On Tolerating (Queer) Theory

Music: The Cranes: Wings of Joy Midterm period has arrived and, therefore, so have the complaints about the course I'm teaching, "Rhetoric and Popular Music." In large classes you're always going to have some folks who are unhappy with what or how you teach. And, of course, because I'm like the George Costanza character, it bums me out that I cannot "make" everyone happy. Part of the trouble for me is adjusting to the UT students, who are much more studious and much more righteous than the LSU bunch; the former I like, the latter, not so much. The codes of formality are proving a challenge; Austin is very different from Baton Rouge. I suspect it'll take at least a year to figure this audience out.

Anyhow, recently there have been murmurings among the students (which get back to you one way or another) that reek of homophobia and sexism, which is not surprising insofar as that is our culture in general. Anyway, having gone to the principal's office last week for a second time about my relative inability to self-censor (which I do need to work on), it's time to start towing the line between politics and info-transmission a little better. On Tuesday we are discussing queer theory, and we get into some pretty frank sexual material (they're reading an essay by a lesbian punk rock grrrrrl titled, "If I Had a Dick"). To avoid a homophobic backlash (catalyzed by the impending midterm after the lecture, no doubt), I sent this email to the class. I hope it works to defuse heterosexist anger. We shall see:

Greetings Class,

Your resident instructor here with some background commentary on your reading for Tuesday, as they directly challenge cultural assumptions of "normalcy." So far I hope that the greatest challenge of the course has been the difficulty of the readings, which, as we make the "anthropological" shift, are getting easier (and returning to the eighth grade level). Now, the greatest challenge may not be the reading as much as the ideas we are engaging about "identity" vis-à-vis masculinity, femininity, and sexual orientation.

Tuesday we are discussing the field of "queer theory," which grew out of the heated discussions of feminism in the 1980s and 1990s regarding sexual desire and the relationship between social identity and biology. We'll spend some time on Tuesday discussing the term "queer" itself-which is confusing-but for the moment let us simplify a lot of the concern of queer theory to a series of questions: to what extent does biology and genetics form a materialist basis for gender and sexual identity? In other words, are we born gay, straight, or somewhere between those two poles? Where do the chemicals and biological predispositions end and culture begin? Why is sexual identity such an obsession in the United States (e.g., what's the big deal about the proposed Texas amendment to ban gay marriage)? Finally, why are we so interested as a culture in these questions?

The latter question may resonate somewhat. To put it like my own granny does, "who gives a d*&! what you do in the privacy of your own home?" Or to reduce it to a question I received some years ago from a student, "who cares?"

The answer to the last question is this: if you identify as traditionally masculine or feminine or "straight," for whatever the reason, you have a much easier time in our society that if you do not. Sometimes having someone broadcast their sexual identity in your face gets tiresome-I know, folks, it can get old or be just annoying. I lived in DC many years on the gay pride parade route, and, of course, on a Mardi Gras parade route in Louisiana, and I've had all kinds of things foist upon (and once into) these tired eyes! My point, though, is this: if you were deemed socially "abnormal," it hurts, and it can be empowering to say, unabashedly and unashamedly, "this is me!"

Indeed, not being "normal" in any respect first leads to torment (think back to your own experiences in middle school, hey?), and then ridicule, and to all kinds of rejection. The big problem is that being different can get you killed (e.g., Matthew Sheppard, Tina Brandon, hundreds of thousands of folks without white skin, Jews . . . Jesus, alas, we are not wont for examples in history). So the answer to the question "who cares?" is "those folks who are more likely to suffer "-as well as the people that love them. Although you might think you are pained reading this stuff, feminism and queer theory are really about ending human suffering.

That's really what it comes down to folks: people suffer and die because they are "different." If there is a tacit ethical teaching to this literature, it is the lesson of tolerance.

Feminism and queer theory concern thinking about ways to keep people from getting hurt because they are not what society deems "normal" in regard to their gender and their sexual desire. Millions of folks live realities that are fraught with pain and hardship, and only because they harbor a preference for someone of the same gender or sex (or of a different race, and so on). As we saw with Walser on heavy metal, popular music practices are a central way in which these issues are expressed and negotiated in our culture. For reasons we discussed with Attali and Adorno (the irreducible humanness of music, that "noise" factor), as a powerful form of human expression, music can be used to create a kind of force field for expressing, deconstructing, constructing, and establishing a gamut of identities. Music, in other words, can unsettle our gendered and sexual identities (e.g., glam rock; lesbo-punk) as much as it cam reestablish or reinforce them (e.g., Enya; Nas).

Finally, as we tread into this territory I need to underscore a few things about the ultimate purpose for assigning this material. Although it may appear at times your goodly instructor is endorsing or promoting this or that approach, requiring readings and lecturing on queer theory is not to be taken as an ENDORSEMENT or propaganda for joining the some sort of Gay Borg or ominous Lesbo Deathstar (nor does lecturing on materialism entreat you become a socialist). Exposing you to this material, or any discussion of non-straight sexual identity, is not designed to "convert" you; it's not, in other words, sermonic. Rather, it's functionally informative AND designed to challenge settled, "normal" beliefs about what is and isn't appropriate in our society (indeed, what is or is not appropriate to discuss in the classroom!). You can think about it this way: the classroom should be the opposite of the church, synagogue, or mosque. In class, we challenge our settled ideas about normalcy and look beyond deity or the physical sciences for alternative explanations for social practices. In the house of God, we reaffirm and reestablish our settled ideas and beliefs. And in some ways, you cannot have the latter without the former.

Although this course is taught from a cultural studies approach, meaning that my personal politics is out on the table since any pretense to objectivity disguises the power relations in the classroom, readings like those for tomorrow are NOT assigned to "convert" you. Our aim is to expose you to the variety of work done on popular music, and to expose you to realities that you may never encounter once you leave the Academy. Indeed, the reason we call our institution a "university" is because, ideally, you will be exposed to the "universe," even to those ideas or philosophies that challenge your settled beliefs and values. The moral to this missive is this: keep an open mind, try to understand what's being said, and, as much as humanly possible, make the classroom inside and outside of our university walls a "safe space" for everyone: male, female, gay, straight, lesbian, transgendered, transsexual, bisexual, and all things in between.

Finally, I recognize this message is crafted for a "straight" audience, so let me give a shout-out to those among you who are forced to switch codes in the classroom (which, as you well know, is also almost always oriented to the "hetero" world): if you do not identify as "normal," welcome. I hope the readings and lectures on identity-sex, gender, and sexual orientation-ARE sermonic and reaffirming for you, and that classroom is a safe space in which you see your reality reflected.

Yours from Cameron Road,

D(Jx3)