radical transformation of a woman’s body to garner awards is certainly an enduring and frightening cultural theme in Hollywood these days.

Back to my point. How might we judge this film knowing the ending far in advance of the final credits? If the narrative is revealed up front, then what might we look to when assessing the merits of the film? Do we look to the amazing performances given by Portman and Kunis, as we would a play we have seen over and again? Or perhaps to the direction offered by Aronofsky? Certainly turning to the brilliance of the final quarter of the film when the ballet is in full motion is a strong starting place. Attempting to gauge the artistic merits of the film’s worth, with its mix of traditional narrative and harsh aesthetics, offers something the other films I’ve seen lately lacked. Black Swan seems to know it is showing us something we knew all along. I’m still trying to figure out what to make of it.

But, yes, I really did love the acting.

(oh, you totally saw that coming…)

Burlesque

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 00:00:48 -0600

Being a diabetic gay man it makes perfect sense that my Thanksgiving holiday was characterized almost entirely by mounds of carbohydrates and three straight days of football. As a respite from the masculinity and the munching, I decided to take in a movie with my mom on Thanksgiving Day. We saw Burlesque, a film that easily compensated for the testosterone spewing out of my television for 72 consecutive hours.

I’ve been thinking about the film, which left me with mixed feelings. The film is not, by any stretch of the imagination, in the running for Best Picture. The narrative was lacking, the acting marginal, and some talented people (I’m looking at you Alan Cumming) were sinfully underused. Still, the film was visually stunning, the music at times compelling, and the choreography noteworthy. The movie was a pretty good time, even if it frequently felt off balance.

For those of you unfamiliar with the film, it centers on a young woman (Christina Aguilera) from Iowa who leaves home to pursue her dream of being a star in Los Angeles (yes, the plot is really that cheesy). Xtina is taken in by the owner of a burlesque club (Cher), who helps her live out her dreams of dancing on chairs, usually with other scantily clad women who seem to be doing bad Brechtian theatre. The film also features roles by Eric Dane (McSteamy), Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars), Cam Gigandet (a random hot guy), Stanley Tucci (the gay dude from The Devil Wears Prada), and Peter Gallagher (the guy in the coma from While You Were Sleeping. FYI: He still seems to be in said coma here).

The film is perhaps most unusual because its biggest asset also acts as its major constraint. Burlesque is pure pastiche and that’s what should make it fun. The film borrows from absolutely everything and even pop culture illiterates will be cognizant that the movie is borrowing from other texts. The opening number is a direct nod to the beginning of the film Chicago, with Xtina imagining herself on stage in the same way that Renee Zellweger’s Roxie Hart did in the 2002 Best Picture winner. The “Cellblock Tango” from Chicago routine is alluded to in scenes that feature the dancers sliding out from behind mirrors over the bar. But there’s more pastiche than simple parallelism to Chicago working here. We’ve seen Alan Cumming in another famous cabaret and in Burlesque he even does a dance number with two ladies. Stanley Tucci’s character from the Devil Wear’s Prada is channeled in the film, but he is Cher’s most trusted friend this time around. There are allusions to Madonna videos, the film Showgirls, cliché narrative arcs like Xtina leaving the heartland for the big city, and the old trope of a sentimental space (in this case the burlesque club) being threatened by an encroaching development project. The soundtrack is equally random, incorporating original songs delivered by the actors, but also a random assortment of numbers like Neon Tree’s Animal and Boston’s More than a Feeling (the recognizable pop songs feel displaced).

Yet, for all of the pastiche and the clear appeal to campiness, the film frequently holds its breath, almost begging not to be understood in this way. The opening scene featuring Xtina in a small town bar in Iowa seems to be there for the mere purpose of not starting with the opening number that draws parallels between her character and Roxie Hart (which would have been a more interesting place to begin the story). I remember thinking, “you already stole from it, go all in.” In another scene, where Xtina is singing a ballad with some visually interesting effects behind her, the camera pulls back to show her on stage, almost apologizing for looking too much like a video. But, again, it already went there: go all in. In a film where Cher can’t smile because of all the botox, you may as well put all of the chips into the center of the table.

I know it’s not academically fashionable to discuss “postmodernism” these days, but that’s what this film feels like. Despite its clear structure and narrative, it’s like one big pastiche picnic, though not as animated and bold as a film like Moulin Rouge. At the same time, it’s SO self-conscious of its own reflexivity and its own lack of originality that it doesn’t quite work. While it certainly has its moments as a playful text, it doesn’t really embrace the irony, the intersectionality, and aesthetic pleasures that would make it a genuinely fun film. That is, it’s not the kind of film I love precisely because it’s so bad. It’s more the kind of film I really want to like, but hesitate because it almost seems afraid of the very thing that makes it liberating. Perhaps in twenty years this will be fine grade camp. In the present, it feels more like an endless stream of glitter cannons set to Xtina anthems (which has its own rewards).

Again, there are some really fun moments in Burlesque and I don’t regret seeing it (can you feel me apologizing for the wrong reason through the computer screen?). Xtina revealing her talents to the onscreen audience for the first time is impressive, even though we already know she can sing. Cher continues to command the camera, even if the reconstructive surgery is amazingly distracting and she openly admits she can’t act. Stanley Tucci is, as always, divine. And did I mention the random hot guy?