Author: cowboydan

Reading The Legend of Auntie Po made me think a lot about the stories we grow up with and how we change them to fit who we are. Mei reshapes the Paul Bunyan myth into something that actually reflects her life. She thinks of a powerful Chinese woman who protects her community instead of the giant lumberjack everyone else talks about. What I love is that Mei doesn’t wait for  permission to change the story, she just does it because she needs a version that makes sense to her.

I related The Legend of Auntie Po to Mulan. Mulan is a movie I watched when I was little and loved mostly because she was brave and independent (and I was obsessed with the idea of cutting my hair and becoming a warrior). But after reading Khor’s novel, I started noticing how much Mulan is also a kind of reimagining but just on a much bigger scale and shaped by a company instead of by one kid in a logging camp.

Both Mei and Mulan deal with people telling them who they’re supposed to be. Mei is expected to stay quiet, help her father and accept the racism around her without pushing back. Mulan is expected to become the perfect daughter and fit into her society’s rules. Neither of them can really be themselves inside those expectations, so they turn to stories to add themselves in.

What stands out most, seeing these two together, is how powerful it feels to take a story that doesn’t quite fit you and change it. Mei isn’t trying to make the correct version of the Auntie Po myth but she’s trying to make one that helps her survive. And I think a lot of us watch movies like Mulan for the same reason. It’s not because they’re perfectly accurate but because they give us a way to imagine ourselves as stronger or freer than we actually feel.

The Legend of Auntie Po reminds me that stories are alive and they grow and change with us. They shift based on who’s telling them, what they need and what they want. And maybe the whole point is that we get to shape the stories that shape us.               

In Angels in America, Tony Kushner uses the stillness of angels to show that change is what keeps humans alive. This becomes very clear in the scene where Prior meets the Angel. The Angel arrives in a huge dramatic moment and we expect something inspiring. Instead, she tells Prior that humans need to stop changing at all. She orders, “Stop moving!” and says that Heaven is breaking down because people keep doing new things like moving, inventing, loving and changing who they are. To the Angels, change seems dangerous. The Angel even talks about humans being “infected” with change like it’s some kind of disease.

Kushner makes it obvious that the Angel is wrong. Heaven is frozen in place and as a result, is falling apart, but humans keep moving. Even though Prior is scared and confused, he doesn’t give up. He questions the Angel and refuses to stop living his life. His reaction shows that change, even when it’s painful, is part of being human. People grow up, fall in love and fight for their lives. If we stop changing, we stop surviving.

By showing the Angels stuck in the past and humans move towards the future, Kushner proves that change is a necessity. Staying the same is what actually messes with people. For the queer characters in the play, movement and change are more than just ideas. So even in a world full of sickness and fear, Kushner says that the only way forward is to keep going.

 

The sentence begins with a metaphor of the body as home. (Clare 11) When I first read it, the idea felt comforting since home feels like safety and belonging. However, the feeling shifts in the next line with “but only if it is understood that bodies are never singular, but rather haunted, strengthened, underscored by countless other bodies.” (Clare 11) Your body is not just yours because it is never singular. It is shaped by all of the other bodies that surround you and touch you and leave their marks.

The repetition of “body/bodies” makes me think about what the body really entails. Instead of a person existing alone (singular) , our existence is always connected to others (collective). The words haunted, strengthened, and underscored make this idea even more refined. Being haunted by other bodies means that we carry our memory, inheritance, or trauma. To be strengthened by other bodies suggests that we support and uplift. To be underscored by other bodies implies others making us feel invisible.

I love that this passage doesn’t make us imagine the body as a perfect, closed off home. It tells us that the body’s walls are thin and made of relationships, history, and experiences. In some ways, it is an unsettling idea in the sense that we are never alone in our bodies. It does have a reassuring feel that we carry more than just ourselves.

Thinking of the body as home in this way reshapes how I think of identity. It disagrees with total independence and reminds us that we are always surrounded by others. Living in a body is about living with others.

 

 

The lines that I really focused one were from “Father in my room looking for more sissy clothes to burn” down to “column of smoke mistaken for Old Testament God.”(12) I think these lines are about religion’s role in homophobia and hatred as well as familial relationships. The fathers actions (searching, burning, believing the son is a whore) show a pretty intense attempt to enforce gender norms. The destroying of clothing is deeper than just the clothing, it seems he is trying to erase his son. The signs of religion (Sodom, Locusts, Old Testament God) try to justify the fathers hatred through his religion. As someone with a background in religion, I am aware that these are biblical symbols for punishment (aka divine wrath). By connecting the fathers cruelty to religious symbols, the poem seems to disagree with how religion is used as a cover up for prejudice. Now the corset is a huge part of this poem and I am really focusing on the line “Corset still on, nothing else, I’m at the window;… (12)”. The corset is restrictive (tight, bruising) but also empowering (his self identity). It carries physical pain but also defiance. The line “corset still on”(12) is so powerful because it shows endurance. I connected this poem to other poems by Danez Smith because their poems often talk about family, homophobia and religion. Also not to get WAYYY too deep but the bible. All in all, I think the poem suggests queer survival IS an act of resistance.