Queer Theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Queer Theory - adjudicate ExampleQueer Theory presumes that sexual characteristics that argon a function of representations. It assumes that representations pre-exist and define, as well as complicate and disrupt sexual identities. Queer theory results in an effort to speak from and to the differences and silences that have been contain by the homo-hetero binary, an effort to unpack the monolithic identities lesbian and gay including the intricate ways lesbian and gay sexualities are inflect by heterosexuality, race, gender and ethnicity. Queer theory allows us to examine Western culture and problematize its approach to attributing everyone to non alone certain behaviours but identities and its tendency to label, box and categorise. Queer theory too foreseeks to not only break down gender roles, sexual order and dichotomies but break down the very thoughts most sexuality in regard to biology and reproduction.Much discussion in gay theory has been cantered on the issue of spec tatorship. In her frequently quoted and highly influential essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Laura Mulvey (1975) described how plethoric cinema codes have been constructed by a patriarchal system of looking and the desire to obtain and consume. The survey championed by Mulvey (p.11) is assumed to be male, fair and heterosexual, and therefore endowed with the power and privilege enjoyed by white and heterosexual men in a patriarchal society. In essence, she contends that in a classic note film, the subject of the taradiddle and the gaze, is male woman functions as spectacle, the object of the gaze. In terms of spectatorship, the viewer is discover between these two positions - the male subject and the female object of the gaze. Hence, being the spectator - identifying with the subject of the narrative and the gaze, presents a difficulty for female viewers (Mulvey, p.11). However, when Mulvey penned this article, she seemed to have neglected the presence of queer audi ence her account of the sexual hierarchy of narrative cinema has been challenged by many critics who have insisted that identification can also occur across gender and sexual demarcations (Smyth, 1995, p.125) As Doty (p.151) argues, all texts are open to multiple interpretations queer readings of texts are not alternative or sub-cultural readings, but readings to position side by side to normatively on-key readings. Boys Dont Cry is arguable the earliest mainstream moving-picture show that is based on a real life story, to audit the female to male transvestism. The gender as performance notion is explicitly depicted in Boys Dont Cry in the arising sequence, Brandon (Hilary Swank) is seen grooming and gearing up for her date. The idea of performance in this sequence seem to have a dual connotation, besides performance as in portraying a male role, I see performance here also as theatrical presentation where the socks for her crotch and the cowboy hat are seen as her props, and he r cousin Lonny (Matt McGrath), and spectators of the film are the audience. Further into the film, when admiring Brandons facial features, Lana (Chloe Sevigny)s mum (Jeannetta Arnette) commented that Brandon looks like like a movie star, further emphasizing the performative nature of her gender to the