Queers on Film, Part One

So, the other night I watched the documentary Gender Rebel, and the following evening I watched Zero Degrees of Separation, which is also a documentary. Yes, yes, big fun here in the D. Both of these films are queer-focused, and though the issues covered in Gender Rebel are more familiar to me, Zero Degrees of Separation, which examines the Middle Eastern conflict through the eyes of two mixed queer couples (mixed = Arab + Jew), was by far the superior film. As I write that judgment, I feel a bit guilty—there really is no reason to compare these films beyond the fact that there is some overlap in their subject-matter, which crosses queer bodies, whether gender-rebellious, Israeli, or Palestinian. It seems fairly evident that Zero Degrees had a bigger budget and a more coherent vision for the story the filmmaker wanted to tell than did the lower-budgeted Gender Rebel, which stayed on the very surface of its subject instead of reaching for the depths plunged to in Zero Degrees.

Gender Rebel focuses on three biological females at odds with their feminine form and its built-in cultural expectations and limitations. They use various words to describe themselves, including genderqueer and gender fluid, but not transsexual, transgender, or lesbian. Like a lot of gender/sexuality documentaries I’ve seen, I found the film’s description to be more compelling than most of the movie itself: Director Elaine Epstein's captivating documentary explores the lives of three biological females who reject the conventional concepts of gender and see themselves not as female or male, but as something in between. The camera follows these individuals as they encounter challenges at every turn -- from the strain on their relationships to confrontations with communities intolerant of their way of life -- and find a way to cope with social alienation.

Sounds good, right? And it was, I guess; it just wasn't great.

I think part of my indifference also springs from the subjects’ young ages—the oldest, Kim/Ryan, is 25, and Jill and Lauren are both 22. Jill’s burden throughout the film is to come out as genderqueer to her mom; she is already out and accepted as a lesbian. She’s so earnest, talking about her mom’s “right to know” that she’s genderqueer, yet, she herself states that she doesn’t mind being female; she just wants to be perceived as a guy, and to that end, she wears only guys’ clothes and she binds her breasts. So, this “coming out” truly is kind of redundant—her mother sees how she dresses, sees how she presents herself to the world, you know? I like her, and I end up thinking she’s sweet, but this quest just reeks of privilege, all this pathos over naming what her mother already sees and accepts and loves.

Lauren comes off a little bit like those young, passionate, political dykes who recognize the folly of a dichotomous system of gender and sexuality and battle this by choosing an identity, much as someone chooses a uniform for a job, consciously turning the system on its head as a political statement. Kim, on the other hand, seems to be responding to something that emanates from within her more than a desire to challenge cultural norms. I find her journey the most compelling.

I think I’m also a little put off by how inarticulate the two younger subjects are, especially Lauren, when discussing their “genderqueerness” with other people. Lauren’s partner Liz, also genderqueer, has an aunt who identifies as lesbian. The three of them are sitting at the aunt’s small kitchen table talking about the wonder that is genderqueerness when Lauren and Liz each declare that they feel neither male nor female; the aunt says in exasperation, “Well you only got two choices!” And boom, right there, our young genderqueers have a chance to open this woman’s mind to the idea that there are not just “two choices,” and they could then enter into a dialogue about culturally-constructed notions of gender and …

Anyway, that isn’t what happens, and the aunt is left just completely perplexed and kind of defensive, too. Further, she seems concerned as she wonders if she, a lesbian, doesn’t get what these young genderqueers are up to, then how will the rest of the world? There are lots of moments like this, where I, too, am exasperated with the two young rebels—Lauren moreso than our earnest young confessor, Jill.

On the other hand, Kim/Ryan gets top surgery and starts T-therapy, and I have to say that even though I typically believe that such radical body modification is ill-considered, this young (wo)man truly flourished after his surgery. I saw him relax into his own body, and it was so beautiful. And he was articulate about his emotions and perspective—the other two gender rebels just repeated a lot of catch-phrases and never really seemed capable of participating in the sort of dialogue that would lead to their being understood. To a certain degree, Lauren and Liz seemed to use their poor communication skills as evidence of other people’s closed-mindedness.

Ryan’s story is absorbing, particularly in how his transformation affects his relationship with his girlfriend, Michelle, who struggles with questions of her identity—is she still a lesbian? She does not want to be perceived as straight, and she is concerned about being alienated from the lesbian community. Ryan is 5’9” and looked a lot like a goofy-looking guy before surgery and T-therapy. Now, the T is lowering his voice and changing his musculature and he’s working out a lot and… Michelle sees him as a man. And rightly so, huh?

Is perception everything? Whose? Our own? Or that of those with whom we interact? Of those who have power over us, those from who we wish to gain something, those who we are loathe to disappoint?

Despite my initial misgivings, there are moments that do remind me of the ways that I am connected to each of these gender rebels. During Jill’s long-dreaded trip home to come out to her loving and adoring mother, photo albums come out, and the mother suggests, supposedly jokingly (though those of us who are bio females who present as masculine know better), that her daughter go put on the prom dress that the mother has held onto for six years, and as the camera cuts to Jill’s face, I saw it—and I really don’t know if I have ever seen it before—but I saw it: the anguished look of “I cannot believe you see me as something so completely foreign to how I actually am” coupled with the agony of “I cannot believe I am so alien.”

Still, my absolute favorite part of the film comes during this same trip home, as Jill struggles to confess her genderqueerness and decides to bring up the subject when talk of her discomfort and avoidance of going to the gynecologist comes up:

“It’s just … I look like a boy.”

“Noooo, you dooon’t. I don’t think so,” the mom answers, sweetly, as a mom will.

“Kind of,” Jill sort of passively insists.

“Not really,” the mom responds.

“Yeah, but I dress and act like a boy. That’s kind of the look I’m going for.”

“Oh, you’re going for a little boy look?”, the mom asks, gently puzzled.

Jill nods and says, softly, “Little boy charm…”

“Little boy charm,” the mom says, looking at her daughter, thinking it over. “Well, you still need a pap test, little boy. I don’t really see the thing that you’re uncomfortable about.”

“Does it bother you that I dress like a boy?”

“Does it bother me that you dress like a boy?,” the Mom ponders for just a moment, “Well, I just never thought of it as boyish,” she continus, “I just thought of it as bad fashion.”

Fucking awesome.

From Homohate to Homohop

While writing this blog, I spent some time looking (1)here (2) here(3) here(4)and here. I’ve also been paying attention to the SOLGA (Society for Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists) listserv discussion regarding this issue.

As you can imagine, I have many thoughts regarding the passage of Proposition 8 and the demographics of that vote. While I am disappointed with any and every citizen who cast a vote for injustice, I certainly do not place the responsibility for this hateful deed squarely on the shoulders of black voters—and how could I? Contrary to the shrill, racist accusations of reactionary queers, I recognize that even the sturdy, slavery-toned backs of our fellow black citizens are not broad enough to carry this (black man's) burden. As soon as I became aware of the notion that black voters were somehow to blame for Proposition 8's success, I was immediately confused—"How many black voters are there in California?", I wondered. Followed pretty quickly by, "How on earth could any thinking person believe that black voters have enough political mass to have pushed this proposal through?"

I mean, these figures being thrown around about voter demographics are based on exit polls—talk about voodoo fucking science: folks positioned outside voting locations counting exiting voters and then surveying, say, every third or fifth or ninth one. The CNN poll that gave birth to the ridiculous 70% figure was based on just such “rigorous” polling of 224 black voters.

Did you catch that? No? Then allow me to shout it at the top of my fucking lungs:

This 70% figure that has everyone foaming at the mouth is based on the responses of 224 black voters.

Still, this contentious figure has gained intense national attention, and queers are spewing vitriolic accusations in response. Gay white men are especially bitchy, yo. Dan Savage declared that he’d eat his shorts if anyone could prove that queers voted for McCain in greater numbers than blacks voted against Proposition 8. I won’t even begin to dissect what a tortured parallel he draws with his ludicrous challenge (comparing a national election to a state-wide ballot measure?), but I’m happy to do some research on his query.

In California, where blacks are just over 6% of the population, the total number of eligible black voters is about 1,400,000. Assuming insanely high registration and turnout rates of 80% and assuming that each and every black voter voted in favor of Proposition 8 (both of these suppositions are absolutely ludicrous and patently untrue) this still means that blacks could have cast a maximum of 1.1 million votes that day. And guess what? About 1.3 million queers voted for McCain.

So, not only were blacks not the deciding factor in Proposition 8's passage, but more queers did, indeed, vote for McCain than did blacks for Proposition 8.

So, Dan Savage, get munching, ya sanctimonious prick.

As it turns out, though, queers do love them some McCain, who garnered a larger portion of the queer vote than any Republican candidate in history—27%, as compared to the 19% who supported Bush four years ago. Of course, and again, these numbers are based on CNN exit polling, though in this instance about 17,800 voters were polled, with 4% (about 700) being queer. So, if anything, this poll is a bit more robust than the one being used to scapegoat black voters. As I write this part, I am realizing, though, that Savage probably meant percentages, and not raw numbers, when he made his delightful reference to shorts-eating, in which case, relying on CNN science, anyway, blacks are more homophobic than queers are … Republican?

I don’t know.

I think Dan still needs to take a few nibbles of his shorts, anyway, even if he doesn’t consume them in their entirety. Shame on him for falling into the easy, predictable trap of scapegoating, when a nuanced analysis of race, sexuality, politics, and culture would reveal much richer, more useful results than simply declaring blacks a monolithic, homophobic, uppity mass of bigots.

The simplest truth is that homophobia is expressed with varying degrees of intensity, depending on a whole flood of factors, including, yes, race. I believe that beneath easy generalizations and ugly accusations there lurks a challenging and uncomfortable dialogue that, once undertaken, could ultimately be meaningful and unifying. I am much more interested in that sort of conversation than I am in the shallow, crude, brainless yowlings of thick-headed racists.

And, as I guess I previously mentioned, securing gay marriage is not as high on my list of sociopolitical necessities as are a score of other issues requiring immediate attention: poverty and homelessness; rampant imperialism and warmongering; the annihilation of the poor, middle-, and working- classes by the wealthy; healthcare and housing crises; prison and prisoner proliferation; a failing education system; loss of manufacturing jobs; loss of an agricultural base…

Racism. Homophobia. Misogyny. Classism. Xenophobia.

In the face of the profound distrust and loathing with which disparate groups of Americans have been taught to view one another and the rest of the world, and while millions struggle—to find work, to attend school, to eat, to stay warm, to live—fighting for the right to get married seems pathetically small-minded.

And yeah, it’s totally fucked up—queers pay full taxes and are denied full citizenship. It is completely unfair, and, as I have said for years, I really do not understand why every argument for queer civil rights does not go back to this simple fact: we are tax-payers, which earns us full access to all rights and privileges enjoyed by other Americans.

I think it’s a worthy fight—queer equality—but I am more interested in the bigger battle: unification of all poor-, working-, and middle-class Americans—queer or otherwise, black or otherwise; and if some would point to the success of Proposition 8 and similar measures as proof that this unification will never happen, I will argue that the battle has thus far been poorly fought.

And here, because I am exhausting even myself, I will end by briefly discussing some folks who I think are fighting the good fight—those crazy, wacky purveyors of homohop, which is the delightful moniker given to hip-hop made by queers. Awesome!

Watching the documentary “Pick Up the Mic” the other night, I got lost in the world of homohop, populated by rappers, DJs, and other hip hop artists who are challenging not just hip hop’s deeply entrenched homophobia, but also broader cultural notions of heteronormativity, sexuality, and gender. Homohop cuts across categories of race and class and gender, and in interviews with some of the main players—Dutchboy, Qboy, Katastrophe, Juba Kalamka, Tori Fixx—it became apparent that queer issues were important to these artists, but as part of a larger struggle to express and expose a common humanity. In interviews with these homohoppers, themes of class, identity, privilege, and alienation frequently surface, which I, too, believe are some of the issues at the root of our disconnection from one another.

It just isn't enough to fight for gay rights, or black rights, or women’s rights. We are hopelessly fragmented, we are brutal and single-minded. We spend countless millions to stop others from having the same rights that we do or to gain the right to do something that all the other kids are doing, and meanwhile, the space between us hardens; meanwhile, the world is afire.

If we ever learn to move beyond the particularities that we allow to divide us, if we ever learn to recognize each other as kith and kin, we will recoil from the blasphemies we have done one another.

Keith Olbermann on Prop Hate

Keith made me feel weepy and gooey.

Then I read the reader comments on various sites that hosted the video, and I felt all crushed and wounded and hopeless.

Then I listened to Keith again.

Warm and gooey, again, sans the faggy tears.

While I have always leaned more toward stripping marriage of any sort of privilege rather than linking it to privileges that can then be denied certain groups, I wouldn't be opposed, you know, in my secret little heart-of-hearts, to it truly being an open institution.

I got my eye on this little kitty cat that lives next door--sweet little thing with a deep, silky coat and a really great, rumbly purr.

Cha cha cha.

Curiosity Did Not Kill This Cat

Studs Terkel, a personal hero of many writers, died today the way most of us would like to: Home in bed, at the age of 96, with a copy of his latest forthcoming book on the nightstand.

The text of a 1995 Mother Jones interview with Terkel is below, and reading it is to be reminded why he'll be so deeply missed.

The MoJo Interview: Studs Terkel: We turn the microphone around on the king of the interview.

September 01, 1995

He's never left his day job, the five-decades-old radio show he hosts on Chicago's WFMT. But it was when he began compiling his interviews into books that Studs Terkel grabbed our undivided attention. Ranging in topic from the Depression (Hard Times), to American jobs (the million-selling Working), to racial divisions (Race), they may be the definitive oral histories of our time.

Now, at 83, Terkel gives us Coming of Age: The Story of Our Century by Those Who Lived It (New Press). In it, he asks many of his past subjects, now in their 80s and 90s, perhaps his toughest question yet: "What has your life been like?"

Q: You still type out your interviews on your old Remington. Have you been on the Internet yet?

A: They had me on it at the American Booksellers Association convention. I didn't know what they were talking about. The trouble with me and the Internet is that it's about facts and figures and information. But without the flesh and blood and the breathing that goes on, who am I talking to? What do they look like? Is it a multitude? Are there 25 people there? Who is that scraggly kid? The old woman there with a cane? That part--the human touch, that's what's missing.

This is one of the aspects of Coming of Age, one of the complaints that many of these older people have. Technology--some of my heroes and heroines let me know--makes them a little unhappy because something personal is missing.

Q: And yet, in a sense, your books and interviews were a precursor to the Internet, providing generally unfiltered information and ideas to and from ordinary people.

A: If we're to have a future in the 21st century, we'll want to be able to say, "Now what was the 20th century like in the United States of America, the most powerful of all countries of that century? What was it like to be an ordinary person?"

Q: But you first need to get them to open up, which you've been able to do pretty well. How?

A: I don't know. It's open, how I come upon things. [He pauses.] So, I'm in a cab, it was raining. I was working on The Great Divide, heading out interviewing. I'm in this cab and this young white driver saw the tape recorder and says, "Did you see Lord Jim?"
He meant the movie. I says, "Well, no, but I read the book and it's about this guy who finds his courage."
"It's about me, you know."
"About you?"
"Yeah, me--a coward who finds a little courage. That's why I joined the John Birch Society." So I say to myself, I got to get this guy. Oh, Jesus, I need him. I say, "Anywhere, anytime, I want to hear your story. Why you joined the John Birch Society and what you think about things."

And then it comes out. He's a guy who's had bad luck, and he's been a loser all his life. He says he joined the John Birch Society and became pretty important. But he says, "Funny thing, I worked as a prison guard for awhile and I got in trouble. I was going around--see I like black people better than I like white people."

It's all mixed; it's not all one stereotype. He says, "Later on they gave me a rough time because I was fraternizing too much with the prisoners." Now this is the same guy! It's so mixed-up--weird, crazy. And I want to catch that crazy maelstrom in which you can't have stereotypes, you can't have a rule of thumb.

Q: What about you? Is there a question you try to avoid answering?

A: Maybe about my self-centeredness. The way I keep going on this thing. [During interviewing for Hard Times] I had to get a caseworker, a social worker. Well, my wife [Ida, of 56 years] was a social worker during the Depression. And I thought, hmm, she'd be good. I'll change her name, and I did.

She happened to be my wife, but she happened to be good or I would never have used her in a million years. She was telling about--and here's the part--this one white guy, an old-time railroad worker. She remembers him as a distinguished-looking guy, gray hair, he's on relief, and she was given orders--she's a young girl--given orders to look into the closets of these people. As she's telling me this, of course she starts to choke up. She says she looks in his closet and it was empty. And she says, "He was so humiliated, and I was too."

You see that's a very marvelous moment! Marvelous. It was a horrible moment--but I call it a marvelous moment for me, to capture what it was like being humiliated. But as she is choking up, I'm saying, "This is great! This is great!" And she's saying, "You bastard!"

Well, I don't care what she says. That's it, that's the way I work.

Q: Have you ever cut something out of an interview to save someone from being embarrassed?

A: Oh, yeah. No interview, no book is worth the hurt to a person that is irreparable. I'm a strong believer in protecting the privacy of a person. For one thing, I don't want gossip or stuff of that sort. What is it that is said by that person that is a revelation to those reading it? What is the commonality? Of course, that person says, that's me!

Q: Through the years, has there been one issue in this country that seems most neglected or ignored?

A: The big one is the gap between the haves and the have-nots--always. You see, the basic issues--we're always up on these issues of abortion and all the others, that are important of course--but the key issue is jobs. You can't get away from it: jobs. Having a buck or two in your pocket and feeling like somebody.
A guy I interviewed for Hard Times says, "What do I remember about the Great Depression? That I was hungry, that's all." Elemental things.

This came up recently when I was asked: "Will shame do it?" Meaning: Will welfare people be shamed into getting respectable work? And I said that shame plays the biggest role there is: The biggest shame is that there is so much abundance around but that so many have so little and so few have so much. That's the shame.

Q: But living in this amazing house on this incredible street, is it still possible to connect with those have-nots?

A: This street is a have street. This is Uptown, which I like. It is a have-street enclave in a sea of have-nots. Beware of that. Here I am, the romantic again, without feeling the pangs of it. I like Uptown for the United Nations aspect of it. Uptown has more people from different societies and cultures than any area in the country probably. However, only about 100 yards away, there are the have-nots. Am I aware of that? Yeah.
I suppose without consciously doing so, I call upon my background, my childhood--The Wells Grand Hotel [his mother's boardinghouse]--meaning the guys who were there, the journeyman locomotive engineers, the carpenters, who lived in that hotel, and I continuously remember them.

Q: Having interviewed for so many years, are you surprised anymore by what people tell you?

A: The people in Coming of Age were far less curmudgeonly than you would think. The greater percentage said that without the young we'd be lost. One woman, a former Southern belle, now 87, a philanthropist, says, "Well, these young, their history's been stolen from them. And what have we done to make them respect us?" Another old woman remarked how "they try to run me down with the roller skates and the bicycles, and yet when I want to cross the street, they never fail to help me."
People in the book recognize the ambivalence of their feelings, that there is something that's been lost. Their lives have been pretty full. But they grieve for the young--what will their lives be like?

Q: What do you think the future holds?

A: I wish I knew. It's so incredible; unless there's a grassroots movement of some sort, with TV and the media in general in the hands of fewer and fewer people--the Murdochians, you know--all we hear is the one point of view. There has to be something communal.

Remember, Coming of Age opens up with George Bernard Shaw being quoted: "I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community as long as I live." No matter what the issues are, it has to be handled at the grassroots. When you take part in something, even though that movement may lose, the juices start flowing and you feel you count. You count. Well, that's pretty important.

Q: The environmentalist David Brower, whom you interview in Coming of Age, wanted us to ask you: "When did you decide that you were never going to retire? Or do you see some end to your work in sight?"

A: I cannot even picture myself retiring. What would I do? I'll always be doing something, asking somebody questions, even if there weren't a book.
I suppose if I have an epitaph it would be: "Curiosity Did Not Kill This Cat." I don't see retiring in the sense that we view it--I don't see how I could. Dying at the microphone or at the typewriter would not be bad.

Dale Eastman is senior editor at Chicago magazine.