Powershowgirl: Unaccessorized
1. . "Powershowgirl: unaccessorized" was originally written for a solo stage act. How do you envision this being performed? How does the motif of performativity pervade and interact with the content of the piece--in particular, how Rich alternately claims, rebels against, and reconstructs his various identities?
Curry Potatoes and Rainbow Banners
2. Respond to the following Reginald Shepherd quotation that Chisty cites:
"My feelings about men are too entangled with my feelings about white men, and my feelings about white men too entangled with my feelings about white people and about black people, especially black men... How to determine how much is racial and how much is sexual when the two are so entwined that they are, in practice, identical?"
Why does Chisty identify so strongly with this statement?
Undressing the Normal
3. How do the personal accounts in this selection validate and/or challenge the results and assumptions of the two studies on API adolescent sexual behavior?
1. Through its format as a solo stage act, Powershowgirl: Unaccessorized uses performance to problematize the clear location and situation of bodies. As Rich manifests in multiple styles and forms--as a participant in the action, as a narrator, and as a representation of others such as his parents--he embraces the fluidity of a body that defies unified coherence and stasis.
ReplyDeleteI was particularly intrigued by Rich's role as narrator in contrast to his roles of actor-in-scene and his representations of other individuals. As he overlays the narrative with language that often describes himself, Rich acts as a disembodied figure; within this solo act, I imagine his voice mapping the specific elements of his stories. While speaking in the first person seemingly without a visibilized or locatable presence, Rich actively dislocates himself, questioning where he is within the narrative or if his body can even be cleanly situated within it.
Rich's performance of other individuals such as his father and mother also work to confound the possibility of singularly constructing Rich. As Rich literally acts out characters, the audience is also left wondering where to find his mother, father, and Mike; we are only privy to the (unstable) Rich's perception and interpretation of these situations. Juxtaposed with its disembodied narrative voice, Rich's story further defies fixed identity construction as his self vacillates in, out, and between various bodies.
Ultimately, Powershowgirl: Unaccessorized creatively represents Varney's ideas regarding memory and culturally available storylines (90). As a queer text, the play functions as a radical implosion on discussions of identity. Laced with non-sequiturs, cyclical narration, and pockmarked memories, the piece parodies a smooth or linear presentation of a locatable persona; while appearing to feature only one character, fundamentally the "solo" act dismantles expectations of singularly-identified bodies, voices, and selves.
2)
ReplyDeleteThis article reminded me a lot of one of the first articles we read in which the author spoke of her experiences as an activist. I may be forgetting something but as I recall, she said that she would often walk alongside her "sisters" for causes that were not necessarily her own because the success of one oppressed people in becoming less oppressed would in turn help other oppressed peoples. But she also did this because she felt she had many identities, as a gay woman of color.
I think part of the reason Christy identifies so strongly with the Shepherd quote because as a man, he feels that his race and sexuality are "entwined." Throughout his childhood, he very much internalized being the "other," not only as a gay man, but also as an Asian American. Thus, it seems only natural that those feelings would then be projected onto others, that he would have trouble separating the two.
2)
ReplyDeleteChisty talks about how his desire for white men is inextricably bound with internalized racism, and this is also what Shepherd seems to be saying in the quotation too. Race cannot be taken off of gendered bodies for Chisty to understand "white men" and "Asian men" as categories discrete from the category "men," so his desire is defined as strongly through race as it is through gender. In addition, his own identity as a south Asian man is in turn defined through his desire.
Foucauldean ideas of power could serve as a useful frame for understanding how race and gender can define desire, and how in turn desire can shape race and gender. Foucault argues that power relations are ubiquitous and multidirectional - power does not serve only to repress identity, but also is responsible for identity formation. Growing up in a racist, heterosexist society, Chisty absorbs and internalizes racism and heterosexism. His racial and sexual identities are thus created by these oppressive forces - he tries to reject his Asian identity, and his sexuality becomes defined through the resulting idealization of white male bodies.
Shepherd's quotation and Chisty's story remind me of the Marlon Riggs film, Tongues Untied (which is being screened this Thursday@7PM at the QRC!) in connecting the internalized racism of queer men of color to a desire for the white male body. Riggs prescribes a solution to the problem, through the film's manifesto: "Black men loving Black men is THE revolutionary act." By redirecting his desire to other gay black men, Riggs asserts the gay black male body as capable of loving and being loved.
Both Chisty's and Riggs' work have some elements that may serve to pathologize the desires of queer men of color for white men, but they do so out of political necessity. Chisty pathologizes his own desire for white men as a way to fight his internalized racism. Criticizing his methods is a presumptuous act in this context - he is the only one who knows what is right for healing his own body - but I wonder if there is a way to fight the desexualization/hypersexualization of the bodies of people of color that does not pathologize the desires that they may have, even if those desires seem to be tied to racism in the first place. It's definitely tricky, and I'm not sure that I can think of a good way to do it. I think it is a valuable project though, since the validation of the bodies of queer people of color should come with a validation of their desires that is not contingent upon the political utility of those desires.
For queer people of color living in heteronormative, White society, e.g. Chisty in Long Island, it is difficult to reconcile API and queer identities due to racial stigmas in LGBTQ communities and heteronormative stigmas in Asian communities. Adolescents who just begin to express their sexualities search for their position in a constructed “API or queer” dichotomy. It is especially apparent for Chisty that to validate his sexuality in predominately White queer culture requires him to distance from his Asian heritage and identity. This behavior is also exhibited in the opposite direction: Week 5’s Asian Americans: Vulnerable Populations, Model Interventions, and Clarifying Agendas. Chung-Lo’s decision to forego romantic interests, i.e. his queer identity, to appease his family, i.e his Asian identity, exemplifies this dichotomy well.
ReplyDeleteThere are striking comparisons between Chisty’s and Shepherd’s “feelings about white men” and the Undressing the Normal: Community Efforts for Queer Asian and Asian American Youth reading, namely the analysis of normativity. Taking a semiotic approach to Chisty, it is evident from his anecdote about tossing away his curry potatoes represents him throwing out his heritage. He despises straying away from the normative. A more cogent symbol, however, is the white man. Throughout his narrative, Chisty desires to be white, such as his quotation opening the reading. He has the “wrong nose,” “wrong lips,” and “wrong self,” dreaming of being white someday. Whereas Chisty cannot change his race, a desire for white men reflects a desire to be a white man, and that former desire is an attempt to be the norm.
I particularly note Chisty’s usage of Reginald Shepherd’s, a black man, words to convey his viewpoint. Rather than citing an API queer person, with whom the reader would assume he has a more appropriate connection, his decision to quote Shepherd, whether intended or not, affirms the white-color binary.
On Community Building
ReplyDelete"While it is critical to acknowledge our common experiences, whenever we draw boundaries around a particular aspect of identity or experience, someone inevitably gets left out." -Joan Ariki Varney
"I have learned that the essence of activism is not only fighting for the causes that affect me, but also building a community of people who desire to fight for causes that affect others as well as themselves." - Nur-e-salam S. Christy
At this point in the course, there have arisen a number of central themes which I have seen repeated in multiple pieces. Many of these can be rather polarizing, some of which we have experienced in our own classroom. This week, I was thrilled to find two quotes which summed up my feelings on the issue of community boundaries and spaces (see above.) Joan Ariki sums up the paradox of organizing around an identity; on the one hand, we like solidarity, yet we all have multiple identities and sometimes less obvious connections are missed. The article mentions the need for a sense of trust within a group, and most people assume that the best way to do that is to get together on the basis of a shared identity. However, the article also recounts how various young queer A/PI people were scared off by the overt sexuality of LYRIC, which led them to create their own group specifically for queer A/PI people. The operative lens here is one of race; in the article, the oversexualization is attributed to white or black communities. Yet where does this leave a young white girl who is too afraid to come out to her family and uncomfortable in an overtly homosexual context? That is, where does it leave someone with common experiences but different specifics?
The approach Christy proposes resembles my own thinking (which makes sense, given that he was at a small liberal arts college while writing.) As I've said, I don't think this approach is the norm at the 5C's, a problem I attribute to the student bodies and organizations alike. However, I don't think there should be an unconditional opening of groups. As Ariki points out, we need to acknowledge collective experience, and for some people that means strict boundaries within which to build trust. But this is not a fill-in-the-blank paper. We are not data points. One of the people I find most interesting to engage in discussions about queer things (of any type) is a straight white man. These boundaries are permeable; all we need to do is reach out to each other.
1.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the performance Rich takes on different identities both through his own volition and through the influence of his parents. He also assumes different perspectives through his speech, and that of his parents. Throughout the piece he has agency to fluidly move temporally in the narrative and stepping out to a retrospective role. While it may be more difficult to perform the roles of his parents in addition to himself, and this could easily be accomplished through use of prerecorded voiceover, I think it's more powerful for him to play all three. It gives a greater sense that this is his story and we are hearing it from his own memories that he has internalized.
It could be interesting to represent the temporal progression and development of identity spacially. He could establish the part of the stage closest to the audience as the present and occupy it when he speaks as his current self and then retreat further back into the stage as he recalls memories. I think this would reinforce the sense of fluidity and power he has in traveling through different identities and representations of self. The title itself, "unaccessorized", makes me wonder whether having material objects or all the clothing he references being present would strengthen the piece or not. Might be a bit literal but holding the objects/clothing could add another dimension in which the viewer can see how he interacts with the objects or casts them away as he verbalizes the histories inscribed on them.
2.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason Christy identifies so well with this statement is because he too is an outsider. Just like how Raspy is an outsider of both the Black community and the mainstream American community, so is Christy an outsider of the South Asian community and mainstream American community. Their race and sexuality are therefore intertwined: their sexuality prevents them from feeling like a part of their ethnic community while their race prevents them from feeling like a part of the mainstream American community. It is these two traits about themselves that force them onto an island of isolation, and it is these two traits that drive the direction of their personal lives.
Personally, I too understand this feeling very well. Being of mixed race, I find I do not fit into both the Mexican American community or the White community, and my sexuality prevents from feeling like I belong in the heterosexual majority. I live on my nice little island of mixed ethnicity, and I actually like it better that way. I actually wonder if Christy may have even felt similar himself.....I admire him for fighting to get off the island though. i myself am content staying on it.
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ReplyDelete3.)
ReplyDeleteMore than anything else, I see the Varney article as complicating a dichotomy of gay/Asian, more liberal west/conservative east. By highlighting the work of different community organizations, Varney is able to suggest that perceptions are malleable. It is important work to interrogate identities such as "Asian American" and "gay" to be attentive to how these terms sometimes sustain invisibility and intensify other forms of visibility.
A small example of why its so important to how identities are wielded and constructed (through scholarship as well) is the Schuster et al article. This article found that a higher percentage of AAPI adolescents had never had vaginal intercourse compared to other racial groups. AAPI populations counted in the survey include Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Asian-India, PI, Vietnamese-American and "other."
I worry that this study reinforces a monolithic AAPI identity that diminishes or denies experiences of different groups within that. For example, did you know that half of all births to teen mothers under the age of 19 in Hawaii were among Native Hawaiians? Or that Laotian American teens have the highest birth rate in California? (see http://napawf.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/working/pdfs/NAPAWF_Reclaiming_Choice.pdf for this and other statistics, pg 5).
Although it also makes me uncomfortable to throw around such decontextualized statistics, for this blog post at the very least the existence of this data requires a more critical lens towards "objective" data.
I have mixed feelings about this study especially when I think about the work they are doing in comparison to the Varney article. I will say that a practical application of interrogating the AAPI identity includes disaggregating data in sociological studies. AAPI identities are not stable or monolithic and representation of these communities has very real material impacts in terms of who is accessing sexuality education, etc. It is important to consider other factors that may help better explain the sexual practices of AAPIs.