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| Scott H. Reiniger (Dawn of the Dead) |
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| Brad Bird (Iron Giant) |
Friday, June 17, 2011
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Why I'm Not Gaga over "Born This Way"
Perhaps it's fitting that the .99 sale of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" album on Amazon crashed their servers, or at least slowed them down. It's an apt metaphor for the way "born this way" rhetoric has crashed, or at least slowed down, gay and lesbian liberationist politics.
It's tempting to simply quote Eve Sedgwick and Michael Warner on this topic and leave it at that: they said it first and best. A politic built on an essentialistic conceptualization of sexual orientation (that is, the idea that one's sexual orientation is natural, established pre-self-awareness, and stable and unchanging) does not guarantee one success and cannot be certain to result in the type of outcomes that those employing it certainly seek to achieve. Of course, neither can one build on a social construction theory of sexuality. Neither argument guarantees that rights will be granted or that others will conceed on moral or rational grounds.
It's tempting to simply quote Eve Sedgwick and Michael Warner on this topic and leave it at that: they said it first and best. A politic built on an essentialistic conceptualization of sexual orientation (that is, the idea that one's sexual orientation is natural, established pre-self-awareness, and stable and unchanging) does not guarantee one success and cannot be certain to result in the type of outcomes that those employing it certainly seek to achieve. Of course, neither can one build on a social construction theory of sexuality. Neither argument guarantees that rights will be granted or that others will conceed on moral or rational grounds.
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