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Floating Forum #3: Outside Talks and Events
As you attend outside events over the course of the semester, which you think are interestingly related to our interdisciplinary discussions of gender and sexuality, please describe them in this forum: in what ways do they intersect, expand on or challenge the ideas we are talking about in class?
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Bands crossing gender binaries
Recently (last Friday) I went to see a band at Lundt Basement at Haverford called Starfucker and apart from the awesome music, what really struck me was that each band member was in drag. Playing in flower dresses and wearing red lipstick, the band added this whole new element of performance to their, well, performance. When I watched an interview with the band after the show, they were asked about wearing drag and I found their answer intriguing and very relevant to our class discussions. They talked about how putting on non-gender conforming clothing helped them to take on this new identity, an identity they referred to as being more real. By dressing in women's clothing, they are able to create a separation between their "real-life" selves and their job as musicians. What I found particularly interesting was how you begin to appreciate the music for simply the music, as opposed to crazy fans throwing themselves all over the male musicians (as is typically the case). I actually love the band more now that I know that they are conscious of gender binaries and are contributing, in whatever small way, to questioning these binaries and why they are in place. I only wonder if my opinion would be different if I were a male fan...would their performance be of less significance?
Pornography
I recently went to a viewing of "Slippery Slope," by Sarah Schenck a very funny yet, for some, disturbing sexual comedy. I found myself laughing at every instant that some sexual innuendo, but soon after found myself asking why? I didn't understand why I laughed at something I would normally find degrading (Pornography). But then I realized, I do not know if I think that pornography(excluding violent pornography) is something that should be thought of as yet another tool that men use to control women. I mean, when one looks at the dominant role in a sex film, one sees that it is the women. The women has an infinite amount of ways to coordinate her body with another in order to satisfy her viewer; and at that she embraces who she is physically and mentally. She says to the world "I'm going to use my body to seduce you." I think that "Slippery Slope" did and excellent job of strengthening women as whole, because it embraced another group of women and illustrated how powerful the female body can be.
Sherry Ortner On Independent Film Makers
I was fortunate enough to attend Sherry Ortner's talk "On Independent Film Makers." I believe it's easy to put "Indie Films" in a certain category of "artsy," "low budget," or just "non-hollywood" without really looking into the process and people behind them. Being an independent movie producer takes so much more than an idea and a camera. Indie producers need to have good taste, agency to get things done, and personality to maintain relationships. To be honest, I was surprised by the content of the talk because there were no overtly "gender and sexuality" themes. As I thought more about what she said, I started to see her interest in this field of study.
An intersecting theme was when she discussed the backgrounds of independent film producers. These indie producers overwhelmingly came from the middle class and attended prestigious educational institutions, which made me think of her essay "Reading America: Preliminary Notes on Class and Culture. Sure it's a stretch, but Ortner discusses how "much of middle-class adolescent culture is drawn both from "real" working-class culture ... and from marketing fantasies of what working- or lower-class culture looks like." This cultural assessment is interesting and somewhat telling of independent films. For indie producers, exploring worlds and cultures different from their own (ie. middle-class) gives their movies a depth normal hollywood productions don't have.
Sherry Ortner has clearly had an extensive and important career and she's continuing on with that. I have great respect for someone who chooses to take on new work, maybe even leaving her comfort zone into a completely different topic than she had ever explored. I like to think that's what we're trying to do in this class too: leaving our academic comfort zones to learn something new in ways we never thought we'd be able to.