Woo Hoo….(hold on – this dance ain’t for everybody)

….more jewelboxes to throw away! A box from Amazon just arrived containing the following three things:

Human Amusements at Hourly Rates: The best of Guided by Voices
TV on the Radio – desperate youth, blood thirsty babes
The Time – Ice Cream Castle

Thing is, I get cds for all the wrong reasons. You would think that anyone who bought as many of them as I do would be listening to music round the clock. In truth, I listen on the way to and from work, occasionally at home when doing chores and primarily when traveling. I tell myself that the small amount of djing I do justifies my expenditures but come on. I’ll buy a cd to hear what a band sounds like. And because I love getting presents (which is what those smiling amazon boxes still feel like even though I know where the money for them came from).

On a completely different note today’s New York Times chronicles the continuing bafflement of the Movie Industry in the face of the the ongoing success of Mel Gibson’s Passion. There is something quite delightful about the furious back pedalling and pandering that the executives are going through but what caught my eye were the following factoids:

“In the first days after its release on Feb. 25 (Ash Wednesday) “The Passion” drew large numbers from religious groups whose members had bought blocks of tickets. Since then exit polls conducted by the movie’s distributor, Newmarket Films, have found that young moviegoers have made up much of the audience.

“The R rating is limiting younger kids, but it is getting teens and college kids,” Newmarket’s president, Bob Berney, told Variety last week. The film has been promoted on horror-fan Web sites, and young men seem to be drawn by reports that the movie is gory.”

This of course is the demographic that Hollywood really cares about, but beyond that I was reminded about letters in the arts and leisure section on Sunday, arguing over the assertion of the film’s homoeroticism. One writer said that the film could not be homoerotic because it was clearly homophobic, given its androgynous Satan figure and nelly depiction of Herod. Something clicked into place in my thinking

It seems to me that this culture is engaged in a major reassessment of what Masculine sexuality is and this struggle is being enacted by trying to define the poles of hetero and homo sexuality. Images of male bodies in extremis are one of the major vehicles for this attempted definition.

I want to formulate this argument fully, but for now I’m going to just present a constellation of things: The Passion, Back Yard Wrestling, Jackass, Queer Eye, Punked, That reality show where the woman has to figure out which of her suitors are gay, 28 Days Later, the increasing visibility of “Kinky” sexuality on TV, and the gay marriage debate.

Like I say, this is just occured to me this morning so it is by no means fleshed out.

But here is one thought:

It of course is completely possible for something to be both homoerotic and homophobic at the same time; it’s a pseudo-Freudian cliche that homophobia is deployed as a defensive gesture toward one’s own homosexual desire. So in the Passion, our pleasure in watching the Christ’s torture is made clearly not sexual by the presence of figures who serve as sexual lightning rods: The physical disruption of Jesus’ body is clearly different from the sexual disruption of Satan’s so it and our involvement with it remains “straight”.

In the face of increasing proximity to homosexual experiences and voices, much of the culture will be engaging in such attempts in clarification (in the same way that 18th and 19th century culture used the notion of “Blackness” to bolster, and indeed invent, the identity of “White” people and thus to deal with guilt of slavery).

Much of my thinking around this is derived from Klaus Theweliet’s examination of Weinmar culture: Male Fantasies

0 Comments +

  1. It seems that all of Mel’s movies need something to distract people from the homoerotic implications of the other parts. Except, that is, for Mad Max, which is the only one I’ve enjoyed. I guess success ruined him early on.

    His hatred for anything not uber-masculine is downright chilling. He really is a Nazi in his heart.

    If masculinity is being reassessed in America, let’s hope it’s for the better. ‘s tales of casual homo-affiliation in the biker bars of the UK makes me want to pack right up and move there myself.

  2. I just want to play ball with you for a second here: The cruicified Jesus body — if we begin with the idea that his is absolutely semiotically a male body, vis a vis the fact that it’s a body that’s been penetrated — that’s been marked by (essentially) other men, it becomes a liminal sign — the transgressive body, the defiled (male) body, and so serves as a reminder of transgression and punishment.

    however, what do we do with the fetishistic scopophilia of the situation — that is to say, I can’t think of another male body that is available for (literal) consumption and objectification — so I’d argue that this his can be read as a feminized male body (the queering of jesus?) which goes with the aforementioned; but the blood and the gashes sort of again point to femininity, but it’s a nonreproductive femininity, so there, again, pointing back again towards homosexuality. (when we see nonreproductive femininity in myth, it’s often punishable by death as well.)

    to speak more directly to another of your points, i think that a lot of things can be read as homophobic and -philic at the same time — i think kenneth anger’s work, if you bend them a little, strangely enough, could be misread as cautionary tales and hence a repressive agent.

    don’t know if you agree with any/all of this, but it was fun to think about. thanks.

  3. gaze ~ gays, isn’t that ironic?

    “Homoerotic” itself is a patriarchal construct. I was always amused/annoyed/agog when artwork would be branded “homoerotic” simply because it had a male subject, when for hundreds of years all the artwork which featured women’s bodies was never labeled “homoerotic” — even though women could project sexual fantasies onto a painting or photograph of a woman as easily as [supposedly] a gay man could to artwork which featured men.

    I’m almost as annoyed when — supposedly as a search and selling tool — all sorts of detritus on eBay is advertised as “gay interest”. When I see those words, I know I most likely won’t be interested.

  4. “Walk like a man…”

    “…for now I’m going to just present a constellation of things: The Passion, Back Yard Wrestling, Jackass, Queer Eye, Punked, That reality show where the woman has to figure out which of her suitors are gay, 28 Days Later, the increasing visibility of “Kinky” sexuality on TV, and the gay marriage debate.”

    Your inclusion of 28 Days Later in that list reminded me that I really really have to re-read Thomas M. Disch’s 1974 dystopian novel 334. Set 30 years in the future (!), it mostly takes place in a public housing complex at 334 East 11th St. in New York. My memory of it is a little hazy, but some of it has stuck with me. Disch describes among other things, a shift in acceptance of various sexual orientations — but not without resultant anxiety about masculinity in the public subconcious, manifested in things like THREE different tv situation comedies about zombies.

  5. Re: “Walk like a man…”

    An interesting thing about 28 Days Later is that it isn’t a zombi movie, even though it was marketed as one. The infection in the movie makes it’s victims into raging incoherent attackers, but they are not the undead. The whole film is an attempt at critque of the social realities of contemporary England, with the release of overwhelming brutal rage as it’s lynchpin. Various models of maleness (paternal, military) are shown to have failed and part of the plot hinges on whether the most sympathetic male character has himself been infected or not. When you find the Disch book I’d love to read it!

  6. It’s interesting that you use the word Nazi because Theweliet’s books are about the way that pop culture versions of masculity in Weinmar Germany constitute an archeology of the fascist mind set. He is particularly good on the pejorative ways that “otherness” was depicted in those works.

    Unfortunately it’s been rare that the reassessments that I’m alluding to have resulted in looser boundries: because they are often the result of defensive mental operations they tend to make things more rather than less rigid. We may be in for another round of “good homosexuals/bad freaks”.

  7. I agree with pretty much everything you are saying here and it is in the face of such feelings that Gibson seems to be making sure that his Jesus “takes it like a man”.

    I’m interested more in the popularity right now of such a depiction, and what its appeal to teens and gore fans means – that’s why I bring in Jackass – a show where male pain and sexual humiliation are played with again I think in an effort to figure out what a “man” is.

    It’s very interesting that you bring up Anger (that avowed Satanist!) because I often find his films exhilarating and yet sometimes steeped in self loathing. Even though his films are quite chaste sexually, they resemble Genet’s mindset more often than anything else. Perhaps it’s his devotion to archetype, a notion I’m wary of.

    Your discussion of the punctured, limnal body of Christ reminds me also of Larry Cohen’s movie “God Told Me To”, where the hero final confronts an sexually and spiritually ambiguous Christ figure.

    Thanks for deciding to play!

  8. Re: gaze ~ gays, isn’t that ironic?

    Under the same mindset works that depicted women would simply be called “erotic”. Again I think this is a case where the definition of a “deviance” is actually an attempt to construct a norm.

    This was exactly the frustration I felt when I was attempting in graduate school to come to some notion of “gay” art that was not just cheesecake with a male rather than female object. If you recall at the time (82-4) there was precious little out there that wasn’t simply that. I knew I wanted to make art that investigated my life as a gay person, but I had no interest in the sorts of over simplifications that most “Gay Art” of the time trafficked in.

  9. There is definitely something in that – at the risk of sounding chicken little-ish I’d say that the rise of the metrosexual parallels the decline of a certain kind of queer community and culture.

  10. You know, I’ve been fascinated by Jackass, too, for almost exactly the same reasons. I think that feminism has brought about a crisis in masculinity which must now be redefined.

    Glad you inspired me to play. I don’t play enough.

    You’re inspiring like that.

    Thanks.

  11. “If it eats brains like a zombie…”

    “An interesting thing about 28 Days Later is that it isn’t a zombi movie…”

    A huge debate about this raged on movie geek sites such as aintitcool. A frequently made argument was that “real” zombies don’t run. In other words, you can recognize a zombie by the way it walks.

  12. Re: “Walk like a man…”

    An interesting thing about 28 Days Later is that it isn’t a zombi movie, even though it was marketed as one. The infection in the movie makes it’s victims into raging incoherent attackers, but they are not the undead. The whole film is an attempt at critque of the social realities of contemporary England, with the release of overwhelming brutal rage as it’s lynchpin. Various models of maleness (paternal, military) are shown to have failed and part of the plot hinges on whether the most sympathetic male character has himself been infected or not. When you find the Disch book I’d love to read it!

  13. It’s interesting that you use the word Nazi because Theweliet’s books are about the way that pop culture versions of masculity in Weinmar Germany constitute an archeology of the fascist mind set. He is particularly good on the pejorative ways that “otherness” was depicted in those works.

    Unfortunately it’s been rare that the reassessments that I’m alluding to have resulted in looser boundries: because they are often the result of defensive mental operations they tend to make things more rather than less rigid. We may be in for another round of “good homosexuals/bad freaks”.

  14. I agree with pretty much everything you are saying here and it is in the face of such feelings that Gibson seems to be making sure that his Jesus “takes it like a man”.

    I’m interested more in the popularity right now of such a depiction, and what its appeal to teens and gore fans means – that’s why I bring in Jackass – a show where male pain and sexual humiliation are played with again I think in an effort to figure out what a “man” is.

    It’s very interesting that you bring up Anger (that avowed Satanist!) because I often find his films exhilarating and yet sometimes steeped in self loathing. Even though his films are quite chaste sexually, they resemble Genet’s mindset more often than anything else. Perhaps it’s his devotion to archetype, a notion I’m wary of.

    Your discussion of the punctured, limnal body of Christ reminds me also of Larry Cohen’s movie “God Told Me To”, where the hero final confronts an sexually and spiritually ambiguous Christ figure.

    Thanks for deciding to play!

  15. Re: gaze ~ gays, isn’t that ironic?

    Under the same mindset works that depicted women would simply be called “erotic”. Again I think this is a case where the definition of a “deviance” is actually an attempt to construct a norm.

    This was exactly the frustration I felt when I was attempting in graduate school to come to some notion of “gay” art that was not just cheesecake with a male rather than female object. If you recall at the time (82-4) there was precious little out there that wasn’t simply that. I knew I wanted to make art that investigated my life as a gay person, but I had no interest in the sorts of over simplifications that most “Gay Art” of the time trafficked in.

  16. There is definitely something in that – at the risk of sounding chicken little-ish I’d say that the rise of the metrosexual parallels the decline of a certain kind of queer community and culture.

  17. I don’t think this is chicken-little-ish at all. I suspect it is true. One thing that my reading on queer history has taught me, though, is that we are a resilient people! Whatever gets co-opted will be reinvented. After all, anything that is embraced as “TRUTH” deserves to be queered…. just hope I get to be part of it.

  18. It’s interesting that you use the word Nazi

    No accident. Nazism is in part an extreme expression of… well, I’m not sure what word to choose. You know, that weird mix of plastic heroism, fetishistic history, mental hygiene, and Sense Of Grand Purpose that informs all kinds of extreme behavior.

    We may be in for another round of “good homosexuals/bad freaks”.

    Call me freakosexual. I hope American society is now laissez-faire enough to reject this distinction.

  19. “It of course is completely possible for something to be both homoerotic and homophobic at the same time; it’s a pseudo-Freudian cliche that homophobia is deployed as a defensive gesture toward one’s own homosexual desire.”

    And there you have a pretty concise summation of my sex life until fairly recently. One of my fantasies for a scene is to get some boy up in a straitjacket and perform aversion therapy on him to ‘cure’ his gayness. I keep expecting I won’t have many takers, or that I won’t want to meet the takers I get.

    Hmm. Thought this would be on topic, but it seems a total non-sequitur. Sorry.

    Great post, and even better user pic of bearded pipe-smokin’ bunny (with top hat! too precious!)

  20. the BDSM of the christ ?

    I’m thinking about what I’ve seen of James Cavaziel in post “Passion” interviews, but he seems in some way hardened, or tempered and oddly emotionless about the physical difficulties he went through in the role. Almost like Mel put him through some sort of painful initiation into …. manhood? Stoicism? And then the movie becomes coded homoerotic suffering in order to keep that eroticism subtext to the violence that justifies/enacts it.

    Haven’t seen the film (christian movies give me the willies), so I can’t really comment on if my theory plays out that way. Does it sound plausible?

  21. hedonistic spirituality ?

    The thing is simply making the male the subject of the gaze is STILL a radical act, still transgressive to the normalized and standard eroticizing of the female body. Viewing males as sexual is still OTHER, even after all the progress that’s been made, even after Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch, even as gay subtext has become text in so many corners of popular culture.

    Because most of those advances were only noted by the already converted, by the visually sophisticated minority capable of decoding them. To the large mass of people, denial is sufficiently effective keeps such imagery from having any sort of conscious impact, though the sublminal one is growing I think. Not to mention the uneasiness evinced on SNL and in standup comedy about the subject these days.

    Then again, the fact that gay is a subject of overt discussion in almost every media (save what, most soap operas and kid’s tv?) is a good thing I think. I can’t get over how much better a recent SVU episode (where George Segal murders his son’s lover in “homosexual panic”) was than one just four or so seasons ago where gays were killing each other on the party circuit.

  22. Your assessment of a redefinition of masculinity in our culture is spot on. It began, at least this time, in the questioning of the Beat generation of the gender roles of the 50’s. The 60’s hippie culture opened up the door to lots of experimentation in perceptions of male beauty, the natural movement’s fetish for long hair and beards is one example. The women’s movement of the 70’s really forced our society to see women as individuals, not just accessories of men, and the male image changed accordingly, morphing into something resembling Alan Alda, poster boy of the sensitive man. Then, came the clone, the pared-down, ubiquitous, levi-wearin’ guy, who refused to accept the cliche that gay men must love sweaters and sequins. How the 80’s big-hair rockers loved to borrow their bandannas and leather pants from the gay guys! All this mixing and morphing took a big hit when AIDS devastated the creative heart of our culture, and the baggy, sexless fashions, particualrly for men, that have prevailed since then have reflected it.
    Men are not now the sole providers. They are allowed to feel, and express, and share thier emotions, indeed–now they’re expected to. Real Men are partners in business, child-rearing, and dealing with infirmity and old age. The expectations and restrictions of what’s male have shifted, and continue to do so.
    I’m very happy to see this happening. But, change is slow, and in too much of our country, it’s a veneer. I remember how things are in Alabama or Idaho, and wonder if we can ever overcome that kind of entrenched tradition. Will these changes be too radical for the rednecks, and lead to another kind of cultural Taliban?

Leave a Reply to cornekopiaCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.