#antinormative

In season one, despite the colours, lace, and detailing, Stede’s dress is mostly conformist in cut and style. His shirts are high-buttoned, cravated, and do not show much flesh below his chin. Coupled with the pantaloon and waistcoat, Stede’s wearing the clothes of traditional masculine presentation of his era.

There are times Stede’s clothing becomes less formal. During the sword practice with Ed in 106, Stede’s shirt is open and the cravat loosened. Again, in 107 we see Stede in his open nightclothes wandering on deck. During evening story hour, his jacket is removed. Stede usually seems more relaxed during these moments too.

Stede’s style changes properly on the second leaving of Bridgetown. What Stede is wearing openly as he drags the boat to sea is a rather romantic poet-pirate look with billowing shirt and sash. The look has links with future nineteenth-century Romantic freethinkers, championing individualism, revolution and liberty - including sexual liberation.

The open-neck shirt was popularised by Byron and Shelley a hundred years later. It was a deliberate choice of styling in opposition to enforced gender presentation and monogamous heteronormativity. The fashion of the times, similar to the 1700s, was high collars and neck-wrapping in order to force the holding of the male head in a stately and erect manner. It’s all about rigidity…

For an English gentleman of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to have his shirt open and loose in public, was a sign of effeminacy. It was women who showed their décolletage in society, who were allowed a softer presentation; this new style hinted strongly at sexual and gender nonconformity. Women were viewed as more animalistic, men as cultured. Cultured people cover up. Softness, looseness - these are aspects of female sexuality, a bit bestial. And women are also a little bit insane. Why would any man, especially a man of status, want to present as feminine and lesser? And what does it say about patriarchy if some men actively choose to relinquish their privileged status by presenting more effeminately? It’s dangerous.

By today’s standards, Byron was pansexual and polyamorous. Shelley’s sexuality is less clear, but he was viewed as a subversive atheist and disinherited. Both might consider themselves nonbinary today. Shelley especially seems to have had a strong gnc presentation. Both left England for more liberal Europe.

I feel the costume department must’ve made a very deliberate and informed choice regarding Stede’s shirts post season one, but I don’t feel it’s the one some people think it is. I know part of DJenks stated aim was to ‘make Rhys Darby as sexy as possible’, but it’s not about appearing more masc. just because he’s showing more flesh. It’s about appearing more Stede. Stede is expressing a new-found confidence in his sexual identity and gender expression, by choosing a more freer, less structured, less traditionally masculine way of dressing, associated rather presciently with future Romantic liberalism. It seems poets and pirates have more in common than we realise. And both were considered dangerous for questioning the system.

However, Stede is also an individual in flux and he circles back to a part of his former self. The Red Suit is a sort of hybrid male/female costume. The cuffs, detailing and shirt itself are femme. But there are elements of traditional masculinity which are quite toxic. The epaulettes reinforce the inverted masculine triangular shape. Anyone who grew up in the 1980s will remember their mothers feeling forced to wear exaggerated shoulder-padding as they entered male-dominated workspaces. They also enforce military rank. Stede thinks he needs this imagery to ‘be the Captain’. He doesn’t. The exaggerated coattails are also absolutely synonymous with upper class male power. It’s masculinity as performance and power-play. Stede needs to let all of this cursed patriarchal nonsense go.

As so often’s the case in OFMD, external struggle, this time with the crew over the Red Suit, could also be a manifestation of Stede’s internal conflict and shifting identity. It’s a final letting go of patriarchal ideas, especially around captaincy. The crew certainly don’t want it. Stede is (more than) adequate just as he is. At the end of all the pushing and pulling, Stede keeps the most relevant bit of the outfit - the shirt. It’s the least restrictive part, the more feminine and therefore, the more subversive on a male body. It’s a sartorial representation of a changing Stede.

The three shirts worn in series two are deliberately opened-collared and low-cut, showing more and more of Stede’s chest. This is a traditional feminine aesthetic which historically on a man, at least in the anglosphere, was considered subversive and dangerous. And Stede couples his shirts with a different sort of masculinity, a leather trouser. Class-wise, this is a traditional working man’s garment. Through his new choice of clothing, Stede is rejecting entirely his previous role within patriarchal hegemony, both the imposed status and imposed gender norms.

~**CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS**~ EXHIBITION 2222222

A collective group of non-normative creators. 

Subject Not Object is a curatorial and conceptual attempt at promoting and preserving creations with interests in queer identity, disrupting institutionalized patriarchy, networked action against any systematic prejudice found in the digital landscape, and creation of safe spaces online. 

Subject Not Object produces small press publications, as well as both online and offline public exhibitions. 

Works of art, curatorial proposals, and other things you would like to have considered for publication both online and in print may be sent to 

[email protected] 

Georgia Gibson is an artist working out of Durham. Her work can be seen in the most recent Subject Not Object exhibit, as well as at her online portfolio. 

Your combined interest in ceramics and performance art is something that is not often seen as two intersecting mediums. What is your experience in performance art and how has your work with ceramics informed or enhanced that work? 

Well, I'd say ceramics and sculpture was mostly the main medium I'm interested in at the moment. However, that has made me focus quite often on the significance of objects, and how I can photograph objects in ways which make sense with my art- this was what originally lead me to performance art. I feel like in photography we're often missing the full potential of a piece, and I really want to take that further. I really love performance art as whole, I love the whole scene it has and it's major influences (I'm a huge Marina Abramovic fan), but a largely want to change it's typical style to be more relevant to my own practice- I want to make performance art that reflects my ceramics in terms of being pink and feminine, instead of shooting films in grainy black and white. I really hope to use more of my own sculpture work in my performances in the future. 

Your work is quite popular with the zine community, specifically feminism focused, was this something you made a conscious effort to have happen, or was it more organic? As in, you published work in Grrrl Asylum which then got the attention of Girls Don't Do that, which then led you to ... and so on and so on. 

I think it was a bit of both. I've been putting my work online for about a year now, and within that process I've met a lot of artists who think similarly, who also know other artists, who also know other artist, who know other artists... and I think it just kinda snowballs. Sometimes I submit to zines that I love the look of, and sometimes I specifically get emails/messages asking me if I'd be interested in contributing to publications they have in the works. I think the latter largely stems from being involved in networks such as The Pulp Zine and Cherry Mag, they've helped get my name out there quite a lot as they have quite a solid following. 

You've got quite an impressive twitter following. Do you attribute that to your presence in the tumblr/zine scene or the endless self promoting that artists and designers and creatives in general have to do to be seen? Did publishing "Beyoncé on her Period" online have a significant effect on the attention your work was getting online?

I think the twitter following is largely just from being part of the 'tumblr scene'. I've had tumblr for around 4 years, only posting art for the last of those years, so I've gained quite a few followers before I began creating. Funnily enough, the glitter piece (which was originally called 'I don't only have glitter in my veins') got me very little recognition, even though it's my most well known piece. It was used constantly on twitter with no credit, and even when I was posting it myself on instagram and such I was having friends comment saying 'is this yours?'- it was really really amusing, I was almost treated as if I'd stole the work because so many people had already seen in on parody Beyonce twitter accounts. I'd hate to be the type of person to care too much about recognition, I mean of course I would like to be a recognised artist but realistically I'm just happy that the work is out there and people are seeing it. 

What initially drew you towards studying art? As a student have you ever questioned the work that you're making, or rather gone through a sudden and dramatic change in medium and subject matter?