I’m a big fan of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I’m a big
fan of Judith Butler. And I think there’s some thematic overlap between the
two.
The rabbit hole to Wonderland is a frightening prospect.
It’s an object of curiosity that causes Alice to plummet into a world in which
her expectations are undermined and traditional forms of Western logic are
turned on their head, with phrases often taken literally when they are
traditionally taken figuratively and vice versa, forcing Alice and the reader
to question the linguistic function of these phrases and the supposed
rationality behind manners, mathematics, and more. And, of course, this is a
journey led by the white rabbit, an arguably uptight academic-type,
traditionally depicted in a waistcoat with glasses and a stopwatch.
I think Judith Butler functions as a white rabbit. In her
work on gender and sexuality, she attempts to pique the curiosity of the reader
before plummeting them forward into an infinitely regressive Wonderland that
forces them to question the basis and coherence of the system of compulsory
heterosexuality which we all inhabit. Unfortunately, as I argued in my A2 essay
on Black Swan, I think the method with which she encourages us to plunge down
the rabbit whole can be co-opted, causing us to get spit back out scared and
ready to seek safety in the world we already knew.
For my conference paper, I really want to use Butler to
examine two different films as texts that prove both the potential subversion and
the potential danger offered by Butler’s suggestion that we embrace spectral
sexual identities. The first would be Black Swan, a narrative that plays with
lesbianism before re-embracing heterosexuality. The second would be Hedwig and
the Angry Inch, a fictional punk rock singer’s story of how they were pressured
into a sex change that was then botched, leaving them unsure of their own
identity. I think putting these two films in conversation with one another will
illuminate just how we can best benefit from Butler and the path she draws down
the rabbit hole.
by Jack Flynn
No comments:
Post a Comment