New Things and The Kids Are (Not) Alright

When this blog began as a final project, neither of us had any finite plans for continuing in the future. This evening, however, I was inspired to give blogging another shot. After just having seen Lisa Cholodenko's film, "The Kids Are Alright," I felt strongly about blogging again..

I came into this film having watched the trailer, having spoken to several friends who stormed out mid-way through the film, and having read Jack Halberstam's take (here) on the film, all of which more or less pre-determined my feelings about the film. After having actually seen it myself, I feel that I am better able to say that all of the critique seemed to be on point. I agreed to go to this movie with several of my girl friends from high school, a boyfriend of theirs, and the boyfriend's friend who was in town to attend a local fraternity convention. I guess those things should have probably been a better indicator of the way in which I would ultimately react to the film, but I hoped to be proven wrong. Maybe this realization was too little, too late. I don't want to reiterate the really great analysis by Jack Halberstam, among many others I'm sure, but did want to highlight a few key points that I felt were especially pertinent, maybe mostly for self-indulgent or cathartic reasons, but I suppose that's what blogging is for?

- "Sex" Scene - The beginning of the film depicts the character of Nic, the somewhat more butch partner, and Jules, the more femmey partner, to attempt to have sex. This was horrible and extremely uncomfortable to watch for various reasons, not only due to a basic lack of intimacy, but also the inclusion of a television in the background interestingly airing gay male porn with the intention of creating arousal where there was none, the horrible whirring of the vibrator beneath the covers as Nic stared blankly at the men fucking in the back of a truck in complete disinterest, and the emergence of Jules from beneath the covers making what looks like the face one makes when exiting a particularly awful-smelling gas station bathroom.

- Red Wine Drinking Time - Nic's love for red wine, which she claims at one point is her way of combatting health problems that arise with age, made me feel bad for several reasons. I can't help thinking that red wine is a very bougie, white, upper/middle class alcoholic beverage to develop a close relationship with, which is expected in this sort of film, I suppose, but that also sheds light to how addiction, as an idea viewed at in a sort of social constructionist-esque way, similarly relates to class, race, and privilege, just as any construct. Additionally, the partner that was somewhat more butch is seen to have the drinking problem, not the other way around, which, on maybe a more base level, seems to equate an idea of deviance from "appropriate" behavior, i.e. addiction/substance-free, with a deviance from gender norms, as the somewhat more butch partner struggles to maintain her womanhood despite her "butch-ish" presentation and desire to be the breadwinner to her more feminine, domesticated wife and children. This also made me think of how certain types of drinks are perceived as being "more butch" and "more femme" and the idea of a "gendered drinking culture" with all of its ensuing implications, especially in relation to class and addiction. But maybe that is all beside the point..

- Whooo!! - The moment when Jules undoes Paul's (the sperm donor) pants with a simply ecstatic "whooooo!!" to reveal his penis. It seems evident how watching the depiction of a self-proclaimed married lesbian of 18+ years looking at a penis with bliss and excitement would make anyone disgusted with mainstream representations of more femme "lesbians" or queers, or at least I thought so. If Nic were to have strayed from the marriage and appeared in awe at the undoing of a man's pants, that seems like it would be way more queer and progressive, rather than depicting the stereotypical femme lesbian as "not having found the right man/dick" and hence seeming to "settle" for a a butch woman until that sacred moment in time, because that's "close enough." I suppose this is all expected from such a film, but I would really prefer to not go into similar films in the future expecting to see yet another stereotypical depiction...

- People of color are portrayed in the film in two very fucked up ways. Addiction is touched on again, in a more explicitly racialized way as Jules fires her Latino gardener for a "drug addiction" which she invents for fear of him ratting out her affair with Paul, the sperm donor She later refers to as a "fucked up" move. Paul, who in the beginning of the film appears to be sleeping with his beautiful African American employee, dumps her for wanting someone with more "family-oriented goals," occurring curiously immediately after she compliments him on the way he has been interacting with his children, telling him she really respects him for it and even finds it sexy. As the only two people of color in the film, both of these depictions are evidently problematic. The portrayal of the Latino as the gardener with the dopey smile and drug addiction reiterates stereotypical views of Latino/a's as uneducated and lazy, and although Jules acknowledges that her treatment of him was "fucked up," this was not evident as she never made any attempt to apologize or re-hire him. Paul similarly appears cognizant of his poor behavior and misjudgment, although he also fails to make things right or seems to actually care enough to do so. He seems regretful for only a moment after rudely casting aside his ex-flame, but only after she walks away saying "fuck you."

I guess this movie felt important to talk about for me because I feel like it is a great example of feelings of disillusionment with the mainstream LGBT movement, portrayals of queers in media, and the "fight for marriage equality" that we've all heard so much about as of late. I always go back to this question with popular television shows and mainstream films, but in what ways is this current depiction of "gay" (I feel uncomfortable saying "queer" in such a context) progressive for a larger LGBTQ, especially the Q(ueer), movement? With the recent reversal of Prop 8 and California's ban on same-sex marriage, I can't help but thinking how important and telling films such as this are in producing, reproducing, and depicting the future of the "queer" movement. I guess for now, aside from blogging, ranting, or having to go home to eat ice cream to calm down, I wonder where my place is doing something that I feel is "progressive" or "productive," or just anything. How would one go about helping to inform those who laughed at the "whoooohoo" scene, among many others, why and/or how that is problematic in propagating things that seem so regressive...or is this even a "worthy goal?"

...

-- Alex

More on TRANSform ME and Asa's Intervention..

When watching "TRANSform Me," the show claims to provide more information of transgender issues and education on its website, however, upon close look at VH1's site, we were unable to find any such information. Below are some links that introduce the show when it first premiered:

http://blog.vh1.com/2010-01-28/laverne-famous-crime-scene-undateable-coming-soon-to-vh1

http://blog.vh1.com/utag/series/transform-me/29998/

In response to Asa's "Intervention," we found this youtube clip of his friend that was featured on the show as "his best friend," (we suspect his boyfriend..). This clip is of Asa's friend discussing how he felt that he was portrayed inaccurately on the show, which comments upon the show's production as that which emphasizes and de-emphasizes certain things in order to make the show more marketable, dramatic, and enticing for viewers. Let us know what you think!

This was super weird...

We feel really uncomfortable about this.... let us know what you think.. Cut off much?!?

TRANSform Me: Phaea

In this episode of “TRANSform Me,” the makeover subject is Phaea, a woman in her late twenties who desires a makeover for her upcoming engagement party. The three transgender makeover specialists arrive in an ambulance called the “Glambulance,” portraying a sense of urgency, which heavily correlates with the life or death rhetoric depicted in “Intervention.”

Once the three “transgender women” arrive in her home, a term that is often repeated to reiterate their capacity for conducting visible “transformations,” they immediately draw attention to the ways in which her clothing may or may not “turn on” her husband. Her “walk around the house clothing,” is then stigmatized as that which does not adhere to the normative belief that female-bodied individuals must embody a position of a hyper-feminine sexualized object. They emphasize her choice of underwear as that which is too “frumpy” and not “sexy” enough for her husband’s sexual delight. In focusing solely on her appearance in terms of her contribution to her heterosexual relationship, the show is situated within a heteronormative discourse, implying that only normative (heterosexual) women are capable of cosmetic rehabilitation. This sense of rehabilitation is supported as the transgender women often discuss beauty as that which comes from the inside out, as well as by displaying images of the women from when they were previously “more together” in their appearance. The makeover specialists explicitly state that they are “uniquely qualified” to conduct such makeovers, as they have similarly unleashed their own “inner womanhood” on the outside, as well as on the inside. Phaea herself even states, “I was almost intimidated because they’re so much more ‘women’ than I think I could ever be,” reaffirming the hyper-femininity of the transgender women as that which all women should embody.

The episode proceeds as makeover specialist Laverne takes Phaea away to “have a heart-to-heart,” in which they discuss the root cause of her “affliction,” while the other makeover specialists Jaime and Nina search through her closet, situating Phaea as a spectacle in which her feminine presentation is infantilized. In her heart-to-heart with Laverne, Phaea cites her mother’s lack of femininity as the cause of her “unhappiness” and “lack of control” with her appearance. This rhetoric of “being out of control” is essential to the rehabilitative process, as that which necessitates this process, and one that which we have found is integral in all rehabilitative reality television shows. In stigmatizing the non-normative, the viewer is made to believe the universal underlying potential for all to be “rehabilitated” to appear more visibly normative. As Jaime and Nina search through her closet, they often comment in disgust upon items of clothing that “do not belong in a female closet” and “ew, boys clothes,” reinforcing seemingly uniform clothing in adherence to gender binaries, and re-stabilizing their own femininity.

The episode progresses as Laverne, Jaime, and Nina attempt to make Phaea “more sexy” from the inside out beginning with a burlesque photo shoot that is to act as an “empowering” step. They dress her in a purportedly “sexy” outside of garters and a bustier, which Phaea feels is “not sexy” because it seems to be a “fake sexy,” rather than authentic. This constructs strict and static boundaries of “sexy” for the viewer, and resituates Phaea as a spectacle due to her desire to embody a “sexiness” that exists outside of those boundaries. The makeover specialists encourage her to proceed with the photo shoot, as it will allow her to exhibit this sense of “inner sexiness,” although the act of photographing her “sexiness” dehumanizes her as a sexual commodified object, to be consumed by her fiancée.

Phaea’s rehabilitation is completed with the reveal of her cosmetic makeover to her fiancée, family, and friends at her engagement party. Laverne, Jaime, and Nina appear at the engagement party wearing similar sparkly dresses, making them appear uniform in presentation and depicting to the viewer a notion of a seemingly static visibility for transgender women through emphasizing their ‘othered’ identities as transgender women. The fiancée’s positive reaction is the most emphasized during the reveal, marking the success of the makeover as one that rehabilitated Phaea to fit within a heteronormative framework of feminine sexualized embodiment. The episode ended with us feeling pretty…weird, because we thought she looked better before her “rehabilitation”… And her name means ugly in Spanish... Weird..

Intervention: Asa

In this specific episode of “Intervention,” the subject is Asa, a twenty-eight year old homosexual man of color residing in southern California, with a white father and first generation American mother. He is afflicted with bulimia nervosa and alcoholism. He is still in school where he works in a lab to help pay for his tuition expenses and school loans. He is the first person on both his mother and father’s side of the family to have attended college.

The episode begins to describe Asa’s addiction, in which he discusses his past and the ways in which his experiences have currently effected his addiction. The viewer is made to see his family dynamics, situating his relationship with his father as one that contributed to his negative self-image, and therefore his addiction that is so centered around his outward appearance and in creating a barrier between himself and his true feelings. The juxtaposition of Asa’s effeminacy and his father’s hypermasculinity create a “vicious cycle” of verbal violence in which Asa gains no support or reassurance from his father. In providing the background of Asa’s childhood, the show reveals how his family’s disapproval of his homosexuality directly linked to his affliction. Asa himself states, “Gay plus ethnic plus overweight equals a recipe for hatred in my life,” thus showing how the intersections of all of these embodiments results in the creation of an uninhabitable space in which Asa must reside. Asa’s family provides emotional accounts of his addiction which function to stir an emotional response within the viewer, thus depicting to the viewer the urgency of his rehabilitation.

The format of the show situates Asa as a spectacle for the viewer in that the scenes chosen are often scenes involving Asa binging and purging, intoxicated, and/or arguing with family members or friends about his addiction. His depiction, then, is dehumanized, as he embodies the image of a “freak” in his non-normative lifestyle that is defined by his addictions. The use of statistics within the show reinforces this format of the freak show, such as “more than 30% of bulimics abuse alcohol,” which places Asa within a seemingly static category of “the addict.” Continuing with the format, the show infantilizes Asa and constructs his lack of agency in his own life through having his friends and family discuss his addiction while he the camera records him purging in the bathroom. This infantilization is supported as the show chooses to emphasize his want to be “normal” and inhabit a normative embodiment, however Asa can never truly embody this space due to his homosexuality, non-whiteness and class position as a struggling student. The show suggests that since Asa has progressed so far along in his education, proving his productivity and worth within society, that he can be rehabilitated.

An “intervention” follows where his family and friends meet with an interventionist who conducts the intervention that expresses to Asa that healthy boundaries need to be set or else face inevitable “jail or death.” The interventionist states that they must do “whatever it takes” because Asa is “so close to dying.” This construction of rock bottom leaves him with no choice but to accept rehabilitation; “You’re intelligent, you’re educated. What is preventing you from going to treatment?” After Asa’s rehabilitation, he states that he “can feel like a somewhat normal person now.” This rhetoric of “somewhat normal” situates his homosexuality and race as abnormal in addition to his addiction. The rehabilitative process is then seen as successful in that Asa returns to this state of “somewhat normalcy” in which he can continue his education and life, allowing him to contribute to society as a productive citizen.

Why These Shows?

These two shows were chosen with the major theme of rehabilitation in mind, as we hoped to comment upon the similarities and differences between cosmetic and psychological deviances as represented in reality television.

The rehabilitation occurring in “Intervention” appears as an integral part of the show’s plot, however, we hoped to connect this notion to a discourse of rehabilitative and productive citizenship within “the ‘medical’ model [of disability which we see] as discriminatory, because it immediately places disability in a category of a deviance or illness that needs to be cured” (Disability 7). We seek to expand this discourse of the addicted body as one in need of being cured and to discuss its positionality as a body that threatens the livelihood of itself, both physically and within neoliberalist understandings of the productive body.

The theme of rehabilitation is applicable when viewing the reality makeover show “TRANSform Me” as this television show reconstructs the non-disabled subject as one that is “disabled” through situating them within a discourse of ugliness. Such a discourse purports the notion that when the bar is set “low for the tolerance of anything but the nubile and blemish free, it is nearly impossible for a culture to directly face genuine disability” (Disability 72). “TRANSform Me” is specifically pertinent in this discussion of rehabilitation as it connotes which type of person is capable and desired for a cure, as well as who is desired to conduct a cure for such a culturally constructed cosmetic “disability.”

We would also like to discuss the aspect of spectacle and freakery within reality television, as well as within the interaction between the viewer and the viewed. This can be better understood as “the repulsion society feels for people with disabilities outside the theater…expresses an inner fear of brokenness and fragility,” which might “partly explain why there is a fascination with disability when viewed from the safety of a picture theatre. It is a detached way of confronting our fears of public shame and inner weakness” (Disability 72).

Background/Overview of Things To Come...

Intervention:

From our experiences watching “Intervention,” a very clear format of the show has been depicted in which an addicted subject self-identifies, background information of their lifestyle is provided, personal narratives and accounts from friends and family members are given, and statistics are given which situate them within a specific grouping. After this information is provided within the first half of the episode, a pre-intervention and ultimately intervention occurs in which the addicted subject is confronted by friends or family members with the ways in which the addiction is not only disabling their life, but also effecting the lives of others that care for them. An interventionist facilitates the intervention gathering, encouraging friends, family members, and other significant people in the subject’s life to provide some sort of expression, either verbally or in the written form of a letter, to expose the ways in which the subject’s addiction effects their own lives and their ability to sustain a healthy relationship. The addicted subject is then faced with the choice to either accept rehabilitative treatment or to face what is understood to be “inevitable death.” The rehabilitation is purported to restore the subject to the “right” form of livelihood. The ability of these subjects to be rehabilitated into productive citizens that are able to not only support themselves, but to also sustain their relationships with others, is a hope that the viewer is left to wish for the addicted subject to achieve through rehabilitation.

Promotional Video For Intervention:

TRANSform Me:

TRANSform Me is presented as a typical makeover show in which a subject with bad style, hair, makeup, or general frumpiness is made over to appear cosmetically more attractive. TRANSform Me continues along with this same makeover-oriented type of reality television, but the people conducting the makeover, in this case, are three transgender women that appear as the ideal of feminine beauty. These three women arrive, unannounced, at the home of a woman that is supposedly going through a “crisis” in terms of appearance, in an ambulance named the “glambulance” as it introduces glamour into purported “emergency” situations of style. Laverne, Jaime, and Nina than embark on a mission in which they introduce themselves to the makeover subject, all female-bodied heterosexual individuals, as transgender women. Since they were able to TRANSform their gender to appear as beautiful and ideal as they are currently presented, then the makeover subject can easily transform their own personal style, fashion, and cosmetic appearance. Through initially equating the gender transformation of a transgender individual to a cosmetic transformation, the viewer is made to understand the transgender women’s ability to makeover the femininity of the makeover subject.

Here is an interesting blog we found about TRANSform Me and other queer things:

http://skipthemakeup.blogspot.com/2010/03/transform-me-transactivism-vh1-style.html

Promotional Video For TRANSform Me:

Marketing Rehabilitation

TRANSform Me on VH1

Jaime Clayton, Laverne Cox, Nina Poon

This image depicts the three transwomen stars of TRANSform Me in what the audience will recognize to be their signature hyper-feminine style and appearance, as they are each dressed in stereotypical sexy attire. They appear posed in a formation that replicates the "Charlie's Angels" pose that connotes a battle they must triumph over (in this case atypical female presentation), but instead of weapons, they wield hair-care devices. Each woman is situated within a specific racialized category in order to purport a seemingly inclusive space. The hyper-femininity of the women purports a normative embodiment of transwomanhood that is necessary for their assimilation and visibility mainstream reality television. This appearance allows for their transgender identity to be hidden beneath their stereotypical, normative presentation, which enables the viewer to not only feel comfortable with transwomen on television, but also safe from gender identities that may unsettle normative conceptions of man and woman. This image implies that these transwomen possess the authority to define the ideal feminine appearance, qualifying them to "rehabilitate"

female-bodied individuals from their current failing performances of femininity through cosmetic manipulation that transforms them into an "ideal" woman.

Intervention on A&E

A&E's Intervention is a reality television show which depicts an institutionalized rehabilitative response to addiction through the documentation of individuals whose family or friends tell a specific narrative about the subject in question and call upon the show to enact an intervention on their addictive lifestyle. This advertisement for the show exhibits two hands reaching for one another that displays a plea for help and the willingness and ability of one to provide it. This is interesting because the addicted subjects of the show are unaware of the intervention that will ensue, recasting the image within an understanding of the need for addictive subjects to be cured of their addiction. The embodiment of addiction is portrayed as out of control and in need of rehabilitation as a subject who has lost their privilege of autonomy. The text "It's Life or Death," reiterates this notion of the urgency of the rehabilitation of addicted subjects through the dichotomization of the non-addicted body as "living" and the addicted body as so outside of "normal" livelihood that they are on the cusp of societal and physical death. The commodification of the addicted bodily subject, then, is displayed with the advertisement for its show time, which publicly markets "Intervention" as a spectacle for viewers consumption.

Mission

Our focus in this project is to conduct an analysis on reality television shows that emphasize the rehabilitation of citizen subjects suffering from addiction or have an appearance that is considered not attractive within mainstream constructions of beauty. We aim to utilize a disabilities studies and queer studies framework to analyze the intersections of shows that strive to normalize individuals that are depicted to exist outside of a normative, productive, able-bodied ideal. As “Americans often perceive disability – and therefore people with disabilities – as embodying that which Americans fear most: loss of independence, of autonomy, of control; in other words, subjection to fate,” we aim to situate this fear within a discourse of voyeuristic rehabilitative reality television (Longmore 7).