Week Four centered on gender performativity and how it relates to queerness. Performative actions are those that are authoritative in their performance, like baptisms for example. It is an act that produces which it claims. Gender performativity is socially and historically constructed, we are productions of gender, and through this performativity our identity is established. As we discussed in lecture, gender functions within a system of prohibitions, taboos, and threats of punishment if one does not follow the proper gender performativity. The objective of this system is to preserve stable notions of masculinity and femininity. This is how we understand queerness as a force of opposition to performativity. Homosexuality is is a taboo of this system, making homosexual people outsiders of the social norm. Film makes visible the power of these gender norms, and through cinema we are able to explore the open meshes of queerness and better understand it. We studied gender performativity through the film Tomboy, and the piece Critically Queer.
This week struck a personal chord with me. As a small child, I wanted to be a boy like my brother and my father, I wore my brothers old dirt biking shirts (if I wore a shirt at all), and I followed them around. My mother enrolled me in ballet, she put me in big poofy skirts and pink bikinis. For my birthday, Christmas, and easter, I was given polly pockets, bratz dolls, and stuffed animals. In elementary school I was nothing short of a tomboy, I wore jorts and big t shirts, I worked hard to beat the boys when racing (and believe me I did), my friends and I swore against bras and makeup and watching Hannah Montana, and we spent hours playing video games. When taking family photos my sisters and mother dressed me up and put makeup on me (to my disdain) and asked me to be lady like. In middle school I began noticing the popular and pretty girls, how they got all the boys attention, and how feminine they were. I finally succumbed to the relenting peer pressure (and blatant bullying), and in high school was as feminine as one could be. I wore a full face of makeup, long acrylic nails, and push up bras, and for awhile it was okay, but I still didn’t feel complete the way I thought I should.
“Tomboy” made me realize a lot about my childhood I hadn’t previously. I am riddled with wondering how much of who I am today is who I actually am, who I actually want to be, and how much of it is constructed through social and familial pressures to be the person I “should” be. When we discuss that through cinema we can explore queerness, this is my reality, this is how I have learned so much about myself. Film has allowed me to live vicariously through someone else, for at least a little bit of time I can live a different life, be a different person. I have lost so much of my life to mental illness and self hatred, but through cinema I get new opportunities and a look on life. I don’t think I would have realized my queerness if it weren’t for queer cinema. I have always felt different, and seeing my experiences validated on screen gave me so much more than I ever knew I needed. I still have a lot of self realization to go, but cinema helps give me the community support I need for it.