Thinking Kevin Clash: Elmo and Queer Perversity

A second accusation seems to have solidified what many suspected or feared about Kevin Clash--he's a homosexual(1).  Yes, on the surface the concern is that he potentially had sex with a minor, or as some are eager to say, that he's a pedophile.  Some seem just generally grossed out that a male would have sex with another male 15-30 years younger.  And all of these may be actual concerns of people, but underlying it all is an implicit (and often explicit) policing and punishing of homosexuality.

I suspect Clash's career in puppetry was ruined by the first accusation.  Homosexual men working with children are generally seen as perverts, regardless of what they do or how "well behaved."  As Eve Sedgwick and David Halperin have pointed out, neither being "out" nor "in" the closet is refuge from being indicted about one's sexuality.   Those who would accuse Clash of getting in trouble because he never publicly discussed his homosexuality or because they presume he was a closeted gay man looking for sexual or emotional gratification in any place he could find it miss the larger point that being gay is always precarious for those working with children.

Election Aftermath: Scared Whites and Will Legitimate Extremism Shut Down the GOP Body?

about the economy

Two thoughts in the aftermath of the election that I keep coming back to:

1) A lot of straight White people are "scared" of the "increasing division" in our country.   I read this from the encounters I've had and accounts I've heard from other friends of people with high amounts of privilege finally coming to the realization that the area of their dominance is dawning.  There is still substantial White power and influence in culture, of course, but the fact that people with Brown and Black skin, women, and gay and lesbian people substantially influenced the election to keep our first Black president in power undoubtedly has shaken the notion that White people can band together and get whatever they want.  The unassailable ability of White supremacy to put Black people in their place has sustained a palpable hit, and White people are reacting.  I suspect many of them were assured that either their fellow Whites and White skinned people were sufficiently racist (we're not) or that the numbers of the White voting block was powerful enough to counter the Black and Hispanic voting blocks.    

Certainly it must be scary to realize that others who have been oppressed are now asserting their rights and ascending to positions of authority and gaining cultural power.  My initial thought is that I need those people to think through their fear and express it productively, and ideally transform it into an embrace of a new kind of society and for those of us agitating for further change to consider that while some hate is hate, some stems from fear and we should recognize the difference.  It will also help if people like Bill O'Reilly would quit perpetuating the idea that people of other races are trying to steal from White people through the government.

Butch on the Street, Femme in the Sheets (of this Book)

Growing up in one of the larger and more prosperous towns of Mississippi, I had no access to representations of gay men or women. Despite growing up Southern Baptist, gays were not denounced in my church, they were never spoken of at all.  In sixth grade, a bully harassed me for much of the school year for being gay, but I didn't know what that meant.  I am not sure that he did either. Applied to me, it seemed to be more of an evolution of an insult that began when I took allergy medication at lunch time. I went from being a druggie to gay when druggie seemed to cause insufficient pain.  I cried in the arms of my mother, but only because I knew gay wasn't good--whatever it meant.  I was bullied in other grades also, although the insult of gay was not thrown around.  Still, as a scrawny introverted nerd scared of getting in trouble, I failed to perform masculinity properly and suffered the consequences.

Despite experiencing same-sex attraction in my teen years, I was unable to identify it as such at the time, largely because I had no conception of gay people or a gay identity.  I had no way to make sense of what those feelings meant, so I explained them away in the only ways I could: brotherly love, admiration, envy, and so on.  I would not make sense of those feelings until I was nearly thirty.  Even having gay and lesbian friends in college didn't help me identify myself as one--it honestly never occurred to me that I might be one too.  (Although later I would discover they clearly marked me as one when I was told it was about time I came out.)

I was, to use David Halperin's term, a proto-gay.  Gay in the sense of experiencing same-sex attraction, but proto, in not having a consciousness of it.  Halperin specifically uses this term to designate boys who will grow up to experience same sex object choice, but have not yet done so. The earliest I recall attraction to another boy was around seventh grade.

Yet prior to both my arrival at a gay identity and my earliest recollection of same-sex attraction, I was drawn to non-gay cultural artifacts that reflected a gay subjectivity, or in other words, cultural objects and characters that reflected how it felt to be a (proto-)gay.  Bugs Bunny, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Paul Lynde, Wayland Flowers and Madame (yes, both gay, but coded or covertly so), Flip Wilson, Beau Arthur, Kathy Bates, Bewitched, Maude, Golden Girls, Designing Women, Auntie Mame, Steel Magnolias, Misery, Dolores Claiborne, Mommie Dearest, the Muppets, Spider-Man. (I realize some of these may seem more "obviously" gay appropriations than others.)  Specifically, I was a white nerd gay, and my cultural attractions reflect this sensibility.

This experience, along with my experiences with other gay men, makes David Halperin's premise (or one of them) in How To Be Gay highly compelling, to say nothing of Halperin's rigorous methodology, staggeringly incisive analysis, clever insight, necessary contributions, and sense of wit. In short, David Halperin's How to be Gay is a tour de force.

The Truth is Out There (But It's Hard to Find)

Discerning the truth about political facts and claims is an onerous and unfulfilling one.  What you're most likely to find is that, by and large, everyone lies or distorts.  Certainly, no televised advertising can be trusted (this seems given), the candidates are going to present their case in the most favorable light possible, and we cannot rely on journalists to present any kind of useful analysis, a small handful aside.

The two best sources I've found so far, FactCheck and Politifact are certainly useful tools, although they require a good deal of time to wade through to understand the often shaded nuances (outright fabrications are easier to sort out) of the claims made by politicians, PACs, SuperPACs, and other partisan organizations.  Sometimes, the About page on Urban Legends and Netlore is useful, and Snopes can be good where more personal claims are made (e.g., Q: Is Hillary Clinton the liberal Marxist America-hater I know she is? A: If you take her statements out of context, she's handing America over to Fidel Castro right now.)  None of these sources are infallible and both liberals and conservatives alike have taken specific aim at Politifact from time to time, but these sites do try to lay out data as much as possible

I wonder how widely these (or other reliable) sources are used and who uses them?  I'm inclined to think only those most invested or interested in political discourse and strategies do--with most people leaning on soundbites offered on broadcast news, entertainers (e.g., Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, Stewart) primarily, faux-political commentors (e.g., Hannity, Van Susteren, Schultz)   and, to a lesser extent, partisan wonks (e.g., Huckabee, Maddow).  Confirmation bias (i.e., the theory that we seek and ignore evidence in ways that help maintain the beliefs we want to maintain) is a real threat for people of all political inclinations.  And, existing research suggests that getting people to re-think their deeply held beliefs, even opposing factual evidence is offered, is very difficult anyway.

As an example, I'll use the above popular macro, seen circulating on a Facebook page near you, to illustrate how difficult discerning such claims can be, or at least how much more complex such claims are.

The Identity Facism of Modern Gay Liberation

For about a week now, much wailing and gnashing of teeth and lamenting of the faithful has been had by those who view themselves as gay liberationists or activists over Cynthia's Nixon statment that sexuality was a choice for her.  Despite affirming that this may not be the choice for everybody, she felt this was true for her. 
Oh, the uproar.  Such vitriol is usually reserved for those who equate gay people with pedophiles and Nazis.  The nasty comments across the web have come fast and furious.  Much of it has been incredibly malicious, sexist, hateful, and biphobic (i.e., fearful of bisexuals)   It's extremely clear that many people are deeply invested in the narrative that sexuality is innate, biological, immutable.

I understand why people may feel that way.  It seems that if we can prove that sexuality is as predetermined as race, then we have a iron clad argument agains discrimination.  Moreover, many people likely feel that they experience some kind of primal, out of their control attraction or urge to men or women. But, there's a lot wrong with these assumptions, which usually go unexamined.  And, from the look of things, people don't seem very inclined toward thinking too deeply about them.

It's probably never a good way to start off an essay by referring you to better done essays, but Scott Long's excellent blog post really is must-reading on this topic, as is his follow up: "Frots, g0ys, and other options."  While I was swilling this around in my mind, he said it first and certainly better than I have or am going to here.  Long provides a great overview of Foucaultian thought on sexuality, troubles quite accessibly and articulately current notions of sexuality as put forth by the mainstream lesbian and gay movement, and rightfully takes the modern "liberation" movement to task.  I would also recommend Frank Bruni's New York Times essay.  Bruni lays out the research that's been done so far on sexual orientation and shows that not only is it conclusive, but persuasively argues (along lines similar to Long) that it's unnecessary for equality.

How Do You Solve a Problem like Marcus?

A queer colleague of mine brought up this article about the potential problems of calling Marcus Buchmann out as gay.  The concerns about what this rhetoric potentially does is important to examine and take seriously.

It's been popular among (at least the gay blogosphere) to point out Marcus Buchmann's more effeminte qualities, including but not limited to the nickname "Ladybird," which I do find fairly amusing.  As with most things, the rhetorical strategy, politics and rationale behind such a move are complex. 

On the Baby Boomer Generation

This really is a gross oversimplification, but the following quote really does capture the gestalt of my feelings on how the baby boom generation as a whole (there are always exceptions) has really impacted the world (and continues to do so):

For all that Baby Boomers fetishise “the Sixties” as some mythical time when everything was perfect – not realising that it’s their own generation who have pretty comprehensively fucked the world up for those of us who are following them, by pulling the ladder up after themselves – they did have the luck to be a giant demographic bubble of youth at precisely the point when this could almost sensibly seem true. The ‘long 1960s’ (from roughly the Suez crisis to the OPEC crisis) were built on cheap oil, and that meant everything from cheap plastic consumer items to cheap transport. The Western world was rich and (other than Vietnam) at peace, and that meant an explosion in possibilities, ... After the OPEC crisis all this changed. We can’t afford hopes and dreams any more. To do that the Boomers would have to make sacrifices.

From, of all places, a commentary on Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969 over at the Mindless Ones.

No Help for The Help

I did not pay much attention to the move The Help initially; I was vaguely aware of it and largely uninterested in it because I have an intense dislike of movies where a heroic white "rescues" (in some shape or manner) a black person (often after the black person in question has served, affirmed, or rescued the white person in some way). The Blind Side is just one of the most recent of these, but Crash and Driving Miss Daisy fit here.  Even a movie I greatly enjoy, The Shawshank Redemption, has this unfortunate plot element in it.  devout and/or lazy.  I have no interest in narratives that portray any person, group, community, identity, or culture uniformly and simplisticly, but I hold a special distain for narratives that portray black people as magical, saintly, stupid, sassy, or criminal.

NPR: Lesbian Couples Wed More than Gay Men

Never mind that NPR has now mainstreamed the best known lesbian joke ever.  What I really like from this news story are these sound bites:

"When you're an outsider, in order to make it okay you haveto embrace that otherness of yourself, that you live on the outside. And many of us unconsciously don't want to totally give that up. I like it.  We're used to being different and being on the outside.  Now, with marriage, you're just like everyone else. So there is a resistance to it." -- Leslie Cohen

"So, lesbian and gay people have formed very complex families, and need more flexible norms." -- Katherine Franke

While same sex marriage can do great things for some couples, it also stands to obliterate the different forms of familial and other relational bonds that queers have learned to form.  What is the cost of forgoing our queerness in the quest for equality?

Truly Offensive

As a general rule, I don't talk about Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum (or Sarah Palin for that matter).  None of these individuals are serious contenders for the Republican nomination given their extreme viewpoints and stances.  They are odious individuals who don't deserve any kind of attention.  But Bachmann and Santorum have sunk to new lows by signing the Family Leader (an Iowa based conservative organization) "Marriage Vow."  In terms of gay rights, it's all same old, same old.  What is truly offensive is that the pledge asserts that Black people were better off under slavery than they are today.

The pledge contains plenty of other objectionable material, but the racist language of the pledge takes the cake. MSNBC covers the story:

Problematic Gay Rhetoric

I've been troubled lately about what I consider very problematic rhetoric that seems pervasive on at least one gay blog that I follow.  About the only website on which I can manage to read comments by readers is NPR and even there the occasional ill-considered comment pops up.  On almost every other internet site, comments reflect the worst of humanity: ignorance, flat-out stupidity, bigotry, prejudices, inhumanity (e.g., "I hope you die"), rudeness, ad hominem attacks, the worst logical fallacies, etc.  Gay blogs are no different, but I wish they were.  Some are better than others, but what concerns me is that: a) gays should know better and b) much of it seems to be echoing current activist rhetoric.  To be clear, most of the problematic language and though I've read comes from gay males and white gay males at that.  Men of color, lesbians, and transfolk seem to be considerably better in both manner and thought.  Perhaps on other sites, those people are just as bad, but there seems to be something particular to white gay men (likely of a certain social class).

What follows are some of the problematic thoughts I've read and very brief thoughts about them:

The Same Old Stuff PLUS Michigan AFA: Gays are employment risks

I don't usually post much from the likes of the AFA (American Family Association) or its ilk (e.g., the Traditional Values Coalition,  Family Research Council, Exodus International, Catholic League, National Organization for Marriage); the rhetoric is pretty much the same regardless of the organization or event to which these groups respond. 

June Zombiepaloozapocolypse

Inspired by watching AMC's excellent Walking Dead series and my love for George Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968), I dedicated June to watching major (and often influential) works of zombie film:
Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Day of the Dead (the third of his zombie trilogy- 1985),
and Land of the Dead (his fourth movie - 2005)
Return of the Living Dead (1985- of which I had seen portions of years ago)
28 Days Later (2002)
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Zombieland (2009)

Shaun and Zombielands are more affectionate, comedic takes on zombie films than anything, although it's worth noting that Shaun does this extremely well and is a very funny movie, taking full advantage of zombie film conventions and turning them on their head in a clever way.  Zombieland starts out promising, particularly with it's "rules" for surviving zombie attacks, but after a stop at certain comedic icon's Hollywood mansion, fades into a rather by the numbers and not so funny zombie movie.  It never fully capitalizes on the fun premise of a zombie rulebook and throws its own film logic on its head at the end, unfortunately. Also, the promise of a zombie-infested Disneyland type amusement park is woefully under-delivered.

Separated at Birth




Scott H. Reiniger (Dawn of the Dead)

 


Brad Bird (Iron Giant)



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.

Goldie Taylor on "how far we have not come"

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The Erasure of Subjectivity in Green Eggs and Ham

Unknown to many, Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, wrote a thesis promoting the erasure of borderland subjectivities of those living outside the matrix of cultural intelligibility. One should note that Geisel's self-bestowed title betrays his compliance in a discourse of medicalization and psychiatry. Seuss's title operates within the realm of bio-power to promote his narratives as truth and to reify the status of his morality tales within the dominant cultural discourse. Geisel's title calls to us to take his lessons authoritatively.

In Green Eggs, the nameless narrator clearly represents those not named, those not existing within the matrix of cultural intelligibility. The narrator exists as a liminal character of  unknown gender; clearly Green Eggs is an antecedent text for Written on the Body. The dominant culture represented by Sam (clearly a reference to “Uncle Sam," i.e., American society) acts as Althusser’s ideology cop, hailing the narrator to perform in a manner that meets cultural standards. Sam offers eggs, signifying heterosexual reproduction and ham, a food choice gesturing towards Christian identity by foreclosing Jewish and Muslim membership. This is the food of bio-power: the only life worth sustaining by (Uncle) Sam is the performance of a heterosexual Christian identity. Sam threatens the narrator unceassingly: will the narrator take the food with a "house" or a "mouse"? With a "box" or a "fox"? In a "car" or a "tree"? In other words, the narrator compliance will be rewarded with consumer goods produced by the capitalistic nation-state (symbolized by the color green, the color of money) or face homelessness and the dangers of nature. The narrator resists until the end, realizing that existing outside of the cultural matrix and refusing to meet the approving gaze of the reader means certain annihilation and permanent erasure.

The Best "It Gets Better"

A few weeks ago I blogged my critique of the "It Gets Better" project.  As well intentioned as it is, many of the stories reinforce some kind of happiness script rooted in heterosexual ideas of happiness. It also stands to lose ground long term in favor of some short term gain.  That's a valid ethical choice, but I'm not sure we want to leave people who see it isn't getting better out to hang, perhaps literally, because they then assume that it's their fault that their life hasn't gotten better.

So, imagine my joy to be directed to this video, which I think better says it. Gabrielle Rivera explains why it might not get better but we do get stronger.  (She is included in Savage's written compilation, but, unfortunately, he dismisses her contribution as just another way of say "it get's better." Thanks for not listening to what she's saying at all, Dan.)

Not so Pretty in Pink

Sherri Shepard has said some pretty stupid things previously (e.g., not knowing if the earth was round or not or saying that nobody came before Christians), so it's pretty easy to disregard her comments. Although Shepard might be easy to dismiss, based on the audience reaction alone, clearly others share her insitence that makeup or nail polish are inappropriate for male children because those things are for "mommies."

Of course, concerned conservative psychiatrist, Fox news personality and Glen Beck friend Keith Ablow is concerned:

Yeah, well, it may be fun and games now, Jenna, but at least put some money aside for psychotherapy for the kid—and maybe a little for others who’ll be affected by your “innocent” pleasure.

This is a dramatic example of the way that our culture is being encouraged to abandon all trappings of gender identity—homogenizing males and females when the outcome of such “psychological sterilization” [my word choice] is not known.

Ablow continues to be concerned about how pink nail polish on little boys endangers the future of the human race!Ablow might benefit from Judith Butler's discussion of how at least one attempt to socialize gender didn't find much success.



It doesn't matter if being gay or transgendered is a choice or not (I'd say it's not, for the record, but but neither is it somehow an essentialized characteristic), but how in the world is nail polish or the color pink going to influence that? They are not somehow magically or naturally linked to female-ness or woman-ness. They aren't even socially constructed or linked to woman-ness any longer; it's pretty unremarkable nowadays for men to use nail polish of any color.

What is amazing, but not surprising, to me is how concerned anyone can be over such small things. Gender policing is, IMO, far more important to members of our society than regulating sexuality. Non-normative and queer sexuality is still pretty heavily policied, but I'd argue no longer as pressing of a societal concern as gender regulation still is. I personally see gender concerns underlying much homophobia and heterosexism. Heterosexual power needs gender binaries to mainstain itself. Therefore, stupid shit like pink nail polish becomes of monumental concern and weaponized.

Why does something so seemingly insignificant become such a potent weapon? I'd argue that it's because we can't really decide what constitutes gender (although we dare not admit this question lurking in the back of our minds), so some cling to very surface and seemingly inconsequential markers: the color pink (or blue), for example. We even assign colors to uncertainty of infant gender; yellow or certain shades of green are often used when preparing for either gender. We still mark gender in uncertainty.

Color coding and other more obvious and prominent markers help us feel more secure about who is a man and who is a woman even when those markers are ambiguous. For instance, Shephard and the audience (or parts of it) identify makeup as for women (actually, for "mommies," but I'll forgo a discussion of the necessity of reproduction in the construction of womanhood for now). Perhaps others would agree that makeup is something only women wear, except for the fact that men do wear certain kinds of makeup. I've known straight men to wear concealer to hide a blemish or clear nail polish for a variety of reasons. Men use hair products to style their hair, isn't this a kind of makeup also? As a brief aside, when does a worn scent become perfume and when is it cologne?

Our need for markers is needed because we really don't have a good sense of whether gender relates to genitals, gonads, chromosomes, feelings, bodily movements or some other criteria. Obviously most of these identifiers of gender are normally hidden from view, so society requires visible markers. Why? Probably in part because we want to make sure our desires line up with what society tells us are proper desires. If I'm a man who considers himself attracted to women and I then desire someone I discover is anatomically a man, then I stand to be implicated as a freak, immoral, degenerate, perverted, or otherwise outside the norm. Also, many theorists have pointed out how men regulate how women should perform in public spaces, so, clearly men need clear markers of who is a woman.

Although conservatives argue that gender and sexuality are fixed identities bestowed by a Creator, they typically fret a lot about threats to these supposedly stable aspects of our lives. Gender is, rather, as Butler says, "a form of social power" used to discpline, control, and constrain bodies. And in this fight, any weapon will do, even if it's just pink nail polish.

Jon Stewart offers not only a humorous spin on this gender policing, but does a little gender deconstruction of his own "weapon" (see at the end).

The Daily Show
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The Construction of Happiness in "It Gets Better" (Brief Essay)

In response to a rash of highly publicized suicides of lesbian and gay youth, columnist Dan Savage initiated the "It Gets Better Project" (www.itgetsbetter.org) in September, 2010. According to the website, since its inception, various individuals, including celebrities and politicians contributed over 10,000 videos. The laudable purpose and aim of the project is to provide hope to despondent gay and lesbian youth. Although many have lambasted critics of the program (such as gay blogger Joe Jervis’s denunciation of queer theoretical critiques as “predictable,” “over-intellectualizing,” and “navel gazing” ), to exempt this very well-meaning program from analysis is to willfully ignore the ways in which the project works against its own aims. As Sedgwick says, “in the vicinity of the closet, even what counts as a speech act is problematized” (p. 3).


The content of the videos tend to vary somewhat depending on the contributor, so for the purposes of this brief analysis, I focus on Savage’s and his partner’s original video. The better future that Savage offers is an intact family, with an emphasis on fulfillment through the addition of a child, “the promise of the child becomes the promise of happiness” (Ahmed, p 113). Happiness is the “reproduction of happy heterosexuality” (p. 90). Thus, the failure to enunciate any alternate, queer forms of love or happiness becomes one of the “many silences” (Sedgwick, p. 3) and becomes a powerful reification of heterosexual happiness scripts. In addition to the silence that denies queer love, the videos act as a confessional space where queers get to perform their coming out. Invoking Foucault, one may question: for many of the contributors, in addition to Savage, for whom does the confession provide happiness? Perhaps rather than the audience, the confessor derives his (or her) pleasure from the act of confessing queerness. Also, to what extent does the video serve to provide hope versus providing a space for the confessor(s) to establish him/herself with the societal structure, to perform acceptance? Is hope possible when the potential site of liberation is placed within the very structures that oppress or fail to prevent oppression? At the very least, Savage fails to “trouble…conventional ideas of what it means to have a good life” (Ahmed, p. 115) or to account for a better life that includes unhappiness, given that “happiness tends to come with rather straight conditions” (p. 100).

Works Cited:
Ahmed, S. "Unhappy Queers" in The Promise of Happiness.
Foucault, M. The History of Sexuality Vol 1.
Sedgwick, E. K. Epistemology of the Closet.