One idea that we have been discussing a lot of in class recently is the idea of space- whether it be queer space or a space for queers that has been taken away, and this has peaked my interest. As I was driving down the street I was looking at people walking and I noticed that women, in general seemed to have less personal space than men. For example, if I saw a group of women walking down the street they were close together, sometime linking arms with those around them where as men would be more spaced out and rarely ever touched them. This got me to thinking about how space operates in general and how it is distributed amongst people. For example, most children have one room in the house which is theirs and sometimes they must share this with another sibling where as the parents lay claim to the whole house. Rich people tend to have larger houses and more land than those without the same wealth. Presidents and other heads of state have a lot more space under their domain than others with out the same political power. I can go on and on, but what I noticed was that how much space a person has is somewhat symbolic of how much power they have. Space provides an area of which someone can have domain over and it is directly tied to power. I want to look at this in terms of spaces that belong to Queer people. Do people who are queer have less space in general than those who are heterosexual. What sort of message is being presented when a bath is built or when it is taken down? How does that exhibit power dynamics? What does queer space afford people and does it operate the same as non queer space in power dynamics? This is what I am mulling over for my final project. I also want to heavily look into how space is presented in films as symbolic representations of power. If you have any ideas for where might be neat to go or any interesting points on this topic please let me know!
Thanks!
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Lesbian Fetishism- My Reading Selection form Space, Time and Perversion
For my reading selection in the book Space Time and Perversion by Elizabeth Grosz, I chose to read chapter 9, the one on Lesbian Fetishism. According to Freud, fetishism is a possible way of coping with the threat of castration. What happens is that the young boy sees his naked mother and sees that she does not have a penis. This presents a threat to the boy because he believes his mother to be castrated and he worries he too will come to that same fate. In order to deal with this threat some boys fetishize something on the mother (her hair, her feet, her hands, ect). In essence they believe this part of her to be her phallus, thus eleviating the threat of castration which she symbolizes. A fetish is the belief of two contradictory ideas at the same time. The boy believes his mother to be castrated thus he makes something else on her a phallus so that she is not, thus the mother is both castrated and has a phallus-two contradictory ideas- a fetish. Fetishism starts with a disavowal of the truth, and acts as a means of compensating for it. It is also important to note that the phallus is not the same thing as a penis. The little boy does not believe his mother's hair or feet or ect. is a penis, he believes that they are a phallus. A phallus, in short, an object of power and authority and in men it is tied to the penis.
The fetish relies solely on the threat of castration. Without the threat of castration there is no need to fetishize. So for women, who have already been "castrated," there is no point to fetishize. However, Grosz has come up with a few ways she believes a sort of fetishism is possible in women. "There are three distinctive paths which may result from a girl's disavowal of her own castration: heterosexual (secondary narcissism), hysteria, and the masculinity complex" (150). Since the girl is already castrated she has a disavowal of her own castration rather than her mothers. One of the ways she can deal with this is through the heterosexual or secondary narcissistic way. In this case, " she phallicizes her whole body. If a man believes that he has a phallus (the object of desire), than the woman believes she is the phallus" (150).In the second way, the woman phallicizes a part of her body in what Grosz says is called hysteria. In this way the woman has a phallus just like a man. These two ways are still not the same as the way the fetish operates for a man. For men the fetishized object is not something that is a part of his own body, it is outside his body, generally something connected to the mother. In the third path of the masculinity complex, woman take a route much more similar to that of men.
The girl 'suffering' from such a complex refuses to accept her secondary and subordinated state; she aspires to be treated like and act the same as men... [she] retains the clitoris as her leading sexual organ and the position of activity it implies. She may also retain the mother as the model for which she will base her later object attachments...' Thus the girl may refuse to accept the fact of being castrated, may harden herself in the conviction that she does posses a penis and may subsequently be be compelled to behave as though she were a man(152).
This is the closet a woman can get to having fetishistic tendencies in the same way a man does. Though the masculinity complex does not imply lesbianism, it seems as though it is a common occurrence. Grosz seems to be exploring this topic to exploit holes in psychoanalysis to show how it doesn't quite work for anyone who is outside of the norm of the heterosexual nuclear family. My question is, however, what is to be gained from this when Freud is already discredited in a lot of things for his sexist overtones? Why does it seem like she wants to prove women can be fetishists too?
The fetish relies solely on the threat of castration. Without the threat of castration there is no need to fetishize. So for women, who have already been "castrated," there is no point to fetishize. However, Grosz has come up with a few ways she believes a sort of fetishism is possible in women. "There are three distinctive paths which may result from a girl's disavowal of her own castration: heterosexual (secondary narcissism), hysteria, and the masculinity complex" (150). Since the girl is already castrated she has a disavowal of her own castration rather than her mothers. One of the ways she can deal with this is through the heterosexual or secondary narcissistic way. In this case, " she phallicizes her whole body. If a man believes that he has a phallus (the object of desire), than the woman believes she is the phallus" (150).In the second way, the woman phallicizes a part of her body in what Grosz says is called hysteria. In this way the woman has a phallus just like a man. These two ways are still not the same as the way the fetish operates for a man. For men the fetishized object is not something that is a part of his own body, it is outside his body, generally something connected to the mother. In the third path of the masculinity complex, woman take a route much more similar to that of men.
The girl 'suffering' from such a complex refuses to accept her secondary and subordinated state; she aspires to be treated like and act the same as men... [she] retains the clitoris as her leading sexual organ and the position of activity it implies. She may also retain the mother as the model for which she will base her later object attachments...' Thus the girl may refuse to accept the fact of being castrated, may harden herself in the conviction that she does posses a penis and may subsequently be be compelled to behave as though she were a man(152).
This is the closet a woman can get to having fetishistic tendencies in the same way a man does. Though the masculinity complex does not imply lesbianism, it seems as though it is a common occurrence. Grosz seems to be exploring this topic to exploit holes in psychoanalysis to show how it doesn't quite work for anyone who is outside of the norm of the heterosexual nuclear family. My question is, however, what is to be gained from this when Freud is already discredited in a lot of things for his sexist overtones? Why does it seem like she wants to prove women can be fetishists too?
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Queer Places
So for this week's blog I am going to talk about my experience in looking for "queer places" on campus. Of course while I was trying to think of places that I thought were queer I went back and tried to look at what it meant to be a queer place to begin with. According to Judith Halberstam "'Queer Space' refers to the place-making practices within postmodernism in which queer people engage and it also describes the new understandings of space enabled by the production of queer counterpublics" (6). Therefore a place is defined as queer or is made queer through queer peoples engagement with it. Around campus this should translate into footpaths and quirky places like graffiti on sidewalks. This could also extend to several unisex bathrooms around campus where couples go to have sex when roommates are in as well as hang outs where people always go to smoke weed or engage in other illicit activities. If we consider "queer" to be how Sedgewick defines it as a catch-all phrase for anything abnormal it would be easy to argue most of campus is a queer place because "queer" people engage in things all over campus.
One thing I did think of while contemplating this assignment is the idea of a personal queer place. As I will define it a "personal queer place" is a place that you find queer while others may not because there you personally engage in queer activities or it is a place in which something queer happened to you personally. For me, for example, I would include in my "personal queer places" some of the trees on campus. I love climbing trees and I often climb them when I like to think or clear my head. I am almost always in a weird place mentally and I climb my trees to help me work it out. For others these trees would just be trees but for me they are sanctuaries. Perhaps to add to my definition of a "personal queer space" I will add on this additional part of the definition: a "personal queer place" can also be a place you use in a queer manner (e.g. like climbing trees to clear one's mind). I would also include in my list of personal queer places my sophomore year dorm. I had a few personal issues my sophomore year and I spent a lot of time in my room. I begin to tie those feelings to that room and to this day I like to avoid it. For me that is a queer place but to other that would just be a dorm room.
As an extension of personal queer places I would also like to consider places in people are mentally queer. For example could someone be in a queer state of mind? Can that be considered a "queer place?" Also, what about diaries or journals? Are they not a personally queer spot where the owner feels free to write without a filter and record their thoughts throughout the day? Is that not an odd space that can be constituted as queer? When I kept a journal it was full of a smattering thing from poems to essays to accounts of the day to rants about my current state of life. In journals people often write for their own eyes only and that is a queer use of language since we generally use language to commute with other people.
I believe if we look hard enough queer places can be found everywhere. My guess is that people have unique queer spaces that are specific to them personally. Also, I would love to here comments on whether journals can be considered a queer place (especially if the express queer ideas or desires).
One thing I did think of while contemplating this assignment is the idea of a personal queer place. As I will define it a "personal queer place" is a place that you find queer while others may not because there you personally engage in queer activities or it is a place in which something queer happened to you personally. For me, for example, I would include in my "personal queer places" some of the trees on campus. I love climbing trees and I often climb them when I like to think or clear my head. I am almost always in a weird place mentally and I climb my trees to help me work it out. For others these trees would just be trees but for me they are sanctuaries. Perhaps to add to my definition of a "personal queer space" I will add on this additional part of the definition: a "personal queer place" can also be a place you use in a queer manner (e.g. like climbing trees to clear one's mind). I would also include in my list of personal queer places my sophomore year dorm. I had a few personal issues my sophomore year and I spent a lot of time in my room. I begin to tie those feelings to that room and to this day I like to avoid it. For me that is a queer place but to other that would just be a dorm room.
As an extension of personal queer places I would also like to consider places in people are mentally queer. For example could someone be in a queer state of mind? Can that be considered a "queer place?" Also, what about diaries or journals? Are they not a personally queer spot where the owner feels free to write without a filter and record their thoughts throughout the day? Is that not an odd space that can be constituted as queer? When I kept a journal it was full of a smattering thing from poems to essays to accounts of the day to rants about my current state of life. In journals people often write for their own eyes only and that is a queer use of language since we generally use language to commute with other people.
I believe if we look hard enough queer places can be found everywhere. My guess is that people have unique queer spaces that are specific to them personally. Also, I would love to here comments on whether journals can be considered a queer place (especially if the express queer ideas or desires).
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
A Few Queer Things About American Beauty
I was thinking about American Beauty and how it pertained to our class discussions and readings and I couldn't come up with just one topic I wanted to talk about so here are several:
Queer Voice:
Several movies have narrators, however most of these narrators are not dead when the movie begins. Using a main character as the narrator causes issues of embodiment. Not only does this voice belong to the body you see on screen, but it transcends the body and becomes a disembodied voice that generally acts as a semi god like figure (seeing and knowing more than his embodied character on screen. It is especially queer when this voice not only transcends it's body but also transcends a mortal existence, coming to us from the grave. This transcendence makes it queer.
Queer Time:
American Beauty also makes us of queer time, both in the way Halberstam means it and also in another way. In the way Halberstam refers to queer time, Lester regression to his younger self is sort of a prolonged adolescence. Lester's return to his teenage ways also seems a bit melancholic, like he never really let go of the past and instead kept it inside of him until he couldn't suppress it any longer and he starts to act out because of it. Lester seems very nostalgic in his regression, buying his dream car from when he was younger and returning to his past job of burger flipping. It was like he could never really accept the lost love object of his youthful self and he became melancholic because of it. The other way time is queer in this film is that time is not linear. First of all, their is a voice from the future narrating the entire story. Also, more of what I want to get into, there are Lester's fantasies. Lester's fantasies seem to freeze time yet time still progresses both during the fantasy and in the real world while he is fantasizing. The music slows down and changes, all other people are removed from the space, his fantasies act like a pocket in time, a loop adjacent to the main time line. Time seems to pass during his fantasies but how much or how fast time goes by is uncertain. In this way I would like to say American Beauty deals with Queer time.
Queer Desires:
American Beauty is full of queer desires. Angela and Lester have a somewhat incestuous and pedaphilic desire for each other. Col. Fits is suppressing his homosexual desires. There is the openly gay couple. Carolyn's obsessive desire to be normal is queer as well. Ricky also has a queer desire to be a voyeur. All of these desires are not normal in some way and the film focus' on them.
I will add more later as I think of more.
Queer Voice:
Several movies have narrators, however most of these narrators are not dead when the movie begins. Using a main character as the narrator causes issues of embodiment. Not only does this voice belong to the body you see on screen, but it transcends the body and becomes a disembodied voice that generally acts as a semi god like figure (seeing and knowing more than his embodied character on screen. It is especially queer when this voice not only transcends it's body but also transcends a mortal existence, coming to us from the grave. This transcendence makes it queer.
Queer Time:
American Beauty also makes us of queer time, both in the way Halberstam means it and also in another way. In the way Halberstam refers to queer time, Lester regression to his younger self is sort of a prolonged adolescence. Lester's return to his teenage ways also seems a bit melancholic, like he never really let go of the past and instead kept it inside of him until he couldn't suppress it any longer and he starts to act out because of it. Lester seems very nostalgic in his regression, buying his dream car from when he was younger and returning to his past job of burger flipping. It was like he could never really accept the lost love object of his youthful self and he became melancholic because of it. The other way time is queer in this film is that time is not linear. First of all, their is a voice from the future narrating the entire story. Also, more of what I want to get into, there are Lester's fantasies. Lester's fantasies seem to freeze time yet time still progresses both during the fantasy and in the real world while he is fantasizing. The music slows down and changes, all other people are removed from the space, his fantasies act like a pocket in time, a loop adjacent to the main time line. Time seems to pass during his fantasies but how much or how fast time goes by is uncertain. In this way I would like to say American Beauty deals with Queer time.
Queer Desires:
American Beauty is full of queer desires. Angela and Lester have a somewhat incestuous and pedaphilic desire for each other. Col. Fits is suppressing his homosexual desires. There is the openly gay couple. Carolyn's obsessive desire to be normal is queer as well. Ricky also has a queer desire to be a voyeur. All of these desires are not normal in some way and the film focus' on them.
I will add more later as I think of more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)