Class Blog

The presence of camp culture in Angels in America is found within the play’s comedic structure while holding a theme of the AIDs epidemic. In Susan Sontag’s “Notes On “Camp”, she says, “The whole point of camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious”, giving the thought that it is easier to joke about the serious than it is to look it in the eyes and deal with it. With AIDs being a very serious tragedy in our country’s history, Angels in America brings a sort of lightheartedness to the subject, this balance of drama and comedy makes the play campy.

The play shows several examples of camp, one including the funeral of a major drag queen in New York City. Rather than a funeral, it was a celebration. HBO’s production of the play showed fellow people of the LGBTQ community, not mourning death, but singing along with the church choir to celebrate life. Belize also says, “He couldn’t be buried like a civilian. Trailing sequins and incense he came into the world, trailing sequins and incense he departed it. And good for him!” Taking death, a typically morbid topic and adding the joyful singing and sequins is camp because it makes a heartbreaking situation a little bit easier to swallow.

On the contrary, Prior resists camp in this specific scene. While exiting the funeral he says, “A great queen; big fucking deal. That ludicrous spectacle in there, just a parody of someone who really counted. We don’t; faggots, we’re just a bad dream the real world is having, and the real world’s waking up. And he’s dead”. Here Prior lets seriousness take over the topic of death, referring to gay people as the real world’s bad dream. Prior is being anti-camp because rather looking at the joy of the drag queen’s sparkly life, he looks at it as nothing more than the death of another person that the rest of the world does not care about. Prior’s anti-camipness makes the reader see the far end of the spectrum of an AIDs narrative, where people are dying and mourning their loved one’s deaths and there is no mention of the beauty of the life that they had. This play’s campiness allows a true tragedy to be brought to light, allowing the reader to see it as a story of life instead of a story of death.

 

In both Angels in America and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit two important figures play a significant role in both Jeanette and Roy’s life. In Angels in America, Ethel haunts Roy as she watches him die from AIDS. Roy was the one responsible for Ethel’s death and therefore her presence symbolizes karma and the exposure of all of Roy’s inner demons. In Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, a coming out story, Jeanette’s experience is altered by her mother. Jeanette’s mother attempts to save Jeanette from her homosexuality through the use of religion. Both Ethel and Jeanette’s mother play these metaphorical roles, but with different motives—one to save a life and one to ruin.

Ethel Rosenberg was convicted as a spy and executed for espionage, but her execution would not have been completed if it weren’t for Roy’s interference. Roy prides himself on his accomplishment to murder Ethel, but that soon comes back to haunt him as he can’t seem to get rid of her. She gets pleasure out of taunting him like when she says “the shit’s really hit the fan, huh, Roy?… Well the fun’s just started” (Kushner, 117). It becomes clear that Ethel has made an appearance as a metaphor for how Roy sees himself. Roy is still in denial of the fact that he has AIDS and convinces himself that he is ill with cancer so Ethel returning is him having to face his demons once and for all. Ethel’s inability to show forgiveness towards Roy represents life being unforgiving towards him and making his death slow and painful. It’s also interesting to note that the time period during Roy’s diagnosis of AIDS was during a time when AIDS was directly associated with homosexuals and that was a way of persecuting them.

In Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette’s coming out story is intersected with her highly religious background reflected through her mother. Jeanette’s mother taught her everything she knew to be true and attempted to protect Janet from everything sinful. Jeanette’s mother can be seen as the opposite as Ethel because she is attempting to protect and save Jeanette from her demons (that being homosexuality). This is conveyed every time Jeanette’s mother gives her an orange and never any other fruit. The orange represents the “expected” life she is supposed to be living. Although she wasn’t a ghost who came back to haunt, her mother resembled a figure who was influential on Jeanette’s self-perception and her own coming out story. Similarly to Angels in America, the time period during Jeanette’s coming out story was when society saw homosexuality as a type of sinful behavior that needed to be cured by religion—that cure was Janet’s mother. Both stories correlate with the time period and that current perception of gays.

In both Angels in America and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit both protagonists are met with two other characters that represent a controversial aspect of themselves. Each individual coming out story is unique and often times heavily influenced by outside figures. By including two influential characters into the storyline, the internal and external struggles of becoming ones true self is seen more clearly and accurately.

Both Tony Kushner’s Angels in America and Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit center on the control of religion in both character’s lives. The impact of Jeanette’s mother and her religious views shape the relationship she has toward her own non-conforming sexuality and how that aspect of herself makes her feel isolated. The impact of Judaism on Louis’ life with respect to his sexuality changes his relationships with other members of the gay community. Both texts deal with the idea of prophets, where Jeanette considers herself a prophet because she chooses to create her own space outside of the church’s teachings, and Prior very clearly sees the vision of an angel and is considered to be some sort of messenger.
While many of the characters in Angels in America are affluent members of the gay community, Jeanette chooses to remain closeted for most of her life while living with her mother. Both Jeanette and other characters in Angels in America choose to ‘come out’ as gay despite the respective repercussions. Jeanette is ostracized within her community and is no longer allowed to teach in the church, and the members of the gay community during the AIDS crisis were often discriminated against in every aspect of their life; from the negative comments shared with Belize during his job at the hospital, to the possibility of an AIDS/HIV diagnosis toppling the livelihoods of anyone in the play.
Angels in America uses the idea of camp to add a playful exaggeration to many of its scenes, while Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit avoids the use of it all together. Angels deals with a very serious subject matter, and the use of camp in scenes like the funeral and Prior’s over the top hallucinations add a sense of lightheartedness that would otherwise make this play very serious and depressing. Jeanette’s story avoids using camp, which makes it more serious and allows an experience that is all too common to resonate in a different way with its readers. Both works explore the ideas of non-conforming sexuality to create a change in culture

Angle: “In Creating You, Our Father-Lover unleashed
Sleeping Creation’s Potential for change
In YOU the virus of TIME began!” (Kushner, 175)

Time plays an important role in Angles of America. The time period of the play is acknowledged through the Angle’s remark, “in YOU the virus of TIME began” (175). Angles of America takes place during the AIDs epidemic. During this times many closeted homosexuals came out. AIDs took away the power of choice for homosexuals. It took society by the reigns by presenting physical attributes (in this case illness) as an indication of sexuality. Thus, having AIDs also meant coming out. Therefore, we see that Prior’s virus is not just representing his own disease. It represents the start of a new era in society; the beginning of change.

Change is a common theme throughout the novel. We see the theme exploited more as the interaction between Prior and the Angel continues towards the topic of San Francisco. San Francisco is a big symbol in the novel. San Francisco was the gay “capital” of America, it was marked by as the Angle describes “forward motion” (176). Unfortunately, in 1906 San Francisco was hit by a severe earthquake or, in Prior’s words, “heaven quake” (176). In Angles of America, AIDs represents God’s “quake”. Though AIDs impacted many lives during the era, it’s a significant event that, like the earthquake, its impacts are remembered in history.

San Francisco is mentioned again in a conversion between Belize and Roy. On page 209 Roy asks, “What’s it like? After?” with the response, “like San Francisco… Big City, over gown with weeds, but flowering weeds on every corner”. This shows that, through wreckage, there can still be something beautiful. Blooming is symbolism for change, for the “forward motion” (176). Going back to the original passage, we see that the “virus of time” (175) in Prior can result in those “flowering weeds” (209). It gives the chance for society to begin to build up and change just like San Francisco after the quake.

Prior represents the only character that changes his personality according to his role. Prior takes on the role of an AIDs patient and prophet. We see this with his visions of other characters (for example, Louise being with Joe). We do not see this with Roy, therefore, he does not receive the warning from the Angel. I believe Prior is representative of the progressing gay community during the outbreak. Thus, the Angle is a warning to the whole gay community by telling them to stop moving, for she does not want the wrath of God. However, we know this will not happen. Time will continue progressing and the “virus of time” (175) will present itself in history. The change we see in Prior is therefore important for society to progress and continuing moving forward.

I found the dialogue between Roy and Belize in the hospital scene to be very interesting. Packed within Scene 6, I noticed a lot of factors intersecting, from the struggle of the aids epidemic to Roy’s blatant racism towards Belize. Roy being a high profile New York lawyer and political boss, his whiteness and socioeconomic status reflect the hegemonic power structures of the second half of the twentieth century. As a powerful and bigoted white male, he embodies the power of the Reagan Administration whether it was through the systematic negligence of the aids epidemic or through policies that increased mass incarceration and targeted people of color. Angels in America highlights the issues that gay people faced through the late eighties via the aids epidemic as a result of the Reagan Administration. But as the Netflix Documentary “13th” argues, being a black person at this time was also extremely difficult as policies that sought to criminalize the use of crack cocaine were intentionally created to disenfranchise black people and keep them in jail. I think it is important to recognize this issue in America at the time in order to truly understand that these racist attitudes at the time didn’t stop short of action but led to the oppression of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Understanding this relatively untold story of American History, I believe, will give us more appreciation for the struggles of Belize because while the play does not dwell in detail about his race, the fact that he is both black and gay does create a unique intersection of oppression. And despite this, Belize still finds the courage to stand in solidarity with Roy as a gay man and spare one life from the aids epidemic.

“When [my mother] couldn’t come herself she sent my father, usually with a letter and a couple of oranges.  ‘The only fruit,’ she always said.” (page 29)

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“…I thought in this city, a past was precisely that.  Past.  Why do I have to remember?” (page 160)

In terms of symbolic imagery used, the orange in Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit clearly stands out as the most important.  An autobiography detailing Jeanette Winterson’s process of discovering her sexuality and undergoing the traumatic process of coming out, she often, and sometimes subtly, weaves in the concept of oranges- either as the fruit or the color.  The orange references help reflect a variety of things, like her tumultuous relationship with her mother and her budding sexuality.  However, all of those things go on to merge into a larger entity, which is what the oranges truly represent, and that is her past life, the one that was lost to her and she never sought to retrieve.

It’s no secret that Winterson’s mother is incapable of properly nurturing her, which is displayed time and time again through her reluctance and coldness towards her daughter.  Although, her mother does feel the need to establish some sort of connection with her, which is how the oranges are introduced.  When Winterson loses her hearing as a child and is forced to go to a hospital, her mother simply hands her an orange to get her to stop crying and leaves.  Then later on, after Winterson is starved and forced to repent for the sin of her lesbian relationship, her mother gives her a bowl of oranges, and she is incapable of peeling them.  This gives Winterson an almost conditioned mindset to associate oranges with not only her mother, but the punishments that came along with her sexuality when she first decided to indulge in it.  And the fact that it was only one fruit that she came to associate these things with, develops into the bigger picture of why the book is titled the way it is.  She was never allowed any other options, fruit wise, which also hinted to Winterson that there was also only one right and absolute way to live life.  The oranges served to remind her that she was only given one option, and that trying to deviate from that would be sinful.  After leaving home, she develops a clear distaste for her mother and her past, which leads her to the revelations that she doesn’t have to abide by the one lifestyle that was thrust upon her, and that oranges are not the only fruit.

“It was a good thing I was destined to become a missionary. For some time after this I put aside the problem of men and concentrated on reading the Bible. Eventually, I thought, I’ll fall in love like everybody else. Then some years later, quite by mistake, I did.” (pp. 77)

The destiny mentioned in these sentences reminds me of the description about the adoption of Jeanette. Her mother did not arbitrary choose Jeanette among the children in the orphanage but rather follows the star that guided her to Jeanette’s crib. By doing this, she successfully follows the God’s will to select the “right” child that can do God service. She does not sincerely care for the well being of Jeanette, as evidenced in her neglect when Jeanette is temporary deaf. In fact, her love for Jeanette is conditional: she expects that Jeanette would grow up to be an immaculate person that can serve God to bring about change in the world. Jeanette adopts her mother’s mindset from very young age and she does believe in the pathway that her mother draws for her future.

Jeanette used to think that she has never been in a relationship with a man because she is busy absorbing the grand idea the Bible, or because it is sinful to get involve in romance and she has to obey her mother’s admonition: “Don’t let anyone touch you Down There”. The fact that Jeanette remains single and committed to God is unsullied enough to please her mother. But later Jeanette recognizes that sooner or later she will find her romance. This is the hint of the coming out moment of Jeanette in the future. It is worth noticing how and why Jeanette can deviate from the anchored philosophy of her family– a binary world with either enemies or friends and no middle ground in between. The homosexuality of Jeanette exists in that middle ground of no name to her mother.

Jeanette listens to the voice inside that speaks her feeling instead of following the fixed pathway for her life. What makes Jeanette a heroine is her bravery to come out and declare her identity. Her standing up for herself and the truth, not the sacred mission such as those depicted in Bible, is the special story of Jeanette’s real life. She does grow up to be “special”, just not as in the sense that her mother can imagine. The difference between Jeanette and her mother can be compared with the difference in good and bad writing that Anzaldua mentioned in her writing: “Find the muse within you. The voice that lies buried under you, dig it up. Do not fake it, try to sell it for a handclap or your name in print”. Jeanette’s mother always focus on the appearance of the action instead of goodwill, in other words, she wants to be recognized rather than to contribute to the community. Jeanette, on the other hand, does not concern protecting the non-mundane personal image. She does what feels real to her, and by doing that creates a unique story of her own just as any human can.

 

“There were  a lot of women, and most of them got married.  If they couldn’t marry each other, and I didn’t think they could, because of having babies, some of them would inevitably have to marry beasts.” 

This is not the first time Jeanette worries about her perceived impending marriage to a man. Having the foreknowledge that this is a coming out narrative, and that Jeanette will not be marrying a man, it creates a very recognizable instance of dramatic irony for the reader.  She only gives the idea of women marrying women a brief thought, “…if they couldn’t marry each other, and i didn’t think they could, because of having babies…”.  This bit of ‘logic’  illuminates the way her mother and the church have curbed her thinking; first, she assumed that women couldn’t marry each other, even if they wanted to, they couldn’t.  This line also perpetuates the Christian ideology that marriage is for the functional purpose of procreation.  

Furthermore, the way in which Jeanette glides over this possibility in her train of thought, is indicative of how ingrained this way of thinking is in her, as well as the finality of the church’s ideologies.  She goes on to wonder “If only there was some way of telling, then we could operate a ration system.”  This line, in concert with the aforementioned line, really demonstrate that Jeanette has been conditioned to perceive marriage as functional, as a mere pairing of two people for its own sake, rather than something done out of love.  

This small passage is so revealing of the type of thinking that has been instilled in Jeanette’s mind, totally unbeknownst to her. As a reader who is aware of the events to come, this seemingly innocent train of thought makes me very sad for Jeanette and also very frustrated towards her upbringing for implanting these ideologies that are contradictory to who she innately is.

This post will focus on a passage found at the bottom of 74 carrying over to the top of 75. This portion of the text sheds light on the remaining chapters of the book, but also perpetuates heternormativity within story telling and society, an important aspect of the coming out narrative.  In this passage, Jeanette re-reads a story she had grown up listening to by her mom. In the end of the story her mother tells, Jane Eyre marries and goes off with Saint John. When Jeanette reads the story for herself however, she learns that Jane never marries and her mother had manipulated the story’s ending. For years, her mother had embedded this story of love and (heterosexual marriage) into Jeanette’s mind. This notion is influential in regard to coming out narratives, in which we often see the pressure of heterosexual standards adopted in all works of life, making coming out, that much more difficult.

When Jeanette reads the actual story, her reaction is both shock and distraught, promising that she has “never since played cards, and I will never since read Jane Eyre” (Winterson 75). The last sentence of this passage evokes a sense of mistrust and sadness within Jeanette, however she quickly shuts the door to her emotions, promising to never read it again. Jeanette’s inability to, want to, or force herself to, acknowledge what the stories says, and face her emotions is almost naive. This portion of the passage certainly has an emphasis on the texts meaning as a whole. The quote represents a larger theme the novel seemingly has. Jeannette denies herself the opportunity to learn more from what she encounters from this small piece of truth. Denial is a reoccurring emotion that Jeanette often faces. The quote insists that Jeanette is in denial of her own truth, a concept that may configure throughout the rest of the novel. Her hesitancy to read the story or play cards again connects closely to the instance of when she finds her adoption papers, but then still hopes her mother may be her biological mother. These acts of denial, may be seen again in her denial of her sexuality, or a fear of truly accepting herself.

“Once upon a time there was a beautiful and brilliant princess, so sensitive that the death of a moth could distress her for weeks…” (Pg. 9)

In the readings thus far, one passage that has stuck out to me has been the parable of the sensitive princess. In chapter 1, Genesis, Jeannette tells the story of an incredibly compassionate princess who is, for the most part, tethered to her kingdom and becomes distressed by something as simple as the death of a moth. For this reason, her whole kingdom worries for her until one day she finds an old hunchback woman who is dying. The hunchback women asks her to take care of a certain list of duties and the Princess obliges. When the hunchback woman dies, the princess abides by her promise and is never bothered by her excessive sensitivity again.

This is a story that I felt accurately paralleled the childhood of Jeanette. In my interpretation, the princess is a perfect representation of innocence. As a youth, Jeanette mirrors this innocence in her ignorance of her own sexual orientation. Living a life skewed and sheltered by her mother’s extreme religiosity, Jeanette know’s nothing but what is considered right by the church. In the same way that the princess is restricted by her self-imposed fear, Jeanette is limited by her mother’s overbearing and manipulative. Although she is ultimately able to break free from the major restrictions set by her mother and church later in life, until her freedom Jeanette exemplifies innocence in a life manipulated by her mother and religion. Another, more literal, parallel exists in the distress that the princess feels. Though not to the extent of the anxious princess, Jeanette’s internal conflict of natural instinct versus her mother’s will leads to her living a very confusing and stressful childhood. Lastly, and perhaps most important the way that the princess is able to alleviate her distress is paralleled by an unsuccessful attempt of coping by Jeanette. Unlike the princess, who successfully escapes her restrictions through finding where she belongs, Jeannette seeks to find where she belongs through accepting the manipulation by her mother. Thus, Jeanette attempts to overcome her limits by accepting the cause of them.