UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Sites of Sociality: Performances of Dyke Identifications Through Social Networking Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4xw0v2tp Author Malone, Sheila Anne Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Sites of Sociality: Performances of Dyke Identifications Through Social Networking A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Theater and Performance Studies by Sheila Anne Malone 2015 © Copyright by Sheila Anne Malone 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Sites of Sociality: Performances of Dyke Identifications Through Social Networking By Sheila Anne Malone Doctor of Philosophy in Theater and Performance Studies University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor Sue-Ellen Case, Chair This dissertation analyses the dyke body as a site of social networking. I use the term social network to refer to both virtual and real spaces. I do not employ social network as always meaning community; social network refers to affiliations, communal and the collective as well as connections made across and through media. The term dyke is used to push against the notion of queer and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender politics. The purpose of theorizing dyke as opposed to lesbian or queer has to do with an historic investment in the singularity of dyke and the territory of dyke as other, resistant, and not feminine. ii This project draws from multiple theoretical lenses including performance studies, visual culture, sociality, ethnographic research, and archival research in order to place a study of a subculture of dyke into a discourse on performance, sexuality and networks. By looking across a multifarious archive of subcultural artifacts, the dyke body emerges as integral to LGBT politics and to the dissemination of the culture of the dyke locally and globally. Comic books, photography, video art, performance art, theater, legal proceedings, brand identity and the web have certainly been the objects of extensive studies, but collectively relating and reading these objects through the theory of social networking introduces a different concept of dyke – a connected, hyper/crosstextual, crossvisual, transindividual body. Collectivizing and group formation have been central to LGBT social and political protest in the U.S. This project aims to identify and register some of the alternate ways that dyke bodies have organized underneath and outside of typical LGBT frameworks. This dissertation specifically focuses on the group San Francisco Dykes on Bikes®, however, it also examines other forms of dyke connections in an effort to consider counter-strategies to collectivizing. Sites of Sociality: Performances of Dyke Identifications Through Social Networking looks at familiar and lesser-known cultural production of dyke and lesbian-focused artists as both an epistemological shift in thinking about agential power outside of normative bodies and a tracing of where that power might reside inside and outside of community. iii This dissertation of Sheila Anne Malone is approved. Anurima Banerji Sean Metzger Sue-Ellen Case, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Images ........................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgments......................................................................................................... x Vita............................................................................................................................. xvi Introduction: Social Networks, Tracing Dyke, and Creating Community.................... 1 Works Cited...................................................................................................... 28 Chapter I: Performing Dykeness: Registering the Trademark Dykes on Bikes®........ 30 Works Cited...................................................................................................... 83 Chapter II: Inside the Network of Lines: Drawing, Connecting, and Performing the Dyke Body – in Comics, Strips, and Graphic Novels................................. 86 Works Cited..................................................................................................... 141 Chapter III: Imagined Networks IRL (In Real Life): The Lesbian Bar and Mapping a Past................................................................................................................ 146 Works Cited..................................................................................................... 194 Chapter IV: Virtual Lives, Converging Brands: Selling Images, Connections, and Lesbian Space.................................................................................................. 198 Works Cited..................................................................................................... 249 v TABLE OF IMAGES Introduction Figure 0.1 Gay Day Parade by Robert Pruzan, 1977 …...................................... 21 Figure 0.2 Gay Freedom Day Parade by Robert Pruzan, 1984 …........................ 22 Figure 0.3 San Francisco Dykes On Bikes® logo redesign with “R” by Sandy Caughlin, 2008 …...................…........................... 23 Figure 0.4 Ramadan Comix by Jennifer Camper …...............…............................ 24 Figure 0.5 Kawasaki 440Z by Sheila Malone, 1995 …........................................... 25 Figure 0.6 San Francisco Dykes on Bikes® by Sheila Malone, 2004 …................ 26 Figure 0.7 San Francisco Dykes on Bikes® by Sheila Malone, 2006 ...…............. 27 Chapter I Figure 1.1 Gay Pride by Barton Crawford, 1973 ...….....................…................... 79 Figure 1.2 San Francisco Dykes on Bikes® by Maria Ueda, 1981….................... 80 Figure 1.3 Gay Newspaper Volume 5, Number 113, June 1974 …....................... 81 Figure 1.4 Gay Freedom Day Parade by Robert Pruzan, 1984 .............................. 82 Chapter II Figure 2.1 Detective Comics: Batman #84, 1954 …............................................ 130 vi Figure 2.2 Detective Comics: World's Finest Comics #59, 1952 ….................... 131 Figure 2.3 Detective Comics: The Batwoman, #233, 1956 …............................. 132 Figure 2.4 Detective Comics: The Batwoman, #233, 1956 …............................. 133 Figure 2.5 The Batwoman, Riding The Wall of Death, DC Comics, 1979 …..... 134 Figure 2.6 Batwoman, Elegy, DC Comics, 2011 …............................................. 135 Figure 2.7 Batwoman #2, DC Comics, Writers: J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman, Artist: J.H. Williams III, 2011 ….............. 136 Figure 2.8 "Holiday On Ice" from Dykes To Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel, 1999 …................................................................. 137 Figure 2.9 Juicy Mother, Vol. 1: Celebration, edited by Jennifer Camper, cover drawn by Karen Platt, 2005 ….................................................. 138 Figure 2.10 "The Party: A Cartoon Jam," 1995, 2005 …....................................... 139 Figure 2.11 “The Party,” frame 6, drawn by Ivan Velez, Jr., 1995, 2005 …......... 140 Chapter III Figure 3.1 The Boy Mechanic by Kaucyila Brooke, color photograph, 2005 … 184 Figure 3.2 The Boy Mechanic by Kaucyila Brooke, drawing, 2005 …............... 185 Figure 3.3 Post Porn Goddess by Annie Sprinkle, still photograph, 1999.......... 186 Figure 3.4 Lesbian Love Octagon Network of Characters and Love Relationships, digital image, 2015 …......................................... 187 vii Figure 3.5 Act I Scene 1 from Lesbian Love Octagon – Locations and Characters, digital image, 2015 …............................... 188 Figure 3.6 The Backroom by Liz Rosenfeld, video, screenshot, 2011 …............ 189 Figure 3.7 The Backroom by Liz Rosenfeld, video, screenshot, 2011 …............ 190 Figure 3.8 Note To Self by Mary Coble, still photograph, 2005 …...................... 191 Figure 3.9 Note To Self by Mary Coble, performance documentation, 2005 ….. 192 Figure 3.10 Note to Self by Mary Coble, wall documentation, 438 Unique Blood Paintings, 2005 ….................................................. 193 Chapter IV Figure 4.1 ACT UP Flyer, 1994 …...................................................................... 238 Figure 4.2 San Francisco Dykes on Bikes® MeetUp Page, screenshot …........... 239 Figure 4.3 San Francisco Dykes on Bikes® MeetUp Page, screenshot …........... 240 Figure 4.4 The WELL's Conference Portal, screenshot April 2015 …................ 241 Figure 4.5 AfterEllen.com from 2002, screenshot …........................................... 242 Figure 4.6 AfterEllen.com from 2005, screenshot …........................................... 243 Figure 4.7 AfterEllen.com from 2012, screenshot …........................................... 244 Figure 4.8 AfterEllen.com contributors' page, screenshot, 2015 …..................... 245 Figure 4.9 AfterEllen.com from 2014, screenshot …........................................... 246 viii Figure 4.10 AfterEllen.com's Forums before Evolve Media bought the brand, 2014, screenshot …............................................... 247 Figure 4.11 AfterEllen.com after Evolve Media bought the brand, screenshot, 2015 …............................................................................ 248 ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In order to pursue a PhD in Theater and Performance