Gender Trouble By Judith Butler

In her book Gender Trouble, Judith Butler suggests that all gender is a performance, learned and then repeated to an societal audience. From this performance we can draw a conclusion that gender is not a binary, such as male/female sex is a binary,but more of a spectrum with many different genders somewhere along the sliding scale. Male and female gender roles and expectations would only book end the scale, and each person would fall somewhere along the spectrum of gender, based on their individuality.

"If sex does not limit gender, then perhaps there are genders, ways of culturally interpreting the sexed body that are in no way restricted by the apparent duality of sex. Consider the further consequence that if gender is something that one becomes—but can never be—then gender is itself a kind of becoming or activity, and that gender ought not to be conceived as a noun or a substantial thing or a static cultural marker, but rather as an incessant and repeated action of some sort. If gender is not tied to sex, either causally or expressively, then gender is a kind of action that can potentially proliferate beyond the binary limits imposed by the apparent binary of sex" (112).

This idea of performative gender along a non-binary spectrum is the basis of my media project. It seems that every work that we have looked at challenges this binary, as we see characters search for their identity along this performative gender spectrum.

As a result, I've created a graphic representation of this gender/identity spectrum idea. I've plotted the characters I've discussed in this project along it's axis, to show a visual representation of how they might align against this concept.

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1999. Print.

Written On The Body by Jeanette Winterson

I've entitled this sketch: "Secret Code"

Materials used: cardboard, pencil, Sharpies, safety pins

Basic Idea: I used an Internet search to get some basic outlines for female silhouettes, as the cover of "Written On the Body" shows a photo of a woman's back. I sketched out a pencil drawing freehand off of an image I found and then traced it out with Sharpie markers. I used a safety pin and a basic online Braille translator to write the words at the top of the sketch that read "secret code".

I've based my idea on the passage found in Winterson's book, as I've excerpted below; this is where the title of Winterson's work is derived from and, what I think, says the most about gender, identity, and knowing someone intimately truly means. Regardless of sex or the physical body, Winterson conveys the idea that love is love, and soul connects to soul. It's a beautiful statement that I wanted to try and capture and translate into a creative medium. In this thought gender is a non sequitur, which again makes me think of Butler's idea that gender is performance or a role learned and acted for the audience of those around us in society...it has very little to do with knowing someone intimately or love.

"Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights; the accumulations of a lifetime of gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like braille. I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book" (89).

Winterson, Jeanette. Written on the Body. New York: Knopf, 1993. Print.

Fight Club By Chuck Palahniuk

These are some memes I've created to capture some basic ideas about gender and identity from Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club. Since the 1999 movie images are now linked within pop culture's psyche of the book, I found movie images to base my memes off of, and wrote, or quoted, the headlines accordingly.

The first one echoes Judith Butler's "gender is performance" idea that she wrote about in her work, Gender Trouble, in the context of Fight Club. I think the narrator's expression of masculinity through the formation of Fight Club is a good example of Butler's premise.

Second image quotes Palahniuk's book, from page 21. I chose this quote because it is a great example of how disconnected the narrator is from his own sense of gender/masculinity and identity.

Next, is another quote from the book that emphasizes the triangle between Tyler/Narrator and Marla, even though the two male antagonist/protagonist characters are one in the same (199). This idea somewhat speaks to the gender spectrum idea, as the Tyler identifies as masculine, narrator as numb/neutral, and Marla as a warped version of the feminine model that bookends the overtly masculine Tyler and dysfunctional Narrator. All three characters complete the spectrum from both binary ends.

The narrator crying on Big Bob's "bitch tits" is a powerful commentary on his disconnect, and the only way that he can open up and express emotion is with a man that has female features such as breasts and nurturing tendencies such as hugging/holding (21). This scene makes the reader understand how repressed the narrator's gender identity truly is against the backdrop of a conformist, heteronormative, traditional society.

Marla and the Narrator locked into their support group dynamic (facing each other down like gunslingers) is one of the most entertaining and revealing parts of Palahniuk's book. The fact that each of them are "tourists" to such morbidity so they may feel better about themselves speaks to how apathetic and lost they truly are. Also, the fact that the two of them male and female conform into a romantic (somewhat) heteronormative roles in a supremely grotesque manner is interesting. They can only be a couple under the most ugly and dysfunctional circumstances, such as voyeurism towards those that are almost dead (non-existant).

Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996. Print.

Fight Club. 20th Century Fox Film Corp, 1999. Film.

Bobby Noble "Our Bodies Are Not Ourselves" & 8 Mile

8 Mile - Final Battle - Eminem VS Papa Doc (HD Video & Audio)

In his book chapter entitled, "Our Bodies are Not Ourselves", Bobby Noble compares the idea that the movie "8 Mile" articulates a cultural parallel between gender, FtM trans-sexual men, and racial disparity regarding the notion of whiteness. Noble states that the film "works against the deconstructive labour of our frameworks", meaning that Eminem's character fights against a reversed system of racial discrimination, because he is considered to be "white trash", thus turning the usual racial paradigm of whites being the oppressors on it's head (96). In the film, the ruling majority are the African American rappers that control the record label and freestyle rap battles, and then go on to trade their power as social currency within that community. Eminiem's character Rabbit, can only appropriate his whiteness as a defense against such discrimination to earn respect and win the battle (as depicted in the video clip above), at the end of the movie. Noble analyzes this cinematic reference and extrapolates a similar argument for the FtM trans community as,"...the labour of making oneself--indeed becoming a man--is fraught with responsibilities that go with the territory whether we know it or not"(96). Noble concludes his thought with questioning, "how much of ourselves do we sell with intention and more how much we are willing to articulate our bodies against the hegemonic bargain offered to us...that is the measure of the privilege of masculinity without also being The Man"(96). In these statements, Noble offers a compelling argument that underscores the idea that appropriating racial culture and appropriating gender are very similar undertakings within our culture. The "last battle" scene in 8 mile shows exactly how Rabbit takes back his whiteness (and to some extent his masculinity, too) from the hegemony of the African American "Free World" rappers.

Noble, Jean Bobby. Sons of the Movement FtMs Risking Incoherance on a Post-queer Cultural Landscape. Toronto: Women's, 2006. Print.

8 Mile. Universal, 2003. Film.

Fun Home By Alison Bechdel

'Enjoyable Dwelling'

Here is my BitStrip comic that I've entitled "Enjoyable Dwelling", based off of Alison Bechdel's book Fun Home. Within this comic I offer a very brief synopsis of how gender is represented within Bechdel's work. I wanted to represent my idea of Bechdel and Fun Home in the same visual medium she presents in her work. As she mentions, her dad is all about aesthetics. In a similar fashion, Bechdel's work is all about aesthetics as well. I thought I could do a media representation to focus on this thought.

Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. Print.

Bowman, Jennifer. "Enjoyable Dwelling." Bitstrips. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. .

Class Presentation: Giovanni's Room By James Baldwin

Baldwin, James. Giovanni's Room; a Novel. New York: Dial, 1956. Print.