Filed under: CAMP, Entertainment, Family, GLBTQ, academe, adolescent, affinity spaces, coming out, creativity, drama, education, gay, gender, homosexual, identity, masculinity, movies, musical theatre, musicals, performance, queer, schools, sexuality, spaces, teenager, theatre | Tags: movies, musical theatre, research, Youth
Have you ever wondered why so many queer people have an affinity for theatre—especially musical theatre? I have. And the more I think about the phenomenon, the more I’m intrigued. Especially after watching CAMP (2003), a movie depicting life in a summer camp for the theatre misfits. They mount multiple musical productions in summer stock fashion. Here they claim an alternate space were self-identified “fags” and “fag-hags” find acceptance and solidarity despite the range of sexualities present and numerous incidence of gender bending. Their assertion of minority sexual identities, and playful experimentation blurring gender roles and embodiments typically incite social isolation and violence in schools, but not so much in the world of musical theatre. In the movie CAMP, divisions don’t occur over how youth present themselves as gendered or sexual beings, but over competing affections for the one straight boy in the camp. His flawless good looks, charm, and talent keep sexual tension among the campers as high as stars from which they want to hang their fame.
But their quest for stardom is really a more local and personal project of achieving social approval and self acceptance. The identity work they undergo is inextricably intertwined with the literacies involved in mounting show biz-ish productions with glitter, sparkle, and lights. Even before watching CAMP for the first time, I found myself wondering how drama, play, and group creativity affirm construction of queer identities. In my own involvement with theatre for youth, I find those moments of coming into one’s own powerful, especially when it means the risk of breaking a convention, and at least temporarily letting go of how society says we should be as opposed to all we might become. Perhaps I’m so moved because I see so few spaces in schools where youth can truly be themselves. They’re so often concerned with conforming with idealized embodiments and mainstream conventions of masculinity, and those who can’t or won’t fit in rituals of masculinization suffer an emotional, and sometimes violent cost. I’m always surprised how easily I tear-up during the scenes from CAMP when youth use performance as a vehicle for self-actualization, and embrace their Otherness. Even through they’re at the bottom rung socially, and stigmatized for not fitting within conventional binaries of gay/straight, masculine/feminine, they find moments of pride in who they are.
One of the production numbers in CAMP, the zany “Turkey Lurkey” from the musical Promises, Promises, is simply unforgettable. Its catchy music and lyrics stay with me hours after each viewing, and randomly resurface in my head during the day. And the choreography at the end of the number–the jolt of hands and feet, and the tilt of the head in rapid repetition–inspires me. After a glass of wine, I’ll usually join the frolic, as if to affirm my own queerness.
Anyway, for my dissertation, I’m investigating intersections between literacy, gender, and sexual identity in a drama company for youth. A drama company is particularly well-suited for such an investigation: there’s a wide range of literacy practices that occur across multiple modalities; plus, I see a diversity of sexualities in drama companies compared to school settings, where minority sexual identities are likely to be hidden or silenced.
I’m going to need some theory to support my thinking, and help me locate the study within the field of adolescent literacies. So I’ll draw upon theories of multimodality (Jewitt & Kress, 2003), gender performativity (Butler, 1990, 1993), queer theory (Britzman, 1995; Jagose, 1996; Sedgwick, 1990); and transitional space (Ellsworth, 2005; Winnicott, 1989) to help me consider how literacy events in a drama company may interrupt normative constructions of gender and sexuality. In subsequent posts, I want to tease out the meaning of these theories, and see how I might connect them with the data I’m collecting.
I’m most interested in examining the role of group creativity, play, improvisation, and embodiment. What’s their relationship to self-authoring and identity development, particularly among sexual minority youth? My thinking here is inspired by Vygotsky (1978), who recognized the critical role of play in development:
In play a child always behaves beyond his average age, above his daily behavior; in play it is as though he were a head taller than himself . . . play contains all developmental tendencies in a condensed form and is itself a major source of development” (p. 102).
Findings from a pilot study I conducted last summer revealed that play and improvisation served as occasions for suspending reality and loosing binaries, allowing company members to break free from dispositions solidified in everyday life. For young people who identified as gay or queer, the literacy events evoked expressive embodiments that helped them break free from what Butler calls the “heterosexual matrix” – the culture’s idealized mold of masculinity and femininity that’s discursively produced and enforced. In the case of these youth, authoritative discourses of “how to be a man” had the effect of shaping and stylizing the body in ways they felt were too reductive; they sought spaces where they could “let go”, where there was greater latitude in what it means to be a man or woman, and their inclinations, interests, and desires could be realized without fear of violence.
Here’s some of my research questions:
-How might the research literature on multimodality be applied to composition practices where the body is the canvas upon which various modes become embodied? In other words, how might modalities be theorized as embodied?
-In what ways might youth’s multimodal performance shape (or be shaped by) the identities youth construct?
-What’s the role of play and improvisation in the drama company, and what’s their relationship to self-authoring or identity construction?
-How might the drama company be theorized as a transitional space for youth whose dispositions, interests, or desires do not fit within normative masculinity and sexuality?
-In what ways might literacy events in the drama company interrupt normative discourses of gender and sexuality?
-What gender and sexual identity performatives do youth enact through the literacy events in the drama company?
-How do literacies in the drama company compare with the literacies in the school? Do different literacies in these settings cause different identities to be taken-up?
-Does the identity work youth accomplish in the drama company help them acquire agentive positions for breaking heteronormative practices in their school?
Data collection will involve observations and field notes of drama rehearsals at a theatre company for youth. Rehearsals will be filmed. I will conduct interviews with company members regarding their composing practices and their gender and sexual identity performatives. I will ask five youth to let me observe three of their daily routines at school so I can compare literacy events and gender performatives in these different settings.
I’ll do my best to keep my thinking logged here.
Filed under: ABC, Entertainment, Family, GLBTQ, Greek, adolescent, family values, gay, gay rights, gender, homosexual, human rights, identity, masculinity, prejudice, queer, schools, sexuality, stereotypes, teenager, teenagers | Tags: ABC, Entertainment, Family, Greek
I just finished watching the latest episode of Greek on ABC Family. For as much as I avoided the Greek system while in college, and for as much as the series exaggerates sorority and fraternity life on a college campus, you’d think I’d find no pleasure watching the shenanigans of characters caught up in that social world.
But the truth is I keep watching the show and having affection for the gawky freshman, Rusty, who’s gradually loosing his innocence as he’s apprenticed into the norms of Greek life, albeit clumbsily. And then there’s Cappie, the dreamy president of Kappa Tau whose carefree style and granola-boy looks make him something of a charmer, like a young Luke Wilson. His years navigating the trenches of Greek social life also make him a sage for the plebes–especially Rusty, his little bro (adopted in the brotherhood ritual of the frats).
Sure, Greek’s plot lines are predictable and trite. In any episode, the main characters’ priorities are attending parties, binge drinking, circumventing campus authorities. Academic prowess is dissed for the full-time work of maintaining one’s status and attractiveness by getting accepted in the right crowds or dating a person who’ll bring the most clout. Finding a mate appropriate to one’s standing in the system is a game the house leaders are expert playing. Central to the series’ plot is the now tiresome feud between frat leaders Cappie and Evan who’re in love with the same girl. As shallow as all this sounds, and believe me, the series is shallow, there’s moments it manages originality in its representation of gay frat guys. This and–admittedly–the eye candy keep me tuned-in.
One of its characters, Calvin, is a black gay man who can pass as straight. He hid his sexuality from his frat brothers all last season, dating a guy on the sly until being accidently outted by a friend. His frat brothers debated whether he could remain in the house, but finally welcomed him back as a gesture of diversity and tolerance. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if Calvin’s re-admittance was aided more by his butch exterior than a commitment to social justice for all gays; had Calvin not been able to pass as straight, it’s unlikely he’d been selected to begin with.
In any event, it is rare that I see gay characters on prime time that don’t embody a gay image. While it is clear Calvin is uncomfortable with things that are overtly gay, and that he’s even a little homophobic, he’s never in denial of his same sex desire. He makes admirable efforts to find love (as opposed to just sex) while navigating a Greek system that’s largely heteronormative. In last night’s episode, in the middle of a frat house party akin to those seen in Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds, or countless other flicks epitomizing Greek life, Calvin kissed a white guy he’d been dating (not once, but twice!). The camera zoomed in on the two men as they stood embracing each other amid the roaring house party. That two men were kissing was pleasantly shocking, but that this might mark the beginning of a same-sex, interracial relationship on family TV had me stunned.
Even now, in 2008, I am shocked whenever I see open display of same sex desire and affection. I would never have imagined seeing this growing up; perhaps it would have given me a sense of normalcy if I had; maybe I wouldn’t have fought so hard suppressing a desire I was taught to detest. At least it would have helped me realize that gay people could be accepted in the world—but my adolescence was in a different time and another place, far from any affirming representation of gay people. I applaud Greek for making a range of sexualities visible, where both gay and straight characters interact in tolerance, if not complete acceptance.
ABC Family gets that we need affirming representations of gay people in positive relationships. No doubt some people will denounce this gesture as another attack on conservative family values. But when were families ever really perfect? Weren’t the images of Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best and the Brady Bunch or– one of my favorites growing up–Little House on the Prairie idealized notions of family that were always impossible to achieve? ABC Family’s tag line says its programing is for “a new kind of family.” I imagine such programming might acknowledge complicated issues and a diversity of characters that break heteronormative assumptions and that are prevalent to non-traditional families out there such as single parent households, interracial couples, and same-sex unions–or even the families we make on our own that aren’t bound by blood relation, but shared interests, desire, and affection.
For as trite a comedy as Greek usually is, I find myself uplifted by its affirmation of same sex desire, a desire that’s prevalent in all species and populations. In the absence of such affirming representations in the mainstream media, we’re left with authoritative voices of condemnation, and right-wing agendas that conspire to take away the rights and visibility of gay people. While their voices may shame and silence those afraid of coming out, it can do nothing to stop same sex desire. All it does is cause some people to retreat into unhealthy suppression or facilitate liaisons with anonymous sex partners. In either case, a pattern of self loathing is initiated, and puts people in high risk of mental and physical disease. We need more programming that makes visible same-sex relationships, if only because such stories may help young people shore up enough courage to be who they are without shame, and who might envision a healthy, open relationship with a life partner–something many straight people take for granted.
Filed under: Documentaries, GLBTQ, family values, fundamentalist, gay, gay rights, homosexual, prejudice, queer, schools, sexuality
(as if gays aren’t already in anywhere, USA). Here’s propaganda from the American Family Association , an organization that gets upset when glbt people are visible, and really angry when gays speak up for their rights as citizens. They cast glbt people, once again, as predators. Watch out! Hide your eyes! Don’t Look! Those gay people may turn you into stone or something.
Filed under: GLBTQ, academe, education, fathers, gay, gender, gender identity, gender roles, parenting, queer, research, spaces, theatre
Dr. Aaron Rocheln, a psychologist at the University of Texas led a study that gauges the psychological well-being of 200 stay-at home-dads. These are fathers who take care of the children, cook, and perform household chores while the wife is the primary breadwinner. In many cases, the husband-wife team report being happy and content. Each is doing work that’s suited to their propensity and desire, rather than what society tells them they should do on the basis of their sex. According to Rocheln:
More people are doing what makes them happy and determining what’s best for their families rather than worrying about society’s expectations. An increasing amount of men are shifting their ideas about what it means to be a ‘provider’ and most of those we surveyed seemed very content in their new role…
…It wasn’t that the fathers didn’t encounter any negative reactions from others,” said Rochlen, “but most of them expressed a lack of regard for the criticism and emphasized that it wasn’t important to them how others defined masculinity. These are men who still discuss sports, fish, hunt, mow the grass and work on their cars as well…
…[the data] seem to support the conclusion that more dads being at-home caretakers means more men and women are defining their own family roles and gender identity in flexible, personal and less restrictive ways…
Other of Rocheln’s studies show that men who conform to a conventional masculinity have more physiological and physical maladies (e.g., depression, anxiety, marital problems and substance abuse) because normalized masculinity prohibits expression of personal feelings or showing excessive emotion. Some men are unwilling to seek help because that is not what “real men” do. It all gets pent-up inside, jumbled up, festering.
I find this research compelling. For one thing, it shows that people who disrupt gender norms to fulfill their family’s needs and desires lead happy lives, that convention isn’t always better, nor can it be tailored toward the extreme variance among humans. Men can be nurturers and women can be providers and they can find pleasure in these reversals because they are being true to who they are. Behavior and expression considered masculine or feminine can range freely between women and men, and disrupt repressive gender roles that we are socialized since birth.
That said, this study helps me consider gender as a lens through which to examine my recent research, which looks at the composition of dramatic texts in theatre spaces. Typically, the theatre is a space where many gay men participate in producing a performance text. It is a space where a variety of modes—the body, the voice, costumes, makeup, set, music, and lights—merge in performance. These modes require a disposition toward text and body that is highly sensory, expressive, and emotive—a disposition often considered effeminate for males, and therefore policed in everyday life. Such sensibility is permissible in theatre spaces, which allows for temporarily suspension of strict gender roles for the work required to invent and embody characters in imaginative worlds. Such an environment can be empowering and affirming for gay men, although, ironically, the texts produced by them for film or stage often replicate the compulsory heterosexuality and gender norms that oppress many glbt people.
Still, such spaces are important, just as Rochlen’s work is important for considering how strict enforcement and policing of gender roles can be detrimental by limiting expression and choices available to people, and instilling repressive tendencies. There may be health benefits associated with letting go of this repression, but it isn’t easy for some people not stop conforming. I wonder if it is easier for people of certain cultures, or of a certain social class? The men in this study have heterosexual privilege, a steady salary, the status marriage affords, kids; all this means they may have more leeway breaking gender roles without their sexuality being held suspect. Other men may not get this freedom, and feel obliged to perform a hyper-masculinity to gain acceptance and get ahead.
Still, despite the privilege, these families took a risk, made decisons in the best interest of their family, and offered accounts of a satisfying and productive life achieved apart from the script society handed them. We need more studies that show people who break gender scripts in pursuit of their own inclinations and desires; studies that help us understand how behavior society has construed as masculine and feminine is simply variations among our human species and largely undetermined by sex; studies that show the harm that occurs when society causes people to suppress the essence of oneself to perform a script so far apart from who they need and want to be.
Filed under: GLBTQ, curriculum, education, gay, harassment, homosexual, queer, school dropouts, sexuality, teenagers
This is an interesting story on many levels, especially in terms of how we perceive dropouts. I’d like to think the teenager’s decision to quit public school in favor of alternative educational programs is an instance of a gay kid asserting his agency, his right to resist and remove himself from an unsafe environment. As such, it should be understood as an act of courage, a refusal to subject oneself to intolerance. Too often schools position dropouts as being deviant, lazy, and unintelligent, when in fact kids who dropout or resist school do so when it’s not affirming of who they are, or because it fails to relate content to their immediate needs.
His classmates’ willingness to stand-up on behalf of one of their own who identifies as gay is admirable and necessary. Still, I can’t help but wonder if any of them who signed that petition considered how they might be responsible for either tacitly accepting or participating in the discourses that exclude gay people in schools. Could some classmates have felt a tinge of guilt when signing the form? Perhaps seeing large numbers of their friends’ signatures made the document easier to sign? I can’t help but consider how these presumably straight peers are cast as heroes in this narrative, when in fact it’s the gay teen who risked much more walking through school hallways every day in a hateful environment; his political act—dropping out—was the most costly and life-altering statement of dissent, much more costly than signing a petition. That it was the petition, and not the gay teenager’s decision to dropout that prompted school officials to take action against harassment is all too typical.
Schools do not address these issues until they are forced to, and when they do, they generally target training of cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and service staff on recognizing bullying, and how to intervene (as if harassment never happens inside classrooms with teachers present; as if bulling is always visible). The article mentions nothing about revising the curriculum to include affirming representations of gay people that may break the silence regarding sexual identity, challenge stereotypes, or disrupt heterosexist assumptions prevalent in the school. Nor does it mention helping teachers respond when their students read others’ as gay, and say or write inflammatory comments.
Kudos to the kids for taking a stand on this, but the real agent of change is the kid who dropped out. He’s now back in school, but until schools officials sanction an inclusive curriculum that breaks apart normalized assumptions of sexuality, gay kids will continue feeling isolated and othered in myriad of ways.
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Filed under: GLBTQ, books, education, gay, homosexual, literature, prejudice, schools, sexuality, young adult literature
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Filed under: AIDS, Documentaries, GLBTQ, HBO, coming out, gay, gay teacher, homosexual, identity, jodie foster, prejudice, schools, sexuality, subjectivity
One of my favorite bloggers, The Feminist Spectator, ruminates Jodie Foster’s coming out when accepting the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award by thanking “my beautiful Cydney,” Foster’s long suspected partner of 14 years. FS asks:
Does a public statement like Foster’s matter more for those of us who remember searching the public landscape and finding only veiled references to “deviant” sexuality, for those of us old enough to recall our own mortification and shame at how easily politicians could refer to the evil influence of “queers” (before that word was reclaimed with pride)? . . . I do wonder if the experience of being what Sarah Schulman so rightly called the last painfully instructed generation . . . means that Foster’s announcement sounds different to ears that from long habit continue cautiously to hope and yearn for statements like hers?
I think so.
Her post, which I hope everyone here reads in its entirety, inspired me to reflect on my experiences growing up gay, and attempt to discover why Foster’s and other’s public gestures to their same sex partners still matters.
I count myself among a generation of queer people who came of age in a “painfully instructed generation” and who, as FS puts it, “continue cautiously to hope and yearn for statements like [Foster's]“. I can relate to these sentiments, though many of my gay friends are indifferent, as if Foster’s coming out is of little consequence, or something she should have done long ago, when it would have meant more. Now gay networks, TV shows, magazines, and online communities aid construction of proud queer identities, at least for those of us who have the resources to access them. That these are visible, and much less restricted indicates that it’s PC to at least tolerate gay people, and capitalize on the interests of a large population eager to see glbtq lives out of the closet, not stuck in them.
I came of age in a small, West Texas town where gays were only mentioned in crude jokes, and mostly invisible except for images of gay men dying of AIDS. Their stories were told in documentaries from the standpoint of their straight family members, and sometimes gay friends or lovers. One documentary I recall seeing on HBO, Common Threads: Stories of the Quilt, showed gay men planning their funerals, and condensing their lives to a piece of patchwork quilt spread over the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The Quilt brought together people bound by loss and a commitment to fight AIDS. And yet it seemed to me, the public’s sympathy was kept at bay, truncated by pronouncements of debauchery and sodomy, that “those people brought this on themselves.”
As my parents watched these sad narratives and interjected none-too-approving-commentary, I hid in the other room, peaking through the doorway. Somehow I knew, even then at 14, I was like these men, although their lives weren’t a trajectory I wanted: alienation, stigma, a certain death, a ghostly portrait.
Still, I clamored for any representation of gays I could get, but did so secretly, hoping for programing on HBO that would air stories of gay people whenever my parents weren’t home like The Truth about Alex (1986) when I was 11 or, years later, In the Gloaming (1997) when I was 22.
Mostly, though, I saw nothing on TV affirming of gay people, but still, I craved their stories. Even if they weren’t uplifting, even if they rendered the trials of gay people in an intolerant society, even if some were stereotypical portrayals of butch women, effeminate men, or diseased homos, I secretly hoped for some identification on text or screen, some confirmation that I wasn’t alone in the world. If these stories didn’t make me feel proud, at least they let me know I wasn’t alone and, in some cases, taught what I didn’t want to be.
I soaked up these stories when family and friends weren’t around. And when they were, I watched with a performed ambivalence, and still felt as if all eyes were on me. How hard I’d squint whenever the evening news reported split-second clips of gay parades in New York City and San Francisco. I’d scan those fleeting images hoping for a glimpse of someone behind those protest signs with whom I could at least physically identify.
Instead I saw queens, men clad in leather, butch dykes. Their exaggerated feminine and masculine performances disrupted normalcy. Theirs was an important performance that provoked more fluid understandings of sex and gender. But this, to a small town kid like me, seemed clownish; it served as ammunition for callous jokes, abominations from religious conservatives, and my own attempt to “pray the gay away.”
Now, 20 or so years later, Jodie Foster is out: a celebrity perceived “normal” in the public eye and who we now know to be lesbian. So why does it matter? I’m moved by the Feminist Spectator’s response to this question, because her answer captures so much of my own feeling and experience:
Perhaps because my life bears indelible marks of my own painfully carried history, I know that lots of people without my access to money, to community, to self respect, to an analysis of our subjectivity, to theory, or to practice could use the example of Jodie Foster to shore up their own courage and pride. . .
I think that’s why I’m moved that someone as visible and culturally powerful as Jodie Foster is now willing to make that gesture. We need people like her on our team, because they make it just a little easier for people who aren’t free to do the same.
And to this I’ll add it’s empowering for me when people who’re not easily read as gay acknowledge their same sex attractions and relationships; it matters because, in doing so, we transcend the notion that “gay” is always a body, voice, or performance that breaks gender convention (not that that’s a bad thing). While I’ve learned to accept such markers of difference that signify gay in myself or others, and even consider them celebratory, I yearn for more encompassing representations of gay people in media and my everyday life, representations that deviate ever so slightly from the usual significations of gay/straight, and confound the usual stereotypes.
Thanks, Jodie
Filed under: GLBTQ, Oprah Winfrey, books, education, gender identity, identity, literature, queer, schools, sexuality, transgender, young adult literature
What can English teachers do when a student is questioning his or her gender identity? Or when a student is harassed because he or she breaks gender norms? Don’t condemn or ignore the student—listen, acknowledge their situation, and consider recommending a good book. The Advocate recommends these young adult books for trans teens. A brief plot synopsis of each of these books is available here.
Luna by Julie Anne Peters (Little Brown; 2004)
Freak Show by James St. James (The Penguin Group; 2007)
Choir Boy by Charlie Andres (Soft Skull Press; 2005)
Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger (Simon & Schuster; 2007)
Morgan in the Mirror by C.C. Saint-Clair (BookMakers Ink; 2004—Self published by a high school English teacher)
Increased Visibility
There are kids in almost every school whose gender identity is different from their biological sex; even so, transgender youth are a population educators know very little. Life in schools can be cruel for kids who can’t help breaking gender norms. Even at home, these kids are lucky if their families are proud of who they are. Too often, we do not hear their stories, which, I believe, break apart deviant representations of transgendered people and allow us to see our common humanity. But, thankfully, this is changing.
Oprah Winfrey, for example, has used her show to cast light on transgender issues. A search of “transgender” on Oprah.com produced 50 hits (three pages of search results) to video segments from her shows addressing gender identity, growing up intersexed, and how families have responded when a loved one feels as if they are born in the wrong body. Last April, on the news show 20/20, a transgender 10-year-old girl and her family spoke with Barbara Walters about the challenges she faces each day. Then in May, 60 Minutes ran a story they headlined “Gay or Straight?” — a segment reviewing controversial research suggesting gender nonconformity may have a biological basis and that the associated behaviors—men acting effeminate, women acting masculine—are usually apt predictors of sexuality (and thereby reinforcing stereotypes of gay people).
“That’s so gay!” “Faggot!” “Lezzie” “Dyke!” “Freak!”
What does this mean for classroom teachers? Even as GLBTQ youth are finally gaining affirming representation in sitcoms, TV dramas, films, their life in schools can be isolating and filled with insults. We need more positive representations of GLBTQ youth in schools. Even if controversial, they begin a dialogue around GLBTQ perspectives and experiences that break heteronormative assumptions so inherent in schools, the assumption that all kids are straight.
Young adult literature is rich with characters and situations unique to diverse groups of people and cultures. However, books representing gay teens remain underrepresented in schools, and it follows that school officials aren’t likely to sanction literature about young trans people without there being some resistance. In a recent survey, educational researchers Blackburn and Buckley (2005) surveyed 600 English language arts curriculum specialists who were randomly selected from schools of diverse size and locale. Of the 212 specialists who responded, only 18 indicated they used books, films, or other materials that addressed homosexuality. The other 194 respondents indicated, “they absolutely do not use materials addressing same sex desire in the English language arts curricula” (See their article, referenced below, for a comprehensive listing and review of young adult literature concerning gay and transgendered youth).
Classroom teachers will need to take the lead on a case by case basis by suggesting or making available particular titles that may fit the interests or life situations of the youth in their classrooms. Although the subject matter may not be relevant for a whole class text, they can be powerful independent reads for teens who need affirming representations of others like themsleves; likewise, everyone needs transactions with texts that help us see ourselves in those we assume to be so different from us.
Reference:
Blackburn, M. V., & Buckley, J. (2005). Teaching queer-inclusive English language arts Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 49(3), 202-212.
Filed under: austin tx, concerts, music, performance, queer, rufus wainwright
It was 95 degrees. 4000 of us stood waiting for Rufus to appear. The rum and coke I sipped numbed my legs and feet. The liquor made standing bearable but didn’t eliminate the heat. Sweat trickled down my back. Rufus better be worth this, I thought.
As we Austinites stood shoulder-to-shoulder in Subb’s backyard, couples (girls and boys, boys and boys, girls and girls) flirted; some rolled ice cubes across their faces. Three pre-teen girls sat Indian style on a loft overlooking the yard, waiting patiently. Mommas stood with their sons and daughters; guys stood with their buddies. We were a spectrum of ages, genders, and sexualities—most of us left of the norm.
Occasionally someone’s paper fan blew air on me that smelled of Stubb’s BBQ. And with it images far more rugged than Rufus Wainwright came to mind — Uncle Willie’s backyard grill parties, for instance. Or Bobby Flay cooking up everybody’s all American soul food: ribs, brisket, sausage, HAWT dogs, and sauce so messy you have to use wet-wipes to clean yourself. Tasty, yes, but not sophisticated as Rufus, I imagined. Not Rufus who recently played Carnegie Hall and The London Palladium in tribute to Judy Garland.
As we stood, the beer and BBQ I smelled connoted a soundtrack much different from Rufus’ music—something more beefy and Americana like Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA, or even John Cougar Mellencamp’s Jack and Diane (“two American kids growin’ up in the heartland”).
“Is this really a Rufus Wainwright concert?,” I thought I heard someone say. BBQ is as quintessentially American as baseball and apple pie, and thankfully, Stubb’s brings a diversity of people and musical genres to the cuisine, including Rufus, the openly gay singer-songwriter-entertainer. Stubb’s website announces, “From Hip Hop to Country, Rock and Roll to Singer Songwriter, Indie Rock to Electronica, we love them all.” And they happily host a gospel brunch the morning after to boot.
I have to admit, Stubb’s disrupts my vision of BBQ that’s somehow intertwined with a narrow nationalism–namely wealthy, white, straight, good-ole-boys who hitch a grill on the back of their Chevy and Ford trucks. It signals something, err, Bush, Republican, Aggie, and even GOD BLESS THE USA, a.k.a. Lee Greenwood.
[Sorry for this diatribe, but I heard that song 1000 times when the towers collapsed on 9/11; and while I’m happy to be an American, I was also happy when Lee’s song stopped clogging the airwaves; I wanted more Dixie Chicks. KUT 90.5 proved a comforting place to turn, and is still my station of choice since I'm not one for blind patriotism].
So I was saying there’s something about barbecuing, like making a fire and guarding the meat, that evokes conventional masculinity and a certain nostalgia for God and country. When Rufus finally took the stage, though, he brought something refreshingly queer to the cuisine. If not as conventional as the proverbial apple pie, Rufus and Stubbs BBQ were as weirdly satisfying a combo as apple juice and cheese (at least for us liberal WHOLE FOODS junkies).
Rufus took the stage with roaring applause, looking as if he were Uncle Sam’s illegitimate grandchild. He was clad in a short suit with red, white, and blue stripes; the get-up was punctuated by red boots, a black belt, and sequined brooches that caught the stage lights with his every move. Even with all its quirkiness, Rufus knew something essential was missing. “I need a cowboy hat,” he insisted moments before making his entrance, so his crew commandeered a ranch hat from a willing fan named Bud.
“I know I look ridiculous. I can’t decide if I want to be handsome or cute,” he debated. He moved the hat down over his face to give the lonesome cowboy look. Then moved it up to show more of his face. The crowed cheered for the low brim. “Okay, handsome it is.”
He mostly performed songs from his new album, Release the Stars. About 10 minutes into the show, Rufus sang his single Going to a Town, which he’s described as his “breakup letter to America.” The audience applauded the lament as soon as the melody soared from Rufus’ grand piano.
Rufus was a taken aback by the strong reception. “What an amazing audience,” he said. “Y’all must really like music. George W. lived here. I guess it takes a lot of music to bear that.”
He proceeded swiftly, song after song, maneuvering between the piano and guitars—sometimes signaling orders for his crew to open or close his grand piano, or to adjust the sound, all the while synthesizing something burlesque, operatic, pop, and folk in his music.
We endured the heat and tight quarters for good entertainment and a little booze. “It’s August!,” Rufus said as he toweled himself dry. “We’re doing a show outside in August in Austin. I don’t blame you if you leave. It’s hot!”
But no one thought of leaving. Like the BBQ cooking in the background, the music had soul and sustenance. His lyrics, so often about love, sex, breakups, family, stardom, hypocrisy, and healing are above all else, truthful and compelling. Like any good artist, his work takes on new meanings over time and experience. What’s amazing is that at only 33, he’s so much varied experience to draw from, and already 5 albums of purely original music that breaks heteronormative assumptions of love and living, and still appeals across a spectrum of identities and sexualities.
His band is also strikingly versatile in talent. They toggled between back-up vocals, the piano, electric guitar, trumpet, the French horn, and flute as Rufus belted out epic numbers like Do I Disappoint You, Slideshow, and Beautiful Child. The Act I finale, Between My Legs, featured a drag queen, Rebecca, who’d won a contest to perform an interpretive dance of the song. Rufus kept steady focus on the music and lyrics, but gave an occasional wink to the giddy queen, who played all areas of the stage.
He ended the show with 14th St., and exited the stage to a cheering audience. Everyone demanded an encore. Apart from the the raucous crowd, two teenagers peeped through a crack in the greenroom where Rufus made his exit; they took turns peering-in, both aghast and giggling until a security guard shined a flashlight on them. They’d just seen Rufus undressing.
The crowed yelled. RUFUS! RUFUS! RUFUS!
Finally he came back onstage in a bathrobe to sing some of his older tunes. Then, with much flare, he put on high heels and lipstick. He tore off his bathrobe to reveal a mini-suit, and performed a parody of Judy Garland singing Get Happy from the movie Summerstock.
“Forget your troubles c’mon get happy,
you better chase all your cares away.
Shout hallejulah c’mon get happy
get ready for the judgment day.”
And that’s exactly what he did. The evening proved we Austinites can eat our BBQ and be questioning patriots, too. We can rock to Springsteen and Mellencamp’s flag waving music as we down brewski and charred ribs, but we can also stand in the August heat and raise a glass to Rufus as he critiques what it means to be conventionally American or male or conventionally anything for that matter.
Thank you Rufus, and Stubb’s. I’m saving my ticket.
