Gender and Performativity - Essay Example

Gender and Performativity of Gender and Performativity Texts and film often depict women in a manner that is derogatory. Often, this is the subject of a lot of debate and analysis that places a large share of the blame for patriarchal attitudes on film and literature. However, there are an equally large number of books and movies that depict the attitudes that people take towards gender in a satiric manner. Some also criticize them through techniques other than humour. Such texts often are able to understand the insidious ways in which patriarchy as a social system works and are able to look at the performative aspects of gender and how rituals affect the way in which such roles are defined. Socially accepted mannerisms and functions are them critiqued through frameworks of understanding that are at once rebellious and radical. These texts open up new ways of understanding the gender relations that exist in patriarchal societies and the influences that such societies have on the people who are a part of such societies. The texts also open up the possibilities for social theorists to understand the ways in which society as a whole is complicit in the victimization of women. The victim’s complicity is also often explored and this results in a better understanding of how the power structures that area associated with patriarchy are able to stifle women’s roles without any voice of dissent making itself known or heard. Film theorists have often been able to locate such discrepancies in the society that is modern and yet patriarchal; they have also been able to locate better the performative aspect of gender because of the very nature of film as a medium. The Great Gatsby is an important example of gender relations in the American society during the 1920s. This was an era when there was a great emphasis on the improvement of the economy and speculative investments were on the rise during this era. As a result of this, there were a large number of people who were extremely wealthy and held a great number of very lavish parties. Jay Gatsby is one such person. His source of income is very mysterious. What the reader knows of Jay Gatsby is what he chooses to tell the narrator Nick. As a result of this, the reader has no option but to accept the version of Gatsby. This passage makes this very clear- The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end (Fitzgerald 1995, 16). The idea of inventing for oneself the kind of identity that was in vogue during the twenties is what Gatsby does. What he does is informed by the gender codes of the time and he is able to successfully inhabit such a role. This makes him a successful person for those who are around him. To inhabit a gender role is thus, what makes a person successful in a patriarchal society according to Fitzgerald. This inhabitation of gender roles can also be seen in the women characters of the novel. For instance, the extreme femininity of Daisy is what makes her attractive to the two men who are in love with her. Her rejection of the gender roles that are prescribed then makes room for turmoil and tension within the novel, the kind of tension that finally leads Gatsby to his death. Tom is another character who chooses to inhabit a space that has been socially prescribed. He plays out an older form of masculinity. According to this role, he is physically strong and is also the provider of the family. Such ideas of gender, according to feminists like Simone de Beauvoir are based on the idea that gender roles are based on the sex of a person. Such roles are then sanctioned by the society and this leads to them being set in a tradition that is difficult to dislodge (Beauvoir 2000, 12). This then feeds into the idea of performativity that is a very integral part of identity in modern society. This then is able to direct the way in which performativity as an aspect of social life is formed. This can then be connected to the idea of performativity as it is put forward by Judith Butler. She argues that the understanding of gender roles as one sees it today is based largely upon the theoretical aspects of gender. What one needs to do is to understand the performative aspect of gender, that is, the way gender roles figure in and affect the ways in which people, think, act and understand the phenomena that is a part of the world that they live in (Butler 2002, 68). Gender is an issue also in texts like The Picture of Dorian Gray. This novel is one of the most important ones to have come out in the nineteenth century and talks of the importance of a reading of gender that does not conform to heteronormative notions of power and gender. This then leads one to a study of the ethics of the queer where there is an urge to move beyond the conventions of power that are invested in the dimensions of heterosexual normativity (Wilde 2000). Fir this, then, one needs to understand the ideas of power that were articulated by thinkers like Michel Foucault. He felt that power was present in the hands of disparate elements of the society that one is a part of. Power then exists not in one location but in different parts of the society which then leads to a subjugation of the person who is turned into an object through which authority can be exercised. The state operates through such individuals and an entire network is created through whom subjugation operates (Foucault 1999, 21). It is then that one needs to look at how gender is affected by this and how performativity of gender figures in this entire melee. Foucault suggested a framework whereby the state controlled the activities of the people who were a part of its geographical boundaries through controlling the gender roles that they could adopt and inhabit (Foucault 2002, 4-18). This then makes clear the role that is played by what people do on an everyday basis and the role that it has to play in the creation of gender roles. Performativity is then a very important part of what constitutes the power relations of a society and the performativity of gender is a very important part of these power relations. To understand such theories better, it would be useful to look at the theories of psychoanalytic film theory that someone like Slavoj Zizek puts forward. Zizek is one of those thinkers who have managed to extricate film theory from the margins and thrust it into the limelight as a result of what he feels is its ability to understand society through film and its reception by a society. His psychoanalytic theories of film can also be applied to the texts that are under discussion in this paper (Flisfeder). While looking at Oscar Wilde’s text, one can see that there is a great deal of fetishism. This is to say that there is an attempt at creating an atmosphere of extreme sexual difference despite the aspect of the queer. The queer only reinforces the aspect of difference within The Picture of Dorian Gray. This then leads to an ostracization of Sybil Vane as a character. The self-sufficiency of the men in the narrative introduces the aspect of castration that is extremely important to an understanding of the novel as a contradictory work of art. Here the performativity of gender roles demands that Dorian Gray act out a certain role without him performing the sexual roles that are conventionally a part of such a gender role. This is to say that the one woman who is a part of Dorian Gray’s life within the narrative is turned into a marginal figure. Dorian in the way he performs his gender role of the dandy becomes a role model for the young men of London; however, the suggested sexual relations that he has indicates a departure from the performative aspect of such dandyism. This then makes it clear that the gender roles that are expected of a person depend upon the social construction of such a role and not the innateness of the role per se. There is therefore no biological aspect that needs to be looked into as far as this is concerned. There is the need to understand the post-structuralist aspect of difference in order to understand the difference in the experiences of different kinds of people and the variations that they introduce into the aspects of gender roles through the different ways in which they perform their gender roles (Spivak 2001, 400). Performativity again becomes a very important aspect of the way in which gender roles are shaped. The performance of these gender roles then leads to a perpetuation of the same stereotypes and roles. One of the most important aspects of Miriam Hansen’s theories is the anarchic tendencies that she reads into film as a genre. Tweaking the medium that she describes does not mean that her theories would not be applicable to the genre. The genre of novels can also be a site of application for the theories that were advanced by Miriam Hansen. The tendencies that one sees in the gender roles that are performed by Jay Gatsby reveal a tendency to look at the anarchic side of events and their occurrences. Gatsby is unconcerned about the anarchic activities that happen during his parties and the nonchalance that he affects is a carefully constructed image, one that can then lead to an anarchic tendency where people are made to understand the importance of not being adherents of a rigid code of laws at all points of time. Performativity in this case then becomes an incentive to avoid what is performative and hence, more natural. Here too, the difference between people needs to be kept in mind while looking at the changes in the experiences that they undergo (Hansen 1991, 1). The importance of such performativities that are engendered by specific cultures also needs to be kept in mind. There are in many cases, performative aspects of gender that are created by the society that one is a part of. This results in the creation of traditions that are not changed in a long time due to pressures from the society that one is a part of. This can be seen in a work like Othello where characters are made to feel that they ought to discharge their duties as according to their gender roles and not according to their innate sense of duty (Shakespeare 2000). This then makes it clear that the gender roles that one finds in the society are not innate but a result of the performative aspect of it. A discussion of the different aspects of gender in this paper has made it clear that there is a performative aspect of gender that decides to a great extent the way in which gender relations are shaped. This kind of shaping of gender roles can then look at the anarchic versions of the society that are buried deep in the consciousness of the people who are the consumers of this form of art. The importance of film theory within such an ambit lies in the fact that it is able to capture how there is a need to analyze the reception of this art and the contributions of Miriam Hansen and Slavoj Zizek in this field are immense. The innateness of gender as a conservative argument can then be refuted through a discussion of the performativity of gender roles. References Wilde, O. (2000). The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York: Norton. Print. Fitzgerald, F. S. (1995). The Great Gatsby. London: Wordsworth. Print. 16. Shakespeare, W. Othello. (2000). New York: Penguin. Print. Foucault, M. (1992). Power Vol.4. New York: Penguin. Print. 21 Foucault M. (2002). The History of Sexuality Vol. 1. New York: Penguin. Print. 4-18. Beauvoir, S. de. (2000). The Second Sex. New York: Vintage. Print. 12. Butler, J. (2002). Gender Trouble. New York: Penguin. Print. 68. Spivak, G. C. (2001). “The Politics of Translation”. The Translation Reader. Ed. Lawrence Venuti. New York: Routledge. Print. 401. Flisfeder, Matthew. (2010). “Between the Symbolic and the Sublime: Slavoj Zizek in Film Studies... and Out”. Film-Philosophy Journal. Web. 7 Jan. 2012. http://www.film-philosophy.com/index.php/f-p/thesis/view/10 Hansen, Miriam. (1991). Babel and Babylon: Spectatorship in American Silent Film. USA: President and Fellows of Harvard College. Print. 1. Read More