Queer
Theory
Who? Various
When? 1960’s – ongoing
What?
Following on from the ideas
discussed on the pages about ‘Discourse’ and ‘Deconstructionism’
we can see our societies and, as a result of this, our texts tend to be controlled
by a Discourse of ideology that sees homosexuality or bisexuality as in some
sense inferior to ‘natural’ heterosexuality. Queer theory attempts to undermine
this ‘Binary Opposition’ and establish some equality between the various
sexualities.
Queer theorists and writers have
attempted to do a number of things in literature:
Firstly, they attempt to reclaim
some of the negative terms that were often used to imply that homosexuals were
in some way inferior. Queer is a clear example of this; a word which had
connotations of the strange, the unusual and the threatening but which is
beginning to be used more neutrally to mean, simply, homosexual. Camp, drag,
gay, bent are all further examples of this.
Secondly, queer theorists have
pointed out how our ideas of what a ‘real’ man should be are artificial and
constructed. We all know that ‘real’ men should be rough and tough and not show
emotions, etc … There is, however, no reasons why these are characteristics of
‘straight’ men as opposed to ‘gay’ men or even men as opposed to women.
Similarly women are often defined by their relationship to men, which is
something that is clearly irrelevant to gay women.
Thirdly, queer theorists have cast
doubt upon writers who have employed stereotypical pictures of men and
masculinity. By being so obviously ‘straight’ are they simply trying to hide
inner uncertainties?
Fourthly, queer theorists attempt to
provide queer (in the sense of unusual) readings of texts.
There is much more to Queer Theory
than this. However, the key points are that it follows closely from the idea of
reading against the grain and challenging the assumptions that a text makes and
that it points out how artificial our ideas of what makes a person a ‘real’ man
or a ‘real’ woman are.