Semicolon IX.I.

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t he s emicolon

arts & humanities students’ council volume IX issue I

;;; essay journal

The S e m i c ol on Essay Journal Winter 2015 Arts & Humanities Students’ Council at Western University

The Semicolon accepts A-grade essays written by undergraduate students for courses within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Western University. For more information and copies, please contact the Arts and Humanities Students’ Council in AHB ON2OD.

Editor-In-Chief Academic Managing Editor

Maryam Golafshani Serena Quinn

Creative Managing Editor

Gordon Haney

Copy Editor

Eric Zadrozny

Layout Editor

Calyssa Erb

Copyrights remain with the artists and authors. The sole responsibility for the content in this publication remains with the authors and artists. The content does not reflect the opinions of the Arts and Humanities Students’ Council (AHSC) or the University Students’ Council (USC).

The AHSC and USC assume no liability for any errors, inaccuracies, or ommisions contained in this publication.

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L ette r f rom t he E ditors

Writing essays is simultaneously every arts and humanities students’ nightmare and dream. You would rather write an essay than cram for an exam full of unexpected questions, but the process can seem dreadfully daunting at the start. And no matter how many essays you’ve written, you never seem to find the magic formula for how to write the best essay with the least amount of pain. Essay writing is a continuously evolving process, so we’ve got a few tips that will hopefully help you out next time.

1

Finish your paper, leave it alone for the night and re-read it in the morning with fresh eyes. Even give it to a friend or a roommate to read over; they might catch something that you didn’t see.

sure your argument is clear and concise. Using extensive description or im2 Make agery, and using a lot of repetition might make your argument unclear, or distract the reader from your overall point of the paper

your audience. Most likely it will be your professor or your teaching assis3 Know tant, so in order to know what they are looking for, take advantage of office hours to run your thesis by them.

writing an essay (especially when balancing several at once), it becomes 4 When tempting to write beginning to end; instead, start with a quick outline and save the introduction until the end. After all, how do you know what you’re introducing if you haven’t even written it yet?

mine the crap out of the text you’re analysing; just gather as many quotes as 5 Quote you can, even if you don’t use half of them. By the time you’re done, you’ll be able to distill those quotes into an essay worth reading.

6 Read your work out loud when editing. be afraid of word vomit. Spew all your thoughts (run-on sentences, poor 7 Don’t grammar choices, and all) onto the page, then go back and refine your sentences until you have a polished product.

with some serious writer’s block? Try some old school pen and paper; 8 Struggling you might find the right words flow out of the tip of your pen much easier than onto your computer’s keyboard.

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Tabl e of C ontent s

Comparative Literature 1

Nina Youkhanna’s Virgin, Dominatrix and Nymph: Exploring the Ambivalent Position of Women in Dante’s Purgatorio

Creative Writing 8 14 17

Helen Ngo’s Reclaiming Feminism: Archaic Media Portrayals and the Rhetoric of Fear Travis Welowszky’s The American Jest: An Analysis of “All-American” by David Hernandez Pauline Turgeon’s Stoking the Fire: A Journey through the Past

English 19 23 28 33

Brie Berry’s Video Killed the Radio Star but Shopping Killed the American Dream: Late Capitalism and Death in Don Delillo’s White Noise Taylor Davison’s The Teller of Her Own Tale: Fairy Tales and Agency in Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” Rebecca Doyle’s Professionalism, Anglophilia, and Gender: An Exploration of the Failure of Women to Communicate Effectively in The God of Small Things April Tanner’s “One Large Double-Double, Please”: Tim Hortons as an Althusserian Cultural Ideological State Apparatus

Visual Arts 37

Samantha Roberts’ Political Power in the Internet Age: The Appropriation of Shepard Fairey’s “Hope”

Women’s Studies 40 48

Christina Venier’s Jesus, Take the Deal: Women, Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism, and the Liberal Bargain in Country Music Allison Taylor’s ‘Queer-ies’ About Butch/Femme: An Essay on the Impact of Homonationalism on Queer Female

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Virgin, Dominatrix and Nymph: Exploring the Ambivalent Position of Women in Dante’s Purgatorio

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Nina Youkhanna CLC 3345

In the Divina Commedia, Dante presents a range of female characters from saints to sinners, victims to seductresses. In the Inferno, the predominant feminine role is that of carnal sinner as exemplified by the most famous woman in Hell: Francesca da Rimini. In Purgatorio the pilgrim encounters only two female penitents, Pia in Ante-Purgatory and Sapia on the terrace of Envy. The most interesting women in the cantica, however, are not penitents but holy persons of great esteem. The most important female figure in Mount Purgatory is the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose role as overseer and patron is continuously reinforced despite her never being present in the flesh. Mary is the exemplar of the Christian woman who “is closely associated with the themes of love, beauty, wisdom and unity” (O’Grady 103). She appears on every terrace throughout the journey as the exemplar of the virtue that opposes the sin being purged. The penitents are called upon to emulate her, and they in turn pray to her to ease their suffering. The second lady of importance is Beatrice, who is Dante’s guide in the latter cantiche and the one who initiates his divine journey. Her appearance is foretold by Virgil and eagerly anticipated by the pilgrim. Through her love, Dante-poet is able to redirect his love from worldly objects to the holy person of God. In between these two figures, Dante-pilgrim meets Matelda, handmaiden to Beatrice and warden of the Earthly Paradise. The three women, despite their apparent similarities, are quite different from each other. Whereas the Madonna’s position is clear as the epitome of Christian womanly virtue in Dante’s Comedy, Beatrice and Metalda possess an ambivalent nature that combines female sexuality and male intellectual dominance.

The Virgin Mary is the virtuous Ideal Christian Female in Dante’s Comedy.

She is, first and foremost, seen as God’s vessel in her role as the Mother of Christ. In her person is combined all the virtues a woman should possess such as humility, compassion, and chastity. Therefore, in the Christian world and in Dante’s poem, she is the standard held up to all other women, divine or mortal. Marianne Shapiro notes that in Purgatorio Mary is presented not as the lover that mysticism sometimes painted her, but as a mother (107). As Christ’s mother, she cultivates the image of the approachable protectress who also serves as intermediary between humanity and divinity. Thus, Mary is “less a personal focus of adoration than a guide who directs the love of man from herself to the divine Father” (Shapiro 108). These characteristics serve to strip the Lady of Heaven of all and any venereal associations. Dante promotes this non-erotic view of Mary in Purgatorio by positioning her as the first exemplar of the virtues on each terrace as well as the champion of the penitents.

On the terrace of Pride, Mary is the first exemplar of humility. Her triumph is shown first in a series of marble carvings, and the moment depicted is the Annunciation when the angel Gabriel “came to earth with the decree of peace/ that had been

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wept and yearned for all those years,/ which opened Heaven, ending God’s long ban” (X, 34-36). Dante describes her as she “who turned the key to love on high” (42), which not only links her with divine love, but also establishes her position as the keeper of that love. She is associated with womanly obedience (and the theological virtue of Faith), and sharply contrasted with Eve, whom Dante later reprimands for not “[remaining] submissive” (XXIX, 28) to God’s wishes. Whereas Eve is the cause of the Fall of humanity, the Virgin Mary is the “female archetype of spiritual ascent” (Shapiro 106). In addition, Eve herself became a temptress when she induced Adam to eat the apple, and the eroticism of her role is emphasized by numerous artistic depictions throughout history. By setting an opposition between Mary and the first temptress, Dante further emphasizes the Virgin’s ultimate purity.

The Madonna is first and foremost desexualized by being placed as the exemplar of Chastity on the terrace of Lust. There, she is not seen in art, through disembodied voices or as a vision, but her words are echoed by the penitents. Dante-pilgrim reports that “they cried aloud: ‘Virum non cognosco’,/ then, in softer tones, began the hymn again.” (XXV.128-129) These are repetitions of Mary’s words (“I know no man”) to Gabriel when he brings her the good news. However, virginity does not guarantee desexualization. It is her portrait as the gentle mother of all Christians that completely removes any chance of her being seen as an object of desire. This motherly role is most clear in the terrace of Wrath where Mary, as the exemplar of Meekness, appears to Dante “in an ecstatic, sudden vision” (XV, 86). Dante does not even name her but only calls her “a woman,/ with the sweet demeanour of a mother” (88-89), where she has just found young Jesus at the temple after losing him in Jerusalem. There she tenderly reproves him: “‘My son, why have you dealt with us like this?/ Behold, your father and I have searched/ for you in sorrow.’” (90-92) The gentleness of her reproach mirrors her attitude towards the sinners in Purgatorio and on earth who are given a chance to repent and return to God through her. The combination of her pure nature, motherly inclination, and divine connection serve to set Mary on a pedestal that cannot be reached, let alone affected, by the male gaze.

In addition to the quintessential motherhood, Mary’s role as the moral guide and guardian of the penitents is witnessed by Virgil and Dante-pilgrim throughout their ascent in Purgatorio. The saved souls are constantly invoking her name in prayer or in sighs of contrition, always petitioning her for mercy. Her guardianship, however, does not become apparent until she answers the soul’s prayer, the Salve Regina in Canto VII, and intervenes to protect them from the snake at the Valley of the Princes. Another opposition between Mary and Eve is established, this time by Dante, who notes that the snake is “perhaps the one that gave to Eve the bitter fruit.” (VIII, 99) If the snake is a symbol of Eve’s inability to resist sin, then the “celestial falcons” (104) are a symbol of Mary’s virtue which wards it off. Shapiro remarks that the Virgin is “the redeemer whose purity contrasts violently with the fallen, fragile, and dangerous Eve.” (109) It is no wonder then that the Virgin Mary presides over Mount Purgatory, whose whole purpose is precisely to redeem and purify. Her role as the intercessor between humans and God is clearest in the terrace of Gluttony where she is the exemplar of Temperance.

Dante-pilgrim hears a voice calling: “‘Mary gave more thought/ that the marriage-feast be decorous and complete/ than for the mouth with which she pleads for you.’” (XXII,

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142-144) Jean and Robert Hollander (2004) note that Mary’s mouth is preserved not for eating but for “intervening for sinners with her prayers.” (506) In this case, the mouth, which is considered a sensual orifice, especially in a woman, is here used as the vessel of caritas.

In all her roles, however, Mary is a passive woman. Shapiro notes that “feminine heroism is usually negative” and that “[its] manifestations are passivity and suffering.” (38) In all the exemplars she provides, she is either presented as God’s obedient servant or as Jesus’ mother who suffers through his birth and childhood. Although Mary’s position is a powerful one in terms of the efficacy of her prayers, they remain prayers passively uttered from her position in Paradise. Even her intervention in Purgatorio is never done personally but always though others, such as falcons, voices, visions, etc. In contrast with Eve’s active role in the Fall, Mary achieves her victory simply by her submissive role as God’s obedient vessel and Christ’s merciful mother.

Beatrice is the mirror image of the Virgin Mary in Purgatorio, where she also embodies the three theological virtues and acts as an intermediary. However, there are major differences between the two women: Whereas the Virgin Mary’s role remains static and unquestionable, Beatrice is slightly more nuanced in the minds of Dante-pilgrim and Dante-poet.

Beatrice appears on the scene with much pomp and ceremony, in a chariot driven by a griffin, surrounded by servants, accompanied by music and thunderclaps.

In fact, Dante dedicates the entirety of Canto XXIX to herald and describe the majestic procession. Compared with the Madonna’s first appearance on a marble wall that depicts a peaceful scene of humility, Beatrice’s entrance seems exaggerated. In addition, Beatrice exhibits “scorn” in her first meeting with Dante (XXX, 65). When she chastises him, she expresses indignation at Dante’s abandonment of her: “Never did art of nature set before you beauty/ as great as in the lovely members that enclosed me,/ now scattered and reduced to dust.” (XXXI, 49-51) This betrays a certain sense of self-importance on Beatrice’s part, and sets a jarring contrast between Mary and Beatrice’s, with the latter losing some of the qualities of ideal femininity.

Beatrice amalgamates within her character the feminine and the masculine.

Beatrice’s feminine function is, much like the Virgin Mary, to take on the role of the mother. Her first words to Dante are: “‘do not weep, do not weep yet—/ there is another sword to make you weep’” (XXX, 56-57). Even before her appearance, Dante has been reduced to a child who had lost his gentle mamma (44). Now, as Bernard Stambler observes, Beatrice’s sudden and overwhelming power evokes in Dante a fear of “that which he can neither understand nor cope with” (258). Dante-poet protests: “As a mother may seem overbearing to her child, so she seemed to me” (XXX, 79-80).

Clearly, Beatrice takes over the role of mamma from Virgil, yet she is not what one would have expected. Her attitude towards Dante-pilgrim can easily be described as “cruel” (Stambler 260), even though she does it for his benefit. In their roles as mothers, Beatrice deviates from the ideal set by Mary in the exemplars: whereas the former is passionate and stern, the later is serene and forgiving.

Beatrice, in addition, performs a masculine role and Dante-poet is quite transparent about this fact. Following her admonition, he likens her to an “admiral who moves [...] from stern to prow/ to see the men that serve the other ships/ and urges

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them on to better work”. (XXX, 58-60) Furthermore, Dante-poet shockingly changes Beatrice’s gender: “she continued like one who, even as he speaks,/ holds back his hottest words. [emphasis added]” (71-72) These analogies that the poet uses to interpret Beatrice’s actions point to the opposite direction of her motherly role discussed above.

Being akin to a mother, albeit a severe one, implies an intimate connection between Dante and Beatrice, whereas Dant-poet’s view of her as a masculine figure suggests a simultaneous aloofness between the two. Shapiro suggests that Beatrice’s power comes precisely from this masculine position which is an “affirmation of her patriarchal might.” (14) This strength is also presented in the authority of her gaze. Sarah Stanbury indicates that traditionally, the female gaze was considered “cupidinous, seductive, aggressive, [and] thoroughly transgressive”. (1084) Dante-poet, however, transforms Beatrice’s gaze into a masculine one so that it is devoid of any feminine erotic undertones. She fixes her eyes on him (XXX, 66), commands him to “Look over here!” (73), and even forces Dante-pilgrim to lower his eyes in shame (76-78). What ultimately puts Beatrice in a superior position, however, is the fact that she is veiled and so (like the Madonna) she deflects the male gaze through her virtuous demeanor. Even when she unveils her face, Beatrice’s gaze reveals a deep understanding that is beyond the pilgrim’s comprehension. When she looks at the griffin, Dante-pilgrim perceives that “[even] as the sun in a mirror, not otherwise/ the twofold beast shone forth in [her eyes],/ now with the one, now with its other nature.” (XXXI, 121-123) This indicates Beatrice’s grasp of Christ’s double nature as divine and human, and in turn her superior moral position compared to that of Dante-pilgrim. This also puts her in the position of the Madonna who mediates between mankind and God just as Beatrice mediates between “truth and intellect”. (VI, 45)

It is clear that when Dante-poet attributes masculine characteristics to Beatrice, “sex [is] decisively eliminated from her role and sublimated into aspirations toward values associated with the individual male.” (Shapiro 151) Beatrice, for Dante-poet, is essentially a symbol, an embodiment of spiritual and artistic perfection that could have been. Since she is no longer a dweller of the earthly realm but a saint, he cannot harbour sexual desire towards her. Because she is a double of the Virgin Mary, the poet in Purgatorio attempts to make Beatrice as non-erotic as possible (by attributing unfeminine characteristics to her). The pilgrim, however, appears less capable of denying his passions.

Dante-pilgrim sometimes fails to see Beatrice as a Heavenly Lady beyond his sexual desire, but is often compelled to see her as his former earthly lover. For it is desire for her sight that propels him to abandon his fear and plunge into the wall of fire that separates them (XXVII, 40-42). To him, she is still his antico amor whose power is so “overwhelming”. (XXX, 39) It is also desire that seizes him when he first glimpses her eyes: “A thousand desires hotter than any flame/ bound my eyes to those shining eyes”. (XXXI, 118, 119) It is hard to imagine that all those “desires” are only Platonic or intellectual. After all, Dante-pilgrim remains tainted with sin because he will not be given a place in Paradise when he dies, but will have to return to Mount Purgatory to purify himself. As opposed to the Madonna’s saintly mouth that is used to pray on behalf of sinners, Beatrice’s mouth, which conceals a “second beauty” (138), is unveiled for Dante-pilgrim. Whether this alludes to sensual or intellectual “beauty” is not clear.

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However, this unveiling immediately puts Beatrice in a vulnerable position where she is subjected to the male gaze. Dante-poet confesses that once Beatrice takes off her veil (a symbol of modesty) “[his] eyes were fixed and so intent/ to satisfy ten years of thirst/ that all [his] other senses were undone.” (XXXII, 1-3) Dante-poet even betrays himself when he proclaims that Beatrice’s smile was able to “ensnare [his eyes] in its old, familiar net”. (5-6) Firstly, Dante equates Beatrice’s old and new smile even though she is now a transformed woman and is no longer mortal. Secondly, the “net”, reminiscent of the one that ensnared the mythical lovers Venus and Mars, is charged with erotic associations. Yet, throughout all this, Dante-pilgrim remains apprehensive about expressing his desires and addresses Beatrice with the utmost reverence since she is his saviour and new guide. Beatrice, as an allegorical character in Dante’s Poem, is “a negation of lustful love” (Shapiro 71), and “a satellite of God” (33) who is meant to bring him back to the straight path. However, in Dante’s eyes, she possesses the double nature of the griffin where she is both an object of desire and a beacon of pure divine light. It is a love where, Stambler asserts, “the highest soarings of masculine imagination are matched (or even surpassed) by the reality of God-endowed femininity.” (40-41)

Another point of opposition between the Madonna and Beatrice is the latter’s active role in Dante-pilgrim’s journey. Beatrice herself points to her assertiveness: “I visited the threshold of the dead/ and, weeping, offered up my prayers/ to the one who had conducted him this far.” (XXX, 140-142) She personally goes down into the Inferno in order to ask for Virgil’s help instead of sending a messenger like Mary. Her action is extended into the role of confessor when she commands the pilgrim: “Say it,/ [...] To such accusation/ your confession must be joined.” (XXXI, 4-6). In addition, by inheriting Virgil’s role as guide, she not only identifies with the masculine but also takes on the the duties of a travelling companion, teacher, and chaperone.

The other prominent female figure in Purgatorio is Matelda, the warden of the Earthly Paradise who appears in Canto XXVIII. She, like Beatrice, has a double feminine/masculine role and an erotic/Platonic relationship with Dante. The main difference between her and Dante’s former lover is that both the pilgrim and the poet overtly sexualize Matelda. She is the only female Warden that the pilgrim has met so far in his journey. The other two, Minos and Cato, are both male. This immediately gives her a certain degree of authority when equated with such commanding guardians in the Comedy. In addition, Matelda is the one who bathes Dante-pilgrim in the river Lethe: “The lovely lady spread her arms,/ then clasped my head, and plunged me under,/ where I was forced to swallow water.” (XXXI, 100-102). This act is obviously a baptism and can be connected to the first one in Christianity where Christ was submerged in the water of the Jordan River by John the Baptist. Once again, Matelda is paralleled with a powerful male figure, but this time in the Christian tradition. These associations give Matelda an active role in Purgatorio that distinctly contrasts with the passive and suffering Madonna.

As opposed to Beatrice’s first appearance as the desexualized angry mother, Matelda is first seen as a nymph whose erotic appeal is made clear from the first encounter. Dante-pilgrim, even before Matelda speaks, evokes successive allusions to three erotic mythical relationships. The first one is the Ovidian myth of Proserpina’s kidnapping by Pluto: “You make me remember where and what/ Proserpina was, there

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when her mother/ lost her and she lost the spring.’” (XXVIII, 49-51) In this case, Dante parallels himself with Pluto and, consequently, describes his first view of Matelda “in a context of passionate, even violent desire.” (Stambler 244) The second allusion is in relation to Matelda who is likened to “Venus when her son by chance,/ against his custom, pierced her with his arrow.” (XXVIII, 65-66) This refers to another Ovidian tale of Venus falling in love with Adonis. Interestingly, equating Matelda with Venus results immediately in Dante’s identification with Adonis, and this further eroticizes the encounter in Canto XXVIII. The final allusion is to the Greek figure of Leander, who would swim the Hellespont each night to reach his lover, Hero. This reference is brought to Dante-poet’s mind when he remembers that there were only three steps separating him from Matelda. He then confesses that the sea “was not more hated by Leander for its tossing waves/[...] than I did hate/ that rivulet for not parting then.” (7075) Dante-pilgrim’s desire to possess the maiden of the Garden could not be clearer than in this last illustration. In addition, Matelda’s gait and conduct are not empty of seductiveness, as she “dances” closer to him across the river. Matelda, in Dante-pilgrim’s mind, is the amorous lover that Beatrice could not be.

The amorous nature of Matelda is presented to the reader through Dante-pilgrim’s gaze, which turns her from a dweller of the Earthly Paradise into an Ovidian lover. However, it becomes quite clear that Dante-pilgrim has misunderstood Matelda’s nature. Once she begins to speak, it is not of love, or temptations of carnal sin, but on the weather of the Earthly Paradise. She declares: “I have come/ ready to answer every question you might have.” (XXVIII, 85-86) Thus, she continues the succession of souls, such as Statius and Sordello, whose function was to “disperse the clouds within [Dante’s] mind” (81). Dante-pilgrim’s misreading of Matelda exposes his own sinful nature which prevents him from looking upon Beatrice’s face until he is bathed in the river Lethe. Furthermore, Dante-poet gives an insight into the pilgrim’s folly through the three erotic allusions all of which end in tragedy: Proserpine’s kidnapping led to the loss of spring; Adonis was killed; and Leander drowned in the Hellespont. Lust, in all these cases, leads to death and destruction. Fortunately, Dante-pilgrim becomes aware of his error and, after Matelda’s speech, no longer equate her with any mythical woman.

Matelda’s role marks a major deviation from the two women discussed above, and the fact that Dante-poet places her in between them is significant. Her associations with the Madonna are limited to being a virgin and a mediator. Interestingly, her intermediary role is between Dante and Beatrice and that makes her twice removed from God’s will. Since she embodies the active life in Dante-poet’s mind (as portrayed by the dream in Canto XXVII), she stands in opposition to both Mary and Beatrice who embody the contemplative life. However, Matelda’s role as guide is similar to the Virgin and Beatrice in that all three women aid in his poetic and “spiritual ascension”. The poet notes her liminality when he likens her to a “nymph” wandering alone in the forest (XXIX, 4). The maiden echoes this analogy when she claims: “Here we are nymphs and in heaven we are stars.” (XXXI, 106) In the Earthly Paradise, Beatrice’s handmaidens are not divorced from their sensuality since nymphs were often seen as objects of desire in Ovidian myths. However, “in Paradise, where the senses need no such enticement, they appear in their true shape of stars.” (Stambler 266-267) Matelda’s double nature serves to remind the reader that Dante-pilgrim is still on earth, and that perfection lies

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only in Paradise, which is his next destination.

In conclusion, the women of Dante’s Purgatorio cannot be said to belong to one distinct category, nor do they all possess a perfectly positive image. The Virgin Mary, who appears to be the Ideal Woman, albeit she is virtuous and loving, is reduced to a relatively passive role that stands on a pedestal for others to observe and follow.

Beatrice, Dante’s Lady, possesses two simultaneous natures: the object of fin amor and subject of a heavenly mission. Matelda arouses within Dante-pilgrim dormant carnal desires that expose his sins to Beatrice, and in turn reveal Matelda’s nature as temptress and teacher. Ultimately, Dante’s women invert the negative image of Eve who had caused mankind to descend into sin. Each of them, in her own way, helps Dante and the reader soar up into the heights of spiritual and artistic Paradise.

Works Cited Dante. Purgatorio. Trans. Jean Hollander and Robert Hollander. New York: Anchor Books, 2004. Print.

O’Grady, Deirdre. “Women Damned, Penitent and Beatified in the Divine Comedy”.

Dante Readings. Ed. Eric Haywood. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1987. 73-106.

Print.

Shapiro. Marianne. Woman Earthly and Divine in The Comedy of Dante. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1975. Print.

Stambler, Bernard. Dante’s Other World: The Purgatorio as Guide to the Divine Comedy. New York: New York University Press, 1957. Print.

Stanbury, Sarah. The Virgin’s Gaze: Spectacle and Transgression in Middle English Lyrics of the Passion. PMLA 106.5 (1991): 1083-1093. JSTOR.

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Reclaiming Feminism: Archaic Media Portrayals and the Rhetoric of Fear

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Helen Ngo

Writing 2202

A curious phenomena sweeping the generation of women today is the trend of declaring “I’m not a feminist, but...” and then following the statement with a distinctly feminist conjecture. Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman to be appointed to the United States Supreme Court, making her arguably a game-changer and a strong leadership icon for women everywhere. However, when asked if she considered herself to be a feminist, her response was very telling as to her beliefs on feminism: “I don’t call myself that...

I never did. I care very much about women and their progress ... when I was in the Arizona Legislature, [I picked out the laws] that discriminated against women to get them changed.” (Solomon) Parallel sentiments are echoed by college students, working women, and famous celebrities today, and it begs the question: why are women so afraid to be associated with the feminist label? Modern media perpetuates an outdated stereotype of feminism that has created an overarching misunderstanding of what feminism truly is, and these widespread misconceptions contribute to a society of intelligent, educated, successful women who fear and reject the very concept that champions their success.

As there is evidently much confusion about the definition of feminism, for the purposes of this essay, feminism will be defined as the following: “Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression. Its aim is not to benefit solely any specific group of women, any particular race or class of women. It does not privilege women over men. It has the power to transform in a meaningful way all our lives. Most importantly, feminism is neither a lifestyle nor a ready-made identity or role one can step into.” (hooks 28)

It is vital to highlight that this definition of feminism does not seek to place women against women or women against men, but rather, it seeks to bring about equality for the sexes. This is the original definition of feminism in its simplest form; while there exist many branches of feminist theory, including radical feminism, this essay will focus on feminism as a movement driven by the desire for women to have equality.

Firstly, the misconceptions about feminism must be considered. Many celebrities responded to the question of whether or not they considered themselves to be feminists by espousing rhetoric that demonstrates a level of ignorance, as well as the extent to how misguided today’s generation has become as to their views on feminism. For example, avant-garde pop star Lady Gaga, who is also an incredibly successful social activist and supporter of gay rights, seems to be under the absurd impression that feminists hate men and beer: “I’m not a feminist - I, I hail men, I love men. I celebrate American male culture, and beer, and bars and muscle cars...” (Dries) Similarly, country music superstar Carrie Underwood takes the classic “I’m not a feminist, but...”

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route: “I wouldn’t go so far as to say I am a feminist; that can come off as a negative connotation. But I am a strong female.” (Dries) This demonstrates that Underwood is acutely aware of the negative stereotypes associated with the feminist label and highlights her effort to remove herself from feminism as to not alienate her fans who have a similar negative attitude toward feminism. Perhaps the most quintessential example of the misconceptions of feminism can be found in Kelly Clarkson’s response: “No, I wouldn’t say feminist — that’s too strong. I think when people hear feminist, it’s like, ‘Get out of my way, I don’t need anyone.’” (Dries) Unfortunately, her impression of feminism is one shared by misinformed men and women alike. To be fair, if so many influential, iconic, generation-defining women are evidently confused about the definition of feminism, it should not come as a big surprise that the average person also carries a lot of misconceptions about feminism. These misconceptions are then exacerbated by a media culture that champions women in pop culture who propagate skewed ideas on feminism. Young women today often fall into the trap of following celebrity women as role models; idolizing their actions, emulating their views and taking the often- twisted rhetoric of the media to be the ultimate truth. The stances of celebrity women have the potential to become the stances of a generation, and thus it is important to note that for a generation who looks to celebrity culture for guidance, it is harmful and damaging that the media perpetuates stereotypes of celebrity idols with mistaken ideas on feminism.

These misconceptions on feminism stem from the fact that popular media fails to consider the evolution of feminism throughout the years. When referring to feminism, the media often refers to the dramatic antics of second-wave feminism or obscure radical feminism while failing to consider that these strands of feminism are no longer representative of what the movement has become today. First-wave feminism in the United States started in the 1920s with the women’s suffrage movement, the debate over women’s right to vote in election and the right to own property (Krolekke and Sorensen). First-wave feminism was dominated by privileged, middle-class white women. Despite their protest methods being primarily peaceful, their ideas on feminism were considered groundbreaking for the time, and thus considered unladylike as there was a pervasive societal mindset that women should work only in the home and not speak out in public (Krolekke and Sorensen). First-wave feminism was considered revolutionary for its time, and though there was obvious resistance, it did not compare with the explosive reactions to second-wave feminism. Second-wave feminism emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, and is it is this wave that the radical stereotypes started from. There was a new emphasis placed on the oppression of women and sexism. Some feminist authors, such as lesbian poet Adrienne Rich, went so far as to make the radical claim that heterosexuality is directly linked with female oppression and exists only as a societal construct under the patriarchy—and thus the stereotype of feminists as man-hating lesbians was born (Rich). Another example is the liberal feminists who advocated for housewives to be paid (Krolekke and Sorenson), which is arguably a radical viewpoint that few people today would agree with. These radical women became known as “feminazis”, a portmanteau of “feminist” and “Nazi” that is meant to highlight the seemingly analogously tyrannical views of radical feminism (Rudman). All of these extremist views contributed to the media perpetuating the ste-

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reotype of feminists as anti-male lesbians, and feminism became negatively branded as a fight for supremacy over men as opposed to its true definition as a fight for equality.

Surprisingly, this viewpoint has become remarkably persistent, as evidenced by the way that it has been ingrained into modern culture. As recently as 2007, pop star Geri Halliwell, a member of the widely successful girl group Spice Girls, claimed that she was not a feminist: “It’s about labelling. For me, feminism is bra-burning lesbianism.

It’s very unglamorous” (Moorhead). This demonstrates exactly how pervasive these media portrayals have become and the significance of the damage that they have done to skew the definition of feminism over the past half-century. With these misconceptions, feminism was repainted as a movement that worked against equality by placing women’s privileges above men’s; a rather unfortunate irony that could not be further from the truth, as feminism is based upon the principle of gender equality (Turkina).

Unfortunately, it is inevitable that there will always be extremists who take fanatical stances on any given political issue, including feminism. However, these definitions of feminism are not representative of the views held by any reasonable person today, and it is ironic that the media culture whose purpose is to educate the general population on current events would adopt such antiquated attitudes toward a movement that has evolved dramatically over the years, refusing to update their definitions of feminism to include a century’s worth of metamorphosis.

This misunderstanding of the definition of feminism has contributed to a generation of women who reject the feminist label based on the misconceptions portrayed by popular media. However, many women do not realize that their ideals actually embody the ideas of modernized third-wave feminism, the most recent wave that emerged in the 1990s (Burkett). Third-wave feminism differs from first- and second-wave feminism by its focus on the right of each individual woman to identify as she pleases, as well as being much more inclusive of women of colour. Third- wave feminism is colloquially known as “girly feminism” or “lipstick feminism”, labels stemming from the trends adopted by third-wave feminists, including the affinity for femininity through attitude and image (Krolekke and Sorenson). In contrast to two waves of feminism that presented women as fearless and without weakness, third-wave feminism encourages women to embrace their femininity while simultaneously being supportive of women’s rights to equality. Third wave-feminism reconciles itself with dresses, highheeled stilettos and a sex culture that second-wave feminism had previously deemed to be demeaning and oppressive to women as they claimed that it catered to a patriarchal society (Rampton). Actress Zooey Deschanel epitomizes third-wave feminism and the duality of feminism and femininity; when asked if she was a feminist, she responded, “There is not an ounce of me that believes any of that crap that they say. We can’t be feminine and be feminists and be successful? I want to be a [...] feminist and wear a [...]

Peter Pan collar. So [...] what?” (Ross). Similarly, controversial pop singer Miley Cyrus, self-dubbed to be “one of the biggest feminists in the world” because of her refusal to conform to beauty norms, supports the third-wave feminism attitude of reclaiming sexuality and identity: “There’s absolutely no contradiction at all between being a feminist and taking your clothes off and being comfortable about displaying your sexuality.” (Silverman) These attitudes are representative of some of the aspects of the third-wave feminism that defines today’s generation of feminists. Deschanel and Cyrus

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are some of the rare, refreshing celebrity women who are unafraid to openly identify with feminism, but this confidence can only be perpetuated by someone who is properly educated on the goals of feminism and secure in their knowledge of what third-wave feminism represents. It is also important to note that the line between third-wave feminism and postfeminism has become increasingly blurred. This is ironic, as postfeminism is typically defined as an antithesis to feminism. The postfeminist movement is comprised of those who believe that feminism is irrelevant and that there is no longer a need for feminism in modern society, as they believe that equality for women has already been achieved (Butler). However, it is inherently flawed to view postfeminism exclusively as a foil to feminism, as postfeminism actually incorporates many ideas that align with third-wave feminism to the point such that there exists a contingent of scholars who interchange postfeminism with third-wave feminism (Butler). Like third-wave feminism, postfeminists often encourage women to engage their femininity and embrace stereotypically “girly” activities such as wearing make-up or short skirts.

However, while postfeminists often denounce the need for feminism, their underlying ideals are distinctly feminism-influenced: postfeminists believe in letting women define themselves however they wish, whether it be feminine or not, which is a distinctly feminist attitude. The one caveat is that postfeminists believe that women should not explicitly identify as a feminist (Butler), placing them at odds with the feminist movement by definition. While some people freely identify as feminists, those who claim to reject feminism often hold beliefs that fall into the third-wave or postfeminist mindset, yet they are ignorant of the similarities with feminism and thus dismiss feminism entirely. This directly contributes to the significant portion of people who declare “I’m not a feminist, but...” and then proceed to follow it up with statements that they mistakenly believe are anti-feminist. This suggests a lack of education about feminism as well as a strong influence by a media that perpetuates a skewed impression of feminism.

While considering the concept of postfeminism, it is necessary to also consider its legitimacy. A defining aspect of postfeminism is its insistence that feminism is dead, which poses some controversial questions: is feminism is still relevant? If it is still necessary, should women be afraid of it? Carolyn Everson, a senior executive at Facebook, believes that the answer lies in a generation that has taken the positive effects of the feminist movement for granted: “They don’t want to discuss whether men and women have equal rights because they’ve grown up in a world of information and opportunity democratization. They get concerned when they see so few women at senior levels, but [they] believe women choose to opt out” (Goudreau). This demonstrates a level of ignorance on the part of a generation of women who are oblivious to the many examples of sexual discrimination and oppression still happening today. The need for sexual equality is still as necessary as ever, but a culture of ambivalence has bred a generation of women who fall into the mistakenly postfeminist attitude of believing that feminism is no longer relevant. As for whether or not feminism should be feared, it is essential to consider the question: who constructs this fear? Who is telling women that they should be afraid of a movement that advocates for sexual equality?

An incredibly influential media, coupled with the worship of pop culture, has spawned a generation of women who believe that they should be afraid of feminism. However, this fear is inherently misplaced. As eloquently stated by feminist scholar Lisa Maria

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Hogeland, “Fear of feminism... is not a fear of gender, but rather, a fear of politics.”

(Hogeland) This statement is deceptively simple in nature, but it is very significant, as it challenges all the misconceptions of feminism in one startling moment of clarity. Feminism is defined as the movement that supports equality for women, and it is reasonable to assume that very few people actually fear equality for women, though they may mistakenly believe that they do because they are mistaken in their impression of feminism.

Rather, this supposed fear of feminism arises from a fear of openly politicizing oneself and aligning with a politically charged movement. It is a fear of labelling oneself, but only because the label in question has been manipulated and misrepresented, twisted by a misinformed generation. Lastly, this fear is actually a fear of rejection by society and a refusal to risk alienating oneself from the masses, and perhaps it is legitimate to fear rejection. However, it is unreasonable to fear an ideal for equality, and the only way that this will be rectified is through education and media awareness.

It is reasonable to see how the average person would be confused about the definition of feminism, as the rhetoric and culture surrounding the feminist movement is highly complex and layered in a century of transformation, change and politics. It is not, however, reasonable to fear equality for the sexes, and thus it is not reasonable to fear feminism as a concept. Feminism has advanced and achieved so much since its inception, and it is indisputable that it will continue to make great strides in the future. It is an injustice to women that so many people claim to be against the feminist movement, as feminism still serves to provide women with opportunities and equality that they would not otherwise have. Feminism is a concept that women ought to take pride in, as feminism directly celebrates and encourages their success. Women owe it to themselves to become educated on the true definition of feminism as sexual equality so that there will exist a generation of bright, educated, and strong women who will reclaim the feminist label fearlessly.

Works Cited Burkett, Elinor. “The third wave of feminism.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.

Butler, Jess. “For White Girls Only? Postfeminism and the Politics of Inclusion.”

Feminist Formations Apr. 2013: 35-58. Academia.edu. Web. 5 Nov. 2013.

Dries, Kate. “The Many Misguided Reasons Famous Ladies Say ‘I’m Not a Feminist’” Jezebel. N.p., 11 Feb. 2013. Web. 24 Nov. 2013.

Goudreau, Jenna. “Who’s Afraid of Post-Feminism? What It Means To Be A Feminist Today.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 13 Dec. 2011. Web. 1 Dec. 2013.

Hogeland, Lisa Maria. “Fear of Feminism: Why Young Women Get the Willies.” Ms. Magazine Nov. - Dec. 1994: Unknown. Print.

Hooks, Bell. “Feminist Theory.” Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000. 28. Print.

Krolekke, Charlotte, and Ann Scott Sorensen. “Three Waves of Feminism.” Gender Communication Theories and Analyses. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2006. 1-23. Print.

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Moorhead, Joanna . “Girl power comes of age.” the Guardian 24 Oct. 2007: n. pag. The Guardian. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.

Rampton, Martha. “The Three Waves of Feminism.” PACIFIC: The Magazine of Pacific University Fall 2008: n. pag. Pacific University. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.

Rich, Adrienne. Blood, bread, and poetry: selected prose, 1979-1985. New York: Norton, 1986. Print.

Ross, Logan. “Watch out, it’s Zooey!.” Glamour Feb. 2013: 136. Print.

Rudman, Chelsea. “”Feminazi”: The History Of Limbaugh’s Trademark Slur Against Women.” Media Matters. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.

Silverman, Rosa. “Miley Cyrus: I’m one of the world’s biggest feminists.” The Telegraph 13 Nov. 2013: n. pag. The Telegraph. Web. 1 Dec. 2013.

Solomon, Deborah. “Case Closed: Questions for Sandra Day O’Connor.” The New York Times 16 Mar. 2009: n. pag. The New York TImes. Web. 2 Dec. 2013.

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Turkina, Olesya. “The F word: why is the art world so afraid of feminism?” The Calvert Journal. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2013.

The American Jest: An Analysis of “All-American” by David Hernandez

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Travis Welowszky Writing 2220

American life in modern times is, indeed, challenging to describe. While many experience a reasonably high standard of living, it is also the site of deep anxiety and trepidation. The precarious job market, class struggle, perpetual warfare, factory farmed foods, numbing entertainment industries, brutal racial discrimination; these things fester into a unique psychosis that is entirely dependent on the situation (socially, politically, racially, etcetera) of an individual. Therefore, we encounter the perversity of the expression ‘All-American’. The phrase in itself is a seemingly innocuous, banal title that is often attributed as admiration for those that personify a malleable definition of the idyllic American citizen. The phrase appears as outdated, a leftover label from Cold War- era picturesque nuclear familial units. What is then troublesome about the ‘All-American’ is that it heaps an idealized American normality onto a nation that is a wildly diverse cultural melting pot. Coincidentally, “All-American” is the title of a poem by David Hernandez, published in The Best American Poetry 2013. Here, Hernandez delivers a meticulously understated, though powerful, commentary on the experience of life in modern America.

The narrator’s voice in the poem is largely conversational and contemporary, though the piece reads as if it could represent the anxieties of several generations: religious apprehension, urbanization, sexual orientation; these appear as recurring concerns of American life. However what makes this work inimitable is the narrator’s refusal to provide a clear articulation of their person. The voice seems to contemplate all perspectives on the complex demographic spectrum and never does it make a definitive claim to a gender, sexual orientation, class, or race. Therefore, the narrator is portrayed as this transient figure that attempts to encapsulate the wildly diverse range of American experiences, offering point and subsequent counter point in a seemingly infinite, ceaseless jest of perceptions, politics, beliefs. Hernandez’s refusal to provide clarity provides the most poignant segments of the piece, as the narrator is essentially an amalgamation – dissipated into the cultural melting pot.

By simultaneously identifying as, and chastising, the Other, Hernandez begins to point to the absurdity of the all-encompassing, ‘All-American’ title. The opening lines offer a complex paradox, stating “I’m this tiny, this statuesque, and everywhere / in between, and everywhere in between / bony and overweight” (1-3). Logically, one cannot be both these things and their opposites: the tiny may refer to the underclass, the impoverished and the soon forgotten millions in America juxtaposed with the statuesque, the well-to-do, the distinguished, the admired. Additionally, the narrator comments on their ubiquitous race, “My skin is mocha brown, two shades darker / than tope, your question is racist, nutmeg, beige / I’m not offended by your question at all”

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(5-7). Flattening the issue of race in America is hugely problematic as discrimination and profiling still runs rampant in the culture. Yet the issue extends far beyond Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, and the inordinate shades and variations in between. The turn at the end of the previous statement resonates as an expression of the privilege held by certain people. Some may have their race become a continuous, lifelong struggle while others may go a lifetime without ever having to respond to racial discrimination, thus not being offended by the question at all. The narrator also displays a nonsensical attitude towards politics, claiming, “I voted for Obama, McCain, Nader / I was too apathetic to vote, too lazy to walk one block / two blocks to the voting booth” (2123). The right wing, the left wing, the undecided, the apathetic; the narrator plays no favourites with politics or party affiliations. The narrator’s attempt to flatten the American experience into an ‘All- American’ image becomes illogical and absurdist, though surely intentional. Shown through the consistent contradictory statements, there is a futility in homogenizing a diverse populace as the lives and experiences of so many are inherently unique and based off of uncontrollable socioeconomic factors. To impose a specific normality is ineffectual and perhaps the title can be read as sharp word play – not necessarily pointing to the image of the ‘ideal’ American, but rather referring to the collective: we are all American.

Thematically, Hernandez encapsulates race, sexuality, politics; but there is an undertone that runs through the entirely of the work. This is often recalled here by posing paradoxical questions or reactions that have no logical or foreseeable solution.

The American empire is built upon exploitation, cheap labour, profitable wars; the culture is built upon the same things that produce modern anxieties. Living under late capitalism in modern American is an experience and one that is traumatic. Conditions such as mental illnesses are conceived as individual ills as we are taught to treat symptoms rather than find root causes. It becomes difficult to find a link between individual trauma and the broader system because late capitalism exists within a vicious cycle wherein the quality of living that is expected and desired in the United States is largely predicated on a precarious, exploitative system. Hernandez points to the inability to find answers within this modern industrialized society, writing, “Against burning / fossil fuels, let’s punish all those smokestacks / for eating the ozone, bring the wrecking balls” (26-28) before immediately countering, “but build more smokestacks, we need jobs / here in Harrisburg, here in Kalamazoo” (29-30). It is an experience without a horizon, the banality of evil, ethically bankrupt and yet so numbing in that the promise of prosperity and fulfillment seemed ingrained into the culture. The quality of living is only upheld by the consequences that make modern life so tiresome, homogenous, sickly and there are always people profiting off of the self-inflicted misery: doctors, pharmaceutical corporations, brands; people live under a tacit belief that the system cannot be corrupt or broken because there is the eternal opportunity to succeed, to be wealthy, to be powerful perpetually dangled above their collective heads.

Despite the reality that one’s life experience is dictated by a number of factors, the American culture is one that is homogenized in this flattening process. This is illustrated by the narrator’s flightless plight in finding solace, “My shadow cannot hold / one shape in Omaha, in Tuscaloosa, in Aberdeen” (3-4). These passages feel reminiscent of reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road in the 21st century: the concept of finding freedom

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on endless monotone highways littered with turn off signs that assure a driver that fast food chain restaurants and big box stores are at all times closely at hand.

Hernandez makes proficient use of imagery that is darkly humorous throughout the poem. The narrator wishes “every deer wore a bulletproof vest / and fired back” (18- 19) and to “strap [waterboarded] detainees / with snorkels and diving masks” (2526). These quick-witted, and slightly absurdist, turns not only provide levity to truly gruesome visuals but work on a deeper level to expose unpleasant realities. While the poem plays with contradictions, offering opposing sides to the same argument, it is through this use of imagery where the piece retains a sharply political edge. The casual nature that these extreme scenarios are presented in instigates a sense of general unease at the things many take a nonchalant attitude toward. The pacing is ceaseless, passing the reader by rapidly by taking no breaks before ending abruptly, characteristic of the velocity of life in the 21st century. The poem closes by reciting off a clattering of mundane, laborious jobs, “Some of us ring you up / while some of us crisscross a parking lot / to gather the shopping carts into one lone / rolling, clamorous and glittering backbone” (45-48). The glittering backbone of the shopping cart line serves as a sly parting shot to the consumerist backbone of American culture: consumption fulfilled and then reset, infinitely regressing, never ending.

David Hernandez’s “All-American” is a poignant piece that demystifies the flattened, homogenized American idealist image. The American experience is so expansive and unique for every individual and is based on countless social, cultural, economic and political factors. Ultimately it appears that in a culture so diverse there can be estimations or approximations of what this idealized image can appear to represent, but the oddly vague guise of what an All-American truly encapsulates is unknowable, inarticulable, and perhaps this is exactly the point that Hernandez is making.

Work Cited Hernandez, David. “All-American.” The Best American Poetry, 2013. By Denise Duhamel and David Lehmann. New York: Scribner, 2013. 53-54. Print.

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Stoking the Fire: A Journey through the Past

Pauline Turgeon Writing 1000

Deanna Young’s poem, “Bonfire”, published in the Summer 2013 issue of PRISM Magazine, looks at the transformation of a young girl throughout her childhood and how her encounter with a poignant painting in her adulthood takes her through this journey of self-reflection and discovery. The protagonist, along with her mother and one or more siblings, move from what is alluded to as a dysfunctional home and are forced to begin life over again without their alcoholic father and with very few possessions. Her continuation of this journey finds her reveling in the simplicity of things such as geometry and modern poetry as a form of escapism from the abusive situation she, once again, finds herself in. Her guilt and shame associated with the abuse propels her into adulthood where the reader discovers the events are, in fact, memories from her past that have been recalled as the result of a painting she is admiring. Through mentally reliving her history we find the young girl, now a grown woman, deeply affected by this work of art and standing at a crossroads seemingly in the same situation her mother found herself in years before, and looking for some form of retribution or closure.

It is not unusual to revisit the past for answers to a problem we face today.

Young’s personification of the bed that we learn was obtained at the Salvation Army or “Sally Ann” (6) as it is referred to in the poem, with its claw like fingers, gives this particular moment a child-like quality. This effectively sets the tone for the abuse said to have happened at this point in her life. It is as though the protagonist and the reader are metaphorically being pulled back into the character’s difficult past with resistance. The poet’s twist on the cliché ‘third time’s a charm’, where the character is folding her blanket in three, gives us the impression that the young girl is dissociating from her present reality. We clearly hear the writer’s voice when the young girl continues to explain that she has lost what “we’ll call [her] virginity” (11) at the hands of “a strong man in a muscle shirt” (15). It is as though the poet is implying it would have indeed been a virginal experience had it not been for the fact that it was not consensual. This, along with the fact that we know the protagonist is a small child, and we can begin to understand why we are taken on this passage though her difficult past.

Using the poem’s free verse format, the poet has the freedom to clearly convey the association of fire found in the Pratt painting with the protagonist’s polluted childhood. Young clearly supports her poem’s title, “Bonfire” as we learn the character is “a scorched girl, shame / crackling under [her] skin” (14-15). The image of a “rundown house” (3, 19) is used repeatedly, initially to develop the setting then further becomes a metaphor for the challenges faced in adulthood. She then discovers herself reliving her past all over again when she finds herself standing behind a stroller peering up at a painting. “Only a spark, maybe, that takes, / then rages, keeps driving us toward the door” (17-18) – this passage leaves us wondering why the character may have fallen into the same recurring pattern which ultimately led her to reevaluate her

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current situation in the first place.

Throughout the poem we find several examples where the poet uses alliteration to support the fire imagery apparent throughout. The use of the “s” consonant lends itself to the hissing noise made by a crackling fire and further draws us into the painting the character herself is examining. It is through this sound and the imagery of fire that we begin to understand the correlation between the painting and the character’s own tumultuous life, of which she is ultimately cleansing herself by reliving difficult moments from her past.

Through the use of strong imagery and narrative, the author is able to transmit the pain of a tormented girl who finds herself an adult woman with a difficult truth to face. The choice is whether to perpetuate the cycle and continue the abuse with her child or use the moment of reflection she has been afforded, to change - to create a new version of history. The metaphorical fire of the events from this character’s past is fed by throwing one experience after another onto it ultimately feeding and fueling the inferno that will result in the cleansing of her soul; something we can all relate to in one form or another.

Works Cited Young, Deanna. “Bonfire.” PRISM 51.4 Summer 2013. PRISM International, n.d. Web. 30 Sep 2013.

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Video Killed the Radio Star but Shopping Killed the American Dream: Late Capitalism and Death in Don Delillo’s White Noise

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Brie Berry

English 2308

Beginning with William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation and John Winthrop’s Journal, forms of autobiographies have become classics of the American tradition—demonstrating how the individual came to identify as being of a nation built on the promise of the American dream. Early American literature had explored the potential of America as virgin soil upon which new ideals and customs could come to fruition. However, twentieth century American literature presents the failure of that dream in the postwar and Cold War periods. The consumer culture demonstrated through Don DeLillo’s White Noise is indicative of the collapse of the American dream, the loss of individual ambition and its replacement with hedonism, egoism, and late capitalism. White Noise captures the essence of America as a society of the spectacle, the postmodern American Dream as a commodity—something bought and sold unwittingly and repetitively. Delillo’s White Noise portrays the narrative of the collapse and the rebuilding of the American identity and aspirations through materialistically driven lens. Dellilo communicates the self-realization of American tendencies through their cultured behaviours—posing the complacency and uncertainty of the characters as an outcome of the new America. Through investigation of the theme of death, late capitalism and consumer culture, and appearances versus reality, Delillo poses a new vision of America—distracted by the want for material goods and the confusion of identity and individualism, and the loss of the American dream.

Ernest Becker, a behavioral psychologist working in the Americas supposed that, “the fear of death and the compulsion to deny it…are central dynamics of human behaviour”(Meladze 39). The theme of death permeates White Noise through the constant conversation, dialogue, and commentary of mortality and the inevitable expiration of Jack and Babette. As such, the notion of death—and especially, the fear of it, dictates Jack and Babette’s actions and ideas of identity. The consuming and insidious nature of Jack and Babette’s fear of dying demonstrates the failure of the American dream, emphasizing the futility of material wealth against the indiscriminate nature of mortality.

The material wealth, standard of living, and general social freedoms experienced in late twentieth century America were unprecedented and acted as an inspiration to other nations in the global community, demonstrating the notion of America as a “city on a hill”—apparently free from the gloom which had plagued the outside world. However, the prevalence of the theme of death within White Noise demonstrates that beneath the seemingly pristine front of the American Dream lies a mass of dark anxieties, fears, and doubts. The majority of Don Delillo’s White Noise sees the characters moving through their daily lives without clear motivation or plot beyond frequent discussion of death.

However, Jack’s statement, “all plot tend to move deathward”, coquettishly gives an answer to the seemingly purposeless journey being explored through the novel (Delilo 26). Jack’s sentiments echo the infamous dictum of the father of psychology, Sigmund

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Freud: “the goal of all life is death”(Lear, 172). The inevitability of death is undeniable; all men must die. In an effort to placate his fear of dying, Jack dedicates his life’s work to Hitler studies—investigating a figure “larger than death” to place himself outside of a narrative in which he must contend with his own mortality (44). By studying the psyche of Hitler and the suffering of his victims, Jack is able to satisfy his obsession with death while remaining safely out of its reach. However, in so doing, Jack allowed his fear of dying to dictate his life decisions. This demonstrates the power death has in Jack’s life—that even as he makes conscious efforts to avoid it, he finds himself still under its influence, in turn showing the inescapability of death and foreshadows an eventual confrontation between Jack and his ideas of mortality. Next, Jack is forced to examine the idea of death and his own inevitable demise when he is exposed to the lethal chemical Nyodene D. following a train accident near his home. Jack’s doctors inform him that they will not know the full effects of his exposure to the chemical for another fifteen years, but are not optimistic as to what their findings will be. Jack stated his worries to Murray, saying that the “little breath of Nyodene ha[d] planted a death in [his] body” (150). As a result of this diagnosis, Jack begins to seek control of his life and death. Acting upon the advice given to him by Murray, Jack begins to carry a gun, believing that if he were to kill someone else, he would be able to come to terms with his own fears of death. Murray explained to Jack that, “there are two kinds of people in the world. Killers and diers” and that “each [cancel] the other out” (290). However, following a confrontation with the enigmatic Mr. Mink, the doctor with whom Babette engaged in an adulterous exchange, Jack realizes that to sacrifice his humanity in an attempt to avoid his mortality is wrong. Jack is finally able to let go of his obsession with death after his youngest son, Wilder, nearly is hit by a car. This incident seems to allow Jack to understand that death is a part of life, and that “death makes life more precious” but should not be the first consideration in how to live (284).

In the wake of the Cold War, the American Dream offered a powerful mechanism of immortalizing illusion to distract from the intense anxiety faced by US citizens and the global community at the prospect of nuclear warfare (Tally, 70). Control of nuclear weapons awarded nations a certain degree of “control” over death, a perception whose grim realities would see the end of human life through nuclear warfare. The threat of human annihilation made for great anxieties within the American mind and positioned death as always looming overhead. The insertion of excessive commercial machines—in particular, the fast food culture and the shopping mall, were intended to strengthen nationalistic pride and occupy the American mind with consumer goods.

However, the postwar manifestations of consumer culture polluted ideas of American individualism and identity and created a muddle of suburban indifference and mindless materialism. The supermarket’s “gleaming aisle” provides the Gladneys with a comforting buffer of stimuli, a sense of familiarity in routine and product that obscures their anxieties about death in Cold War America (Delillo 220). The careful design of the supermarket seeks to soothe, but also to incite consumption. Contemporary America has become a model of demands being met with great speed in order to stimulate further wants. Artificiality, consumerism and material goods—represented in White Noise by the symbol of the supermarket serve not only as distraction, but also as a means of social control, serving almost as a religion with its “blasts of colours, layers

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of oceanic sounds” (Delillo 288). Moreover, the ambiguous ending of Delillo’s White Noise recounts how the rearrangement of the aisles within the supermarket resulted in great confusion and anxiety: “there had been agitation and panic in the aisles” (325).

Without the guidance of their consumer routine, the patrons lose their perceptions of their identity. Finally, Jack’s preoccupation with thoughts of death skewed his ability to recognize the proto-fascism of contemporary American consumerism. The United States, much like Nazi Germany had, banks on the mindlessness of its citizens—one dimensional men whose only identity has become his consumption. As such, the United States and its citizens are not free. People are told what to think and what to buy by consumer society, becoming spiritually complacent and psychologically dependent upon the capitalist, industrial society. Material goods stand as a series of falsities that further bind citizens to the capitalist system. The implication of this system is that the United States, for all its bravado and talk of freedom, is not so different from Hitler’s Germany. Instead of listening to a dictator, Americans are ruled by their consumerism, making America an authoritarian regime run by the want for material goods. Within White Noise, Jack’s status as “chancellor [of]…the department around Hitler’s life and work” is ironic as he should be able to see the dangers of consumer culture, but has bought into it himself and as such, cannot recognize it (4). The Cold War set the stage for a strange paradox within the American identity as it raised people who were stiflingly terrified of death, but who loved to shop. This bred an outer directedness whereby people were much more intent on conforming to the group and fostered an idea of individual identity as seen and interacted with through the group. This shift represents an enormous loss of individualism and the replacement of the entrepreneur spirit at the heart of the American Dream with mindless consumerism.

The white noise mentioned in the title of Don Delillo’s novel demonstrates the mass media’s agenda of creating distance between lived experiences and true desires— appearances and reality (Peyser 259). The space between the two creates an environment in which consumer culture flourishes as individualism and identity are sacrificed. The white noise created by the mass media jumbles communication between the self and the identity, who they are and who they appear to be. White Noise explores the relationship between appearances and reality and demonstrates that the muddling of the two is central to Jack’s character. He is the founding father of the entire discipline of Hitler studies, yet absurdly does not speak a lick of German. Jack has positioned himself as an expert of something, identifying himself through this façade of character, when in actuality; he is nothing of the sort. While Jack appears to be the expert on Hitler, he is simply using the powerful persona he projected as a means to identify himself. Moreover, he is only motivated to being learning German when a global conference for Hitler studies threatens to expose his lie. Jack is very careful in the measures he takes to maintain his appearance of excellence. Furthermore, Murray’s commentary on the Most Photographed Barn in America attests to the absurdity by which significance is assigned in American consumer culture. As pointed out by Murray, “no one sees the barn”, the barn itself only has significance because people believe in the image perpetuated by consumer culture (Delillo 12). The importance of the barn is not in the barn itself, but in what people believe it to be. Finally, the SIMUVAC or Simulated Evacuation exemplifies the relationship between appearances and realities in Don Delillo’s White Noise. SIMUVAC uses real events, such as the Nyodene D. chemical release following the train derailment, to prepare for

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simulations, which are then used to prepare for other situations. The constant spilling over of events into one another makes it difficult for society to understand what is real and what is simulated. Moreover, television acts as a border between appearance and reality—distancing its viewers from the real world by overloading them with mindless information and white noise. Televised viewings of others sufferings produce a general feeling of “better them than us” (144). Television was especially instrumental in the Cold War period in that it brought the horrors of the Vietnam War into the living room of the American family on the home front. The juxtaposition of Vietnam War coverage against family programming created a curious dynamic, a contrast between the appearances of televised life against the stark realities of a war-torn nation. (MacDonald 14). However, Delillo asserts that technology’s ability to watch suffering on the television set satisfies the American need for communication while maintaining a safe distance—a twisted sort of voyeurism. The theme of the failure of the American dream is propagated through the distraction of identity provided by the American media.

Narratives such as William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation and John Winthrop’s Journal, as well as fictional works like Delillo’s White Noise analyze the social and political significance of their time, allowing the reader to experience social reality through the prism of a person living through it. Ideals of the American Dream, such as inclusiveness, diversity, and democracy were confused through the implementation of materialism and consumer culture in the US. Emphasis on material goods and buying of the latest product warped perceptions of the American Dream. Americans began to identify less as inhabitants of “a city on a hill”, but rather as mindless clogs in a material machine. Delillo demonstrated the failure of the American Dream in the Cold War period and beyond through the exploration of the characters’ preoccupations surrounding ideas of death and morality, the notion of late capitalism and parallels with totalitarian regimes, and the influence of appearance versus reality in the development of the American identity. Delillo’s reading of American consumer culture is meant to criticize the obsession in the American mind with death and material goods, and call into question ideas of freedom. America as a nation, which identifies itself through aimless purchases and preoccupations with death, is thoroughly under the control of consumer culture.

The American Dream of individualism and freedom is a product no longer for sale.

Works Cited Delillo, Don, White Noise, New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1984 Lear, Jonathan, “Happiness, Death, and the Remainder of Life”, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values Series, Harvard University Press, 2009.

MacDonald, Fred J., “The Cold War As Entertainment in Fifties Television”, Journal of Popular Film & Teleivision, vol. 7, 1978.

Meladze, Victor, “Denial of Death: America in Decline.” Journal of Psychohistory, vol.

39, 2012.

Peyser, Thomas, “Globalization in America: The Case of Don Delillo’s White Noise”, Clio, vol. 25, 1996.

Tally, Robert T. Jr, “Believing in America: The Politics of American Studies in a Postnational Era”, Americanist: Warsaw Journal for the Study of the United States, vol. 23, 2006.

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The Teller of Her Own Tale: Fairy Tales and Agency in Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott”

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Taylor Davison English 3444

The character of Lancelot in Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Lady of Shalott” has been the subject of much critical theory which claims that Sir Lancelot’s roots in Arthurian legend make him more a substantial and familiar character than the seemingly unknown Lady of Shalott. However, it is upon closer investigation that the Lady is found to embody an age old female archetype found in many fairy tales.

In 1812, twenty years prior to Tennyson’s publication of “The Lady of Shalott”, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published three of their most well known fairy tales. The Romantic-age publications gave new life to old stories; the oral tales from which they originated had been passed down through many generations (Zipes). Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s “Rapunzel”, “Brier Rose” (better known to modern readers as the story of “Sleeping Beauty”) and “Rumpelstiltskin” depict character and narrative elements similar to those which appear in “The Lady of Shalott”, showing the historic archetype to which the Lady belongs and therefore establishing her as a substantial, important and knowable character in Tennyson’s poem. Furthermore, a comparison between “The Lady of Shalott” and the tales told by the Grimm brothers ultimately reveals that despite common thought, the Lady possesses a considerable amount of agency and influence within Tennyson’s narrative.

The narrative structure of “Rapunzel”, “Brier Rose” and “Rumpelstiltskin” begins with a curse and is followed by banishment to a cloistered tower. In “Brier Rose”, the title character is cursed when she is born, and on her fifteenth birthday wanders up a tall tower to the place where the curse is to be fulfilled by pricking her finger on a spinning wheel (“Brier Rose” 77-79). The story of “Rapunzel” is named as such because a woman stole rapunzel – a type of lettuce – from a witch’s garden. The woman’s punishment for the theft is forfeiture of her first born, named Rapunzel, who is then banished by the witch to a high tower which can only be reached by climbing Rapunzel’s long hair (“Rapunzel” 154-156). This pattern continues in “Rumpelstiltskin”, the story of a girl who is banished to a tower after her father tricks the king into believing she can spin gold from straw. The girl’s curse is death if she is unable to complete this task (“Rumpelstiltskin” 227-229). “The Lady of Shalott” follows a similar pattern.

Though Tennyson does not elaborate on the Lady’s history, it is clear that she lives within a secluded area and stays there because she “heard a whisper say” that if she leaves or even looks directly upon the world outside her tower, some unknown curse will come upon her (“The Lady of Shalott” 39-42). The commonality between narrative elements in Tennyson’s poem and the Grimm brother’s fairy tales offers the Lady of Shalott a place in the history of storytelling, procuring her role as the main figure in “The Lady of Shalott”.

It is not just the basic plot structure of these common fairy tales which emerge in “The Lady of Shalott”, but certain symbols as well, most notably that of weaving or

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spinning. The repetition of this motif creates a unique vantage point from which to interpret “The Lady of Shalott”. The girl in “Rumpelstiltskin”, helped by a small man named Rumpelstiltskin, spins straw to gold on the spinning wheel, Brier Rose’s curse comes into effect when her blood is drawn by the needle of a spinning wheel and, though Rapunzel does not contain spinning directly, her hair, repeatedly being braided and unbraided to aid the witch and later the prince up into her tower, is deeply associated with weaving. The Lady of Shalott “weaveth steadily” throughout most of the poem, just like her archetypal sisters, putting a spotlight on this symbol and encouraging a reading of the poem wherein the Lady plays an active role as a storyteller who, therefore, has a great amount of agency. The etymological relationship between “textiles” and “texts” establishes the Lady not just as the weaver of tapestries, but the weaver of words to create this poem. The “yellow fields” that “clothe the world”, the “red cloaks of market girls” and the “purple night” are described as though the Lady is choosing the colour of thread with which to weave this world into existence (“The Lady of Shalott” 80, 3, 53, 96). Dr. Betsy Winakur Tontiplaphol writes in her article on poetics of the nineteenth century that even the poem’s rhyme scheme reflects the connection between the Lady’s weaving and the creation of this poem, stating that “the verse which has rhymed so truly through the poem … [turns] like a shuttle upon the frame of the repeated refrain” (Tontiplaphol 99). Jane Wright’s article on “The Lady of Shalott” establishes the Lady as a storyteller using J.S. Mill’s antithetical definitions of poetry and prose, claiming that the Lady’s creative subject matter is more closely aligned to Mill’s description of fiction than of poetry, making her story one that relies on narrative, depicting “outward things, not the inward man; actions and events, not feelings” (Wright 287). The Lady’s weaving therefore not only gives solidarity to her archetypal character, but also establishes her role as the teller of her own story which demonstrates her agency within the poem.

Though the Lady of Shalott’s agency within her own story could be debated based on the fact that she is supposedly imprisoned and isolated within a tower, it is through an understanding of the role of weaving in Tennyson’s poem and “Rapunzel” which refute this claim. Rapunzel’s long hair is “as fine as spun gold”, braided and unbraided to be used as a rope for which the witch and, later, the prince can enter her tower (“Rapunzel” 155). The connection between Rapunzel’s hair and weaving is clear, but what is striking is the fact that her hair (her weaving) is the means by which she has access of any kind to the outside world. In this story, weaving is a source of connection. It is even by braided strands of silk that Rapunzel and her prince plan to escape the tower; this braiding therefore connecting her to the prince and the world in its entirety. Tontiplaphol claims that Tennyson’s most notable works depict woven spaces that “soothe without suffocating” and that these spaces offer “connective, not isolating, enclosures” (Tontiplaphol 100). Like Rapunzel, weaving undoubtedly acts as the Lady’s connection to the outside world. In her role as the storyteller, the Lady uses her weaving to both reflect and create the world which surrounds her. Additionally, the Lady “delights/To weave the mirror’s magic sights”, sings “cheerly”, weaves “gay colours” in her tapestry and, save the whisper of a curse, has “little other care” (“The Lady of Shalott” 64-65, 30, 38, 44). Weaving creates a soothing space in which the Lady can appreciate the beauty of the world and be safely connected to it. Even the moment in

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which the Lady doubts her resolve to remain in isolation forever is laced with a hint of apathy: “‘I am half sick of shadows,’ said/The Lady of Shalott” (71-72). This compliance to her current situation could be said to be attributed to the Lady’s skewed perception of reality, since her only view of the world is through a mirror, but this claim is, once again, unfounded. It is commonly thought that the Lady has a backward, mirror-reflected view of the world, leading to the conclusion that she cannot perceive the world outside her enclosure rationally. Jane Wright, author of “A Reflection on Fiction and Art in ‘The Lady of Shalott’” dismantles this idea by pointing out that “the assumption that because the Lady works from mirrored images her art is removed from reality is itself problematic” (Wright 287). She points out that the mirror is not simply present as a way of side stepping her curse, but because it was a real way in which weavers worked on a loom. Wright says that “the weaver worked from what would become the back of the finished item” meaning that the mirror was a necessary part of weaving for the Lady (Wright 287). Wright further establishes that this fact means that if the Lady was reproducing what she saw in the mirror – an inverted image – on the back of the tapestry, then the image would be the correct orientation when looking at it from the front, effectively making the weaving a “real (seemingly unreflected) view from her tower window” (Wright 287). The factual evidence that Wright presents makes it clear that the Lady has a more rooted sense of reality, and therefore a stronger connection to reality, than initially thought. The mirror’s role could additionally mean that though she clearly enjoys seeing the world, she is not desperate to look upon it: the mirror is merely a tool. These observations present the Lady as being highly connected to the outside world and content within her life. This roots her character in knowledge, solidifying her role as the storyteller and verifying her agency within the poem.

The Lady of Shalott’s connection to her surrounding world does not stop here.

The Grimm brothers’ “Brier Rose” highlights an important element of “The Lady of Shalott” that emphasizes the connection between the Lady and the rest of the world, in turn furthering her power in the poem. In “Brier Rose” the curse that falls upon the Brier Rose when she pricks her finger on the spindle is one that puts her into a deep, long sleep. Interestingly, however, “her sleep spread through the entire palace” causing not only the human occupants, but the animals and nature on the grounds to sleep as well (“Brier Rose” 78). This implies a deep connection between the princess Brier Rose and her kingdom, as it is never mentioned that the original curse will affect anyone but her. In a similar way, the Lady’s actions have profound effects on life around her.

Immediately after the Lady stops weaving her tapestry, the winds begin “straining”, the banks of the river begin “complaining” and the sky begins “raining” (“The Lady of Shalott” 118-121). The Lady’s weaving clearly holds the world around her in some kind of balance, since nature reacts so violently when she ceases. Before this event, Tennyson writes that the Lady’s “song that echoes cheerly” could be heard by “reapers, reaping early” and even travelled down the river “to towered Camelot” (28, 30, 32). It is never clear whether the people of Camelot realize that the Lady is singing, but they do notice when it stops. The Lady of Shalott drifts “Silent into Camelot”, yet people come out into the streets, sensing something is amiss. This leads to the conclusion that, whether or not they recognized her song in the background of their lives while she was alive, its lack is noticeable. Like the curse taking hold of Brier Rose, the fate of the Lady

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of Shalott affects the community that surrounds her. This substantial influence that the Lady possesses is highlighted through the Grimm brothers’ story, shedding light, once again, on the power and agency of the Lady of Shalott.

Though both “Rapunzel” and “Brier Rose” share elements with “The Lady of Shalott” the endings of each of their stories differ substantially. While Rapunzel and Brier Rose are saved by a prince who whisks them off to their happily ever after, “The Lady of Shalott” ends in the Lady’s death. The poem’s ending, and all encompassing factors, actually aligns itself most with the story of “Rumpelstiltskin”. Here, the girl in the story is not saved by any man, but by her own wit and will to overcome Rumpelstiltskin, who is trying to take her first born child as payment for helping her spin straw into gold for the king. Though this narrative differs from the ending of “The Lady of Shalott”, the sentiment remains the same. The Lady also is not saved by a prince. Yes, she leaves her enclosure because she sees a man and realizes that she is tired of living in isolation, but that man does not even know she exists until he looks upon her in death (“The Lady of Shalott”, 168-169). Both the girl in “Rumpelstiltskin” and the Lady free themselves from the situations that they are in, and that in which they are ultimately unhappy. The girl overcomes the villain to become queen and live a happy life, showing her power and agency in the story to get what she wants. In the case of the Lady of Shalott, this implies that it really is her choice to leave the enclosure which by default means that it was also her choice to stay. No curse kept her from doing what she wanted, as was the case with Rapunzel, whose godmother cut off her hair to keep her from escaping, and Brier Rose whose curse left her immobilized in a high tower, surrounded by a thicket of thorns. This means that all along, she could have left, but she chose to stay, perhaps for fear, perhaps for comfort and security.

The common thread throughout “Rapunzel”, “Brier Rose” and “Rumpelstiltskin” are their endings, where the women are freed from isolation and live happily to the end of their days. Though many plot elements differ between each story, this fact remains the same. The many connections between “The Lady of Shalott” and these fairy tales makes it clear that the reader is to compare and contrast elements of each narrative in order to better understand the themes and symbols, and their implications on Tennyson’s poem. This makes the most consistent element of the fairy tales the most noticeable difference in “The Lady of Shalott”: instead of experiencing conventional freedom at the end of her story, the Lady’s tale ends with her death. Tennyson is clearly comparing the Lady’s death to the other women’s freedom, which brings up two possible conclusions as to the meaning of this event. The Lady’s death is possibly an atypical form of freedom, in which her body is freed from the physical enclosure she lived in, but her art and beauty lives on in the world, as is seen when Lancelot muses upon her beauty in the final lines of the poem (“The Lady of Shalott” 168-171). On the other hand, it could be that the curse of being an artist is that even after abandoning artistic production the artist can never be free, as would be the conventional way to view the Lady’s death.

In either case, Tennyson skillfully uses the well known stories of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm to highlight and explore “The Lady of Shalott”, raising important questions about her actions and finally showing her as being a powerful, influential character within her own story; the teller of her own tale.

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Works Cited Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. “Rapunzel.” Folk and Fairy Tales, 4th ed. Ed. Martin Hallett and Barbara Karasek. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2009. 154-156. Print.

Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. “Brier Rose.” Folk and Fairy Tales, 4th ed. Ed. Martin Hallett and Barbara Karasek. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2009. 77-79. Print.

Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. “Rumpelstiltskin.” Folk and Fairy Tales, 4th ed. Ed. Martin Hallett and Barbara Karasek. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2009. 227-229. Print.

Tennyson, Alfred Lord. “The Lady of Shalott.” The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Victorian Era, 2nd ed. Ed. Don Lepan. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2012. 179-181. Print.

Winakur Tontiplaphol, Betsy. Poetics of Luxury in the Nineteenth Century: Keats, Tennyson, and Hopkins. England: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. 2011. Web. Wright, Jane. “A Reflection on Fiction and Art in ‘The Lady of Shalott’.” Victorian Poetry 41.2 (2003): 287-290. Web. Zipes, Jack. The Brothers Grimm: Enchanted Forests to the Modern World. Routledge.

1988. Web.

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Professionalism, Anglophilia, and Gender: An Exploration of the Failure of Women to Communicate Effectively in The God of Small Things

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Rebecca Doyle English 2310

In a phenomenological reading of Sartre’s work on the Other, Merleau-Ponty explores the concept of “the gaze”, a dehumanization of the subject that can only be corrected by speech. In Merleau-Ponty’s view, effective speech requires the listener and the speaker to enter into an “interworld”, a hypothetical space where cultural rules and resources are shared by a community. While the concept of the interworld sounds equalizing, theorists like Fanon and Kristeva argue that the speech of the racialized subordinate is not really heard by the Other. In The God of Small Things, the speech of Indian women and girls is especially ignored because these people are the subjects of gender, race and class discrimination. Ammu risks everything to tell the policeman about her affair with Velutha, only to be sexually harassed and ultimately sent away.

Baby Kochamma tells lies about Velutha to the police in an effort to have him incarcerated and killed, but her claims are considered unreliable until they are verified by a young boy. Rahel snaps at Ammu to inform her of Estha’s traumatic experience at the theatre, but instead she is dismissed as careless. In contrast, Sophie Mol’s speech is widely recognized and accepted. Thus, I argue that the Indian women of God of Small Things are unable to successfully use speech to negate “the gaze” because they occupy a disadvantaged position in society and therefore cannot enter the “interworld” described by Merleau-Ponty.

Ammu’s social status makes it impossible for her and Inspector Thomas Mathew to enter into the interworld for two reasons: one, the policeman is unwilling to recognize Ammu as a fellow subject; and two, Ammu’s conduct during her speech is not “professional” enough to overcome the prejudice against her. In order for the Inspector to enter into the interworld as defined by Merleau-Ponty, he must resolve to “accord as much place to others as to [himself]” (Merleau-Ponty 364). To do so, all ideas of caste, race and gender must be set aside. Instead, the Inspector dehumanizes Ammu by reaffirming the marriage rules that oppress her. This instance of discriminatory behaviour prevents both Ammu and the Inspector from entering into the interworld. The Inspector begins by declaring that he does not “take statements from veshyas or their illegitimate children” and then taps “her breasts with his baton” to objectify her further (Roy 9-10). The Inspector also refuses to view Ammu as a fellow subject because of her tarnished reputation. He garners no benefit from listening to her, so he makes no attempt to understand her speech. As Kristeva notes, the speech of the racialized subordinate is of “no account to others [because] you do not have enough status – “no social standing” – to make your speech useful … [Your speech] will cause no improvement in the image or reputation of those you are conversing with. One will listen to you … and one will forget you in order to go on with serious matters” (Strang

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20). Moreover, the Inspector has already made his arrest, and Velutha is “going to die” (Roy 301). If the Inspector were to listen to Ammu and renege on his judgment now, he “could be in serious trouble” (299).

The Inspector does not refuse to communicate with everyone he meets. For instance, he listens to the claims made by Baby Kochamma, until the twins refute her story. Indeed, he seems to have an intuitive sense of “whom he could pick on and whom he couldn’t” (10). What, then, makes Ammu vulnerable to attack? Although she is of a higher caste, Ammu is a “divorced woman from an intercommunity love marriage” (45). The Inspector emphasizes this fact to establish himself as dominant, to avoid entering into the interworld. Another explanation for Ammu’s vulnerability may lie in Helene Cixous’ “Laugh of the Medusa”, which argues that, for women, speech creates “a double distress, for even if she transgresses, her words fall almost always upon the deaf male ear” (2). This distress creates a buildup of emotion which is often inappropriately expressed through speech. In response to her ill-treatment by the Inspector, for instance, Ammu snaps angrily that she “will see about that” (Roy 10). Similarly, when they leave the police station, she begins to cry (10). Although understandable, this behaviour is not professional.

As feminist theorist Iris Marion Young describes, professional behavior does not express “sadness, anger, disappointment, or uncertainty” (140). Professionalism also “signifies rationality”, a quality strongly associated with Western culture. When Chacko uses his sophisticated “reading aloud voice”, for instance, he is described as being in one of “his Oxford Moods” (Roy 53). In a country like India, where many people “are Anglophiles”, appealing to Western rationalism through professionalism can transcend boundaries of gender and caste to make the interworld more accessible (30).

Baby Kochamma uses this technique to convince the Inspector that Velutha “raped Ammu and kidnapped the children” (269). Keeping her composure, she “enhances and embroiders” Velutha’s quiet defiance into “threats of murder and abduction” (269).

Even after the Inspector threatens to charge her with “lodging a false F.I.R. Criminal offense”, Baby Kochamma controls her emotions and acts professionally (299). She calmly explains to him that “the children will do as they’re told” (299). Although this use of professionalism makes Baby Kochamma the most effective Indian female speaker in The God of Small Things, the police ultimately require Estha, a boy, to verify her accusations of Velutha. Thus, her use of speech is not entirely successful. Once again, Baby Kochamma cannot enter into the interworld with the Other, the Inspector. In this case, the Inspector’s words do not block entrance into the interworld – it is the way he speaks to her, the “gesture, the tone of the tone of [his] voice, the musicality of [his] speech, [and] the arrangement of [his] words” that inhibits effective communication (Young 143). Baby Kochamma realizes that “something was terribly wrong”, not from the meaning of his words, but “from the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice” (Roy 298). Similarly, when the Inspector inquires of Baby Kochamma “Where is the rape-victim’s complaint? Has it been filed? Has she made a statement? Have you brought it with you?” his “belligerent … [and] hostile” tone is not fully revealed in his words, but in the repetition of questions and unconscious emphasis on the word “where” (298). As Kristeva and Young suggest, the “semiotic” provides outlets for thought other than the “static … two dimensional line of language” (Kristeva “Semi” 46). By intimidating

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her with his voice and body language, the Inspector fails to enter into the interworld, thereby blocking communication.

The semiotic can hinder communication between people of different social powers in another way. Shortly after Estha is molested, Rahel detects his distress by noticing semiotic cues missed by the adults. When Estha tells Rahel to “take [his] sweet”, nothing in the literal meaning of his words indicates that he has just been molested (Roy 106). Because he says the words quickly, however, Rahel understands that something terrible has happened. This exchange between Rahel and Estha is successful for two reasons: firstly, the twins are equal in social status, so they can easily forge “an intersubjective bond, an interworld” (Crossley 413); secondly, children do not posit as great a “distinction between the self and the other” as adults (Crossley 413). Because Ammu is an adult, so more socially powerful than her children, she unintentionally engages in the “indifferent gaze” described by Merleau Ponty. Completely disregarding the parts of Estha’s language that are “expressive, affective, without having any definable significance”, Ammu effectively “transforms [Estha] into an object and denies [him]” (Merleau-Ponty 361). Not only is she blind to her son’s distress – she also calls the Orangedrink Lemondrink man a “sweet chap” who is “surprisingly sweet with Estha” (Roy 106). Rahel, incensed by her mother’s ignorance, tries to convey the seriousness of the situation by petulantly snapping “Why don’t you marry him then?” (106). Rahel chooses these words to attract her mother’s attention because she knows that Ammu is regularly discriminated against for her marital status. However, because she is a child, and cannot behave professionally, Rahel and Ammu do not enter into the interworld.

Ammu is more socially powerful than Rahel, so she can afford to talk “incessantly … [asking] Rahel questions, but never [letting] her answer them” (153). Rahel’s frequent use of unprofessional behavior also makes it easier for Ammu to ignore her. She not only speaks with “slang, dialect, and accent” – which, according to Young’s definition of professional behavior “should be absent from one’s speech” – she also expresses strong feelings through the semiotic aspects of her speech. In the aforementioned case, she not only insults Ammu with her words, but with her “petulant” tone (106). Consequently, communication does not occur, and Ammu never learns that Estha is molested.

Particularly in a society that emphasizes Anglophilia, speaking in proper English becomes a pre-requisite for effective communication. The importance of correct English is emphasized by the way Rahel is criticized for speaking in Malayalam and mispronouncing English words. Baby Kochamma eavesdrops on the twins’ conversations and “made them write … ‘I will always speak in English. I will always speak in English’” (36). The effectiveness of formal communication in English is demonstrated by the disproportional amount of respect afforded to the speech of Rahel’s English cousin, Sophie Mol. While Sophie Mol’s speech is just as gruesome and vivid as Rahel’s, Sophie Mol is praised for her observations, while the Rahel is constantly berated or ignored by her family members. When the family returns home from the airport with Sophie Mol, Rahel begins to recount her trip to the theatre to Mammachi. Immediately she is shushed by Ammu. Nobody “said Hello to Rahel” (164). As Sophie Mol enters, she is showered with questions. Mammachi asks Sophie Mol if she is “a pretty girl … and tall?” (166). Clearly, the family values her speech above Rahel’s.

Anglophilia is largely to blame for this judgment. This pattern of idealizing

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the English again results in an admiration of professional language which, as previously mentioned, does not include accented or expressive speech. Indeed, the novels read by the family are Ulysses and Heart of Darkness, not Indian texts (314, 67). Baby Kochamma reflects the family’s admiration for English literature by asking Sophie Mol if she has heard of “Ariel in The Tempest” (138). Upon further examination, discrimination against non-English speakers in the novel may be a “perception of hesitation in nonnative speech” (Fayer and Krasinski 114). In the study of speech, natural pauses for thought are referred to as “hesitation pauses” (Goldman-Eisler 135). Sequentially, inappropriate pauses in speech by non-native speakers have “been found to relate to judgments of intelligibility” (Fayer and Krasinski 114). Rahel and Estha frequently stutter and hesitate when speaking English. It is frequently mentioned that “they had to form their words properly, and be particularly careful about their pronunciation” (Roy 36). If the Indian characters are perceived as “intelligible”, it makes sense that they cannot easily overcome prejudice and enter into the interworld with native English speakers.

While valid, this argument does not explain why an inability to enter into the interworld seems more frequent in cases where two women of different races converse compared to instances where a woman and a man of different races converse.

When Ammu and Margaret Kochamma speak, for instance, Margaret Kochamma inadvertently condescends the family by asking if “Men and Women [sniff] each other too?” (170). In response, Ammu sarcastically retorts by saying “Oh all the time! That’s how we make babies” (170). Tensions are also high between Margaret Kochamma and Mammachi. Mammachi is extremely “sexually jealous” of her daughter-in-law and considers her “just another whore” (161, 312). When Mammachi says a “not rude, but polite” hello to Margaret Kochamma, Margaret Kochamma is unsure of “the right response” (165). In both cases, communication between the two women of different races is awkward, at best. When Margaret Kochamma and Chacko speak, the dialogue proceeds more smoothly. Margaret Kochamma says that she’s “sure [she] looks terrible” (165). Chacko immediately says that she’s “as lovely as ever” (165). Similarly, Ammu’s father is said to “be charming and urbane with visitors, and stopped just short of fawning on them if they happened to be white” (171). Thus, I argue that Indian women are the most ineffective speakers in the novel for two reasons. Discrimination against women within their own society based on caste and gender makes speaking out a great struggle. As Helene Cixous theorizes, the challenge of speaking makes the speech of these women overly expressive and emotional. While valid, this speech is not respected by a society of Anglophiles who value stoic professionalism above all else. Secondly, the pressure to speak in English, a second language, creates hesitation, which also inhibits the women’s appearance of professionalism. These combined factors prevent the Indian women in the novel from entering into the interworld with the other characters.

Indian women of The God of Small Things occupy a disadvantaged position in society and therefore cannot negate the “indifferent gaze” or enter into the “interworld” described by Merleau-Ponty. Before effective communication can take place, both the speaker and the listener must come to occupy a space of equality called the interworld. Because Indian women are discriminated against based on race, gender, age, professionalism, and/or caste, they are often viewed as unequal. Listeners who partici-

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pate in this prejudice are unable to enter into the interworld because they consider the speakers inferior to themselves. As a result, the speaker’s thoughts cannot be seamlessly integrated into the listener’s consciousness, a process that must occur in order for communication to be effective. Unable to defend their position with language, the Indian women of The God of Small Things cannot easily subvert social norms. Thus, they are unable to escape positions of inferiority. As a precursor to respectful communication, society must solve the problems of racism, classism and sexism so that all people can enter the interworld.

Works Cited Cixous, Hélène. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Trans. Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen.

Signs. 1 (1976): 875–93. Print Crossley, N. The Politics of Subjectivity: Between Foucault and Merleau-Ponty.

Aldershot, England: Brookfield USA, Avebury Series in Philosophy, 1994. Print.

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Press, 1967. Print.

Fayer, J.M., and Krasinski, E. “Native and non-native judgements of intelligibility and irritation.” Language Learning 37 (1987): 313-327. Print.

Goldman-Eisler, F. Hesitation and Information in Speech. Ed. C. Cherry. London: Butterworth, 1960. Print.

Kristéva, Julia. “Semiotics and Women.” Trans. Leslie W. Rabine. Pacific Coast Philology 12 (1977): 41-49. Print.

---. Strangers to Ourselves. Trans. Leon. S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia UP, 1991.

Print.

Merleau-Ponty, M. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. Colin Smith. New York: Routledge, 1962. Print.

Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 1997. Print.

Sartre, Jean-Paul: Being and Nothingness: A Phenomenological essay on Ontology.

Trans. Hazel E. Barnes. New York: Pocket Books, 1966. Print.

Young, Iris M. Justice and the Politics of Difference. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1990.

Print.

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“One Large Double-Double, Please”: Tim Hortons as an Althusserian Cultural Ideological State Apparatus

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April Tanner

English 2210

Northrop Frye’s garrison mentality is as prevalent as it has ever been. “As Canadians, we’re a little bit insecure culturally, given U.S. media and cultural domination,” Sean Moffitt, a branding specialist states, “whether it’s the CBC -- our TV network -- hockey [or] Olympic victory, we cling to our remaining cultural icons. Tim’s is one of them” (Blackshaw). Tim Hortons has become perhaps the most noticeable symbol of Canadian nationalism. It is connected to the traditions of Canada, the multiculturalism of Canadians, and the most famous Canadian season: winter. Tim Hortons is used as an example of a nationalism that unites Canadians despite the country’s vast territory. Upon asking any Canadian what they believe to be the defining traits of being “Canadian”, Tim Hortons will surely be mentioned as one of the central criteria.

It is in this sense that it functions as a Cultural Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) as discussed by Louis Althusser in Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. By considering Althusser’s criteria for Ideological State Apparatuses—ideology, reproducing the conditions of production, and interpellation of subjects—it becomes apparent that Tim Hortons can very easily be considered a Cultural ISA in Canada.

Althusser identifies two State Apparatuses that function in society: Ideological State Apparatuses and Repressive State Apparatuses. Althusser’s differentiation between an Ideological State Apparatus and a Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) is simple.

ISAs function by use of a governing ideology while RSAs function through repression.

In the case of Tim Hortons there is a very strong ideology that helps the restaurant maintain its popularity. This ideology is found in the nationalistic agenda of Tim Hortons. This can be understood by simply watching an assortment of Tim Hortons television commercials. Each one figures either a winter scene centred around hockey or celebrates the multiculturalism of Canada. The implicit message is that buying Tim Hortons is just as much an aspect of being Canadian as Canadian citizenship. People show their national pride by purchasing a coffee and donut. Althusser writes that the ideology is always “unified, despite its diversity and its contradictions, beneath the ruling ideology, which is the ideology of ‘the ruling class’” (Althusser 1343). This is especially true with Tim Hortons. As it is a corporation, its central objective is to capitalize on Canadians. While the average Canadian views the ruling ideology as support of nationalism, underneath that lies the true ideology of capitalism. In Canada’s capitalist society, this makes the true ruling ideology of Tim Hortons the ideology of ‘the ruling class’. Canadian society is diverse and multifaceted but the existence of Tim Hortons is an area that unites many Canadians. It is the coffee of choice for the hard-working citizens and politicians alike. One receives good value and a good quality of product when they buy from Tim Hortons using their hard-earned money. As Figures 1.0 displays in Appendix A, Rob Ford, Mayor of Toronto, is an enthusiastic Tim Hortons supporter.

His persona is dedicated to representing the average blue-collar taxpayer and his sup-

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port of Tim Hortons encourages that area of his political platform. Regardless of his personal trials, Rob Ford’s strategy is effective in making him a relatable citizen. His Tim Hortons-in-hand approach is highly relatable for Canadians as they feel that there is no separation between Ford’s and their own class standing. The ideology of national pride through purchasing an item satisfies both the Canadian citizen and the capitalist agenda of the ruling class.

An additional point of Althusser’s concerning ISAs is that they must reproduce the conditions of production, thus continuing the cycle of production. Considering Tim Hortons, the reproduction of the conditions of production is the habitual nature of their customers and the addiction to caffeine which ensures that the average customer visiting Tim Hortons returns multiple times during a week-long time span.

The goal is that a person will purchase an item from Tim Hortons each day, likely on their way to work. Going through the drive-thru on the way to work becomes routine.

Stopping into Tim Hortons for a mid-morning coffee and baked good with fellow retirees becomes a daily outing. Cooling off during the summer with an iced cappuccino is a warm-weather pastime. These habits are reproducing the conditions of production; returning each day ensures that the following day there will still be a Tim Hortons from which to buy coffee. Each time a Canadian purchases an item from Tim Hortons they are ensuring the longevity of the brand. The concept of caffeine addiction is another contributing factor to the success of Tim Hortons. According to a Statistics Canada study, 80.6% of beverages consumed on a daily basis by adults is caffeine (Garriguet).

People living in the United States drink less coffee than Canadians, validating the cultural ideology of Tim Hortons being decidedly Canadian (Garriguet). The habitual return of the customers causes the success of Tim Hortons. By equating Tim Hortons with national pride, purchasing a coffee becomes an act of patriotism. This feeling of support for Canada by purchasing a coffee also contributes to the reproduction of the conditions of production. Through national pride and caffeine dependency, Tim Horton manages to keep a steady clientele who can be counted on to return frequently.

Althusser’s ISA criteria is also concerned with the concept of how “ideology interpellates individuals as subjects” (Althusser 1356). This interpellation is also known as ‘hailing’; this the signal that begins the transformation process of individuals into subjects. According to Althusser, the person being hailed, in this sense a Canadian, always realizes they are being hailed. This hailing happens when Canadians view Tim Hortons commercials and the resulting feeling that Canadians support their nation by buying double doubles. The commercials create a sense of patriotic duty in their viewers. In one commercial entitled “Proud Fathers”, an Asian man who had always discouraged his son’s involvement in hockey shows up at the rink for his grandson’s hockey game with a Tim Hortons for himself and his son, in a gesture meant to atone for his past (Kauflust). In a one minute video, Tim Hortons manages to encapsulate the multiculturalism and traditions of Canada. The older man realizes that the support of Canadian culture is the only way in which he can mend his relationship with his son. He becomes resigned to the Canadian traditions that have captured his son from childhood and is able to share in the cultural tradition of hockey with his grandson. In doing so, he recognizes that he is now a hailed subject of Tim Hortons’ ideology. In another commercial a middle aged man readies himself for the arrival of

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his wife and children from their home country to Canada where he has been working (Nexus Canada). His preparation involves buying winter coats and accessories for them to wear when they leave the airport to head to their new home (Nexus Canada).

Upon the arrival of his wife, the man hands her a Tim Hortons cup and says “Welcome to Canada” (Nexus Canada). The association between Tim Hortons and Canada is so strong and the sense of hailing or interpellation from these commercials ensures that the average Canadian will recognize their connection to the cultural values of Canada.

The man’s wife is immediately connecting Canada with Tim Hortons and she has not yet left the airport. Althusser furthers this idea of interpellation when he writes that the subject’s “ideas are his material actions inserted into material practices governed by material rituals which are themselves defined by the material ideological apparatus from which derive the ideas of that subject” (Althusser 1354). This sentence succinctly relates the habitual trip to Tim Hortons that many Canadians make; the action is a ritual which is centred around the Canadian ideology that Tim Hortons instills in the Canadian psyche. The concept of Tim Hortons as a distinctly Canadian company and symbol of nationalism has caused it to be a multi-billion dollar company, with total a revenue of $3,255,500,000 in the 2013 fiscal year (Tim Hortons). Those sales are surely indicative of a heavy reliance of Canadians on the restaurant. The ideology of Tim Hortons captures the attention of Canadians and they, in turn, perpetuate the ideology by taking action to purchase an item. Capitalizing on nationalism is done in a way which lacks subtlety but is extremely effective and allows Tim Hortons to exist in Canada as a Cultural ISA.

As demonstrated by the preceeding paragraphs, Tim Hortons functions in Canadian society as a Cultural Ideological State Apparatus. Althusser’s concept of State Apparatuses allows his readers to identify them in their own society. By considering the intimate ties between Tim Hortons and Canadian nationalism, it becomes apparent that Tim Hortons is more than simply a popular Canadian restaurant but that it takes the form of a defining Canadian trait. Canadians tightly grip their Tim Hortons cups in defence of the suggestion that we lack a cohesive national identity and use their dedication to the brand to fight back against the panic of unifying the population of such a large geographical area.

Works Cited Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Appartuses.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. London: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2010. 1335-1361. Print.

Anonymous. “Rob Ford on the Danforth.” Indie88. 2013. Web. 02 March 2014.

Blackshaw, Pete. “What Starbucks Can Learn From a Canadian Competitor: Tim Hortons Pushes the Frontiers of Fan Fanaticism.” Ad Age 14 July 2008. Web. 28 February 2014.

Garriguet, Didier. “Beverage Consumption of Canadian Adults.” Health Reports. 19.4 (2008): 22-29. Web. 02 March 2014.

Kauflust. “Proud Fathers.” Online Video Clip. YouTube. YouTube, 3 June 2008. Web. 28 February 2014.

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Nexus Canada. “Tim Hortons Coffee Commercial Welcome Home.” Online Video Clip. YouTube. YouTube, 7 November 2010. Web. 28 February 2014.

Tim Hortons. “2013 Fourth Quarter & Year-End Conference Call.” Tim Hortons. 20 February 2014. Web. 2 March 2014.

Appendix A Figure 1.0

(Anonymous)

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Political Power in the Internet Age: The Appropriation of Shepard Fairey’s “Hope”

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Samantha Roberts VAH 2283

Political power has been derived from artistic representations for centuries: from the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius to the glorious printed depictions of leaders like Francisco Franco and Josef Stalin. Today political art is much more diversified and subject to public manipulation. This is especially clear when we consider the promotional poster for Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Campaign poster designed

by Shepard Fairey, a street artist based in Los Angeles. In today’s society, political art is no longer the iron-clad propaganda of the 20th century, but an image to be used and manipulated by individuals and groups to promote their own political values. Art therefore, has become an example of the ultimate democracy.

The Obama “Hope” poster is a stylized close-up photograph of the then-senator in a three-quarter pose with his head turned and looking up to the left, above the viewer. The image features solid blocks of colour and line to shade and define facial features in the iconic red, white and blue of the American flag. On the bottom quarter of the image, the word “Hope” is featured in giant blue block letters. While the pose and colour scheme is aesthetically consistent with political propaganda from the last century like John F. Kennedy’s political campaign for the 1960 presidential election, “Hope” boldly declares the democratization of the image and a promotes a grassroots revolution akin to that of the iconic red and black of Che Guevara’s portrait.

“Hope” is a significant icon because it became a symbol for Obama’s 2008 campaign, for the motto “Yes we can” and “Hope” in a political environment that seemed hopeless. It became more than a portrait and a slogan, it became about the underdog and the American Dream. The American public, reeling from the financial crisis of 20072008 and a seven-year war against terror, wanted to believe in progress and hard work leading to success in a renewed America, and Obama was just that. The first AfricanAmerican candidate in the history of the United States, Obama’s campaign revolved around community and working together to create a better America. As I will discuss below, this “Hope” changes the role of the political portrait because it perpetuates propaganda that the people create and circulate.

“Hope” is different from traditional political imagery because of its form, not necessarily content. Created by Shepard Fairey, a street artist known for his popular “Obey” stickers, the vectored image of Obama more closely resembles popular culture than a political portrait. Fairey designed “Hope” in an effort to support the bottom-up, grassroots campaign run by Obama. In this subversion of the traditional political poster, “Hope” was created by a street artist, not the political machine or bourgeois art society. This provenance lends relevance and legitimacy to the Obama campaign as truly “of the people”, even though the administration never publicly endorsed the poster design. If power is given by the people, it is understandable why the American public consumed the image with such fervor: the New Yorker’s Peter Schjeldahl famously

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wrote that “Fairey created the most efficacious American political illustration since ‘Uncle Sam Wants You’”, and the image is likely one of the most widely distributed political portraits in history.

Furthermore, appropriation of images is an increasingly complex topic as the internet becomes more prevalent in daily life. More and more users have become authors and editors, and political propaganda is not immune to the creative hand of the public. Just like the various versions of “Uncle Sam Wants You”, “Hope” was taken by the public and twisted countless different ways, often against the goal of the original art. Now, during Obama’s the second term, users are appropriating “Hope” to criticize Obama’s administration and policies, using captions like “Yes We Scan” and the much simpler “Nope”. These translations are examples of creators who do not accept the “Hope” narrative or the policies of the Obama administration; in fact, they promote an anti-Obama sentiment. This is an example of the power of the people. It is impossible to regulate the emotions of the people, just as it is impossible to regulate circulated imagery on the internet, and these varying adaptations of “Hope” prove that.

If “Hope” defines itself by the unique form, than it is the change in content that changes the meaning; when the subject or caption changes, it references the original in its form but corrupts the message. When we consider Fairey’s recreation of the style featuring “V” instead of Obama, it is clear to see that while clearly reminding the viewer of the original, the artist is making a very different statement; “V”, a character from the graphic novel V for Vendetta, supplies a new understanding of the caption “Hope”. In this altered version, Fairey directly references government surveillance, fear-mongering and anarchy, all primary themes of the graphic novel. Does the fact that this new design was created by the same artist that incepted the original change the meaning of “Hope”? On his website, Fairey has openly expressed anger about certain policies of the Obama administration, and in interviews with the Huffington Post, Fairey declared his love of the “Yes We Scan” posters. Fairey’s change of heart and the anti-Obama appropriations of the image do inform the dialogue around “Hope” in specific ways: for example the vectored design and color scheme references Obama, but the supposition of “V” makes a targeted contrast of a political figure in power and a vigilante fighting against oppression, connecting the two in the minds of the viewer.

These appropriations will always inform the original “Hope”, however the message of the image remains in the hands of the viewer. The concept of a portrait is constantly determined by the viewer’s opinion of the subject, caused by and sometimes in spite of the edited renditions.

In contrast to the negative versions of “Hope” like “Yes We Scan” and “Nope”, the form of “Hope” is applied to unrelated figures to borrow the meaning. On obamapostermaker.com, any user can create a Fairey “Hope” inspired poster by pasting any image into the application and adding a caption. The internet embodies endless creative content, and this website is no exception. Anyone with access to the internet can create a “Hope” style picture, no artistic ability required. Recreations featuring popular actors and popular culture figures such as Hans Solo, Jon Stewart, Jesus Christ and even the Big Lebowski have been featured with their own personalized captions.

These new images aren’t meant to change the version featuring Obama, but to borrow the emotional impact of the original image and apply it to someone else. The colour

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scheme and posturing in the image continues to remind viewers of the phenomenon of “Hope” and the 2008 democratic campaign. The adoration and inspiration that were associated with Obama are borrowed by these creators to glorify a different individual for their importance to Americans. The patriotic colours and “looking forward” composition are, in the case of obamapostermaker.com, an aesthetic formula for the hardearned admiration of “Hope”.

Ultimately, political propaganda in the internet age is something altogether different from the works of the past. In this study, “Hope” by Shepard Fairey stands as an icon for an underdog presidential candidate and the transformations of the image

by Fairey and anonymous users alike simultaneously contribute to and borrow from the original significance. But if these images of political powers are no longer cast in bronze, how powerful can an image be when it becomes a malleable, cut and shaped into something totally different? Ultimately power is given to an image by the people, and an image can be changed or destroyed no matter what the medium is. Power is given and taken from images by the creators and viewers in a dynamic exchange that never ends, and political powers have absolutely no power to stop it.

Works Cited ObamaPosterMaker.com. Accessed Oct 19, 2013. http://obamapostermaker.com/.

Schjeldahl, Peter. “Hope and Glory: A Shepard Fairey Moment.” The New Yorker. Feb 23, 2009. http://www.newyorker.com/.

Sutton, Benjamin. “Shepard Fairey Likes Those NSA-Themed Remixes of His Obama ‘Hope’ Poster.” In The Air (blog). Blouin Art Info. June 23, 2013. http://blogs. artinfo.com/.

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Jesus, Take the Deal: Women, Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism, and the Liberal Bargain in Country Music

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Christina Vernier WS 3322

American country music is comprised of countless male and female artists, including notable names such as Garth Brooks, Kenney Chesney, Shania Twain, and Reba McEntire. However, it is apparent that the men are often afforded the privilege of individuality and personal and political expression, while the women often appear as a homogenous group, with similar appearances, songs, and personal and political beliefs. This paper will argue that many female country artists often have to conform to neoconservative ideals of womanhood in order to achieve success in the country music industry, and to attain the financial gain associated with this success. Such conformity can be understood in terms of Sa’ar’s theory of the liberal bargain. This paper will examine three common tropes that women in country music, through both their music and the personas upon which they must model themselves. The first is the ‘virginal woman’, as exemplified by Taylor Swift. Second is the mother and wife, as seen in Faith Hill. Third, is the pious and patriotic woman, as portrayed by American Idol winner Carrie Underwood. Finally, an examination of the 2003 backlash towards the Dixie Chicks will highlight the consequences of failing to conform to the ideal neoliberal and neoconservative subject as put forth by country music.

Country music, neoconservatism, and neoliberalism: an overview Country music, originating in the American South, became popular in the post-World War I era with the increased accessibility to radio in the United States, and quickly became a “cultural phenomenon” (Raines and Walker 44). Country music remains popular today in part because “its songs documented the lives of its constituents [...] [and has] always reflected the social change experienced by its core audience” (Raines and Walker 44). This core audience is diverse in both race, class, and gender, as seen by the long history of Mexican American audiences in the American Southwest, African Americans in the South (Hubbs 52) and the “middle class suburbanization of ‘new country’ audiences in the 1980s and 1990s” (Hubbs 52). However, the majority of country artists, even today, are white, Christian, and (at least present themselves as) ‘working-class’. Nadine Hubbs explains: Country music traffics in thematic, linguistic, and musical conventions that connect to identities characteristically working class (although Americans rarely self-identify as such) as well as rural; southern, southwestern, and Midwestern; white; Christian; and heterosexual. Country trains an intent focus on these social identities and is arguably the most widely circulating discourse on white working-class – not to mention southern and provincial-life and identity in American culture (52-3).

This focus on a particular kind of body and narrative is very much in line with and

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informed by neoconservative and neoliberal discourse.

Before conducting a further analysis of women in country music, it is important to define neoliberalism and neoconservatism, as these political ideologies inform both the country music industry and the greater social structure within which it operates. Wendy Brown describes neoconservatism as a “fierce moral-political rationality” (691). Neoconservatism gained popularity in the United States in the 1970s as a reaction against communism and the 1960s counterculture, which advocated for radical politics, and was a push back to “authority, custom, and tradition” (“neoconservatism (political philosophy)”). As a result, neoconservatism is intent on looking back towards a ‘simpler’ America, and trying to reclaim this (imagined) image of what an ideal nation-state looks like. Neoconservatism believes in the state and law as sites for “setting the moral-religious compass for society, and indeed for the world” (Brown 697). Neoconservatives also “see politics and culture as two sides of the same coin” (Ball and Dagger 115), and believe that culture is the means through which “a people defines who it is, or who it aspires to be” (Ball and Dagger 115). Therefore, mass culture is a place to be policed, in order to ensure it is disseminating the ‘right’ kind of morals that neoconservatives hold dear, notably, “family values and the praise of older forms of family life, where women occupy themselves with children, cooking and the church, and men take on the burdens of manliness” (Norton qtd. in Brown 697). As neoconservatism has fallen out of favor in the political realm of the United States (Ball and Dagger 115), it resides comfortably in the culture of country music, which often espouses these same morals, through song lyrics and the carefully constructed personas of many of the performers.

Neoliberalism believes that “government should be as small as possible in order to leave room for the exercise of individual freedom” (Ball and Dagger 70), and should be concerned with maintaining a healthy economy. Part of this includes privatizing previously public services, such as welfare, education, and the military (Brown 694). As Brown states, this, “entails a host of policies that figure and produce citizens as individual entrepreneurs and consumers whose moral autonomy is measured by their capacity for “self-care” – their ability to provide for their own needs and service their own ambitions” (694). As a result, neoliberalism constructs a certain kind of citizen, one who is a consumer, and who is socialized and encouraged to hold individualistic, self-serving, beliefs that often focus on financial gain. This brings about a citizen less focused on “any orientation toward the common, thereby undermining an already weak investment in an active citizenry” (Brown 695).

Neoconservatism and neoliberalism appear to be at odds, with neoconservatism essentially identifying “itself as the guardian and advocate of a potentially vanishing past and present” (Brown 699) and neoliberalism looking “forward to a global order contoured by a universalized market rationality in which cultural difference is at most a commodity” (Brown 699). However, as Brown argues, they “work symbiotically to produce a subject relatively indifferent to veracity and accountability in government and to political freedom and equality among the citizenry” (690). That is, the citizen that is produced as a result of the intersections of neoliberalism and neoconservatism is concerned more with their own lives and successes, and less with those of society at large. This convergence of these two seemingly different, yet mutually sustaining

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political rationalities is visible in the genre of country music, where neoconservative images of the ideal woman are adopted by female performers in order to achieve financial success within the business. Beverly Skeggs theorizes that within neoliberal Western society, the stories of individuals are valued and individuals “who can access, use, and display the right identity attributes” are rewarded (qtd. in Hubbs 46). She goes on to explain that, “these powerful actors can “use the classifications and characteristics of race, sexuality, class, and gender as resources” by borrowing them, fluidly and according to the circumstances, from the subject positions to which they are seen to belong. Such self-resourcing takes place in a modern neoliberal context of “propertized personhood” (Skeggs, qtd. in Hubbs 46). Therefore, identities and personas circulate as a kind of currency with which neoliberal subjects can achieve financial success and independence.

Country music darlings

For female country artists, the identity being co-opted is that of a working-class woman who is devoted to neoconservative ideals of virginity, motherhood, and patriotism. Whether or not these women actually inhabit this economic class, or embody these attributes in ‘real life’ is irrelevant. They give up their own unique personalities in favor of a carefully constructed neoconservative persona, aimed to appeal to the (assumed) white, working-class, Christian consumer. This identity formation can be understood in relation to Amalia Sa’ar’s theory of the liberal bargain. The liberal bargain, according to Sa’ar, “refers to a particular process whereby members of disadvantaged groups become identified with the hegemonic order” (681)1, and “adopt a liberal epistemology” (Sa’ar 681). Here, the disadvantaged group is ‘women’ within the heteronormative, often sexist genre of country music. In order for these women to gain access to this genre and the benefits that come with that, these women must adopt certain identities that appeal to the neoconservative ideology that American country music adheres to. These identities vary, but the most commonly occurring ones in country music are the virgin, the wife/mother, and the pious patriot.

Many female country artists have relied on a façade of virginity and innocence as a way to market themselves and gain initial popularity among the assumed white, Christian, working- class country music audience. Taylor Swift is an example of a contemporary country superstar who has capitalized on this virginal façade in her career. The now 24-year old singer released her first album, Taylor Swift in 2006, at the age of 17, which included songs such as the hit singles “Tim McGraw” and “Teardrops on My Guitar.” The songs on this album dealt mostly with young teenage crushes and heartbreak, and none of them explicitly or implicitly discussed sexuality beyond kissing. On her next Grammy-award-winning album, Fearless (2008), Swift debuted her new hit song, “You Belong With Me.” In this song, Swift constructs a virgin/whore 1

It is important to note that this is not meant to be an appropriation of Sa’ar’s argument, which is theorized specifically in relation to women of color. The white women of country music experience very different oppressions from those of the women Sa’ar bases her theory on, and this is not meant to equate the two. Rather, this comparison is meant to show that the liberal bargain can also apply to other groups, and it becomes a useful tool for analyzing this phenomenon of homogenizing women’s identities in country music.

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dichotomy between herself and the girlfriend of the boy she is singing to. The song is structured as an argument for the boy to leave his girlfriend for the narrator, Taylor Swift. She makes several comparisons between herself and the girlfriend in verses such as “you say you’re fine – I know you’re better than that/Hey what you doing with a girl like that?/She wears high heels/I wear sneakers/She’s cheer captain/And I’m on the bleachers.” Here, she is equating clothing (high heels) with a certain kind of aggressive, agentic (read: bad) female sexuality and essentially engages in lyrical slut-shaming.

She also makes the comparison with,“she wears short skirts/I wear t-shirts.” Again, this supposed ‘innocent’ attire of sneakers and t-shirts is valued more than ‘slutty’ high heels and short skirts, and is used as ‘proof ’ that the narrator is more worthy of this man’s love.

Even on her next album, Speak Now, released in 2010, when Swift was 21 years old, she engages in this slut-shaming in an effort to maintain her virginal persona. On the song “Better than Revenge,” Swift laments the theft of her boyfriend at the hands of another girl. She sings, “she’s not a saint/and she’s not what you think/she’s an actress, whoa/she’s better known/for the things that she does/on the mattress, whoa.” The implicit message here is that Swift, unlike the woman she is singing about, is sexually inexperienced and passive, and is therefore the victim of a woman expressing agentic sexuality. This image is highly successful, as Swift has been the recipient of “over 100 industry award[s]” (Taylor Swift), including the Grammy award for Album of the Year for Fearless, and her album, Speak Now was listed on Rolling Stone’s “Top 50 Greatest Albums of All Time.” This success is arguably due to her virginal, girl-next-door image that has been maintained despite tabloids constantly speculating and reporting on her numerous romantic relationships with various men.

It is unknown if Swift is indeed a virgin in real life, but this is irrelevant. What is important is that she portrays herself as such, throughout her now eight-year long career, supposedly in an effort to keep sales high. Autostraddle blogger ‘Riese’ writes that, the rush to exalt Swift is [...] a desperate attempt to infuse our allegedly apocalypse- bound country with a palatable conservative ideology in the form of a complacent, repressed feminine ideal. [...] Rather than choosing an established/evolved talent (Beyoncé) or a fresh potential revolutionary (Lady Gaga), the Grammys chose someone who, according to her lyrics, has spent her entire life waiting for phone calls and dreaming about horses and sunsets (2010).

Her juvenile lyrics and image fall in line with neoconservative ideals of the passive woman, and as a result Swift has achieved enormous success in the music industry at large, not just in country music. Swift has arguably made a liberal bargain in the construction of her image at the expense of other women with her slut-shaming lyrics and image. Neoliberalism accepts disadvantaged individuals are a necessary evil in order to allow for others to achieve success in the same market. Not only does Swift carefully construct a neoconservative virginal image, she accomplishes this in opposition to a negative image of a sexually agentic and experienced other woman. She has adopted the neoliberal epistemology in her liberal bargain, and has accepted the fact that her success and image is at the expense of shaming other women for their own person-

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al decisions, whether they are real or fictitious characters in her songs. It is doubtful whether Swift will be able to write more overtly sexual songs and still maintain her level of financial success and privilege, as this would likely result in a ruining of her carefully-crafted persona.

Faith Hill is another example of a country artist who initially capitalized on this virginal image in her career. Her first album, Take Me As I Am (1995), was released when she was 28 years old, and married to music executive Daniel Hill. Despite her marriage and age, Hill presented herself like a young, virginal woman, much like Swift. However, after her highly- publicized marriage to Tim McGraw in 1996, Hill’s songs shifted from innocent and virginal, to more sexually-charged. However, these sexually explicit songs occur almost exclusively as duets with her real-life husband, McGraw. These songs include “It’s Your Love,” (1997), “Let’s Make Love,” (1999) “Like We Never Loved At All,” (2005) and “I Need You,” (2007) among others. Arguably the most explicit is “Let’s Make Love,” with lyrics like “let’s make love/all night long/until all our strength is gone/hold on tight/just let go/I wanna feel you in my soul/until the sun comes up/let’s make love.” This sexuality, though explicit, is still in line with neoliberal ‘family values,’ as it is literally being expressed in the context of a heterosexual marriage. As such, this expression of female sexuality is unthreatening to neoconservative values, and is also acceptable, and profitable in the conservative country music industry.

In addition to portraying herself as a wife, Faith Hill also emphasizes her role as a mother, such as in the song “Mississippi Girl” from her album, Fireflies (2005). This song is about her defending her Mississippi (read: working-class) identity in the face of criticism that she had ‘sold out,’ as a result of her highly successful music career and her brief stint in acting, appearing in the 2004 film, The Stepford Wives. She sings, “I still like wearing my old ball cap/ride my kids around piggy-back.” This is another example of her affirming her identity as a neoconservative woman, focused on her family and raising her children, which, according to neoconservatives, is exactly what women should be spending their time and energy on. Faith Hill and Tim McGraw do have three daughters in real life, and this contributes to a sense of “sincerity and biographical authenticity or ‘realness’ [conveyed] through [country] songs and public personas” (Hubbs 56).

What is not often publicized is the fact that Hill and McGraw met while Hill was touring with McGraw on his 1996 “Spontaneous Combustion” tour, when Hill was engaged to another man. Hill got pregnant out of wedlock, and the two married later that year. This act, which can be likened to adultery and pre-marital sex, is decidedly against neoconservative family values. However, once again, the focus here is not on these women’s real-lives, but rather on the public persona which they construct in an effort to ‘make it’ in the country music industry. As Sa’ar states, modern neoliberal society does allow for “some upward mobility for people from structurally disadvantaged backgrounds [...] But there is a price. Those who succeed are expected to leave their histories behind” (687). That is precisely what Faith Hill has done. She has achieved financial success due to her ability to conform to the neoconservative image of the doting wife and mother, while simultaneously erasing the story of how she came to be the wonderful wife of Tim McGraw.2

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The final trope in country music to be examined here is that of the pious and patriotic woman, exemplified by country singer Carrie Underwood. Underwood was the winner of the fourth season of reality television show American Idol (2004-2005), and achieved success with her first album, Some Hearts (2005), which featured the religious hit “Jesus, Take the Wheel.” Already positioned as an ‘America’s Sweetheart’ figure, as she was literally chosen by America to win the American Idol competition, Underwood represents traditional American ideals and appearance. Her songs are rarely sexual, and more often bear religious overtones, as in “Jesus, Take the Wheel,” where the narrator and her baby are involved in a car crash. The narrator surrenders her fate to Jesus, and as a result, survives. Songs such as this are ‘acceptable’ according to neoconservatism, because it is an example of a ‘moral’ culture, fit to influence the idealized white, Christian, heteronormative society.

In addition to her music’s religiosity, Underwood has songs that are undeniably patriotic, namely, “All-American Girl” from her 2007 album, Carnival Ride. In it, she sings about a man who, “since the day they got married/he’d been praying for a little baby boy,” but who ends up with a daughter, who is the typical “All-American Girl.” His daughter grows up to be a cheerleader, falls in love with the high school quarterback, and gives birth to her own “All- American Girl.” Here, “All-American”, is used as shorthand for good and desirable in the eyes of the neoconservative consumer, and this equating of American identity with goodness is in line with neoconservatism’s “call for revival of patriotism” (Brown 697). In addition, the extremely heteronormative narrative of the song serves to align this patriotism with a distinctly heterosexual family narrative, which produces this “All-American girl.” This song is an example of the conflation of traditional family views and patriotism as mutually constructive.

These songs, with carefully placed references to sexuality, religion, and patriotism, serve to make Underwood the ultimate neoliberal country music star. One who appropriates working- class culture, religious and patriotic identities in order to achieve the financial success and independence so valued in neoliberal society.

In terms of the liberal bargain, here Underwood maintains a ‘squeaky-clean,’ working-class, ‘All-American’ persona, despite the fact that due to her massive, success, she is a millionaire and undeniably a part of America’s elite upper-class, far removed from her working-class root and image. Brown writes that “neoliberalism is expressly about winners and losers based on entrepreneurial skill, and the political rationality of neoconservatism is about preserving what you’ve got and protecting your own [...] More, the wealth of America is figured by neocons as part of its greatness, [and] patriotic attachment [...] renders as anti-American any resentment of the rich” (701). Thus, Underwood enters in this liberal bargain where she obscures her true identity in favor of a constructed persona. She deftly manipulates this patriotic image in order to gain access to financial privilege, while still maintaining a false working class image that is beyond criticism, as it is protected by her patriot claim.

2

This is not meant to suggest that Faith Hill’s past personal life is inherently shameful, but rather that her actions go against the passive, faithful women so idealized by neoconservatives and, subsequently, the American country music industry.

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America’s (ex-) sweethearts

Female country group, The Dixie Chicks, are an example of the consequences of women artists in country music failing to uphold their end of the liberal bargain. The Dixie Chicks are a highly successful country music group, originally formed in Dallas, Texas in 1989. The members of the band, though they changed between 1989 and 1995, are currently Martie Maguire, Emily Robison, and Natalie Maines. The band, as of 2003, had won numerous awards, including three Grammy awards for Best Country Album (Wide Open Spaces, 1999; Fly, 2000; Home, 2003), and was the top selling female band of all time (Katz 2). The Dixie Chicks had a wholesome image, with songs that espoused working class pride in a romantic, but not overtly sexual way, such as “Cowboy Take Me Away” (Fly, 1999). The members had children of their own, and were married, placing them at a point of ideal neoconservative womanhood. In sum, they were the ultimate ‘All-American’ female country band.

However, this would all change during their London, England concert on March 10, 2003, which was meant to kick off the start of their “Top of the World” world tour. This was just prior to the United States invasion of Iraq, and immediately following their performance of “Travelin’ Soldier,” a song about a woman in love with a soldier in the Vietnam war (Watson and Burns 327), lead singer Natalie Maines commented on how the band and she “opposed the impending war, but then attempted to lighten the mood by stating, ‘we’re ashamed the President of the United States [George Bush] is from Texas’” (Watson and Burns 327). When news of this hit American media, the Dixie Chicks experienced extreme backlash. Their music was boycotted from radio stations, resulting in their hit at the time falling from the music charts, their CDs were burned in mass protests, and the group even received hate mail and death threats (Watson and Burns 327). Despite an apology, the group remained alienated from the country music industry, and was “branded as traitors and as unpatriotic” (Watson and Burns 328). This is significant because the Iraq war was part of the neoconservative ‘war on terror,’ started with the Bush administration following the September 11, 2001 attacks, and is in line with neoconservative belief in military power as a means to achieve moral authority.

In fact, the Iraq war led to “widespread condemnation of neoconservatism” (Ball and Dagger 115).

The Dixie Chicks’ speaking out against this neoliberal military conquest positioned them, in the eyes of many neoconservative Americans, as unpatriotic, both explicitly in opposing the war, and implicitly by going against the “implicit values of country music” (Katz 3).

As previously stated, country music is rooted in nostalgic neoconservative ideologies about the ideal American society, and thus its artists have to conform to these values in order to be successful. The Dixie Chicks, previously non-controversial due to their ‘all-American’ image and adoption of the idealized female trope of mother and wife, suddenly became political pariahs because they broke their liberal bargain and exercised agency and control over their identities, rather than deferring to their publicly-palatable personas.

Their supposed anti-patriotism, manifested in their public questioning of political authority, was exacerbated by their gender. It is bad enough to be seen as anti-patriotic in a fiercely American genre. To be a woman who has benefited from this neoliberal arrangement within a neoconservative market, and then to turn around and question it, is especially offensive to neoconservatives. The Dixie Chicks were no longer able to maintain the façade of the neoconservative woman to be revered. The group made another bargain when Maines made her now infamous comment defaming President Bush, one where their financial success and privilege was given up for their desire to exercise political and personal agency. This then provides an excellent example of the threat that female country artists face when constructing their personas through public appearances and their music.

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This paper has discussed the intersections of neoliberalism and neoconservatism as they manifest themselves in the careers of female country artists. Many of these female artists have to conform to neoconservative notions of the ideal woman, and the most common tropes include the ‘virginal woman,’ the wife and mother, and the pious patriot, and are best exemplified through Taylor Swift, Faith Hill, and Carrie Underwood, respectively. This adoption of a persona and the tailoring of music to fit that persona is best understood as a liberal bargain. The liberal bargain ultimately entails giving up one’s identity, personal beliefs, and politics in favor of a neoconservative female trope, and to be rewarded with the financial success that is so valued in the current neoliberal society. Several new female country artists, including Kacey Musgraves and the Pitsol Annies are starting to break out of these rigid tropes, their lyrics often questioning the constrictive status quo women are expected to follow, and are experiencing some success. It remains to be seen, however, if they can achieve the same level of fame and success as their neoconservative-friendly counterparts, who seem to have struck the ultimate ‘deal’ with neoliberalism and neoconservatism within the American country music industry.

Works Cited Ball, Terence, and Richard Dagger. Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal. 8th ed.Boston: Longman, 2011. Print.

Brown, Wendy. “American Nightmare: Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism, and DeDemocratization.” Political Theory 34.6 (2006): 690-714. Web. Hill, Faith. “Let’s Make Love.” Breathe. Warner Bros., 2000. CD. Hill, Faith. “Mississippi Girl.” Fireflies. Warner Bros., 2005. CD. Hubbs, Nadine. “‘Redneck Woman’ and the Gendered Politics of Class Rebellion.”

Southern Cultures 17.4 (2011): 44-70. Project MUSE. Web. 31 March 2014.

Katz, Claire. “the Eternal Irony of the Community”: Prophecy, Patriotism, and the Dixie Chicks.” Shofar 26.4 (2008): 139-VIII. ProQuest. Web. 30 March 2014. “neoconservatism (political philosophy)” Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Encyclopaedia Brittanica Online. Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Inc., 2014. Web. 27 March 2014.

Raines, Davis, and Tricia Walker. “Poetry for the People: Country Music and American Social Change.” Southern Quarterly 45.2 (2008): 44-51. ProQuest. Web. 25 February 2014.

Riese. “Why Taylor Swifts Offends Little Monsters, Feminists, and Weirdos.” Auto straddle. The Excitant Group, 6 February 2010. Web. 30 March 2014.

Sa’ar, Amalia. “Postcolonial Feminism, the Politics of Identification, and the Liberal Bargain.” Gender and Society 19.5 (2005): 680-700. Sage Publications, Inc. Web. 20 December 2013.

Swift, Taylor. “You Belong With Me.” Fearless. Big Machine, 2008. CD. Swift, Taylor. “Better than Revenge.” Speak Now. Big Machine, 2010. CD. Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift, 2014. Web. 20 March 2014.

Underwood, Carrie. “Jesus, Take the Wheel.” Some Hearts. Arista, 2005. CD. Underwood, Carrie. “All-American Girl.” Carnival Ride. Arista, 2007. CD. Watson, Jada, and Lori Burns. “Resisting exile and asserting musical voice: the Dixie Chicks are ‘Not Ready toMake Nice.’” Popular Music 29.3 (2010): 325-350. Web. 28 March 2014.

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‘Queer-ies’ About Butch/Femme: An Essay on the Impact of Homonationalism on Queer Female Gender Identities

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Queer communities, living largely in opposition to the dominant North American culture, have developed their own distinct subcultures (Halberstam 314).

An important aspect of queer subcultures lies in the unique and diverse ways in which individuals within queer communities express their gender identities (Boyd 241).

Gender transgressive performances have come to serve as a marker for queer cultural difference (Boyd 241). However, the emergence of homonational and homonormative ideologies and discourses pose a threat to such aspects of queer subcultures, as they place a heavy emphasis on assimilation into mainstream—meaning heterosexual—society and culture. How has the pressure to assimilate into mainstream culture then impacted the internal dynamics of queer communities, with regards to queer gender identities? This paper will argue that the assimilationist discourses perpetuated by homonationalism have tended to create an anti-assimilationist sentiment within certain subgroups of queer communities; this has resulted in the devaluation of the queer femme identity, as it is often seen as complicit with the very homonationalist agenda many queer communities seek to resist. This paper will first provide a definition of the term ‘homonationalism,’ for the purpose of situating this paper’s theoretical context.

Second, this paper will discuss how homonationalist discourse has created the ‘good gay’ who assimilates into mainstream culture, using the concept of homonormativity.

Third, it will examine how the creation of the ‘good gay,’ and the according emphasis on assimilation have created anti-assimilationist sentiment within many queer communities. Fourth, this paper will illustrate how anti-assimilationist sentiment within many queer communities has resulted in the valorization of the butch identity as embodied by queer females among some such subgroups. Finally, this paper will explore the according devaluation of the femme identity as embodied by queer females, as the queer femme is seen as entering into a liberal bargain with dominant society, and therefore is not perceived as ‘authentically queer’ within some queer communities. This paper will conclude with a discussion of how, to radically change queer lives, a liberation movement accepting of all varieties of queerness is necessary.

This paper situates its discussion of queer female gender identities within the theoretical context of homonationalism. The concept of homonationalism was originally developed by contemporary queer theorist Jasbir Puar, in Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Puar defines homonationalism as, a deep critique of lesbian and gay liberal rights discourses and how those rights discourses produce narratives of progress and modernity that continue to accord some populations access to citizenship—cultural and legal—at the expense of the delimitation and expulsion of other populations.

The narrative of progress for gay rights is thus built on the back of racialized others, for whom such progress was once achieved, but is now back-

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sliding or has yet to arrive (Puar 337).

In other words, homonationalism is the way in which ideologically white, Western nations construct themselves as ‘progressive’ based on their supposed acceptance of gays and lesbians, while simultaneously constructing other non-white nations as homophobic and backwards for their treatment of gay and lesbian peoples. Thus, “‘acceptance’ and ‘tolerance’ for gay and lesbian subjects have become a barometer by which the right to and capacity for national sovereignty is evaluated” (Puar 336).

Puar states that homonationalism emerged in a post-9/11 context, as a way to further ‘other’ Islamic nations (Puar 337). The war on terror can then be understood as a means by which a white, heteronormative nationalism is constructed and enforced (Morgensen 105). Homonationalism operates by allowing (some) homosexual bodies to come under the protection of the nation-state, by vesting in them a rights-based citizenship (Puar 337). Homonationalism then creates space within the dominant political culture for some queer bodies, offering them the protection of the state. This is done for the purpose of enabling that nation-state to declare itself progressive, while consequently constructing racialized Islamic nation-states as homophobic, and therefore barbaric.

A part of the operation of homonationalism is the creation of the ‘good gay.’ Mason states that, “homonationalism, which suggests that a heteronormative nation waging war against supposedly backward and uncivilized cultures actually relies upon the proliferation of queerness, at least as long as these queers conform […] to the good-gay ideal” (Mason 153). In other words, homonationalism serves to create space within mainstream culture and individual rights frameworks for only a specific type of queer body—the ‘good gay.’ ‘Good gays’ can be described as “seeking access to core institutions such as marriage, family and the military, as ‘good’ citizens who want to be included and share in the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexuals” (Richardson 392). The ‘good gay’ is thus the queer individual who is willing to assimilate into a heteronormative society, buying into the according values and norms. (S)he does not challenge heterosexist institutions and values. Instead, (s)he upholds them by seeking formal equality and recognition.

This assimilation can be understood in relation to the concept of homonormativity, a term coined by Lisa Duggan in 2003 (Duggan 50). Homonormativity, “refers to the ways that gays and lesbians reinforce heteronormative institutions and norms (e.g., marriage, monogamy, gender conformity, etc.) when they argue that they are just like heterosexuals, with the exception of same-sex sexual object choice” (Robinson 329).

Homonationalism is then dependent upon homonormativity, in that homonormativity constructs and perpetuates the ‘good gay’ ideal. The two interact as, “homonationalism masks the homophobia of Western societies through its embracing of homonormativity” (Robinson 329). Any challenge that queer communities and politics may pose to the hegemonic North American heterosexual culture is diminished, as homonationalism and homonormativity create a different kind of ‘gay liberation’—a liberation of formal inclusion, rather than radical transformation. Homonationalism therefore serves to advance an assimilationist gay liberation movement, privileging and accepting only those queer bodies that conform. There are many ways in which queer bodies can conform to the ‘good gay’ ideal; these include but are not limited to factors such as

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race, ability, and relationship status. The present essay will discuss gender presentation and identity as a factor - specifically, butch and femme lesbian identities.

The work that homonationalism, and the according concept of homonormativity, do to create an assimilationist queer body politic has been met with an anti-assimilationist sentiment by many queer communities. These queer communities reject the, “commercialized, commodified and hyper-objectified view of gay/queer identity projected by the mainstream” (Sycamore 6). They oppose the homonationalist- influenced ‘gay liberation’ movement, which they perceive as an attempt to obtain straight privilege, rather than challenge power (Sycamore 1). The perspective of such queer communities is rooted in the radical queer politics of the 1990s, which aimed at challenging and transforming heteronormative institutions and values, and delving “into the cracks and crevices of regulatory state apparatuses” (Currah N.p.).

Notable queer theorist Jack Halberstam1 labels these queer communities as distinct subcultures (Halberstam 314). He states that “they tend to form in relation to place as much as in relation to a genre of cultural expression and, ultimately, they oppose not only the hegemony of dominant culture, but also the mainstreaming of gay and lesbian culture” (Halberstam 320). Such queer subcultures can then be understood as a direct speaking back to the influence of homonationalism. They are a form of resistance, and reject the assimilationist gay politics promoted by the homonationalist agenda. These queer communities are increasingly marginalized within mainstream society, as they attempt to live outside of conventional norms, against a backdrop of assimilation (Sycamore 5).

One of the ways queer females are affected by the anti-assimilationist struggle within queer communities is in terms of their gender identity. Homonormativity, feeding into homonationalism, uses gender as a means of regulating sexual recognition (Robinson 333). Individuals who are gender non-conforming are socially read as sexually non-normative, and as flaunting their sexuality in the public sphere (Robinson 333). The ‘good gay’ is then the queer individual who assimilates by regulating their appearance so that they ‘blend in’ with mainstream heterosexual society. Conversely, the ‘bad gay’ is the queer individual who demarcates their queerness on their body in a ‘stereotypically’ queer manner.

This ‘good gay’/ ‘bad gay’ dichotomy in terms of gender presentation and identity is complicated within some queer communities. In some cases, the gender non-conforming individual is seen as resisting dominant homonationalist—and therefore heteronormative—scripts (Herdt et al. 243). Gender non-conforming queers can be seen by the queer community as “manipulating the signifiers of gender to call attention to its constructedness, often in a […] militant, and politicized way” (Rudacille 162). This has resulted in the valorization of the revolutionary, gender non-conforming queer female (Rudacille 162). An examination of the butch and femme queer female identities demonstrates how the ‘good gay’/’bad gay’ dichotomy constructed by homonationalist ideology and discourse is inverted within many queer communities.

For over a hundred years in North America, the butch-femme couple has been the 1 While listed under ‘Judith Halberstam’ in this paper’s ‘Works Cited,’ this paper uses Halberstam’s current name and pronoun preference in the body of its work.

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face of queer female identity (Nestle 14). The identities rose to prominence in a postSecond World War North American context (Gibson and Meem 3). Specifically, they were a defining aspect of working-class lesbian bar culture during the 1950s and 1960s (Gibson and Meem 4). Butch signifies the queer female who, “dresse[s] and act[s] in ways previously considered reserved for men” (Gibson and Meem 3). Femme, on the other hand, signifies the feminine-presenting queer female (Gibson and Meem 3).

These two distinct queer female identities have a complex and intertwined history in Western queer culture.

Queer females who occupy a butch identity are constructed within mainstream homonationalist discourse as ‘bad gays.’ The gender non-conformity that is central to the butch queer female identity makes the sexuality of such queer females public and visible (Faiman-Silva 112). The taking up of traditionally masculine characteristics by females defies heteronormative scripts, which heterosexual society relies upon. As a result, the very appearance of butch queer females makes it more difficult for them to assimilate into heterosexual culture. Thus, within the framework of homonationalism, the butch queer female becomes the ‘bad gay’ in dominant heterosexual (and sometimes mainstream ‘gay liberation’) culture.

It is the very same gender non-conformity of the butch queer female that leads to the valorization of the identity within some queer communities. The visibility of the butch queer female’s identity makes her non-assimilationist stance public (Blackwood 96). The non-assimilation of the butch queer female identity fits with the anti-assimilationist sentiment that tends to exist within some queer communities. Their very appearance can be understood as a radical and political act within these communities (Walker 205). The masculine presentation of the butch queer female transgresses the gender binary, disrupting heterosexual norms (Levitt and Hiestand 605). Theirs are subversive acts of gender. Butch queer females are then read as authentically queer, as their gender identity and presentation is one that exists in visible opposition to heteronormative directives (Walker 205). As a result, the butch identity can be seen as a form of subcultural capital within many queer communities (Eves 492). It grants those who inhabit the identity access to relative privilege within many queer communities.

The anti-assimilationist sentiment created within many queer communities by homonationalist discourse thus leads to a valuing of the butch queer female identity because of its visible status as gender non-conforming.

Queer females who identify as femme are much more likely than butch queer females to fit into the homonational framework of the ‘good gay.’ The gender identity of the femme queer female is read by heterosexual society, and by much of queer society, as aligning with traditional femininity (Galewski 186-187). As a result, the femme queer female is perceived as conforming to gender norms. She appears to many to ‘fit in’ with heterosexual society. Her appearance does not come across to many as specifically queer, allowing for the reading of the femme queer female as heterosexual.

Therefore, the femme queer female is often seen as assimilating into homonationalist-influenced mainstream culture. She is the ‘good gay’ because she is read as heterosexual, leaving norms around gender seemingly intact (Galewski 186). She seemingly allows dominant culture to remain comfortably heterosexist, as it is not confronted with a visual reminder of the queerness that exists.

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The perception that the femme queer female conforms to the ‘good gay’ ideal with her supposedly non-queer gender presentation is what causes the devaluation of the femme identity within many queer communities. She is seen as ‘selling out’ the queer cause, and her ‘conforming’ gender identity is understood as an attempt at assimilation (Samuels 240). Her ability to pass for heterosexual is a key component of this supposed assimilation, as it is perceived to grant the femme queer female access to heterosexual privilege that is not actually hers to claim (Samuels 240). The ability of the femme queer female to appear to assimilate constructs her as less ‘authentically queer’ within many queer communities. Some members of queer communities may view the femme queer female ‘passing’ for heterosexual as evidence that she is less oppressed (Dahl 146). Therefore, the femme queer female is not understood as a ‘gender warrior’ in the same way as the butch queer female.

The concept of the liberal bargain is useful in understanding the way in which the femme queer female identity is devalued within many queer communities. The liberal bargain, as articulated by Amalia Sa’ar, refers, “to a particular process whereby members of disadvantaged groups become identified with the hegemonic order, at least to a degree” (Sa’ar 681). Sa’ar goes on to state, “[s]ome members of marginalized groups internalize liberal epistemology to maximize security and optimize their life options.

They strategize to materialize whatever limited benefits they may extract from their disadvantaged position in the liberal order” (Sa’ar 681). To many queer communities, this appears to be what the femme queer female does. She identifies with the hegemonic order—the heterosexual majority—in order to gain recognition as a full-fledged liberal subject who is deserving of rights and access to institutions (from which queer bodies have historically been excluded). These institutions include what are referred to by radical queer communities as the “holy trinity for assimilation”: marriage, military, and adoption (Sycamore 1). The inclusion of “military” in this trinity points to the significance of nationalism – and even patriotism – in the act of queer assimilation.

This leads back to the earlier discussion of homonationalism. Indeed, the epistemology the femme queer female is seen as internalizing is a combination of homonationalism, homonormativity, and heteronormativity. Her perceived gender conformity, and the assumed according desire for assimilation into mainstream culture, are seen as evidence of this internalization.

Sa’ar further explains that those who succeed in striking a liberal bargain with the state are expected to leave their histories behind (Sa’ar 687). In accepting a liberal bargain with the state, the femme queer female is then read as leaving behind her queer history. The femme queer female is perceived as giving up her association with her queer community in order to assimilate, and thereby access recognition as a liberal subject. Her association with, and membership in queer communities fails to be seen as authentic, as the femme queer female is seen as having ‘forgotten’ about the shared history of struggle and oppression of queer communities in North America. Ironically, the queer femme identity actually has a rich history, but this fact is often overlooked by mainstream culture and queer communities alike.2 2 See works such as “Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold” and “The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader.”

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When analyzed using the concept of the liberal bargain, it can be argued that femme queer females tend to be perceived by queer communities as using their gender conformity to enter into a bargain with the state, whereby they gain recognition as a fully-constituted, rights-bearing liberal subjects. As such, the femme queer female is perceived by some queer communities as less authentically queer, because she has access to supposed privilege that readably queer individuals do not. Her feminine presentation, rather than being understood as an authentic gender identity, is perceived as a ‘selling out,’ or a means of entering into the liberal bargain. Femininity becomes a bartering tool, rather than a unique, queered gender presentation.

It can be argued that this reading of femme identity actually upholds the very heteronormative structures that queer anti-assimilationist communities seek to challenge, because this stance assumes that “femininity” is natural for women whereas “masculinity” must be a purposeful and radical statement. In actuality, many femme queer females feel that they perform their femininity in subversive ways to challenge heterosexist structures (MacLachlin and Sreedhar 54), and some butch individuals understand their gender presentation as apolitical or just ‘who they are inside’ (Levitt and Hiestand 619).

The femme identity then is not often recognized as valuable, and is not accorded respect as a queer identity in its own right. This becomes especially evident when analyzed in relation to the butch queer female identity, for which individuals garner praise and respect for occupying within some queer communities. The femme queer female’s feminine gender identity is devalued within these queer communities as a result of the perception that she is not readably queer, and that she is entering into a liberal bargain with the state. The liberal bargain then demonstrates the process of assimilation that the femme queer female is seen as entering into.

It is clear that the assimilationist discourses perpetuated by homonationalism tend to create an anti-assimilationist sentiment within queer communities, resulting in the devaluation of the queer femme identity; it is often seen as complicit with the very homonationalist agenda many queer communities seek to resist. Homonationalism constructs the ideal of the ‘good gay,’ who seeks to assimilate into dominant heterosexual culture in exchange for access to institutions and formal equality. This trend towards assimilation within the ‘gay liberation’ movement has created anti-assimilationist sentiment within many queer communities. Such anti-assimilationist sentiment has tended to construct a valorization of the butch identity within some queer communities, as it is seen as a subversive and political statement with its queer visibility. The same anti-assimilationist sentiment has tended to devalue the femme identity within some queer communities, as the femme queer female is perceived as entering into a liberal bargain with the state. Her queer femininity is misread as assimilation, and conforming to the homonationalist ideology that many queer communities struggle to reject.

A ‘gay liberation’ movement influenced by homonationalism is not very liberating at all. The emphasis on assimilation not only marginalizes gender non-conforming queer individuals in larger society, but it also tends to marginalize queer individuals perceived as gender conforming within queer communities. In order to create a truly liberating movement, there needs to be recognition of the authenticity

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and legitimacy of all queer gender identities. This requires a rejection of heteronormative ways of thinking, which confuse the queer femme’s femininity for heterosexuality or assimilation. Homonationalism thus further marginalizes queer communities and individuals. As stated in a critique of homonationalism by radical queer activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, “[t]he ultimate irony of gay liberation is that it has made it possible for straight people to create more fluid gender, sexual, and social identities, while mainstream gay people salivate over state-sanctioned Tiffany wedding-bands and participatory patriarchy” (Sycamore 3).

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