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Activities: Context Activities Gay and Lesbian Identities in Contemporary American Writing  Back to Context Activities
In the cultures of the West, the literary arts have been energized by a gay presence for as long as there have been arts at all. Over the course of American cultural history, however, that presence, and its importance, have not always been recognized and understood. In the American Renaissance, Walt Whitman stands out as a powerful representative of a gay identity and poetic voice, but in the reconstruction of American literary history he is presented, for most of his long career, as an isolated figure, working courageously and almost alone. From the earlier years of the twentieth century, Willa Cather is remembered in much the same way--as an artist whose life and work were complicated and intensified by a condition of isolation, an imperative to keep her own sexuality in the background of her art and her public life. Before the end of the 1960s, in Britain and America, there were brief periods in which gay and lesbian literary communities found or created a context in which to express themselves together and in the open, and to affirm every dimension of who they were as Americans and artists. London in the early 1890s was such a place; the "Bohemian" neighborhoods of lower Manhattan before World War I were another. More often than not, however, a gay or lesbian author who wanted to be "out" as an individual and an artist had to seek safety away from the public gaze, away from local police and repressive laws. Many of the expatriate artists of the 1920s and after (including Gertrude Stein, James Baldwin, and Elizabeth Bishop) spent much of their time in Paris, in South America, and in other far-off places where they could live and work with a measure of freedom unavailable in much of the United States, where old Puritan values hung on strongly. It is not surprising, therefore, that the so-called "Stonewall Riots" of July 1969, a confrontation with the New York City police in and around a gay bar in Greenwich Village, have been remembered by some social historians as "the Boston Tea Party of the gay and lesbian rights movement." What they came to signify was the full arrival of civil-rights militancy for gay communities in major American cities. The "sexual revolution" of the later 1960s had been strongly heterosexual; now it took on a new cast, especially in cities where the arts flourished--San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, and New York. In these and other venues, there was a renaissance of literary life in which gay and lesbian sexuality and identity were foregrounded. In poetry, in drama, in film, and in dance, there was unprecedented experimentation with these new possibilities and values in mind. By the early 1980s, however, the celebratory mood had shifted towards the tragic. Slowly, awareness spread that the HIV virus was a lethal danger, and that AIDS was already a death sentence to thousands of gay Americans. There were no effective treatments for HIV exposure and infection for the first decade of the epidemic, and as the disease devastated gay populations that had flourished so recently before, mainstream America began to recognize the price that was being paid not only in human lives, but also in its collective imaginative and cultural life. At the same time, along with social and legislative activism, changes have begun and continue with regard to the reading and criticism of literature by gay and lesbian authors and about gay experience. This new field of study is often referred to as "Queer Theory." One primary objective is to find a language appropriate to discussing this art, as well as to locate aesthetic values and assumptions which are not unduly inflected by centuries of cultural habit, a long tradition of commentary which either ignored the importance of sexual preference in artistic expression, or which repressed that importance. For instance, Hollywood studios and independent filmmakers have participated in the national dialogue about gay identity with varying levels of intensity, sometimes as adversaries, sometimes not. The 1980s and 1990s brought a return of the transvestite as a subject in such mainstream films as The Crying Game (1992), as well as in popular films from much smaller production companies, including Paris Is Burning (1990), Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), and Boys Don't Cry (1999). Marjorie Garber describes this popularity as signaling a "category crisis" not only with respect to sexual identity, but also elsewhere in society: in her view, transvestites represent a permeable border between the male and the female and the possibility that other binary oppositions--upper and lower classes, black and white races, Jews and Christians, masters and slaves, gays and straights--may also be much less sure than we have been led to believe. Also writing about transvestite and contemporary gay life, Judith Butler has described gender, in contemporary culture, as a role that is performed rather than a transcendent identity. In her view, gender is or has become such a performance, such that people can choose to cause "gender trouble" by dressing, acting, and behaving in ways that resist traditional expectations--for example, by "voguing." If sexuality is not who we are but what we do, and if sexual activities or desires do not equal sexual identities, there is no need for rigid categories such as "heterosexual" or "homosexual." Filmmaker Marlon Riggs's Tongues Untied (1989) reveals another snapshot of the diversity of gay life in America, and the special predicament of gay African Americans. The film features the work of poet Essex Hemphill and confronts the challenges of interracial love, self-hatred, and persecution within African American social contexts. With the popularity of TV shows such as Will and Grace and Queer as Folk, which both focus primarily on gay characters, and Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Felicity, which both include gay characters among their ensemble casts, gay culture has found entrance into the mainstream. Questions
[6229] Anonymous, Together: A Gay Game for Everybody (1973), courtesy of the Library of Congress. Poster depicting two interlocking "woman" symbols, which form a board game. Beginning in the 1960s, a number of "homophile" organizations began to form, inspired by militant black civil rights groups. Such activists as Franklinn Kameny and Barbara Gittings protested discriminatory employment practices, and by 1970 several thousand people had joined the more than fifty homophile organizations that had been established. [8171] Anonymous, Gays Kissing (n.d.), courtesy of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society. A gay couple kisses in the background of this photograph; in the foreground are two lesbian women. In the second half of the twentieth century, homosexuals began to demand equal protection under U.S. law. [8172] Anonymous, Gay Parade (n.d.), courtesy of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society. The gay rights movement really came to life when, in 1969, New York City police raided a gay bar in Greenwich Village called the Stonewall Inn. The patrons of the Stonewall fought back, and three nights of rioting ensued, bringing unprecedented support for the homosexual liberation movement. By 1973 there were more than 800 homosexual groups in the United States; today there are more than 5,000 organizations fighting for gay rights. [8179] Anonymous, Lesbians Kissing (n.d.), courtesy of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society. Photograph of a lesbian couple kissing. Although progress has been made in securing rights for homosexuals, a reactionary movement has consistently tried to slow that progress down. For example, in 1977 a gay rights ordinance was repealed in Florida due to the efforts of singer Anita Bryant. Political and religious figures including Jesse Helms and Jerry Falwell have fought to revoke rights for homosexuals and prevent them from securing protection under the law. |
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