#unit six

For my special topic in unit six, I chose Wyatt Fleckenstein’s poem “Labels,” which I found on YouTube under the recommended videos section. This represents sexuality, because the whole poem is Fleckenstein’s experience of being queer, namely in terms of dealing with family ignorance (Fleckenstein’s mother’s love despite difference). It also represents unit six, because, as I mentioned in my last post for unit six, slam poetry is a type of pop culture. Fleckenstein doesn’t specifically make pop culture references, but understanding this poem as pop culture allows me to analyze it within the terms set up in Gender Stories.

According to Gender Stories, one of the ways to rewrite the binary (out of the three: retell, revise, and rewrite), is through synthesis. In terms of gender, that means a “strategy [that] allows one body to carry markers  and meanings of both genders simultaneously without privileging either” (Foss, Domenico, Foss 128). While Fleckenstein does represent ambiguous gender roles (“she bought me men’s dress shirts for my job interviews.”), I would argue that this poem also synthesizes sexuality. When describing sexuality, Fleckenstein uses the term queer, which like gender can be, is “fluid, ambiguous, and multiple within the same person” (Foss, Domenico, Foss 128). As Fleckenstein says, “She (the mom) is trying to learn what queer means. I tell her for me, it’s mostly about the people I’m attracted to, but it’s a complicated identity; I say, don’t assume it’s the same for everyone.” This is also similar to how Gender Stories discusses asexuality, though they explain that asexuality opts out of the binary altogether because asexuality includes no desire to have sex and the binary is inherently sexual.

Continuing on the theme of Harry Potter related slam poems, my artifact for the unit post for unit six is Rachel Rostad’s poem “To JK Rowling, From Cho Chang.” I picked this for unit six after finding it on YouTube, because Rostad is addressing a popular fiction character--Cho Chang from Harry Potter. Though she primarily is talking about race in her poem (how Cho Chang is reduced to being simply “Asian” and falls into stereotyping--”Cho and Chang are both last names, both Korean last names. I am supposed to be Chinese”), this poem also highlights the intersections of race and gender when it comes to pop culture representations. Rostad counts Cho Chang’s character as part of a Western pop culture tradition of "turning Asian women into a tragic fetish.”

This reminds me of chapter five in Gender Stories, which explains that pop culture can either retell, revise, or rewrite the binary. Part of retelling the binary are stories of prescription; that is, stories for adults that “explicitly prescribe how men and women should be” (Foss, Domenico, Foss 109). Rostad is criticizing that in Harry Potter, Cho Chang represents prescription for Asian women. Not only is it a retelling of how women should act in general but how women should act when they’re asian: “We giggle behind small hands and ‘no speak English.’ What else could a man see in me? What else could I be but what you made me? Subordinate. Submissive. Subplot... a best-selling caricature.” Rostad then describes her own experience with a boy, his interest in her race, and their break-up and explains “we were just following the plot.”

Unit 6 Calcite for @theladyforester​ 

She’s small and taunts death.

A small page for Onyx since she’s a more minor character in theladyforester ‘s Unit 6, but as one of the only inmates who’s symmetrical... wanted to try and capture how being an isolated outcast among outcasts would effect someone... For her uniform, I went symmetrical with a harlequin pattern of dark gray and light black. The (colorless) diamond’s placement is literally the only thing that makes her asymmetrical- a nod to the fact that (while we don’t officially know why she’s been contained) pretty much the only reason any of the inmates are down there is the DA’s whim alone. What a perfect place to send dissenters and political opponents under the guise of instability. Can you tell I’d really like to hear more about her???

(The other inmates I’ve drawn for example, have their diamonds on their feet or backs- their own statements to make on the worth/honor of the Authority)

There She Goes...

Unit 6′s Tourmaline

Had to complete the set! theladyforester‘s Watermelon Tourmaline oc from United I Stand. I think my favorite two sketches are the one on the couch and the one where she’s enjoying a good sparring match. T’s all about the drama.