Queer Studies

 

 Hello Friends! 

I am Nidhi Jethava. In this blog I am going to discuss to key concepts and some of the examples of queer studies. 

 

 

Key concepts :-

What is queer studies ?

What is Lesbian Feminism ?

Zimmerman’s surveys 

What Lesbian/ Gay critics do 

Example 

So let’s discuss some important concept about queer studies. 

 

What is queer studies ?

Queer studies, sexual diversity studies, or LGBT studies is the study of issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity usually focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender dysphoria, asexual, queer, questioning, intersex people and cultures.

What is Lesbian Feminism ?

Lesbian feminism, a subset of feminism that emerged in the mid-to-late 20th century at the convergence of the women’s movement, the gay rights movement, and the sexual revolution. Lesbian feminists consider same-sex relationships legitimate and use their lesbian identity as a basis for community building and collective action. Lesbian feminism challenges the perception of heterosexuality and male supremacy as “normal” and presents alternative ways of thinking about gender and power.

According to Zimmerman that a lesbian/gay text is: 

1. One which is written by a lesbian (if so, how do we determine who is a lesbian, especially if we take the anti-essentialist line just outlined?).

 2. One written about lesbians (which might be by a heterosexual woman or man, and which would also come up against the problem of deciding what a lesbian/gay person is in non-essentialist terms). 

3. One that expresses a lesbian 'vision' (which has yet to be satisfactorily described). 

Some of the important writers and writtings about queer studies :-

1.See Teresa de Lauretis, Queer Theory: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities, 1991

2.Annamarie Jagose, Queer Theory: An Introduction, 1996. 

3. Judith Butler’s  Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity 

What lesbian/gay critics do 

1. Identify and establish a canon of 'classic' lesbian/gay writers whose work constitutes a distinct tradition. These are, in the main, twentieth-century writers, such as (for lesbian writers in Britain) Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, Dorothy Richardson, Rosamund Lehmann, and Radclyffe Hall. 

2. Identify lesbian/gay episodes in mainstream work and discuss them as such (for example, the relationship between Jane and Helen in Jane Eyre), rather than reading same-sex pairings in non-specific ways, for instance, as symbolising two aspects of the same character (Zimmerman). 

3. Set up an extended, metaphorical sense of 'lesbian/gay' so that it connotes a moment of crossing a boundary, or blurring a set of categories. All such 'liminal' moments mirror the moment of selfidentification as lesbian or gay, which is necessarily an act of conscious resistance to established norms and boundaries. 

4. Expose the 'homophobia' of mainstream literature and criticism, as seen in ignoring or denigrating the homosexual aspects of the work of major canonical figures, for example, by omitting overtly homosexual love lyrics from selections or discussions of the poetry of W. H. Auden (Mark Lilly). 

5. Foreground homosexual aspects of mainstream literature which have previously been glossed over, for example the strongly homo-erotic tenderness seen in a good deal of First World War poetry. 

6. Foreground literary genres, previously neglected, which significantly influenced ideals of masculinity or femininity, such as the nineteenth-century adventure stories with a British 'Empire' setting (for example those by Rudyard Kipling and Rider Haggard) discussed by Joseph Bristow in Empire Boys (Routledge, 1991). 

Considering above point Let’s try to evaluate some of the literary work fromm the point of view of queer studies. 

So, firstly I would like to give example of popular movie ‘Vita and Virginia’ 

 

 

In this movie we come across with the idea about lesbian relationship between famous writer Virginia woolf and Vita Sackille Waste. 

That relationship is the subject of a new film, Vita & Virginia, which includes lines lifted straight from the literary duo’s love letters. Starring Elizabeth Debicki as Woolf and Gemma Arterton as Sackville-West, the film from director Chanya Button is set against the backdrop of bohemian high society in 1920s London with a host of characters based on real-life people. Here’s the true story behind Vita & Virginia, Woolf and Sackville-West’s passionate relationship and the great literary work it inspired. 

 

Another example is from movie Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhan :-  

 

 

 

 

film Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan by Hitesh Kewalya.

This movie is about two gay person who love each other. After so long, finally Bollywood movies try to capture this kind of movie. The homosexual relationship between Aman and Kartik is very romantically portrayed with the kissing in the train to holding each other’s back no matter what. At times, people may try to assign the binaries of being feminine and masculine to any of the two. But again the stereotyping is kept at bay with both characters displaying both the traits in their action.

In this movie we found one marriage scene and there at finally Tripathi family knows about their son’s homosexuality.  Movie depicted the conflict well and how the family tries to stop them. 

 Homophobia :-

In this movie their is symbol of Kali Gobi which represent the term homophobia (dislike of or prejudice against gay people). 

 

 Kali Gobi is the homophobia that resides in people’s heart, and they think they are right in enforcing it on others. But in the end, it is a rotten vegetable, not safe to be eaten. It has to be burnt from our systems with acceptance. Nobody can control how and what others may feel, and it is no one’s business to control who should be loved by whom.

 

Thank you....