The 1980s witnessed an explosion of homophobia and gender inequality with the emergence of the AIDS crisis. Many people believed that AIDS was a homosexual disease, thereby creating an even larger chasm between the heterosexual and gay communities. As a corollary to this, Tony Kushner was made famous in the mid 1990s by his play Angels in America, which confronted the problems of stereotype, gender identity, and social constraints. One scene in particular disrupts standard conceptions of masculinity, as protagonist Prior dresses in drag to console his dying and love-stricken soul. This clip (which you only need to watch from 3:30-5:10) is taken from Chapter 1, Scene 4 of the HBO special.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnOBNr_qPVo
Prior, dressed as a woman, makes a complete leap across the gender spectrum as he disregards all ties to his masculinity. In a purely binaristic world, individuals with male characteristics do not wear make-up, dresses, or feminine wigs, and even Harper is perturbed by Prior’s femininity. She even says, “in her church, we don’t believe in homosexuals.” The irony of this statement demonstrates how ignorant a binaristic view of gender is: Harper cannot really say that she does not believe in homosexuals because she is, in fact, sitting in front of one.
Paying close attention to the form of this scene, the viewer sees that Prior “applies the face” in order to literally and figuratively mask his unhappiness. By applying a feminine face, Kushner reinforces his theme regarding gender. Prior is comforted when he assumes a feminine persona, and so why shouldn’t he do this? Gender is merely what the individual wants it to be, and so if Prior wants to defy his masculinity, then he should.
Derrida, perhaps, would say that Prior’s drag erases the notion that masculinity is superior. In Derrida’s world, binaristic definitions imply that a low and high exist; that one is good while the other is less. Since Prior is no longer masculine, the viewer does not assume that Prior is superior to Harper. For this reason, the two are able to form a relationship on an equal playing field, both exposing their vulnerabilities and imperfections without trying to maintain their respective pre-prescribed gender identities. Moreover, Prior's identity is found somewhere between man and woman: he has the anatomical characteristics of a man and the appearance of a woman. No one can explicitly define Prior in terms of man or woman, and so the meaning of his identity is found somewhere in between.
We'll talk more about this when we get to our unit on liminality, but I wonder if we can think outside of "in between." Can we imagine what might be outside of these categories rather than what lies in between them?
ReplyDeleteI too thought of this play when I read your prompt. I agree with your assertion that Prior does lie somewhere "between a man and a woman." But I was wondering if that statement could be applied to all of the characters of the play. The angel, for example, is described to be extremely beautiful and feminine, she can even arouse the gay. However, she also possess many "masculine" qualities (like her assertiveness) and has sex with both men and women. Another example could be seen in Joe. On the surface, he appears to be a "manly man," a strong provider. But when he enters his relationship with Louis, he reveals many "feminine" traits. Overall, I think that Kushner purposefully made his characters fall in between male and female because he believes that gender is not binaristic.
ReplyDeleteI think "Angels in America" is a great example for this prompt, and you read Prior well. One thing I think could add to your argument involves the large-scale gender deconstruction that Kushner does. As Christina said, every major character in the play struggles with gender identity in some fashion; few could be described as fully male or fully female. I think, however, that rather than creating a spectrum from ultra-masculine to ultra-feminine with transgender, drag, etc. somewhere between, Kushner is destroying that spectrum all together. By playing with the gender of his characters, and specifically Prior's gender identity in this case, he blurs the divisions we are familiar with. I would argue that this fragments gender concepts all together, because who is to say whether a drag queen is more or less of a man that a transgender woman? In other words, he confuses our standard definitions of gender.
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