Queer Theory Another way to see representations
Jan 16, 2015
Queer TheoryAnother way to see representations
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2zikCUPPxw
Are you queer?• Queer is by definition
whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers. It is an identity without an essence.
Dominant ideology and hegemony
• “Normalising” gender roles• White, male, heterosexual as the
norm• Institutionalised – politics, church,
education, the traditional family etc.
However, if you’re different then…
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOmS3sb9oxE
Queer Theory• Queer Theory rejects conventional
or mainstream behaviour, including sexual identity, but also a range of identities including race, disability and gender.
• It rejects the essentialist nature of theories of identity based on binary oppositions like male/female, gay/straight and argues there is another space outside which is ‘queer’.
It explores and challenges the way in which heterosexuality is constructed as normal...
And the way in which the media has limited the representations of gay men and women.
Suggests sexual identity is more fluid
What media celebrity examples can you think of?
Judith Butler
Judith Butler• Suggests gender is not the result of
nature, but is socially constructed.• Male and female behaviour roles are not
the result of biology but are constructed and reinforced by society through media and culture.
• Sees gender as a PERFORMANCE.• She argues that there are a number of
exaggerated representations of masculinity and femininity which cause “gender trouble.”
• (Any behaviour or representation that disrupts culturally accepted notions of gender.)
Who is?
Gregg Araki – a gay movie?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by_4IDH5h1U
A heterosexual movie?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agRzpnS_FGw
Gender TroubleIn her most influential book, Gender Trouble (1990), Butler argued that feminism had made a mistake by trying to assert that 'women' were a group with common characteristics and interests
That approach, Butler said, performed 'an unwitting regulation and reification of gender relations' - reinforcing a binary view of gender relations (men and women)
She argued that, rather than opening up possibilities for a person to form and choose their own individual identity, feminism had closed the options down
• “There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; ... identity is performatively constituted by the very "expressions" that are said to be its results.” (Butler)
Queer Readings: This..
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAfbp3YX9F0
Or this?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfbjUmG8zGk
• “Of course Top Gun isn’t a ‘gay movie’ — but it’s clearly, flag rantly not a straight one either.” (Mark Simpson)
• How does this work?
• Queer theory suggests there are different ways of interpreting contemporary media texts
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick• Sedgwick describes Queer Theory as:
“the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonance, and resources, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone's gender, of anyone's sexuality aren't made (or can't be made) to signify monolithically” (1993)
• What does that mean?
FluidityThis implication of ‘fluidity’ allows us to consider concepts such as transgenderism (moving between genders), transsexualism (physically changing gender), intersex (both sexes present, affects 1 in 2000 babies), pansexual (sexual attraction not based on gender) and trigender (a gender outside of male or female) amongst others
At it’s most radical, it implies all currently accepted definitions of sex, gender and sexuality are questionable, if not redundant
Its influence
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1l7JZA5LQc
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WYIOnm_HFc
And how it challenges• From this
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KElUaDumoOY
• To this
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvINLBeRPQM
• And this
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGNwu-O7rJ8
Is this progress?
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/25661228
Finally• Where does all of this leave
representation and collective identity?