Author: nileontheNile

Myths are something usually seen as folklore or silly stories we make to explain certain phenomena in this world. However, Auntie Po proves that she is not just a phenomenon but rather needed representation. A voice for those who don’t feel seen. A person in space where traditionally she would be excluded from.

Mei is the only Chinese girl in the entire book other than Auntie Po who is supposedly imaginary. Mei makes her up not just to give the other children at the camp a story to listen to but for her to see representation of Chinese women that she doesn’t have in real life. Mei doesn’t dress stereotypically feminine compared to the other girls as well as that there are lingering undertones of possible romantic attraction between Mei and her best friend, Bee. It can be insinuated because Auntie Po doesn’t wear overtly feminine clothing that she is also queer representation for Mei. Though Mei is young, she still feels love for others and for her, Auntie Po is similar an older female member of her family to help her through her intersectional identity.

One of the main issues Mei faces is that she is not allowed to attend higher education because she is Chinese compared to Bee who is white. Mei is consistently told she is not like Bee and her family who advantage from white privilege and can attend university.  However, towards the end of the book Mei is given the opportunity to move to an area, San Francisco, that will permit her to eventually attend college. Towards the end of the book her father asks “Do you still see your Auntie Po?” where she replies “Does it matter? I don’t need to. I know who I am. I am a good cook. I have good friends. I have the best pa in the world.” (272, Khor). Auntie Po was a way for her to feel community, representation she hasn’t seen, people she doesn’t know. But people who are out there and exist. Through Auntie Po she was able to find her sense of self, learn to resilient during difficult times, and to rely on the people around here who are there to support her.

Unlike Paul Bunyan, Auntie Po is symbol for not just Chinese people for all people of color, queer people, or other minorities, to create stories that cater to them. Through storytelling, fiction, myths, marginalized people to become the representation that is needed in this world and tell their experiences in authentic and accurate ways.

 

In Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, the character Roy Cohn both in the book and in real life show us the consequences (real or metaphoric) of having internalized homophobia installed into gay people and how organized religion can play into that. Though for some people, like the character Joe, being raised Mormon meant being a “failure” was never an option which he exclaims when opening up to Roy, “the failure to measure up hits people very hard. From such a strong desire to be good they feel very good from farness when they fail” (Kushner 56). Joe is slowly failing at passing for straight as he has confrontations such as Louis calling him a gay republican which insults him for being assumed as gay. However slowly the truth uncovers with different stereotypes of gay men align with Joe (such as going on walks at night, is subservient to Roy and married Harper as a way to pass and to be her “savior”).

For Roy, his internalized homophobia has not only caused him to hate himself but all gay people. He has tried to separate himself as much as possible to queerness as physically possible to saying he’s a just a person who likes having sex with men and isn’t actually gay to proposing that gay people be banned from working in the government. He has separated himself so much from queerness that when he’s even diagnosed with AIDS he lies because of the association of it with gay men, “…AIDS is what homosexuals have, I have liver cancer” (Kushner  47). For Roy even being grouped with gay people was a problem because of his beliefs and his thoughts of himself.

Yet, why does this matter? Tying back to religion, the plays main plot focuses on the character Prior being chosen by the angel as the prophet when dying from AIDS. However, Roy is also dying from AIDS so why not him? Roy was not chosen because of how his self-hatred has been perpetrated onto everyone around him and that him being closeted isn’t the way god made him to be. The message of Angels of America exclaims the point that organized religion may want you to believe that your queerness is wrong, shameful, or a failure but the higher being that Roy Cohn gay did it for a reason. Angels in America tells us that truly our feelings are natural and not something to shove down or to turn into hatred. That is why Prior is chosen over Roy. Prior has accepted his identity and still has kept his humanity compared to Roy who has lost his own humanity and the humanity in others.

The tie to Mormonism which is a religion with a cult like following is an intentional choice Kushner made. Through the lens of Mormonism we see how internalized homophobia effects those who may be queer within the Latter Day Saints Church. Joe is a true victim in how he felt he had to hide his identity because of his religion and overcompensated to the point where he genuinely thought that he wasn’t gay for a time. However, unlike Roy we see the progression throughout the play of Roy accepting his queerness. Especially when he realizes and confesses his love for another man, Louis. The juxtaposition of these characters helps the audience broaden their view of what internalized homophobia is, how it can happen to people, and the different ways people deal with it. Additionally with religion circling the play helping us understand this point from different religious beliefs.

 

In Eli Clares, “Exile And Pride”, he talks about the struggles of leaving his rural, small town to be a part of the urban queer community where he can be accepted… with some caveats. The now upper to middle class queers that Clare is surrounded by don’t fully understand the experience of being lower-to middle class in a rural small-town.

Clare speaks upon specifically the progression of the commercialization of pride/stonewall with the event of Stone Wall 25′ celebrating the rebellion “…the tickets for many of the events costs outrageous amounts of money. Who could afford the benefit dance at $150, the concert at $50, the T-shirt at $25… Stonewall 25 strikes me not so much as a celebration of a powerful and lifechanging uprising queer people, led by trans people of color, by drag queens and butch dykes, fed up with cops, but as a middle- and upper-class urban party that opened its doors only to those who can afford it.”(Clare 41).  The capitalization of queer people and our suffrage is now becoming a commodity that only the most privileged of us can access and with this comes a lot of blatant ignorance and exclusion.

The dangers of only focusing on the good and what we have in society now ignores and stops proceeding to the next steps. Full liberation. Pride today being funded by big corporations and government officials (who are the same people taking away certain rights from certain community members) take us away from our roots of protesting, fighting for the most oppressed within our community. Clare notes that with such focus on Urban efforts of commercialized pride and white wealthy gay people, we are not doing enough for those doing groundwork in smaller, rural towns where statistically they have more risks speaking out because they have no place to hide unlike a populated city.

The dangers of capitalizing off of pride whereas Clare is stating how Urban activists must take a “back seat” and give support to these ground roots activist in rural places before soon the most privileged of us all are now just as oppressed as they would have been years ago.

Within the poem, “Pretending To Drown” there’s an overall theme of wetness that surrounds the work. With lines such as “burst upon the water”, “on the shore”, and “the lake saw you”. Mentioning these large bodies of water made me think of multiple ideas, first is freedom. Big bodies of water are so vast and large that it makes it possible for creatures to hide and travel as they want. With that comes a sense of liberty and I think the reason why Saeed chooses a body of water to be the meeting place of these two lovers was because of how it can also be inaccessible to people who may be afraid or have never swum before. There comes a level of danger to the water because of how huge it is. There are unknown creatures, he states, “our feet touched a snapping turtle, every shadow a water moccasin”. This danger is both literal but also metaphorical. The next theme is defiance. As there is danger in the water, there is also immense danger in these lovers being caught together or having sexual relations. The line “our clothes begged us to be good boys again” shows this more internal conflict within these people with feeling as though what they are doing is immoral. However, even with these conflicted feelings the boys continue as lust and love takes over. The final idea was the literal sense of wetness. The body of water represents the freedom within them to explore themselves and their bodies in relation to each other. The lines “I resurfaced, slick grin, knowing glance; you pushed me back under. I pretended to drown, then swallowed you whole.” With the title of the poem being in relation to these sentences indicates how the poem may be more explicit with the relationship between these two.