Topic : Queer Theory
Definition of Queer Theory :
A definition of Queer is something odd or unusual, or is an offensive and derogatory term used to describe a homosexual....
Queer theory focuses on mismatches between Sex, Gender and Desire...
Queer is something that is, not normal or abnormal, worthless, strange, feared, questionable, odd, unconventional..
Meaning of Queer :Queer:- A broad level to define sexual and gender minorities who do not prescribe to binary normative or heterosexuality.
Homosexual :- An individual attracted to another individual of the same sex..
An approach that challenges dominant, social behavior and sexual identity based on heteronormative, binary opposites; Gay/Straight, Male/Female, Masculine/Feminine...
It is an interdisciplinary critical theory, that emerged in 1990 as a response to feminist theory and Gay and Lesbian studies..
It breaks from the binary heterosexual normative and explores the fluid nature of sexual and gender identity. It was conceivable because the Gay rights movement in "Outed" diverse sexual and gender identities...
Queer theory is often used to designate the combined area of gay and lesbian studies together with the theoretical and Cultural writing..... --------- M.H.ABRAHAM
Queer Theory critically examines the way power works to institutionalize and legitimate certain forms and expressions of sexuality and gender while stigmatizing others. Queer Theory followed the emergence and popularity of Gay and Lesbian Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex(now, LGBTI or Queer) Studies in the academy. Whereas LGBTI Studies seeks to analyze LGBTI people as stable identities, Queer Theory problematizes and challenges rigid identity categories, norms of sexuality and gender and the oppression and violence that such hegemonic norms justify. Often considered the "deconstruction" of LGBTI studies, Queer Theory destabilizes sexual and gender identities allowing and encouraging multiple, unfettered interpretations of cultural phenomena. It predicates that all sexual behaviors and gender expressions, all concepts linking such to prescribed, associated identities, and their categorization into “normal” or “deviant” sexualities or gender, are constructed socially and generate modes of social meaning. Queer theory follows and expands upon feminist theory by refusing the belief that sexuality and gender identity are essentialist categories determined by biology that can thus be empirically judged by fixed standards of morality and “truth.”
We will begin the course by developing a critical understanding of Queer Theory through reading foundational texts by Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick, Gayle Rubin and Leo Bersani. We will then examine the relationships between Queer Theory and other social and cultural theories that probe and critique power, privilege, and normativity, including critical race theory, transgender studies, feminist theory, and disability studies.
Queer theory :
Queer theory is a field of post-structure critical theory. “Queer” is often used as an umbrella term by and for persons who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, intersex, and transgender, or by and for individuals who use the term as an alternative to LGBTI labels. Some find the term derogatory depending upon their race, class, personal experience, and also their generation. Recently, heterosexuals whose gender or sexuality does not conform to popular expectations have used the term “queer” to define themselves.
Nearly one in every 2,000 people is born with variations in reproductive or sexual anatomy, or has a chromosome pattern that doesn’t fit with what is typically considered male or female. Such individuals are “intersex” — the “I” in LGBTI — and can identify as male, female or neither. Along with this people are struggling in many places for recognition, equality and their human rights. The intersex people are born with unique biological characteristics, they are different from transgender people, who do not identify with their assigned gender identity. Ironically, many intersex people receive unwanted surgeries and hormone treatments that transgender people have to fight for.
Queer theory as a part of study :
Queer studies whose roots can be found in women’s studies, feminist theory, and gay and lesbian studies, as well as postmodern and poststructuralist theories. In 1991, Teresa de Lauretis used the words “queer theory” to describe a way of thinking that did not use heterosexuality or binary gender constructs as its starting point, but instead argued for a more fluid concept of identity.
The works of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler are often considered the founding texts of queer theory. Lauren Berlant, Michael Warner, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick are also major early writers in defining queer theory. Queer theory argue that it prompts the acceptance and understanding of a more complex reality in which we live. Queer theory provides scholars, activists, and others ways of thinking and talking about identity beyond simple binaries especially in fighting homophobia and transphobia, which are unreasoned fear and hatred towards homosexuals and homosexuality, and transsexuals, transsexuality, and transgender people, respectively.
Writers of Queer Theory :
Michel Foucault :
Judith Butler :
Eve Kofosky Sedgwick :
Gayle Rubin :
Leo Bersani :
Lauren Berlant :
Lee Edelman :
Jack Halberstam :
The rise of new gay and lesbians stereotypes :
Recently, the rise of two new types of gay man - what I call the 'girl's best friend' and the 'lifestyle gay' - has been conspicuous. Gay men as girl's best friends have appeared in movies, to name just a few, such as Julia Roberts' and Rupert Everett's My Best Friend's Wedding, Madonna's and Rupert Everett's The Next Best Thing and Jennifer Anniston's and Paul Rudd's The Object of My Affection and, perhaps with the most impact, in the TV series Will and Grace - which offers best friend relationships not just between Will and Grace but also between Karen and Jack.
In these cultural products, gay men are overwhelmingly associated with fashion, style and consumption - characteristics which render them of interest to women and whose best friends they become. The gay men in these media rehearse both what we already 'know' about gay men while simultaneously reinforcing received notions about what it is to be 'a homosexual' - that is, particular looks, movements, patterns of voice, manner of dressing, lifestyle choices and consumption patterns which are coded as homosexual are offered up as evidence of a character's homosexuality.
For instance, you may remember how Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde solves the murder mystery. She realizes that the wife could not have been in a sexual relationship with the Latino pool boy as alleged by the stepdaughter since the pool boy is, in fact, gay. She deduces this from the fact that he recognizes the label of her designer shoes - something which a heterosexual man would be, apparently, incapable of doing.
The problem with stereotypes :
In the case of the movies and sitcoms discussed earlier, the homosexual characters are scripted by writers who need to create clearly recognizable and digestible 'types' but the same is no doubt true of Warren and Gavin, a 'real' gay couple. Take their performance of 'the gay couple' on The Block - we must ask why precisely this couple was chosen - they clearly had the required 'look'; also, to what extent did their awareness of being on camera affect their performance of gayness and to what extent was that performance scripted by the show's producers and created by judicious editing to replicate the stereotype - what we already 'know' about gay men? How does a stereotype function?
Cover suggests that a stereotype, 'whether harmful and negative or harmless and positive, will reduce a set of ideas into an easily communicated and culturally intelligible image, stemming the flow of signification and constraining the possibilities for diverse subjective performances'. Sara Schulman’s anxiety about the circulation of 'fake' homosexual images suggests that these images depict or connote narrowly commoditized notions of homosexual life and of an openly gay identity.
Queer theory and the problem of 'identity' :
Queer theory is not about advocacy - it does not argue that the portrayal of a more diverse range of gay men and lesbians in public culture would somehow solve the problem of representation - the image of the 'fake' homosexual is not challenged by the production of more 'real' ones. Nor is queer theory related to psychoanalysis, it does not look for 'causes' of homosexuality in either the individual or collective psyche and does not seek to liberate an individual's 'true' sexuality. Queer theory instead offers, to borrow a term from Foucault, a genealogical critique which refuses to search for an origin of an individual's sexual orientation, a genuine or authentic sexual identity that repression has kept from view; rather a genealogical critique investigates the political stakes in designating as an origin and cause those identity categories that are in fact the effects of institutions, practices and discourses operative within the wider society. Queer theory concerns itself with the effects which arise from modern societies' preoccupation with consigning individuals into two opposite and mutually opposed camps on the basis of the gender of their preferred sexual partners. As Eve Sedgwick comments:
It is a rather amazing fact that, of the very many dimensions along which the genital activity of one person can be differentiated from that of another precisely one, the gender of object choice, emerged from the turn of the century, and has remained as the dimension denoted by the now ubiquitous category of 'sexual orientation'.
Indian view of Queer theory :
Hinduism has taken various positions, ranging from homosexual characters and themes in its texts to being neutral or antagonistic towards it.
Rigveda, one of the four canonical sacred texts of Hinduism says Vikriti Evam Prakriti (Sanskrit: विकृतिः एवम् प्रकृतिः, meaning what seems unnatural is also natural).
which some scholars believe recognises homosexual/transsexual dimensions of human life, like all forms of universal diversities.
Famous movie of Queer theory :
An example of the fluidity of gender/sexuality can be seen in the character of Captain Jack Sparrow in the movie...
In this film the main character Jack uses an ironic and 'over -the-top' performance of a pirate.
Includes wearing an over- elaborate costume and eye makeup, using feminine and camp gestures and avoiding anything that could be interpreted as machismo...
Examples of Movie :
Fire, Dostana, Margarita with a straw, Un-freedom..., Kapoor and Sons, Heroin, I am Michel and other movies
Examples of TV shows :
Shakti-Astitva ke Ehesas ki... , I love us, Aatma Parichy, and other…..
Conclusion :
This paper has given a very brief outline of some applications that can be made of queer theory to popular culture. Rather than a mode of analysis, like psychoanalysis, which attempts to discern a hidden 'reality' behind media representations – that 'everyone is really gay', for instance, queer theory is a heuristic approach which enables questions to be asked about why we choose to emphasize some and not other aspects of an individual's life when trying to give an account of who they are. As John Phillips (this volume) shows, queer theory is not interested in investigating the largely anachronistic question of which composers are 'really gay', or of elucidating how their same-sex desire can be decoded from their compositions. Just as feminism has problematized the notion of gender, looking at how society is fractured along the lines of perceived gender difference, queer theory takes the notion of sexuality, and inquires what the consequences are of placing a person on one side or the other of the hetero-homo binary. Rather than searching for the meaning in sexual orientation, queer theory encourages us to consider how sexual orientation is made to signify a range of meanings about the self.
