But as the series went on, I felt the story was used well to progress stories and a reminder of how mass shootings seep deep into the souls of those affected.Įvery episode reminds you that you don’t quickly shake these things off, and you also need to handle your trauma head-on.
There will be a backlash as many will feel this is exploiting the tragedy, and I can’t deny that I felt that way at times. Still, there’s no denying it will be painfully unsettling for many viewers: the look of the shooter, someone we never fully see, harkens back to the killer of the Pulse shooting, the direct aftermath is insanely tragic and feels so chaotic, and we see our main characters changed forever cause of this. I don’t fault the filmmakers for going this route. It’s insanely hard-hitting and handled in such a blunt way. During the first episode, when the show’s shooting took place, I had to pause and take a moment to regroup myself. After watching the series, it took quite some time to find my feelings for this. This Queer As Folk uses a shooting at the gay club Babylon as its crux…for better and worse. University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY USA of English, Rhetoric and African American Studies, Sexing the Colorlines: Black Sexualities, Popular Culture,Ĭompulsory Homosexuality and Black Masculine Performanceĭept.It surprised me to see the creators go this route the original Showtime series handled a similar story with a bombing but never built the whole story around it.
Young is conversant with the ideas that Richard RodriguezĮspouses in HUNGER OF MEMORY, and disagrees with many of them, yet fails toĬonnect Rodriguez' arguments about language to Rodriguez' gender and But he never explicitly claims a gay identity, Seems invested in rendering a story that highlights how he is constantly perceivedĪs a “faggot” due to his failed performance of proper (black) masculinity and Young appears coy here about the status of his sexuality. Not simply-as we find out later-just a symbol of lost Mexican culture… Īdmiration for those brown male bodies sweating under hard labor in the sun was Sexual conflict, which become apparent in later works. I admit to admiring black men in the barbershops Iįrequent, describing them in the prelude of my first book, Your Average Rodriguez is an interesting example for him in more ways than one. Nigga (2007), as speaking a “spicy black lingo” and performing the black Theoretical purposes a binary that scholars of queer studies and performance Intent was to discuss gender performance and not sex/sexuality, risking for Masculinity I wish to embody yet fail to fully enact. Patrick Johnson (2001, 2003) have worked to deconstruct. Literary critic Kenneth Warren, for instance, says, “there is notĮnough of Awkward,” in his Scenes of Instruction (1999), Similar questions regarding sexuality have been raised aboutīlack male autobiographers who ruminate on perceptions of their gender Satisfaction I cannot achieve through imitation? Not previously entertained: Can I obtain through copulation the gender Still, even with Baldwin’s convincingĪnecdote, I am aware that the issues raised in the epigraphs by both Question of sexual preference: You were being told simply that you had no balls” The operative word was faggot and, later, pussy, but those epithets really had nothing to do with the Identity labels, he says, “The condition that is now called gay [circa 1985) I was, however,īorrowing from a particular perspective on masculine performance that does drawĪ distinction between gender and sexuality, a distinction perhaps bestĪrticulated by writer James Baldwin. You sure you’re not a faggot?” ) I had speculated about his orientation Insists he disclose his sexuality (“Michael, are you a homosexual?” “Michael, AndĮven before encountering the passage where Awkward writes that his sister “overcoming anxieties about his masculinity his sexuality” (893). That, I argue, is always raised by black male gender performance, particularly These examples highlight the guesswork and homoerotic innuendo He writes later in the book that he is heterosexual. To put itĪnother way, when black males’ racial identity is called into question, as it Performances that are not explicitly or verifiably heteronormative.