2021 Blog Posts

In a typical workday, I interact with eighty to one hundred and twenty people. When I ring up their total, most will say nothing, about forty of them will call me “sir,” four call my by name, and one calls me “faggot.” They will say, “Thank you.” When I had them their change, I will tell them, “Have a nice day!” I am paid to do this. It’s all part of the job.

One summer day, a man came in while I was stocking the shelves, and I recognized him. He had white, stringy hair to pair with his pale, old skin, and a dark green jacket to contrast his blue eyes. I thought him something of a rebel-character. The first time I saw him, it was three years ago. He wore black, fingerless gloves and bought seventy-two pairs of women’s pantyhose for a grand total of $74.88. He talked relentlessly of the eighties, saying, “We needed another decade like the eighties,” and how, “People needed to learn how to love again, there’s too much hate right now.” Years later, he wore the same outfit, the same jacket, the same hair, and the same gloves. The difference being the pandemic.

He had burst into the store. Immediately I saw his face. My co-worker did too, and she quickly told him about the store mask policy. He remained unfixed and began telling her off. I noticed this and rejoined my co-worker in reiterating the mask policy. He turned from her and responded to me in a shout, finishing with “I’ll see you in court! But that’s only if I don’t rip your head off and shove it up your faggot ass first!” At this, a crowd began to gather. The man probably didn’t enjoy the attention, because he looked around and ran out of the store. As I checked out the remaining customers, they started saying, “Thank you, Sir” and “Nobody should have to deal with that.”

But I’m not a “Sir,” and so I’d reply, “It’s all part of the job.”

This memory brings me to Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” where he states, ““Do I contradict myself? / Very well then…. I contradict myself; / I am large…. I contain multitudes” (53). Yet, while Whitman makes this statement in celebration, I contend that the ways in which we “contain multitudes” is more nuanced. Imbedded within these multitudes are forces of both privilege and oppression.

In the rural town where I work, heteronormativity is heavily enforced. As a lower-income, queer individual, this means being called “Sir” as compensation for being called “faggot.” “Sir” is supposedly a sign of high-status, nobility, and class, whereas my preferred labels and pronouns are viewed with contempt. This paradoxically positions “Sir” and my preferred labels both as a form of special treatment. The customers use “Sir” to indicate respect yet insisting that they use anything else would come off as disrespectful to them. I endanger their sense of heteronormativity, and so at work, I bite my tongue. For eight hours, I am their “Sir.” And it’s all part of the job.

Doubtless, the silencing of identity constitutes a form of oppression. Getting yelled at about ripping heads off and shoving them wherever certainly constitutes violence. Yet, being able to pass as heteronormative, and maintain a job which demands I act as such, is a privilege which not every queer person has. Thus, I’m able to contain both hostility and opportunity. And as I’m called “Sir,” I’m able to sneer behind my mask and think how I’m able to be their Sir and my Queer.

I’ve always tried very hard not to judge myself about my body weight. I’m not fat, but I’m also not skinny. I’ve always been told that I’m a perfectly healthy weight for my height and body build. I’m not someone who enjoys working out, but I know it’s good for me, and I also try to eat food that is good for me as often as possible. However, over quarantine, I became more conscious about my weight because I was not as active as I had been while at school. Looking back on it now, I only gained maybe 4 pounds, which is really not that much in the grand scheme of things, but it’s interesting how distressed it made me.

This semester taking Professor Farrell’s fat studies class has really opened my eyes to how much I criticized myself about my body and my weight gain over quarantine and how I used to exercise because I wanted to look in shape rather than feel healthy and strong. Taking the class also made me think about how often I would feel guilty about eating something that I knew wasn’t necessarily healthy but was something I wanted to eat.

Reading the poem, “Kitchen” by Susan Stinson really spoke to me about this guilt that I had when eating certain foods. The last stanza where she writes, “Leaving the tradition of a woman/in the body of a cat,/we become whales,/all mouths,/all surface,/all grace” (Stinson 18), caught my eye. I love the idea behind “Leaving the tradition of a woman/in the body of a cat.” I took this to mean that a woman’s tradition is to question what she eats and be hard on herself about what she eats, so women should give this tradition up place it on the body of a cat to free herself from that constant nagging.

It has still been hard for me not to judge what I eat even now that I’m back at school and moving around a lot more than I did when I was at home. However, thinking about these feelings in terms of this poem makes me realize how I shouldn’t be ashamed of what I eat and should leave that embarrassment and pressure and give it to a cat. I feel like the poem is telling us to, in a way, be a cat because a cat could care less what they eat, and we should try to do the same.

When I first saw Dallas Buyers Club, I was 12 and utterly unaware. I was plunged headfirst into a foreign crisis, one that had previously been removed from my life, but one I was instantly fascinated, terrified, and empathic towards. When I first read Angels in America, I was 18 and to my own enjoyment and curiosity, equally as clueless. Kushner’s diverse and intimate portrait of the lives affected by AIDS, primarily his cross examination of what it means to identify as a gay man, expanded my awareness of the cruel nature of the epidemic past what Dallas Buyers Club had been able to teach me. Although Angels in America carries significantly more emotional texture, queer POC representation, and sociopolitical depth than the 2013 film, I found myself drawing similarities between the characters Roy Cohn and Ron Woodroof. Both individuals have a seemingly unshakable bond to a traditionally heteronormative presentation of masculinity and have their careers (one as a lawyer and one as a rodeo rider and oil driller) deeply tied to their sense of self. Despite Cohn contracting the disease through unprotected frequent sex with men and Woodroof becoming infected through drug use and interactions with female sex workers, both men express similar disdain for the homosexual community upon their diagnosis with AIDS. Considering this sentiment is painfully ironic for Roy Cohn, let us examine his diagnosis:

Roy is attempting to distance himself from the homosexual community, a community that he sees as weak, sickly and marginalized: something that a high powered lawyer can not assimilate into nor take pride in being a part of. Perhaps his most cutting statement is “Homosexuals are men who know nobody, and who nobody knows”, as Cohn’s self worth is both defined and maintained by his domination over others, and his public presence relies on fear mongering to keep those in chains silent. Considering this, his bond to the heterosexual label means he has separated the sex from the sexuality, choosing to subscribe to the outward societal characteristics of a straight man, and the fact that he ‘fucks around with guys’ is irrelevant. Ron both rejects the sex and sexuality of the gay community upon diagnosis. When the term ‘homo’ is brought up by his doctor, Ron gestures to himself, saying “Look at me. Look at me. The godamn rodeo is what you see”, citing his hyper masculine profession to defend his heterosexuality. The grouping of masculinity and heterosexuality is a generalization that Cohn and Woodroof are both guilty of making, a generalization that is fueled primarily by the epidemic’s negative coloring of the gay community via destruction. The news, although disheartening, has seemingly no effect on Woodroof’s mood, as he crudely laughs at his 30 day death sentence. Although it is not explicitly said by Cohn in the play, the two definitely share the same roguish sentiments about having a ‘faggot disease’ be the cause of their deaths. Their lives are simply too bold, too unhinged and powerful to be cut short by AIDS, and although Cohn is a lawyer and Woodroof a rodeo cowboy, he would probably give Woodroof more respect that the millions of gay men that died from the same disease.

 

 

 

It’s really uncanny how many parallels you can draw between the AIDS epidemic and the current COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s even more uncanny how just in the last few weeks (and really, the entire year) we’ve also seen how similar the Asian-(American) experience has been in regards to AIDS and COVID.

The Manifesto from the Caucus of Asian & Pacific-Islander AIDS Activists details the historical problems AAPI people faced at the heights of the AIDs crisis. The rallying cry at the end of pg 637 almost mirrors sentiment today about COVID-19 and AAPI violence: “FIGHT RACISM, FIGHT SEXISM, FIGHT HOMOHPHOBIA, FIGHT GOVERNMENT NEGLECT, FIGHT INVISIBILITY, FIGHT AIDS

JOIN US”.

The wording is almost similar to many a social media caption or hashtag today, and the manifesto reads like an extended infographic one might see today on recent AAPI violence and commentary surrounding causes of violence against the AAPI communities.

A lot of the AAPI hate today stems from prior racist ideas such as fetishization of Asian women, the model minority myth and so forth, and many of these are historically present in issues like the AIDS crisis as well. The manifesto notes issues the AAPI community face like the threat of deportation in positive cases of AIDS, lack of treatment and resources from the CDCs and cities and even lack of recognition racially, being categorized as ‘other’ (pg 636,637). If you look at the tweet below, you can see some of the concerns raised by AAPI folk today in regards to recent hate, and it honestly appears that much hasn’t changed since AIDS was at its worst. Social media posts today denouncing hate are just more modern takes of the Manifesto here, but the issues are almost all the same.

Tony Kushner’s, Angels in America, tells the story of people who struggle with dealing with the AIDS virus that ravages the queer community at first. The lack of support and attention for this epidemic led to the loss of many lives and these fictional accounts share a glimpse of the difficulties that followed the neglect. An unexpected pair share an intimate moment between Prior and Hannah who come from opposite ends of beliefs and upbringings. Prior, a gay man, who is suffering from the effects of being diagnosed with AIDS, and Hannah the mother of Joe, a closeted gay man, who is a Mormon from Utah. After an attempted confrontation with Joe and an ensuing panic attack from his health complications, Hannah assists Prior to the hospital despite her hesitations.

In Act 4, scene 8 sets the scene in an examination room at the hospital. Emily, who is Prior’s nurse-practitioner, is critiquing Prior for over-exerting himself causing him to worsen his health and lose weight. Kushner utilizes capital letters to emphasize Prior’s tone and carry gravity to his panic and anger after dealing with this virus for so long. Kushner also uses the hyphen-minus to demonstrate how Prior cuts off Hannah whenever she speaks to get the genuine answer to his question of whether she thinks he seems insane? Irritability and lack of patience seem to be a given when in a state of mental and physical fragility. The trials following this virus do not only affect the physical aspect but also the mental state especially after Louis left Prior by himself.

Luckily, at this moment, he is accompanied by Hannah who is very patient with him despite his attitude and insults towards her son. Prior says he has “been driven insane by… your son,” alluding to him as a home-wrecker after discovering of the affairs Louis and Joe had (Kushner, 239). The ellipsis may refer to his continuous train of thought that is never-ending which leads to jumping from thought to thought after arguing with Emily. Another hint at his passive-aggressive comments was when he introduced Hannah as his “ex-lover’s lover’s Mormon mother” (Kushner, 238). By mentioning that she is Mormon this may connect to his dislike for Joe even more since he is a closeted-gay, republican, and Mormon; all aspects of a typical, cisgender, straight male that may be homophobic. After Prior shows Hannah his lesions in a moment of distress an interesting comment was made by Hannah. She refers to Prior’s AIDS virus as cancer, “Nothing more. Nothing more human than that,” which can imply her difficulties with understanding the queer community (Kushner, 241).

https://www.hivindv.org/when-to-test-for-hiv/part-1/

While I was reading Angels in America, I was struck by how similar it is to one of my favorite Broadway musicals. The musical being Falsettos which showcases a man named Marvin who leaves his wife and child in order to pursue a relationship with another man named Whizzer who has AIDS. Initially I found similarities between the two because of the subject matter, but the more I thought about it, the more similarities I found. Falsettos, like Angels in America mixes humor and camp with heavy topics like the AIDS epidemic, death, and religion.

To understand the humor this show blends within the discussion of heavy topics, look no further than the first song which is titled “Four Jews in a Room Bitching.” This opens the show in a very light way, but it also portrays to the audience that the rest of the show will have many arguments and heavy topics. While many of the songs in the musical are filled with humor and camp, the one song that sticks out to me the most is “March of the Falsettos.” In it, we see Marvin, Whizzer, Marvin’s psychiatrist Mendel, and Marvin’s son Jason dressed in bright white and neon orange outfits that stand out in the blacklight above.The four males start singing in a shrill falsetto while doing a really silly dance routine, showing the overtop hilarity of the musical. The scene is sandwiched between two meaningful solos by Trina, Marvin’s ex-wife in which she reveals her insecurities about life before ultimately deciding to stand up for herself and take what she deserves. She reminds me a lot of Harper who initially feels like the world is ending when her husband wants to leave her before deciding that she doesn’t need a man to get what she wants out of life.

One of the other topics portrayed in both productions is the AIDS crisis and in Falsettos we see Whizzer, like Roy and Prior, struggle with illness while Marvin, like Louis, struggles with whether or not to stay with his dying lover.  Throughout the show, Marvin makes many mistakes, much like Louis and Whizzer doesn’t want to forgive him for the pain he caused him. However, unlike Prior, Whizzer does end up getting back with Marvin.

In my mind, the most important similarity between the two productions is how they both directly address the audience and call them to action in the fight against AIDS. Similar to Prior’s final monologue in Angles in America, Mendel, in the final scene of Falsettos breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience singing, “Homosexuals, women with children, short insomniacs, we’re a teeny tiny band. Lovers come and lovers go. Lovers live and die fortissimo. This is where we take a stand. Welcome to Falsettoland.” By ending with those words, he is calling all Americans, especially the gay community to stand up and fight, to wake up and realize that this is the country we live in and we must protect each other.

 

In Dykes to Look Out For, the group of women travel to D.C. for a rally but must stop at a rest stop in a rural area of the US. While sitting at the stop, two very masculine cowboys approach the group and ask if they’re headed to Washington. The women are apprehensive, responding in a protective manner before the cowboys explain that they’re on the same journey. The women share a chuckle as they realize their own assumptions- that people in rural America are overwhelmingly homophobic, bigoted, and dangerous.

This theme of negative stereotypes directed at rural working-class Americans has been reoccurring throughout the semester, first in Exile and Pride and again in Brokeback Mountain. I think this phenomenon is both extremely interesting and important, especially within our own political climate, as people from rural areas of the US are often demonized. However, this demonization does not come without reason. With the advent of Donald Trump, and the blatant displays of bigotry that his followers idolize, came a rise in hate crimes and language. Obviously, this is terrifying for any American who is not white, straight, or cis. The face of Trump’s followers is a working-class, white man from the rural south. Even though it’s true that not every Trump supporter matches these characteristics, many of his most outspoken supporters do. These specific stereotypes and fears stem from images we’ve seen of these characteristics- a screaming man decked out in all Trump gear at a rally, a mass shooter being escorted out of a church in handcuffs, etc. It is easy to understand why queer people and activists would form these stereotypes.

Although this is understandable, these stereotypes still bring harm to the people within these rural communities who do not align themselves with hateful political ideology. By establishing these stereotypes as truth, like saying “all southern people are racist”, we limit the existence of working-class and rural queer-identifying people with cruel and classist rhetoric. These stereotypes, in conjunction with cultural norms surrounding masculinity, contribute to the suffering Jack and Ennis endured in Brokeback Mountain. Even though Jack and Ennis were queer-identifying men, they were subjected to the same stereotypes queer-activists apply to modern-day Trump supporters. Even though activists have good intentions, these stereotypes often mirror the same social restrictions that they fight so tirelessly against. This quote from Exile and Pride perfectly sums up my argument, stereotypes against rural Americans are problematic and contradictory to the movement as a whole; “if queer activists and communities don’t create the “options that hold the promise of wholeness [and] freedom” for all queer people, rural as well as urban, working-class and poor as well as middle- and upper-class, we have failed. And if we fail, those of us who are rural or rural-raised, poor and working-class, even mixed-class, will have to continue to make difficult choices, to measure what our losses are worth.”(46)

 

 

Death is fearful to every individual but what’s more fearful is death seen in the eyes of a disease. The epidemics that have confronted our world include Covid19, Black death, AIDS, Yellow Fever and Typhoid.  As a college student, the pandemic and sicknesses that are feared on campus are the most recent Corona Virus, flu, herpes, and gonorrhea. In present day, getting vaccinated helps protect us against the serious epidemics that can arise.  As an individual what I do know is that all these viruses are contracted by human or blood contact.  We live on a campus where human contact is daily with individuals on a small campus footprint which allows for infections or diseases to transfer quickly to one another.   It makes you feel vulnerable when you know that an infection or disease can break out quickly. I never thought that we would be reading and talking about one epidemic while in a current pandemic. While researching about the history of AIDs and the epidemic, it is apparent that the disease came on quickly and that it was being labeled a “homosexual disease” due to the mortality rate of this community. The biggest confusion in the AIDSs epidemic was the actual transmission of how Aids was contracted from person to person. Because of this confusion, surviving this plague became fearful and the perception of risk was exasperated due to lack of control of information of the disease. After reading How to Have Sex in a Pandemic by Richard Berkowitz and Michael Callen, it is clear that the issue is the disease and not sex. I did some more research and watched, the documentary film How to Survive a Plague which presents the HIV/AIDS crisis in a similar light as the panic and uncertainty created by the Bubonic Plague of medieval Europe. How to Survive a Plague offers various strategies for individuals suffering from or at risk for HIV/AIDS to outwit or at least withstand the epidemic

 

 

 

 

In the midst of his long-winded ramble to Belize, Louis voices a revelation central to the AIDS Crisis in America. He states, “That’s just liberalism, the worst kind of liberalism, really, bourgeois tolerance, and what I think is what I think is that what AIDS shows us is the limits of tolerance, that it’s not enough to be tolerated, because when the shit hits the fan you find out how much tolerance is worth. Nothing. And underneath all the tolerance is intense, passionate hatred” (Kushner 94). Louis’s speech underscores the fragility of the tolerant façade those in power claim to have in regard to marginalized groups, such as the LGBTQ community. When there is the opportunity to exploit or neglect these groups to make them less powerful, this opportunity will most likely be taken. The Reagan Administration’s ambivalence toward the AIDS Crisis exposes this.

True political impact is made when minority groups band together in a refusal to wait for tolerance and instead assert and demand their own rights. This is something that Larry Kramer emphasizes in the article “1,112 and Counting.” Kramer argues that there is only one solution to getting the attention and assistance of those in power, and this is “numbers and pressure and our being perceived as united and a threat” (Kramer 585). While Kramer is correct that dramatic measures such as this need to happen to bring about change, he goes on to scorn gay men who are unable to come out. Kramer states, “I am sick of closeted gays… Every gay man who is unable to come forward now and fight to save his own life is truly helping to kill the rest of us… I have less and less sympathy for men who are afraid their mommies will find out or afraid their bosses will find out” (585). Kramer is absolutely right that there needs to be mass amounts of pressure put on political figures by the LGBTQ community, but he does not acknowledge that there are men who are simply unable to come out due to lack of economic stability or their own safety. Many of these closeted men are also dying from AIDS, but do not have the means to take action against injustice. The conversations about tolerance and taking action that take place in Angels in America and Kramer’s article continue to be relevant in today’s political climate.

In his Introduction, Kushner states that “Angels is a hopeful work” (x), and in many ways Angels in America lives up to this promise. While dealing with themes of love, mental health, and justice, the play also offers a hopeful insight about the family as an institution. One on hand, Kushner displays the family as a self-reinforcing structure; family members develop expectations that they then impose on their relatives. It is for this reason that Hannah and Joe diverge over Joe’s sexuality. However, the following interactions between Hannah and Prior reveal that this bigotry isn’t essential to Hannah’s character. She grows to withhold judgement. Ironically, Kushner then unites the two characters in an equal state of understanding, and in the end offers a hopeful commentary on the nature of ‘coming out.’

While it’s easy to dismiss Hannah’s first reaction to Joe’s sexuality as homophobic (and it kinda is), it’s also important to note her tone. She comes from, admittedly a position of ignorance, but there’s still evidence of compassion. In answering the 4am call, two of her first three questions were “What’s happened?” (77). Until Joe ‘comes out,’ her focus remains isolated on his safety. She comments how “It’s dangerous” and how he should “go home right now” (78). In fact, Joe was first to frame his sexuality as something that would hurt her, “well, it[, the call,] gets worse from here on” (78). However, Joe through hesitating reveals several of the expectations underlying his family dynamics, the most notable being that his role as Hannah’s child is endangered through his sexuality. He calls her first “Mom” (79), and then “Mamma” (79), the latter being an attempt to imitate his childhood self. This highlights the expectation for Joe to be the same person he has presented as, yet also implies that he has felt a sense of difference since childhood. The scene therefore unfolds into a paradox where Joe simultaneously tries to convey his difference while still needing to fill the same role. Hannah, by contrast is put into an impossible situation, somehow needing to acknowledge the change without acknowledging that it is a change. From this lens, her silence on the issue, while on one hand, is avoidance, on the other, serves to protect Joe. Even in denial, Hannah tries to fulfill her motherly expectation in not chastising her son.

Expectations plague Hannah and Joe’s relationship. In contrast, neither Hannah nor Prior have expectations for one another. When they meet, it’s as though they come from two different worlds, with Hannah volunteering, having just met with Joe, and Prior showing up “wet, in his prophet garb, [and] dark glasses on, despite the dark day outside” (234). Yet, this strangeness is what allows them to freely interact, and they quickly exchange intimacies, Prior about his illness and Hannah about her curiosities. The two symbolically bridge the divide as Prior asks “Do I have a fever?” where Hannah, “hesitates, then puts her hand on his forehead” (235). Unlike Joe, Prior allows Hannah to react to him, his beliefs, and his worries, and in the process, they can form a subtle understanding. Hannah laments, “You don’t make assumptions about me, mister; I won’t make them about you” (240).

Returning to the idea of ‘coming out,’ Angels in America seems to suggest that familial expectations are damning. However, Hannah’s development, in getting close to Prior, offers hope for the visibility movement. One may even argue that Hannah stopped to help Prior because of her recent interactions with Joe. In such a case, the play offers yet more hope to closeted individuals who hesitate in opening up to their family. Either, the visible presence of Prior led Hannah to empathize with Joe, or Joe’s coming out proved successful in changing Hannah’s outlook enough to empathize with Prior.