Queer Analysis and My New Home Sweet Home

Choosing Glee made sense for option number three, Queer Analysis. Season Six-episode three takes place in the year 2015. Initially, the humor when the Warbler Council meets [3:55] was lost on me until the end of the show; hence, when I saw 2015 at the end of the credits, I immediately recalled the scene just prior. The conversation at the dinner table when the people argue over a “girl” wanting to join the Warblers and the talk of “You cannot be on the wrong side of history, here” is met with the reply, “I know, I just think that tradition is important too.” It is the year of Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) the decision written by Sacramento’s Justice Kennedy and was the final say in a string of decisions, changing jurisprudence—supposedly in the case of Chief Justice Roberts-- and the steady march of shifting precedence that finally led to legalization of gay marriage; subsequently, the parallels to the public debate that year are everywhere [5:18] in arguments such as “…what is next? Should squirrels get to be Warblers?”

The show seemed to revolve around issues of sexual identity with Blaine stating, “Aren’t all of you on the council, gay?” Moreover, the ongoing dilemma of Blain and Kurt’s break-up. So there is ample visibility and all of it positive. The entire show depends on the use of theatricality and camp in a way my father always referred to my mother while watching TV saying, “Honey isn’t that camp?

…I will get to addressing this comment at the end of the blog post and why all of this relates to a bigger picture, personally.

According to Ott and Mack (2014) the female character who would be the first allowed in the council, Jane, demonstrates the heterosexual “… process of stigmatizing homosexuality (or really any non—heterosexual practice) in order to privilege heterosexuality…” and is an example of sexual othering (p.216). The binary runs counter to one of the more intriguing discoveries that “The bourgeoise needed something to differentiate between themselves and the lower or working classes.” (Ott B., Mack R. p.218). 

Interestingly, there were so many intersections with my sexual identity—in not only the chapter, but the episode: issues coming into focus on how SFSU has changed me as I near graduation. For instance, the gay football player and his statement of when Blaine—sent to recruit him to join Glee—talks of how Blaine being gay is the primary way he identifies or sees himself, but this was not the main thing in how he sees himself. I have always seen a big difference between gay people and myself, but is there or is this more a function of sexual fluidity?

It follows that [21:50] we have the Conservative, Tea Party Patriot Club demonstrating heteronormative and exclusionary [the “At-ease, Tea-baggers” was funny] practices.

Regarding Queer Theorists, the text describes, “Like feminists, they are politically committed to educating individuals about the falsity of sexual binaries and reforming the American media system.” 

…that is an ideology I can agree with.

So many lessons these last few weeks--last few years--this subject matter coming on the heals of what I believe to have discovered on my two-days of sorting through almost a hundred letters from WW II, written to many on the home-front at my Father’s archive at the California State Library over Spring Break; this had been long delayed following my Mother’s death and Virginia’s subsequent stroke that set my partner and my life into a tailspin. 

What I am saying is the discussion of gender performativity and the concept of these labels being a societal construct—despite my difficulty wrapping my head around other chapters—the synchronicities' have not been lost on coming to a broader understanding on several issues. Issues that may seem unrelated. Couple this with my approaching graduation and almost two years of growth in a city I always had an attraction to but is now become home for the indefinite future and a lot is coming to fruition; the culmination of a five year process, the transition to work now before me. 

 some observations:

1)      My rigidity regarding this unwavering commitment to Jeffersonian ideals and the Liberty Movement has grown old, just as the thought of these borders—now gone--are also largely a construct, much as The Balfour Act divided the Middle East without any rhyme or reason after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; times have changed and a sit down with Dr. Clemens about my future—success in voice over—will be severely hampered in this--my dream market--if I don’t tone it down; moreover, I picked-up a random book this morning and it opened to a page on accepting change and adopting new models—this kind of magic has been everywhere the last few weeks and months.

2)      The aforementioned course--HUM 390 and many of the classes like this one have given me a new sense of understanding about myself and putting-to-ease some matters [the kind we take to the grave] as I enter this last chapter in my professional and personal life. As I felt about Portland when I fell in love with it:

…you can’t change San Francisco, but it will change you!

3)      Recently, I got the answer to decades of nagging suspicions/questions scouring through over one-hundred letters at the archive and photos of my Father’s life; more importantly, his life-long WW II Buddy, Jim; I could see the nature of their relationship in the many photos in the South Pacific and Post War Japan. Was the archive left as much for me—something he could not muster-up to tell me as a supposed moral-right-winger? Although I had come-out in my mid-twenties—was the archive to serve a duality in purpose—both for me and for posterity or a gift to our ancestral homeland?

4)      Finally, we are at a crossroads as a people. Are we on the precipice of a new brotherhood of man? If I always wanted to be a part-of-the-change is this not our time?

…what happened to me?

When I was a child and a young man in my twenties, I wanted this New Age. My Mother and I were both very intuitive in our sixth sense. Since her death, it seems to be tuning into higher frequencies and if I develop what all of this can be--following where it leads--I am going to have a great end of my now increasingly intellectual working life.

https://oload.win/f/4a4iu56ivlg/Glee_S06E02_Homecoming_%281080p_x265_Joy%29.m4v.mp4#
 https://www.oyez.org/cases/2014/14-556