Rage

[anotherusedpage]

Ohgod I have out of proportion RAGE at the reactions to queer Shakespeare criticism I was reading this afternoon....



'Since Martius and Commius are characters in a play, not people with a real life beyond the stagem ut makes more sense to enquire what these [queer] metaphors have to do with war, military values and social conflict than to ask how these men spend their hypothetical private moments'.

Now, although as far as I'm concerned anyone who doesn't want to speculate about what the two pretty angsty men are doing together off stage is just plain wierd, the statement in itself might initially seem perfectly reasonable, no?

Except he then goes on to spend the NEXT THREE PAGES going NOT GAY NOT GAY LALALA I CAN PROVE THEY'RE NOT GAY SO NOT GAY BECAUSE IT'S REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT THAT THEY'RE NOT GAY! AND WHAT'S MORE NEITHER ARE LAUNCELOT NOR GAWAINE. NO ONE IN LITERATURE IS GAY! OF COURSE NOT! NOT GAY! LALALALA!

And then totally failing to go on and address the issues of 'war, military values and social conflict' that I bloody well do in my queer reading thankyou very much.

AND it's a totally circular argument. It goes. 'Launcelot? NOT GAY! NOT GAY! Just ignore the fact that he kisses men more often than he kisses women. That's just normal in romance literature and NOT AT ALL GAY! And Martius, right? Martius is based on Launcelot and other characters from chivelrous romances who are NOT GAY and therefore Martius is NOT GAY too.'

For someone who doesn't care what theses guys do in my head their hypothetical private time, methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.

And now I'm all irritated.

Comments

[we-love-smudger.livejournal.com]

*points at icon*

Because that's exactly what it does. Yikes there would be no effing literature without Teh Gay.

Now, although as far as I'm concerned anyone who doesn't want to speculate about what the two pretty angsty men are doing together off stage is just plain wierd, the statement in itself might initially seem perfectly reasonable, no?

Totally. You rock. Other fellow doesn't. End of.....

[foreverdirt.livejournal.com]

*points at your icon, too* Yes. Just yes.

[we-love-smudger.livejournal.com]

Hee. I wuv my Supernatural icons. If I had any willpower I would desist from littering my everyday speech with phrases like "buckets of crazy" and "your low-fat vanilla latte's gettin' cold here Frances."

But what a dull life that would be eh?

Sucks out loud is the new sucks hard. Yes. *g*

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

*grin* I love you and I'm glad you're back around at the moment. You keep cheering up my day with random comments. :)

[we-love-smudger.livejournal.com]

Ah hun, you're most welcome....

I'm a perverse creature. RL is a shambles, and a painful shambles at that, so I find myself hopelessly drawn to the warm and friendly bosom of the flist.

When I should be thinking about the shambles. *looks over shoulder nervously* *hears the unmistakable sound of shambling*

But. Like I said. Perverse. Born backwards. Nothing changes, eh?

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

If you need to vent, your flist will listen. You know that, right?

*snugglelovepet*

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

Am I the only person in the world who thinks that, occasionally, men and men, as well as women and women, can be close and actually just friends?

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

No, there are large portions are the world screaming very loudly that men and men/ women and women can only be just good friends, and there can ever be anything more etc.

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

But I didn't say only, nor that there can never be anything more...

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

Neither did Jessie say that every close male friendship has to be gay. Just that it was upsetting her that critic was refusing to consider the possibly of it, with no better a counterargument that "NENENENEN I'M NOT LISTENING", and had no other point to make but this.

I would point out that what you said wasn't particularly helpful, or relevent given what she was upset about.

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

And I'd point out that there's no point having a go at me when I was just wondering out loud about something. Who'd you think I am, neonchameleon? I'm not just saying things with the sole purpose of pissing people off, I'd be quite interested in what anotherusedpage has to say about Homosocial bonds, actually.
I was not defending her critic, so there's no call to have a go at me, and I never said that Jessie said that every close male friendship has to be gay, k?

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Please excuse vampire_kitten leaping to my defence. It's just that she knows that I've been really easy to set off recently. She didn't mean to accuse you of anything, your comment didn't bug me, and even if it had it would have been me being jumpy and not up to being disagreed with at the moment, not you. :)

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Am I the only person in the world who thinks that, occasionally, men and men, as well as women and women, can be close and actually just friends?
*grin* no, not at all, although I have to admit to being guilty of occasionally forgetting this because of how my own sexuality is wired up - I tend to be sexual close to just about all of my close friends. I do have my slash-goggles very firmly attatched, and I do see gay people everywhere. I enjoy subverting straight texts to portray the characters in them as gay. *shrug*. There are levels and levels. I do know that Michael Owen and David Beckham are not really in a loving sexual relationship no matter how many times they kiss on the football pitch, but I do still tend to read that relationship as gay for my own amusement. I also enjoy looking for homosexual subtexts in places where they might plausibly be present, starting with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (where Joss has confirmed that several of the slashy subtexts were deliberate) and working all the way up to Shakespeare and Mallory (who can't confirm or deny anything, unfortunately, although there's plenty of historical and literary evidence for good ol' will being a little on the queer side, by which I don't mean homosexual (even if he'd slept with men he'd have been bi), but open to the idea of 'other', especially sexual other)

What we're talking about isn't real men and women, who can most definitely be in close relationships that are not sexual. We're talking about fictional characters, who when it comes down to it aren't have sex with anyone at all, except in my twisted mind. So when, for eg, Launcelot and Trystram fight in the nude and then kiss an hundred tymes, it can be interpreted as either homosexual or heterosexual. Both interpretations are valid.

If the critic had had a point to make beyond 'you're wrong you're wrong they can't be gay because they can't be gay', or if interpreting them as heterosexual was central to his interpretation of the themes of the play, then it might have been interesting to see why he had interpreted them as hetero rather than homosexual. But the impression that I got was that he was simply trying to deny that there could possibly be gay characters in works considered important to the literary canon, because it was wrong. It had a turn of phrase that read like 'I'm not being homophobic, but...' that wound me up.

Sorry, I seem to have written you an essay :)

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

Good for you - essay is entirely what I wanted! Because of course, in Finals you will have to justify it at every possible stage (even though I happen to know that Katy Duncan-Jones is very into her homosexual Shakespeare)

Have you come across the concept of homosocial bonds? Do you think that it's a real/justified thing, or critics who can't hack the homosexual thing?

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

No, I think that homosocial bonds are a very important thing. (Apart from anything it's what the footballers are really doing). Some time that is not now I will have my rant at you about the importance of single-gendered men-only-spaces that are not institutions of power and influence...

I don't think it's just people who can't hack homosexual who write about homosociality. Ummm. I just think that a) the line is blurry in real life, and that some (not all) homosocial behaviour comes from a repression of homosexual urges, and some leads towards homosexual urges and b) in literature, pretty much until the 20th century, the only clues you have about a character's sexuality are kissing and affectionate behaviour, on account of the lack of actual sex anywhere in the narrative, it becomes hard to distinguish. Morte doesn't show or directly imply that Launcelot is boinking blokes, but on the other hand, it doesn't actually even show or directly imply Launcelot boinking Guenevere which is kinda vital to the plot, it's generally quite coy in general... Therefore, how to distinguish between homosocial and homosexual, and heterosocial and heterosexual. It often comes down to critics saying men kissing is social and women kissing is sexual, because that's the way it is. We know this because men kissing is clearly a Manly Warrior Ritual Between Manly Men. But you never hear kissing of women being dismissed as only a social convention nothing to do with desire. cf Troilus and Cressida, the Shakespeare version, Cressida is kissed by the men in a very game-like fashion, which in some ways looks much closer to a heterosocial bonding making-her-one-of-us than the almost gang rape it's often portrayed as. On the other hand, in Gawain and the green knight, Gawain is specifically giving back what he's been given, which is a kiss in an excplicitly sexual context.

All of this is made harder by the lack of a language to discuss homosexuality. It becomes undistinguishable from homosociality. That's actually my argument when it comes to Martius and Aufidius, is that Martius uses the language of war to describe his wedding, and the language of his wedding to talk about his love, social or sexual, for his men friends. This leaves him without suitable language for discussing either desire or warfare, because the two registers have corrupted each other...

[foulds.livejournal.com]

Can I ask what his reason for the point paraphrased as 'BECAUSE IT'S REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT THAT THEY'RE NOT GAY!' was? I'm just interested in what reason he had for saying it was important.

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

I have this horrible suspicion that it's really really important because it proves they are not gay.

[foulds.livejournal.com]

True, but I just want to know what evidence he had for the text not containing homosexual undertones/overtones, and what his reason for arguing this was - it's not impossible he's right, even if he hasn't argued it that well, though I'm hardly well acquainted enough myself to make any judgement, and so as a largely clueless person, I want to know what he thought was the reason there was no homosexuality. What an odd sentence.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

His reasons for saying there was no homosexuality was, as I said, circular.

Also, he was doing quite a lot of reffering to studies without actually quoting or paraphrasing them, like: 'for reasons why hot men shagging in literature should not be considered homosexual but merely a literary trope of chivalry, see this 1996 study by A. Cademic.'

*shrug* I got the impression that he was really trying not to be homophobic, but not really succeeding that well.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

... to be honest, I don't remember. I didn't notice a point, but that doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't one. He said that assuming they were gay stopped you from adressing other issues, but then didn't adress any issues other than whether or not they were gay. *shrug*

The book was called Masculinities Of Shakespeare if you're really interested. :)

[foulds.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, one of those articles - it happens a lot with feminism in classics, where somebody declares a text just is clearly a pioneering work in feminist thinking, followed by declaration that because feminism existed in such an advanced form so early, we have to completely rethink the role of women in Greek society (there follows 200 pages of random speculation). They annoy me with their lack of sense.