youre listening to

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youre listening to Blur, Girls and Boys,
Parklife (1994)
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Media Identitylecture 6The Last
Supper Cláudia Gabriela Marques Vieira
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so, what are we moving on to now?
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Queer TheoryPopularisation of PansexualityTranse
xuality Transgenderism
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returning to JUDITH BUTLERButler rigorously
interrogates the necessity of fixed, immutable
gender identities. Examining drag, butch/femme
relations, cross-dressing, and transsexuality as
practices of parodic repetition and imitation
that challenge the hegemonic heterosexual regime,
opening it to possible subversion, resistance,
and resignificationThe Body You Want Liz
Kotz interviews Judith Butler, Artforum 31, no.
3, November 1992 82
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Queer Theory, like all theories, did not appear
in a vacuum
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End of 1980s idea of 'queer' politics took
hold of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
(LGBT) activists and academics in US and
internationally
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ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) formed
in 1987 at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services
Center, New YorkIt "is a diverse, non-partisan
group of individuals ... committed to direct
action to end the AIDS crisis." - ACT UP NY
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Queer NationFounded in 1990 in New York by
members of ACT UP, against anti-gay
violence.Described by activist scholars Allan
Bérubé and Jeffrey Escoffier as the first
"retro-future/postmodern" activist group to
address gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender
To a significant degree, the relative
frequency and acceptability of glbtq gay lesbian
bisexual transgender queer representation in
mass culture in the 1990s and early twenty-first
century can be dated to the emergence of Queer
Nation.glbtq (Encyclopedia of Gay Lesbian
Bisexual Transgender Queer Culture)
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Robert Grossman, The Nation, 24 January
2005Based on research by Katz into President
Lincolns homosexualityKatz J. (2001) Love
Stories Sex between Men before Homosexuality
University of Chicago Press 3-25
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One of the things that ACT-UP and Queer Nation
have tried to dois make the question of identity
less central. Bothmovements have engaged
theatrical venues for politicizationyou get
die-ins in the street, or kiss-ins in malls. It's
a certain theatricalizationa certain
performative production of identity, that is
utterly strategic.Butler, quoted in Kotz L.
The Body You Want Liz Kotz interviews Judith
Butler, Artforum 31, no. 3, November 1992 83
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So how did these influences play out in
popular media?
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Vanity Fair, Aug 1993When singer K.D. Lang
appeared with model Cindy Crawford on the cover
of Vanity Fair, she changed the images of
lesbians forever. Following cover stories about
lesbians in the mainstream publications New York
and Newsweek, this photograph is significant not
only for the way it addresses gender roles, but
for its sheer joy and playfulness.Stonewall
25 Pre- and Post-Stonewall Lesbian Imagery
exhibition, Columbia University
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whilst these are positive representations of
sexuality outside the heterosexual norm, is Cindy
Crawfords status as supermodel being used here
to commodify/package lesbian identity?
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in what other ways are these images conformist?
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pansexualityat the cusp of the Millennium
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CK ONEcampaign(1995 - )
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CK ONEcampaign(1995 - )
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Street's like a jungle So call the police
Following the herd Down to Greece On holiday -
Love in the 90's Is paranoid On sunny beaches
Take your chances looking for (chorus) Girls
who are boys Who like boys to be girls Who do
boys like they're girls Who do girls like
they're boys Always should be someone you really
love Avoiding all work Because there's none
available Like battery thinkers Count your
thoughts on 1 2 3 4 5 fingers Nothing is wasted
Only reproduced Get nasty blisters Du bist
sehr schon But we haven't been introduced
(chorus) Girls who are boys Who like boys to
be girls Who do boys like they're girls Who do
girls like they're boys Always should be someone
you really love
Blur Girls and Boys Parklife (1994)
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if people cultivate acceptable self-images,if
they seek to pass,youth cultures
acceptability of alternative sexualitiesmade
sexual exploration ok
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But what about Glam Rock?
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Glam Rock Peaked 1971-1973 Slade, Sweet, David
Bowie, Gary Glitter, Elton John T.
Rex Influence Queen KISS. Glam performers
often dressed androgynously in make up and
glittery, florid costumes not dissimilar to
costumes that Liberace or Elvis Presley wore when
performing in cabaret. We were brickies in
lipstick - Slade
Marc Bolan, Trex, Glam Rock
originator View Top of Pops 25th Anniversary
Special
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Glam Rock An example would be David Bowie during
his Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane phases.
Sexual ambiguity was briefly in vogue some bands
took to playing in drag outfits for a while and
Bowie told the press he was bisexual.
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"Ziggyseemed like a very positive artistic
statement. I thought that was a beautiful piece
of art, I really did. I thought that was a grand
kitsch painting. The whole guy. Then that fucker
would not leave me alone for yearsAnd it took me
an awful time to level out. My whole personality
was affected.I thought I might as well take
Ziggy to interviews as well. Why leave him on
stage? Looking back it was completely absurd. It
became very dangerous. I really did have doubts
about my sanity. I can't deny that the experience
affected me in a very exaggerated and marked
manner. I think I put myself very dangerously
near the line. Not in physical sense but
definitively in mental sense. (The Rise and
Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
entry, wikipedia, 2007).
Ziggy Stardust (1973)
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NOVEAU NEW WAVEFranz Ferdinand's big
queer hit takes straight guys where even Bowie
feared to tread Sheffield, All the Young
Dance Whores, the village voice, July
2004
FRANZ FERDINAND Michael (2004)
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Michael cuts to the heart of new wave, which
has always had a lot to do with straight kids
trying to act as cool as queer kids. In the
immortal words of Imperial Teen, "the prince
wants to be a queen." The world is crawling with
nouveau new wave bands now, indeed, the first
thing everybody noticed about Franz Ferdinand was
that they were a Brit new wave band imitating the
New York new wave bands who are currently
imitating old Brit new wave bands. There are all
sorts of theories about why '80s-inspired new
wave-ness and modness have come back with such a
vengeance, but it's the first guitar-rock trend
in years that has had anything to do with sex.
New wave's eternal appeal has to do with its
playful, humane pansexuality. It's a safe space
for kids to act out, to try on gay or straight or
bi poses at will, without brutalizing each other.
People who condemned Bowie as a sexual tourist
were missing the point he was a sexual explorer
(or "lodger," as he put it in the title of one of
his best albums) because he was a sexual exile,
like most of us, stuck in orbit like Major Tom
and determined to make a home out of it. He built
the floor that new wavers have been dancing on
ever since, from Roxy Music to Culture Club to
Pulp to the new waver indie kids currently
shaking their hair at a club near you.
Sheffield, All the Young Dance Whores, the
village voice, July 2004
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MVA News, mtv.com News, 28
August 2003
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Transsexual/transgender identityseems to
counteract the commodification of pansexuality in
significant ways
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and the transgendered/transexual individuals
domain remains sub-cultural, rather than popular,
media forms
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Pop culturesrepresentation
oftransvestism ascomedic
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Boys Dont Cryand The Crying
Gamesub-cultural delve into the inner depths of
gender dysphoria
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Although the term transsexual is of recent
origin, the phenomenon is not. The earliest
mention of something which we can recognize ex
post facto as transsexualism, in light of current
diagnostic criteria, was of the Assyrian king
Sardanapalus, who was reported to have dressed in
women's clothing and spun with his wives. Later
instances of something very like transsexualism
were reported by Philo of Judaea, during the
Roman Empire. In the 18th century the Chevalier
d'Eon, who lived for 39 years in the female role,
was a rival of Madame Pompadour for the attention
of Louis XV. The first colonial governor of New
York, Lord Cornbury, came from England fully
attired as a woman and remained so during his
time in office. (Stone, 1988) Allucquère
Rosanne Stone (Sandy) Stone (formerly Olivia
Stone) (1988) THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
POSTTRANSSEXUAL MANIFESTO, Other Voices, Other
Worlds Questioning Gender and Ethnicity,
conference, Santa Cruz, CA
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Allucquère Rosanne Stone (Sandy) Stone (formerly
Olivia Stone)(1988) THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
POSTTRANSSEXUAL MANIFESTO Other Voices, Other
Worlds Questioning Gender and Ethnicity,
conference, Santa Cruz, CAPosttranssexual
was an ironic term, since whenthis essay was
first published everything in theory was
post-something-or-other. I was looking for a way
forward. Transgender is way better (ibid.)
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Stones essay is based on research with patients
of The Stanford Gender Dysphoria Program,
began in 1968, and focusing on gender
dysphoriasyndrome or transsexualism
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Brief capsule of results from the The Stanford
Gender Dysphoria Program A transsexual is a
person who identifies his or her gender identity
with that of the "opposite gender. Sex and
gender are quite separate issues, but
transsexuals commonly blur the distinction by
confusing the performative character of gender
with the physical "fact" of sex, referring to
their perceptions of their situation as being in
the "wrong body (cited in Stone, ibid.).
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PRIMARY CRITIQUE OF STONEMasculine behavior is
notably obtrusive. It is significant that
transsexually constructed lesbian-feminists have
inserted themselves into the positions of
importance and/or performance in the feminist
community. As one woman wrote I feel raped when
Olivia passes off Sandy... as a real woman.
After all his male privilege, is he going to cash
in on lesbian feminist culture too?Raymond J.
(1979) The Transsexual Empire The Making Of The
She-Male. Teachers College Press
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PRIMARY CRITIQUE OF STONERape...is a
masculinist violation of bodily integrity. All
transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the
female form to an artifact, appropriating this
body for themselves...Rape, although it is
usually done by force, can also be accomplished
by deception (Raymond, ibid.) Raymond J.
(1979) The Transsexual Empire The Making Of The
She-Male. Teachers College Press
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The essence of transsexualism is the act of
passing. A transsexual who passes is obeying the
Derridean imperative "Genres are not to be
mixed. I will not mix genres." I could not ask
a transsexual for anything more inconceivable
than to forgo passing, to be consciously "read",
to read oneself aloud--and by this troubling and
productive reading, to begin to write oneself
into the discourses by which one has been
written-in effect, then, to become a look out-
dare I say it again? posttranssexual (Stone,
ibid.)
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Your turn to present some of your images of
representations that complicate the
heterosexual/homosexual binary..for some of
these images and summaries look at the options
general forum