The Queer Matrix: Queer Content vs. Queer Sensibility

AyJay · Jul 20, 2011

By popular demand--well, actually two people's suggestion--I created this thread off the "Straight People Writing Gays" discussion so as to not derail.

My post there related to the OP question: what should straight writers consider when writing gay characters (sic); but it went further into a curiosity of mine: are some stories essentially queer, regardless of whether or not they portray queer sexuality? And: are some stories essentially non-queer (heteronormative), regardless of whether or not they portray queer sexuality.

I came up with something I called The Queer Matrix, borrowed from New York Magazine's Approval Matrix, and not intended to be taken entirely seriously. Creative tastes are subjective, queer people are not monolithic in the way they see the world, so it's really just representative of how one queer guy (me) looks at media portrayals. But I'd be interested in hearing if other folks agree or disagree, and what creative works (literary, film, art, music, etc.) they would place in the different quadrants.

The most interesting ones for me are: creative works with no queer content but a queer sensibility; and creative works with queer content but a non-queer sensibility.

(I know I'm using language queer/non-queer that not all people are comfortable with. To explain, it's in part intentional--subverting the majority culture to "non" since so often QLTBAG lives are marginalized rather than considered "normal," "traditional," or "mainstream." The other part is casting a wide net, with an appreciation that queer can encompass a broad range of identities, perspectives, and experiences).

Anyway, feel free to comment here, or at my site. Here's the matrix:

not_HarryS · Jul 20, 2011

Not to derail a very useful and interesting thread (to which I will respond seriously later), but is this "Queer Matrix" business makin' anyone else get mental images of Neo from the Matrix wearing nothing but his trenchcoat, leather chest straps and sunglasses, making out with his identical twin? Or is that just me?

Mac, you especially. I know you've got a Keanu Reeves thing goin' on....

AyJay · Jul 20, 2011

That sounds like a much more interesting Matrix movie to me.

I think I'd put the real movie somewhere in the bottom right quadrant: No Queer Content/Non-Queer Sensibility. For me, having a hot actor isn't enough to make a movie queer.

MacAllister · Jul 20, 2011

I was actually just pondering stuff like the '80s John Hughes movies, Hollywood butchness (like Linda Hamilton in T2 and Sigourney Weaver in Aliens), and the width of the emotional landscape between Harold and Maude and Thelma and Louise.

Deleted member 42 · Jul 20, 2011

What about a film like Fried Green Tomatoes?

Having seen the film and not read the book at all, I quickly identified Idgie Threadgoode as a Dyke, and one who was in love, sexually and romantically, with Ruth Jamison, and quite requited.

Others didn't /don't see their relationship as lesbian at all. Much like an awful lot of people don't see any relationship at all between Susan Ivanova and Talia Winters in Babylon 5.

AyJay · Jul 20, 2011

I was actually just pondering stuff like the '80s John Hughes movies, Hollywood butchness (like Linda Hamilton in T2 and Sigourney Weaver in Aliens), and the width of the emotional landscape between Harold and Maude and Thelma and Louise.

In The Breakfast Club, I either heard or imagined that Anthony Michael Hall's character was originally supposed to be gay, but got changed to being a nerd. I'd put it somewhere in the middle of the matrix. Some aspects of the movie spoke to a queer experience (pressure to conform to masculinity; pressures on female sexuality; just not fitting in), but heteronormativity certainly triumphed in the end, vis-a-vis the boy/girl couplings (and Ally Sheedy getting a make-over to become "pretty" and acceptable).

Harold & Maude did strike me as queer. Thelma & Louise, less so; it's more of a story of heterosexual female liberation (to me) though I know some interpreted that the two women rode off into the sunset together.

What about a film like Fried Green Tomatoes?

Another example of Hollywood de-queering a story. My partner read the book (I didn't) and said the lesbian relationship was quite explicit.

MacAllister · Jul 20, 2011

AyJay, I'd definitely agree about H&M being a more essentially "queer" story, in spite of the absence of specifically homosexual-other content.

There's a question of criteria, though -- some of this is a little slippery to talk about.

PrincessofPersia · Jul 20, 2011

Medievalist said:
Others didn't /don't see their relationship as lesbian at all. Much like an awful lot of people don't see any relationship at all between Susan Ivanova and Talia Winters in Babylon 5.

On the flip side, loads of people saw a lot of sexual tension between Seven of Nine and Janeway on Voyager, but it was very clear to me that it was maternal (and Kate Mulgrew confirmed it in an interview, IIRC).

AyJay · Jul 20, 2011

MacAllister said:
There's a question of criteria, though -- some of this is a little slippery to talk about.

I think I understand what you mean by slippery, but I'm not sure, so I'll ask?

I said this way of looking at media--through a queer lens--was mostly for fun, but it could invite value judgments, e.g. did the artist/creator succeed in portraying queerness authentically/fairly? And therein, we get into many debates about what's authentic or fair.

Is that what you mean?

But notwithstanding defamatory or marginalizing portrayals, a queer portrayal is a queer portrayal, and I think what makes it queer or non-queer is the storyteller's POV.

Ardent Kat · Jul 20, 2011

not_HarryS said:
is this "Queer Matrix" business makin' anyone else get mental images of Neo from the Matrix wearing nothing but his trenchcoat, leather chest straps and sunglasses, making out with his identical twin? Or is that just me?

It's not just you.

Rhoda Nightingale · Jul 21, 2011

This is an interesting project...

Okay, I follow, not as much anime/manga as some, but enough to see some of the "yaoi" culture and fangirl squealing that happens around it. I wonder where on the matrix you would put something like that? FYI, if you aren't aware: "yaoi" is homoerotic boy-on-boy fiction demographically directed mostly at teenage girls. My guess is that it would fall in the upper right quadrant of your matrix.

Ardent Kat · Jul 21, 2011

Rhoda Nightingale said:
Okay, I follow, not as much anime/manga as some, but enough to see some of the "yaoi" culture and fangirl squealing that happens around it. I wonder where on the matrix you would put something like that? FYI, if you aren't aware: "yaoi" is homoerotic boy-on-boy fiction demographically directed mostly at teenage girls. My guess is that it would fall in the upper right quadrant of your matrix.

Agreed that yaoi would be in the upper right corner. If you're talking about the American audience, then teen girls would be it (mostly because animation in general, anime included is considered "for kids") but in Japan, it's a genre for women of all ages including career women and housewives. It's definitely a "for women, by women" genre and it makes no claim to realism or queer sensibility. The very word "yaoi" is an acronym for "YAmi nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nashi" meaning "No peak, no point, no meaning" or in other words, "Don't take this too seriously."

maxmordon · Jul 21, 2011

The posts above address what I was going to ask: cultural context.

Also, PG Woodehouse? I really don't see it, explain, please.

AyJay · Jul 21, 2011

Rhoda, not familiar with anime or yaoi specifically, but as Ardent explains it, I'd agree with placing it in that upper right quad.

Rhoda Nightingale · Jul 22, 2011

Think of every "slash" fanfiction you've ever read. That's yaoi in a nutshell.

@Ardent Kat: I agree with your observations about cultural context. I should know better, because I constantly try to remind people that anime really isn't--and shouldn't be--directly solely at young people, although that's the perception most of the time. Although the younger fans of it do seem to flail more.

AyJay · Jul 22, 2011

maxmordon said:
The posts above address what I was going to ask: cultural context.

Also, PG Woodehouse? I really don't see it, explain, please.

Well, beyond his musical comedies, I was thinking of his Jeeves series. I never believed that Bertie Wooster was really heterosexual. He's always dodging marriage, so there's a queer subtext there, and the Jeeves character scans to me as a witty, queer "bachelor" as well. Wodehouse was gay himself, long before it was possible to write explicitly gay portrayals in the mainstream.

maxmordon · Jul 23, 2011

AyJay said:
Well, beyond his musical comedies, I was thinking of his Jeeves series. I never believed that Bertie Wooster was really heterosexual. He's always dodging marriage, so there's a queer subtext there, and the Jeeves character scans to me as a witty, queer "bachelor" as well. Wodehouse was gay himself, long before it was possible to write explicitly gay portrayals in the mainstream.

Was he? I got curious about it and surprised me to see there's only one line referencing Wodehouse's sex life (he married so-and-so and had no children) and most references around seems to point out asexuality rather than homosexuality.

About Wooster, I felt he was more like an upper class manchild, the kind who still puts fart cushions in chairs as a revenge for let him stranded hanging from loops in middle a swimming pool and Jeeves... well, I think you're right about that one.

AyJay · Jul 24, 2011

maxmordon said:
Was he? I got curious about it and surprised me to see there's only one line referencing Wodehouse's sex life (he married so-and-so and had no children) and most references around seems to point out asexuality rather than homosexuality.

About Wooster, I felt he was more like an upper class manchild, the kind who still puts fart cushions in chairs as a revenge for let him stranded hanging from loops in middle a swimming pool and Jeeves... well, I think you're right about that one.

I may have been confusing Wodehouse with his collaborator Cole Porter, as--through a quick search--I see what you mean: there's more speculation (he was probably gay) than any "evidence" of his sexual orientation.

We'll never know.

But I still think he had a queer sensibility. And, you don't have to be sexually active to be queer, or non-queer.

kuwisdelu · Jul 24, 2011

This is a neat idea, but the graph maker in me wants you to make your labels smaller. It wasn't clear at first glance whether the horizontal text was labeling the horizontal axis or labeling the value of the vertical axes (and vice versa).

maxmordon · Jul 24, 2011

AyJay said:
I may have been confusing Wodehouse with his collaborator Cole Porter, as--through a quick search--I see what you mean: there's more speculation (he was probably gay) than any "evidence" of his sexual orientation.

We'll never know.

But I still think he had a queer sensibility. And, you don't have to be sexually active to be queer, or non-queer.

Ah! I see now.

AyJay · Jul 24, 2011

Kuwis - Thanks! I can use all the input I can get, graphics-wise.

I'm tinkering with some mock-ups that show gridlines in order to make things clearer. One challenge is my limitations in scale -- can't blow things up on my weblog as it is now due to the margin width. Thus, I'm trying to keep the text readable.

kuwisdelu · Jul 24, 2011

AyJay said:
Kuwis - Thanks! I can use all the input I can get, graphics-wise.

Just a quick revision.

I'd probably reverse the direction of the sensibility axis so "high" is on the right, just since the "low->high" thing flows that way on an ordinary graph, but I don't know how easy that is for you.

Err... sorry again. I'm a statistician, so I make a lot of graphs.

Deleted member 42 · Jul 24, 2011

Kuwi there's got to be a way to enter this data in a spreadsheet and have it generate the graph.

I know we'd have to assign numbers . . .

kuwisdelu · Jul 24, 2011

Medievalist said:
Kuwi there's got to be a way to enter this data in a spreadsheet and have it generate the graph.

I know we'd have to assign numbers . . .

Oh, I'm sure there is. But I'm embarrassed to have to admit that those of us in research rarely ever actually touch regular spreadsheets programs like Excel, so I actually have no idea how to put that together in such an app.

I could very easily do that in a language like R, though, if people feel like putting down coordinates for various movies and books in a spreadsheet. It would be a couple simple commands there; I can't find the right options in Numbers, and I'm afraid I don't own Excel, though I'm sure it should be possible...

tedi.s · Jul 24, 2011

Perhaps you can find a template similar to excel in googledocs.
BTW, Excel is wonderful.

Also, I think you may have too much time on your hands

The Queer Matrix: Queer Content vs. Queer Sensibility

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