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Sissy!: the Effeminate Grotesque in U.S

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Sissy!: the Effeminate Grotesque in U.S SISSY!: THE EFFEMINATE GROTESQUE IN U.S. LITERATURE AND CULTURE SINCE 1940 Harry Osborne Thomas Jr. A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. Chapel Hill 2011 Approved by: Minrose Gwin Fred Hobson John Howard Timothy Marr Ruth Salvaggio ©2011 Harry Osborne Thomas Jr. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT HARRY OSBORNE THOMAS JR: Sissy!: The Effeminate Grotesque in U.S. Literature and Culture Since 1940 (Under the direction of Minrose Gwin) In his memoir Firebird, Mark Doty explains that being effeminate in postwar America means being treated paradoxically: “The queer boy’s dynamic,” he writes, is to be “simultaneously debased and elevated.” This study explores the paradox that Doty describes by examining representations of effeminate men and boys in U.S. literature and culture from 1940 to the present. I argue that effeminacy has routinely been depicted in terms of the grotesque, a mode of visual and textual representation concerned with bodies that provoke mixed feelings of both revulsion and fascination. By reading effeminacy through the critical lens of the grotesque, I re- evaluate its queer theoretical potential, and highlight a previously overlooked discursive tradition in U.S. literature and culture. In this tradition, effeminacy is embraced, rather than rejected, because it models new modes of masculine embodiment and functions symbolically as an alternative to the strictures of heteronormativity. This claim both extends and complicates previous scholarship on effeminacy, which focuses almost exclusively on how effeminacy has been hated in U.S. culture (for instance, sociologist Michael Kimmel’s claim that American men have always been “anxious” about appearing feminine). “Sissy!” acknowledges the breadth and depth of effeminacy’s negative reception while also drawing new attention to a wide variety of texts and performances—including literature by Carson McCullers, Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Tony Kushner, and Mark Doty, as well as non-textual performances by figures such as the pianist Liberace—in which effeminacy has been portrayed as something otherworldly, powerful, and desirable. The project thus explains why effeminacy is—as Doty would say—both iii debased and elevated; effeminacy signals other ways of living and being gendered that are both threatening to those empowered by a given regime of sex/gender and fascinating to those marginalized by it. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS When I began graduate school, I used to laugh at how ninety-nine percent of the acknowledgements pages of scholarly monographs began with some version of the phrase “No book is really written by any one person.” But now that I have finished graduate school and written a book length project myself, I understand how very, very true those words are. Yes, I wrote this dissertation myself, but that writing has only been made possible because of the support—emotional, financial, editorial, and intellectual— that I have received from a great many people over the last seven years. First of all, my committee: I’ve been deeply blessed to get to work with a set of scholars who are not just brilliant, but also helpful and supportive. Ruth Salvaggio joined this project at a late date, but that did not stop her from challenging me in incredibly provocative and productive ways, especially in terms of how I thought about the relationship of this project to critical theory. Fred Hobson has been ever willing to read and comment on whatever I put in front of him; I am grateful for his good will, his helpful edits, and his generosity in helping me get several of my first scholarly essays published. Tim Marr’s enthusiasm—as a teacher and as a reader/editor of this project— has been both infectious and sanity-preserving. I always left meetings with him feeling uplifted and re-energized about my own work; I hope that someday I can give students of my own that same gift. And although John Howard contributed to this project from across the pond, via his position at King’s College London, the physical v distance did nothing to lessen his contributions: I’m grateful for his expertise in queer history, his enthusiasm for the project, and the extremely close and thoughtful reading he gave the final product. I have also been blessed to have an amazing director, Minrose Gwin. Throughout the writing of this dissertation, Minrose gave me space to work at my own pace, but whenever I needed her, she read my work quickly and thoughtfully. Her criticisms of my work drew from her tremendous expertise (in southern literary studies, trauma theory, feminist theory, and queer theory) in a way that pressed me to make both my writing and my thinking better. At the same time, Minrose never tried to make my project her own, but instead helped me to write the best version of my own project that I could. That type of truly generous direction and editing is rare to find, and I am deeply grateful to Minrose for providing me with it. I am also indebted to her for her consistent warmth and kindness, the way she always treated my like an adult and a junior colleague (rather than an infantilized student), and the countless times she has advocated fiercely for me and for my work. I admire Minrose tremendously as a scholar and as a writer and I hope that someday I will be able to say that I am even half as good as she is at both those roles. I will be forever grateful that she agreed to serve as my director. One more faculty member deserves a very large “thank you” here. Although Joy Kasson did not serve on my committee, she has served as a mentor to me during my time at UNC-Chapel Hill, and as the head of the American Studies program, she supported me tremendously in graduate school: letting me TA for her American Studies 101 class on two separate occasions and securing me financing for a trip to an American Studies conference in Japan. vi My friends and colleagues in our informal “Americanist Writing Group” have also provided invaluable assistance. Over the course of writing this dissertation, my needs varied widely. Sometimes I needed smart readers and editors to help me think my way through (or around) some conceptual impasse. Sometimes I needed therapists to listen to me rant and rave, and to tell me that somehow I’d get through it. And sometimes I needed friends who could provide some social interactions that would help break up all those long, lonely days spent writing in my library study carrel. The members of “A.W.G.”— Kelly Bezio, Ben Bolling, Angie Calcaterra, Ashley Reed, and Jenn Williamson—played all of these roles for me, exactly when I needed them. They thought for me when I couldn’t think anymore, and believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. In doing so, they have earned my friendship, and my deep gratitude, for life. Jenn Williamson, in particular, has been my indispensable, day-in, day-out ally throughout my time in the Ph.D. program. Jenn and I have taken graduate seminars together, planned our own classes together, commiserated about our frustrations, and celebrated our victories—in the program and in life more generally—together. I would not have made it this far without her. Other friends have also provided consistent sources of career advice, scholarly insight, and moral support: Clare Emily Clifford, Brian Hare, Meredith Raimondo, Ben Wise, and Maren Wood have all played a hand—or several hands—in helping keep me sane and on-track during the long distance race that is graduate school. The brief mention each of them has been given here is wholly inadequate to express how greatly I owe each of them for being there for me when I needed them. vii While my time in graduate school has allowed me to meet, and draw support from, many amazing advisers and friends, I am also grateful to have an older support system in my life. My parents, Harry Thomas Sr. and Cecilia Thomas, have supported me—financially and emotionally—through these past seven years of graduate school, just as they have supported me all my life. I hope they can see that the values of honesty and hard work that they instilled in me (and modeled for me) from a very young age inform all that I do, as both a scholar and a person. There are simply not words to express how much I owe them, or how much I love them. This project is an outgrowth of the lifelong love of storytelling that my parents instilled in me. My mother was an English teacher herself, before I was born, and my father spent many, many an evening reading to me when I was a small child. Their reverence for the power of words—and the worlds that words can create—has been a gift that I have carried with me my whole life, and will continue to carry until my dying day. This project is but a small attempt to honor that gift. Similarly, I would also like to thank my Great Aunt, Wanda Little, who—over years of shared meals with me and my parents—talked about, and argued about, the ideas in books as though they were worth talking, and worth arguing, about. I am deeply grateful for the example of a lifelong love of reading and learning that she has provided me with, and for all of the financial support and emotional encouragement she has given me over the years.
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