Summer Television self-indulgences: The Real L Word

On top of reading, I have been watching a significant amount of not-so-guilty, yet pleasurable (sort of) television.

The Real L Word

Like the fake L Word, the Real L Word is poorly scripted, flat, full of drama (although lesbian), reifying of heteronormativity, and I JUST CAN'T NOT WATCH IT. Sunday nights, I am drawn to this Lesbian themed reality television like I am to my Crackberry. Little red light flashing=previews for that night's episode. Then after seeing the opening credits, Jill and I discuss who we like and dislike, although, obviously I am more invested in this than she is. I realized most of them I hate but I keep coming back for more, hoping for some redeeming qualities. Always trying to find a point of (dis) identification, I am trying to find which character I belong to. In this, I see no hope. Of course the "fake" L Word left us all hanging with the "Who killed Jenny" fiasco. Redemption for Ilene Chaiken may be impossible.

Whitney
I like to describe her as smokin' hot with THE MOST annoying personality EVER!!! Her misnomer, "I don't like drama" is getting old. She is the epitome of LESBO drama. Oh I don't know why you piss off every girl you play with, maybe because you date all of them at once. I am fine with polyamory as long as everyone involved is open and aware of what is going on. Obviously this is not the case with all of Whitney's flings. At least this week Sara (why the fuck do they say her name like SADA?) gave her a taste of her own well-deserved medicine. Oh poor Whitney's getting her heart broken...ABOUT TIME!!! Quit trying to figure out if Whitney will commit and be ok with her commitment-phobic attitude and allow her to be free as long as she is respectful of the women she is free with.And for all the women in love with her...Get a freakin' clue. She's just not that into you!

Mikey
A total mysoginist, Mikey at least had a couple moments of shining. First when yelling at that modeling agent she really almost started crying, although I don't think she would ever honestly admit that. Second, offering her aunt that make-over, performed by one of Whitney's flings, Romi. This was a touching moment of the series where one of the bos actually appeared to have a soul. A rarity. Her mood shifts are pretty intense, from loving Raquel and wanting to marry her to hating her for playing a pretty harmless joke and pretending to not be at Mikey's beck and call.

Rose
Supposedly Papi is based on Rose's life of partying and womanizing. It's cool, I liked Papi, although short-lived and a highly stereotypical portrayal of the Latin lover. I hate Rose. Papi was likeable, she didn't treat the women she was with like little children but managed to at least appear on some level to love all of them. Afterellen.com sums up Rose best in their minicap Rose cares about Rose and treats her girlfriend Natalie like poo. Condescension and paternalism are just two of Rose's faults, amongst her lying (I'm just hanging out with my friends actually a "bromance" night with strippers rubbing boobies in her face), and all over rude demeanor. I am sick of Natalie being treated like a five-year-old little girl, with mama Rose protecting her. Please Nat, DO NOT work for Rose, you will regret it. Or maybe do it so the break-up will come faster.

Jik/Nill
It is annoying that in this couple the two individuals seem to have collapsed self-identities. They are no longer two seperate people but are defined by their primary pairing. Self-defined as the straightest gay people they or at least Nik knows, they are in the midst of planning some hideous glamarati wedding. Oh it is Betina all over again, one person has more money and power then the other and we all saw how well that worked out! I'm not saying don't celebrate your love but why does it need to be so extravagant? At least they vetoed the custom dresses-those were ridiculously expensive. There are few words to explain the ick-factor that these two embody. How is being straight-gay something to celebrate and exclaim from the television rooftops?


Tracy
Finally, the ONE character that does not constantly annoy me! In fact most of the time I feel bad for her, she's too young to be a mother of three. And I don't think she really wants that sort of responsibility yet. I am kind of waiting for her to realize this and for the other shoe to drop. On the other side, Stamie is funny, charming, and interested in helping Tracy with a modeling career. Well-worth it in my opinion. So I continue to root for them. Is there any way to kick the kids out of the picture? Just kidding. It's way gayer this way. Dogs and kids and keys oh my!

The one thing I liked about the "fake" L Word was that all the women were at least at various times all friends with one another. When are the Real L Word characters going to all meet up and become friends. I think Iw as hoping for something of a Real World (Watch what happens when six lesbians live in a house in Los Angeles stop being polite and start getting real!!) Like lets round up six lesbians, put them in a cage, and voyeuristically observe them in their unnatural habitat. Ok, so that isn't a good idea either, but I was hoping for some camaraderie amongst the cast, some relationships being formed, hot tub scenes being filmed, cat fights breaking out! You know the things that make for good reality television. Alas I will have to settle for the soft-core porn of Whitney effing SADA in the shower. I am not a big fan of this hypersexualized performance of lesbianism and I don't need to see the line-crossing sex scenes. I don't find them hot, but weird, and again ick factor. And I'm a lesbo. Not good when Real lesbians feel intrusive into these personal moments in a non-sexy way.

all in all middle to down thumb with hope for the future.

Hey Flirt With This...I am a Certified Hard Core Bitch

Recently a friend put this song on a cd for me and I love it a little bit. While I don't necessarily agree with the implications of violence I do understand why attitudes like this are at some points necessary to deal with the crap of sexism, heterosexism, homophobia, and misogyny alive and well in our culture. She seems to think this song reminds her of me to which I reply, "feminist bitch-yep you better believe it" I seem to wear it well I think...

Flirting, Jess Klein

The boss didn't like me
Cause I refused to flirt
He paid me peanuts
And treated me like dirt
He said but we could work it out
So what do you say
I thought I bet at 5pm
This gets subtracted from my pay

But I said Hey hey
Flirt with this I am a certified hardcore bitch
And I do not want approval from you
But I'll let you live and thats the only favor I'm gonna do

I sing myself to sleep
I sing myself awake
It's a woodenbelly hustle
He says shake a baby shake
And I guess I shook it too hard in a public place
Cause he was breathing down my neck
With his arm around my waist
And his slimey intentions were ozzing from his face
He said whats a pretty girl like you doing without a man
I said why don't you ask my girlfriend
She'll help you understand

And I said Hey Hey
Flirt with this
I am a certified hardcore bitch
And I do not want attention from you
But I'll let you live and that's the only favor I'm gonna do

Serving food to a man with a top ten list on his chest
Top ten reasons why beer is better than women
What? God
Reason number one beer always tastes fresh
I spit in his salad so that it was better dressed
Reason number two beer labels don't put up a fight
I looked at the carving knife and thought I just might
So I rang up his order and what did I say
Thank you for raping me with your shirt
And have a nice day
He said relax girly don't you like to flirt
And I said no bagels and lox for you pal

Yeah I said Hey Hey
Flirt with this
I am a certified hardcore bitch
And I do not care for your point of view
But I'll let you live and you'll consider yourself lucky too

So sing it with me ladies
Theres no need to be afraid
A bad attitude can really brighten up your day
Some man tries to get you to hang your head in shame
Just give him the boot
Yeah reclaim the name that brought you to fame

And say Hey Hey
Flirt with this
I am a certified hardcore bitch
And I do not want any shit from you
But I'll let you live and that's the only favor I'm gonna do
--
video version

Ootischenia, The Be Good Tanyas

Ootischenia, The Be Good Tanyas

I really love this song because I think it deals with interesting issues regarding disciplining the body and possibly feeling duty to ones community or culture over oneself. I listen to a lot as I drive and I think about it critically.
--
Little sad with everything around me
I hit the floor and my feet kept moving
I look forward and never backwards
I was out the door like a roman soldier.

Impossible to keep a straight line
Too young to keep these bitter hearts

And all around me
Somebody singing
Get back get back

Long hair coming down her shoulders
She is tired and feeling so much older
So tear the pages from the family bible
It came down upon the women for survival
It came down upon the women for survival

You know it wasn’t me, no
And nothing at all, you stop me if I get it wrong
I think I’m hearing somebody saying
I’m gonna spank you ‘till you can’t sit down

Bust apart we’ll lose each other
The constellation of my sisters and brothers
I’m spinning out into the darkness

Good bye to you in the sadness of this
Good bye to you in the sadness of this
Good bye to you in the sadness of this

Impossible to keep a straight line
Too young to keep these bitter hearts

And all around me
Somebody singing
Get back get back
--

Life as Perfromance and Performance Art

So in light of all the performance reading I have been doing specifically about Conquergood I have asked my professor to let my blog be my "archive of feeling" for the class (read: journal). I may eventually do a spin-off blog directly about my performance class-but I can't decide if trying to compartmentalize is really a good idea or not. I mean in the performance of myself, my multiple, shifting and contesting identities as Conquergood suggests, are not stable or fixed, it would make sense that sometimes I would write about performance-while other times I would not. So even as I write myself and my body into my blog I find myself having trouble articulating who I am.

Part of this is about my love and desire for queering things, and when I use queer I do not use it as an umbrella term for "the gays" as it so often gets minimized to but as a more broad term for those who do things in non-normative ways who believe that their identities, sexual and otherwise have a level of contingency upon given social contexts, circumstances, surroundings, negotiations etc...(look at me trying to be all Foucauldian stringing my synonyms together.) I like to use queer as a verb not a noun. And in saying this I still must except my positionality as a white, middle class, femme bi-sexual lesbian, who enjoys school, blogging and cheesy television shows. But I like Linda Alcoff's suggestion, that identity not be an over-determination of the spaces we occupy in the world and the behaviors associated but that simply put our position affects how we see. It is not the be-all end-all (there's a platitude for ya) of understanding but it simply gives us different ways of looking and being in the world. But within this we all have agency to a certain extent to enact social justice through whatever means we can. I mean it isn't as though our positionality is essential or innate or something ridiculous like that. It changes, fluctuates, depending on my social context and sometimes my mood.

But this doesn't help with the writing of my blog, or the understanding of how to do my performance. I mean my fingers can move the keys and I can write about things I seem to know about and truly want to understand, but I still do not know who I am. I can pick at my face to the point of bleeding hoping to reach an answer-I don't and all I have is blood and puss. This is gross-but this is the truth. This is my body.

I know my positionality, I know that my positionality changes. I see it change. When I am with the women I date who happen to be more masculine in appearance and stature I immediately notice the looks and stares we both get. My body juxtaposed against theirs says it pretty clearly. Because bodies are political and as spoken word artist Alix Olson says, "At least lesbian bodies are political." Because when my body and her body are together occupying a shared space (like a dinner table in a restaurant full of heterosexual couples the stares "their" bodies give mine and hers say, "What are you?" "Why is she with that?". "She could get a man, she's pretty enough." "She looks normal, how is it that she can like women...and that kind of woman?" "I mean it's cool if she wanted to make out with a hot chick I wouldn't have a problem with it, I'd watch, maybe they'd let me join in on the fun." When I am with a more masculine woman of color the stares become even more intense. "Why would she do that doesn't she have it hard enough as it is [in reference to being a person of color and dressing like a boy]?"

When I am in this situation my perceived heterosexuality is challenged and that is when I become gay. Before this I was a heterosexual woman as conceived by our heterosexist society. It isn't just with lovers/partners it happened with my best friend too. When I walked with her in our small college town in Iowa completely platonically I became a lesbian because that is how she was perceived. "Dykes!" they would yell as they drove by us, those high school boys in their white suv. That's what I mean by contingent-when I walk with my more feminine looking friends I don't get the same yells or stares. "They're all straight," because that's the problem with linking up gender performance and sexual identity in a "heterosexual matrix" if they don't look like women trying to be men than they must be straight women desiring men. If they only knew...

And I say I am queer, but I question that too. I mean I shop at J-Crew, I wear make-up (eyeliner is my favorite), I carry a purse, and when I walk down a street nobody would ever have to know. I could pass for straight. But I don't want to. I am pretty open with anyone you ask, "Yes, I am indeed open to loving anyone, it just so happens that most of the people I love happen to have vaginas (it is not however, a requirement.)" That too goes for friends and lovers.

I like women who look different than me. Am I homophobic? I can't imagine I am-but is my desire for difference somehow interlaced with notions about heterosexism and heterosexuality. My friend who is more masculine once suggested this about herself in reference to dating another more masculine and possibly ftm trans person. These thoughts all infiltrate my space. Maybe that's why I am queer-because the women I date and befriend are not male or female, man or woman, they occupy a space somewhere in between and yet completely different and outside at the same time.

I recognize what this means for me, I will be seen as the straight one. I am not really a lesbian-I am a bisexual, a confused silly school girl going through a phase. But I am queer-I too see my masculine and feminine traits and those that defy both of those to create something entirely new and fantastic. I am as much queer as those women in suits, or track jackets with popped collars and sideways trucker hats, even if my appearance might not suggest it. Another friend of mine once wrote about gender in her blog as being so much more than appearance but about gender play. About the way we negotiate and perform gender in social spaces WITH OTHER PEOPLE!! It is not just the way we look, I know that, than why does it matter so much to me? I am not really a lesbian, I don't look the way lesbians look. I must be a bi-sexual, an unspeakable, "she'll end up with a man one day..." I don't like femme lesbian or bi-sexual as labels, but as an identity expression I create as a daily negotiation-yeah I can live with that. I can occupy the shit out of that space-just watch me!

And how can I write this? How does one articulate that I am a daily negotiation always contingent upon my circumstance, my surrounding, my situation. I am a fractured whole-I do not actually believe I was ever whole to begin with, but instead I am actively creating different pieces of myself everyday that will probably never complete me-I don't want to be completed, I want to be challenged and complemented. And how do I write this. How do I write fluidity into such a static medium. The way I just did? Is that good enough-explain where I am coming from and the rest will tell itself in a way? How do I write my change in a way that is compelling, truthful and honest. How do I write myself into my text, when I do not know who or what I am? I may have a sense of self but this sense of self is completely unstable and at times completely lashes out at me! How do I write this? How do I perform this... Maybe I just did...

finally...they made a movie about me

Yesterday I received the movie Puccini for Beginners from Netflix. I had been avoiding this movie like the plague because it seemed like it was going to be something ridiculous-all about music I could care less about, with a straight couple falling in love and doing it to opera in the end (BORING!). Then I opened the description and it is actually about a commitment-phobic lesbian who goes through a break-up ends up falling for a guy one night and girl the next and trying to deal with the chaos this can bring up in ones life. Of course the girl and the guy she falls for end up being ex-lovers and it brings to the forefront how small of a place Manhattan really is.

This movie is delightfully funny and brings poignant issues to the forefront of the world, such as what is man, woman, masculinity, femininity, can you be a lesbian and date a man, does the label lesbian (or any other) even matter when it comes to love? And what about marriage and the, "Are we going anywhere" factor-and I don' mean where do you want to eat dinner-although I often find that question complicated enough as it is. And at one point she delivers an amazing speech about marriage being just a patriarchal assumption of the straight people and that of course gay people want to get married because they can't (and although I do not believe in anyone's concept of marriage) I think that she has a point. If someone was telling you you couldn't do something based on who you are (or who you choose to spend time with) you might be more inclined to fight to want to do it too. And that in some way this process of fighting for it is in some way transformative. Don't know if I buy it-but I see her point.

Plus I think I am Alegra-we dress alike, think a like, speak sort of similarly, are self-obsessed and think quite highly of ourselves. And like Bette from the L Word I tend to think my things are more important than anyone else's-I know right-just the kind of thing you want people reading about you to know. But i'm working on it-it's a process and we can only become better right...well lets hope!

enjoy the trailer-fun times!

--

Alice

I am her...



I am blogging a lot today-weird...

January Six-season five betches...

blog description...

This is the description of my blog...

This is my blog about me A white, middle class (by default), queer bisexual lesbian, in graduate school, assistant director of a small preschool who lives with her mother, stepfather, adopted sister, great grandmother, and occasional niece and nephew in a quiet little mountain town. This is what comedy is made of people...

Just to clarify...

"The Lesbian Phallacy" is a play on words of the Lesbian Phallus a work by Judith Butler which builds on the psychoanalytic theories on Sigmund Freud.

As Butler suggests, “If the phallus is an imaginary effect (which is reified as the privileged signifier of the symbolic order), then its structural place is no longer determined by the logical relation of mutual exclusion entailed by a heterosexist version of sexual difference in which men are said to ‘have’ and women to ‘be’ the phallus” (Bodies That Matter 88).

Although the phallus is an imaginary signifier of power there are material benefits to possessing one and thus, it is also privileged. The Lesbian Phallus refers to a redistribution and rearticulation of modes of power often denied to those people (women, the gays, people of color) in order to subvert the dominant white, heterosexist, capitalist, patriarchy.

So anyway my blogs tend to focus on modalities of power and the ways they play out in relationships of all sorts. I tend to make observations with analysis (not judgment) in order to describe "once ocurrant acts of being" that tend to reify or subvert dominant modes of power. The Lesbian Phallacy is my blog which, deals with my own subjective place in the understandings of power-and I just thought it was clever...