Roy: “Like all labels they tell you one thing and one thing only: where does an individual so identified fit in the food chain, in the pecking order?” (45)
In this moment, Kushner utilizes the character of Roy to criticize the close minded American society people live in. Kushner juxtaposes the words “one” and “fit” to reveal the damages of label in people in society. Americans use labels in order to pre-determine the kind of lifestyle on is supposed to live as after being labeled “homosexual” or any other member of a minority group. America obsess over levels in order to “fit” one in a category full of stereotypes and expectations. When one is so specifically labeled as “one thing” a loss of identity occurs because the labels do not always include all aspect of a person. Labels are so extreme that even when one cannot fit into one specific group, there are labels such as “queer” and “gender fluid”. For Roy, who can arguably be named queer because he does not follow definite heterosexual behavior, he cannot live in the comfortably of living as just Roy. Usually there is a society-created correlation between campy men and homosexual men. For example, if one is identifying as homosexual, there is an automatic association to campy behavior when not all homosexual men. There are men who exhibit campy behavior, with their extravagance and showy behavior in their specific way of dressing and etc., but there are many who do not live to that standard. There are also many men who enjoy the same or similar leisure activities that men who are considered to be enjoy, but are not attracted to men. In this chapter, Roy clearly states he is not a homosexual but rather a man that sleeps with men because he notices there is a stigma with identifying as a gay man in which there is more added to the definition then being a man. This addition to the play is a necessary reminder that labels are not essential in life and if the word homosexual is used to describe a person, it should be restricted to the simple fact that the only thing that can be predicted from this term is that a male is attracted to other males.
I think you make a really good point about Kushner’s purpose in writing this line. I like the way in which you clearly related it to the modern world outside of the book. This really helps anyone reading your piece to understand Kushner’s words on a deeper and more personal level because you show the way in which the issues he is addressing are still relevant today such as labels and their implications. At one point in your piece you somewhat alluded to intersectionality by critiquing the way in which these labels box people in to one group and are unable to account for the rest of who they are. Even when they don’t fit into a label, theres a label for that. I would have found it interesting if you had used this part as an opportunity to explore intersectionality in this context.
In class, we had a discussion about how the term “homosexual” is derogatory term and I want to challenge you to not use that term because it is offensive. This is by no means a direct attack on you, I’m just offering a suggestion to use a less derogatory term. However, I like that your post addresses this specific quote because it is really important. The juxtaposition of the words “one” and “fit” does indeed address the fucked up reasoning in believing that people are just one label and how society fails to recognize the intersectionality of multiple identities. This is how society then goes on to misunderstand people and situations and cultivates a societal apathy to truly want to understand the complexity (beauty) of each and everyone. We can bring into this conversation, Darwin’s idea of natural selection and how the fact that Roy (the man that sent a Jewish women, Ethel Rosenburg to her death) brings his ideas of who is deemed “fit” and labels people with “one” label and nothing more.
The author of this post did an amazing job with their critical analysis. I agree with the author that the play does not allow room for fluidity. One must be straight or gay, there is no room for identifying as queer…it is not enough. I think Kushner provides this to show that we still have work to do as a society. We have come far but we still need to accept that gender and sexuality is a spectrum. Awesome post!