Butch

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Check out this link picture of Alison Bechdel, “Fun Home”. I think it is exactly what transgender and transgenre is all about. I recommend reading this if you haven’t already. This graphic novel links to the Gaga Feminism that we are reading. And to this post of about…

Butch

             I have always hated name-calling, and swearing. But to see this in J. Jack Halberstam, “Gaga Feminism, it’s strange and interesting. This word, which must have been with her since she was younger and even now, this word, which might have ripped her apart as she was dealing with her ambiguous nature. But in this essay, she brings back her power oven that word. She relates to Dory (the fish from ‘Finding Nemo’), saying “Dory is a butch fish, and her eclectic mode of being encourages everyone around her to rearticulate his or her own sense of connections.” As the author connects to this fish, which is a symbol for all in this category, that there is hope and the world is changing. Dory I believe is exactly what Halberstam is doing in gaga feminism, encourages, rearticulate his or her own sense of connections. 

“The category we call “butch” is quite identified with sexual fixity in many cases, and the appellation of the category “stone butch” actually names that fixity: stone butch generally means a totally masculine woman, or a very masculine lesbian, and it also indicates a disinclination for penetration.”

HALBERSTAM p86

 I believe that penetration is a form of dominance. So someone can be penetrated as well as someone can be penetrating. Guys can be penetrated.  Both guys and females can be more or less dominant. It depends on the individual.

            Name calling, this word ‘butch’, the world is changing and with that words change and views change as well. yes butch can mean a very masculine women or it could mean a very dominant men, whether he like girls or guy, he is on top. Or it could just be a guy named Butch, like Butch Cassidy. The important thing is the author is using this word to slowly gain control of the word, flipping it on it nose and changing it.

Swimming in Change

Swimming in Change

            “Gaga Feminism”, by Jack Halberstam, this book, I believe, that it is ‘reader friendly’ because of the use of media. Jack uses media, which is the perfect back drop for today society, to not only get the reader attention but also uses examples of media to elaborate the author’s views and ideas. These examples range from Finding Nemo to SpongeBob to HBO “the wire” and to lady gaga, etc. The way the author uses it, is almost like a mild brain wash, for example, I have my views but when reading the piece I saw by views alter and the realigned. Made me double think my view and ideas. also, this gaga feminism is gaga for change. the world has changed, will continue to change, our job... can we change?

            After reading this text, I could not pull the image of Finding Nemo out of my head. Jack states “Dory, the forgetful queer fish.” When I first saw this film I had no idea, no notion that Dory was a queer fish, maybe odd but not butch. Initially I was angry that the author would imply this to get her own views and ideas out there. Also, it doesn’t mean that because Ellen DeGeneres played Dory than that would say they are one in the same and solve it. I paused, thought about it, than I could see it. Dory was a queer fish, she was odd, she had no love connection with Marlin, and it made perfect sense. I was drowning with the norm and dominant opinion, I could not see past it. I could not see into the queer water.

            The media has changed, and has gotten ears and eyes open. As we discussed in my creative writing class, Disney has change. There was always a set of true love characters, a woman always has to find her prince charming. As one of my classmates introduced that the villains in Disney movie are evil because they go against the norms of society, for example like jarfar, he has some feminine qualities and use of magic and he thereby was evil. (one could even say he was queer ) but now a days, taking this full circle, in Finding Nemo, there is no love story between a man and women, the only odd character is Dory and she save the day and is the hero. As Jack points out, “while Dory may not have  much of a memory, in her queerly butch way, she knows lots of stuff- she reads, speaks whale, can follow the ocean tides to Australia- and in the process of helping Marlin find the abducted Nemo, Dory manages to articulate a different mode of being female.”

 

This text is pretty powerful and understanding, it shakes you and at the end you go a little gaga. Jack was right the world has change and will continue to change. People will have to decide rather or not to be robots or cyborgs, (Incubation: a Space for Monsters, by Bhanu Kapil(outside text source)) to not change or to assimilate. But as stated in the text, “mutation is possible”.

Dictee - Interesting Greek gods

DICTEE

Interesting Greek gods

            There are some main parts that stood out to me in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, “Dictee”. I have always found the Greek gods and goddesses so interesting since I first took my mythology class in high school. So when they popped up in this work, it surprised and intrigued me. To see this mix with all Christian beliefs was odd and all the other combinations like of language and story of different women. However, the Greek gods are forgotten these days so to see this in the text it is as though they are living briefly in this work.

The one of the main quotes that was talking about Greek gods was on page 133, “Restore memory. Let the one who is diseuse, one who is daughter restore spring with her each appearance from beneath the earth.” This is Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter and was captured by Hades and became his wife. She spends the half of the year in the underworld and the other half with her mother, and that is why the Greek believed the reason for change in winter and spring. This can also be found on page 123 Cha says, “Let her break open the spell cast upon time upon time again and again. With her voice, penetrate earth’s floor, the walls of Tartaurus to circle and scratch with the bowl’s surface.” This passage shows that the time is important and it is a never ending cycle, the seasons, and her appearances.

What I realized while researching this was how important it is tied to the book and even to the title. When I look up the word ‘diseuse’ it means a woman who is a skilled and usually professional recite (.merriam-webster). She put that in for a reason for there is nothing like that in the myth of Persephone.  So I divulge that the title was relevant too, I looked up what Dictee was in French, meaning Dictation. Dictation (also found on Merriam-webster) the act of speaking words that someone writes down or that a machine records: the act of dictating words. So to summarize this, I Believe this book is her dictating the words penetrating time and views. She being the writing and Persephone is half who she was meant to be. Korea was split and now the writer is not living there now, she is missing half of who she is. By writing this she restore what is lost and restore the memory of it.

Blend New with the Old

Blend   New with the Old

So unfortunately I did not read Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” in full depth, so I had no idea what to do this post on. I decided to go back to the “Borderlands”, and compare it to Hak Kyung Cha,“Dictee”. I first should point out I have not read “Dictee” all the way through only about half way. But anyways I noticed something small but important that both of these texts have in common. There use of no punctuation. We will begin with Gloria Anzaldua, “Borderlands” in the chapter of ‘The Coatlicue State’ on pages 63 and 65.The First page is more like poetry and can get away with it without no one realizing what the author is doing, while the second is talking about ‘she’ and it’s so ambiguous, it could be ‘she’ the writer, the women, the land, or the Spanish language.

            Similarly in “Dictee” you can see this on page 15, number 5, with the same ambiguous ‘she’. It has almost the same content, the same feel, and the same rhythm. Instead of using the punctuation, they instead use space. Which make me think just by doing so, it put language on its side. It dismisses the rules of language. Maybe even the male dominance in language. Anzaldua state that ‘language is the male discourse’ (p76), which can be seen in the text and the use of not using punctuation is a way of taking some authority of what is being written and the language itself.

            However, there are some differences in these two texts. First in “Borderlands”, the use of apostrophe can be seen thought out this text. Now thinking about it, the use of apostrophe is to combine two words or have a possession. Which in fact, she wants to be seen in this book. She wants to combine things, people, land, and also show what is being possessed or who. In Cha work she has single period in her piece. I might be stretching it but it could mean the period that women have or an important period of time. She also goes further than Anazalua with the use of punctuation or the unused punctuation. On the very first page she spells out the punctuation. That kind of displaces the reader. Spelling the symbol out, is almost like taking control of it, and making it more feminine, and dismisses the rules.

            I can now understand why this type of from is so sparse in these two books. It is because it is hard to not do something you have been taught your whole life. We are just used to using punctuation. By them not using it takes a lot of will power and deleting. It is actually pretty powerful once the reader or I can absorb what and why they did this.