Rethinking Gender 1 Desire, Pleasure, and Romance: Post-Feminism And
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Notes Introduction: Rethinking Gender 1. I borrow here a point made in the first instance by Larry McCaffery who says that ‘SF possesses the capacity to “defamiliarize our science fictional lives,” reflecting them back to us in more hyperbolic terms’ (Bukatman, 1990, p. 11). 2. See Lacan, J. (1977) Ecrits: A Selection for his discussion of the concept of desire as always unsatisfied, springing from lack (because it relates to a fantasy or imaginary object, rather than a real object). 3. Acronyms such as GLBTI (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transsexual, Intersex) provide a useful shorthand intended to be inclusive of different sexualities. However, such clustering also tends to limit the differences within each ‘classification’. 4. In her book Racism, Misogyny, and the Othello Myth: Inter-racial Couples from Shakespeare to Spike Lee (2005) Celia Daileader enquires into Anglo-American cultural obsession with stories of inter-racial sexual tension, particularly between a black male and a white female. 1 Desire, Pleasure, and Romance: Post-Feminism and Other Seductions 1. For example, the Bollywood film Bride and Prejudice (2004). 2. In a related way, Granny, in the television show The Kumars at No. 42, with her repeated sexual innuendos and flirtations with male guests similarly transgresses the grandmother figure as the morally superior and sexually restrained matriarch. 3. In the website, AfterEllen – Views, Reviews, and Commentary on Lesbian and Bisexual Women in Entertainment and the Media, it is claimed that Chadha’s decision to replace any lesbian romance (leaving it as an implied subtext and perception of other characters) was made to appeal to a mainstream audiences in both India and the West. 4. Gerard Manley Hopkins’s supposed homosexuality continues to influence dis- cussions about his poetry and its homoerotic content. Given that TJ constantly quotes from his works provides an interesting parallel between the two lives (one fictional and the other real) and the apparent ‘secret’ they both share. 2 The Beauty Dilemma: Gendered Bodies and Aesthetic Judgement 1. The novel has subsequently been remade twice as a film and as a telemovie. The most recent film (2003) starred ‘wild child’ Lindsay Lohan playing the part of the daughter, Annabelle Andrews. 2. Cited in Dickie (1997, p. 6). 200 Notes 201 3. As reported in a news article dated 4 December 2008, ‘Barbie beats back Bratz’, a US judge has made the decision that MGA Entertainment Inc. is to cease its production and sale of Bratz dolls. The decision was a major win for Mattel as it decided in Mattel’s favour that Bratz designer Carter Bryant developed the concept for the dolls while working at Mattel. (http:// money.cnn.com/2008/12/04/news/companies/bratz_dolls.ap/index.htm? postversion=2008120406 Accessed 8/12/08). 4. In 2003, 223,000 teenagers in the USA had cosmetic procedures (skin peels, collagen implants, Botox) and 39,000 teenagers had surgical procedures (nose reshaping, breast lifts, augmentation, liposuction, tummy tucks). In 2003, there was a 14 per cent increase on surgical procedures. (See Zuckerman: ‘Virtual Mentor’ American Medical Association Journal of Ethics 7, 3 (March 2005) http://virtualmentor.ama-assn.org/2005/03/oped1-0503.html. 5. See Review Report ‘Childhood Obesity, Prevalence and Prevention’ by Dehghan et al. in 74 Heart Views, 6, 3. 6. The Biggest Loser is a fitness reality TV series whereby overweight contestants undertake a gruelling exercise and dieting regime in order to win the title of ‘Biggest Loser’. 7. For example, it is speculated that Tinkerbell in the Disney version of Peter Pan was modelled on Marilyn Monroe (others claim it was Margaret Kerry), Ursula the sea witch in Little Mermaid on drag artist Divine, and Pocahontas on ‘supermodel’ Naomi Campbell. 8. JonBenét Ramsey was an American child beauty pageant contestant who was murdered at the age of six. She was found dead in the basement of her par- ents’ home. The case prompted considerable worldwide media attention and condemnation of child beauty contests. 3 Gendered Cyber-Bodies: The Dilemma of Technological ‘Existenz’ 1. Virtual technologies is used here in a generic sense to encompass related terms, such as: cyberspace, artificial reality, augmented reality, telepresence, and virtual environment. 2. For a more detailed discussion of genetic engineering in YA fiction refer to Elaine Ostry’s (2004) article: ‘“Is He Still Human? Are You?”: Young Adult Science Fiction in the Posthuman Age’, The Lion and the Unicorn 28, 2, 222–46. 3. In Eva (1988) by Peter Dickinson a girl’s brain is transplanted into the body of a chimp. In Shade’s Children (1997) by Garth Nix, children are removed from their families at the age of 14 and placed in Dorms where their brains are removed and inserted into artificially generated creatures. In the Hollywood comedy film, The Man with Two Brains (1983) Steve Martin plays Dr Hfuhruhurr, the world’s greatest neurosurgeon, who has invented the cranial screw-top brain entry. 4. For interesting future human-robot scenarios, refer to the work of robotics researcher Hans Moravec, including his book, Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence (1988). 5. Several intertextual jokes run through the film, Sky High: the Principal is former Wonder Woman star Lynda Carter who comments at one point: ‘What do you 202 Notes think I am? Wonder Woman?; and the family Stronghold is the name of the producer Max Stronghold’. 6. Manga is the Japanese word for comics and animé is a style of Japanese animation. Both forms are extremely popular in Japan and are growing in popularity in Western cultures. 4 Queer Spaces in a Straight World: The Dilemma of Sexual Identity 1. See Chapter 2, ‘The Pool of Tears’ in Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. 2. Roughgarden has been both criticised and praised for her book. Some of the criticisms concern her Disneyfied approach to writing about non-humans with her use of cute anthropomorphism, and misrepresenting Darwin and not providing convincing research to support some of claims about social selection. On the positive side, there has been praise for her transdisciplinary approach across the sciences and cultural studies and for providing general readers with information about the diversity of animal species’ genders, sexu- alities, and sexes. For a full critical review, see Dickemann (2008) Journal of the History of Sexuality 17, 2, 313–29. 3. See ‘Inappropriate Penguins? Children’s Book Moved’ Deseret News, Salt Lake City, 5 March 2006: http://www.deseretnews.com/home. 4. For a detailed discussion of families in utopian and dystopian fiction refer to Chapter 7: ‘Ties That Bind: Reconceptualising Home and Family’ in Bradford et al. (2008) New World Orders in Contemporary Children’s Literature: Utopian Transformations. 5. In Chapter 6, Sebastian and Grady hire Ma Vie en Rose from the video shop providing an intertextual point of reference. 6. For example, psychological counselling is recommended for Charlie/Charlotte in the Australian novel Obsession (2001) by Julia Lawrinson as a way of help- ing her come to terms with her aberrant lesbianism. Also, she is forbidden to see Kate (the girl that she desires). In Ma View En Rose, eight-year-old Ludo undergoes unsuccessful counselling. When his cross-dressing becomes public knowledge, he and his family are marginalised by the middle-class neighbour- hood in which they live, and eventually are forced to move to another more ‘downmarket’ location. 7. A similar scene serves as the introduction to Ma View en Rose where the viewer witnesses Ludo in female clothes, applying lipstick, and singing softly in the private space of a bedroom while the family entertains neighbours at a ‘welcome to our family’ party. Given that the film has been referenced in the text, it would seem that this scene attempts to replicate/reappropriate this moment from the original text. 5 No Laughing Matter … or Is It?: The Serio-Comic Dilemma of Gender 1. Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet is arguably the film that began the procession of teen films, since the 1980s, based on Shakespeare’s plays such as Twelfth Night (She’s the Man), The Taming of the Shrew (10 Things I Hate About You); Notes 203 As You Like It ( Just One of the Guys). For a study of the marketing of Shakespearean teen films refer to Emma French (2006) Selling Shakespeare to Hollywood. 2. In The Birdcage (a remake of the French film La Cage aux Folles) a gay couple (Armand and Albert) pass as a heterosexual married couple to avert any prob- lems with the prospective parents-in-law of Armand’s son – the outcome of his one and only heterocoital engagement. By the ending, the subterfuge is exposed but both couples come to an amiable acceptance of their difference when the right-wing parents of the son’s fiancée are forced to cross-dress to avoid a political scandal from being spotted in a gay nightclub. In Kinky Boots, Charlie Price inherits the family shoe factory after his father dies, but the fac- tory is a financial disaster and closure is imminent. A chance encounter with a drag queen, Lola, solves Charlie’s financial crisis when the factory decides to produce a range of extravagant ‘kinky’ boots for the drag queen and other drag artists for their cabaret act. References Primary Bansch, Helga. Odd Bird Out, Trans. Smith, Monika (Wellington: Gecko Press, 2008). (First published 2007, Beltz & Gelberg). Barnes, Helen. Killing Aurora (Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin Australia, 1999). Beautiful. (2000) Destination Films, USA. Directed by Field, Sally. Bend It Like Beckham. (2002) Kintop Pictures, United Kingdom. Directed by Chadha, Gurinder. Bindi’s Kidfitness: With Steve Irwin and the Crocmen. USA, EMI (2006).