Deciphering Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin Through Essentialism and Constructionism

Lately, I seem to be obsessed with deciphering queer celebrities through a queer/race scope. For my last, let’s say, “controversial” blog, I talked about celebrities coming out only when the height of their careers were ended a good while ago. After learning more, I changed my opinions about this subject and displayed my learning on the Final Paper, I do see now that mainstream society is sort of a “culprit” in destructing the sexuality of celebrities when they “sense” that their sexual orientation is other than heterosexual.   

For this “Arts” blog, I took the essentialism/constructionism dynamic that we discussed in class and applied it to Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga. The essentialism/constructionism dynamic can get a bit complicated at times, so I tried my best with my understanding of the topic.  I think this dynamic is imperative to see queer and race intersect and, from what I learned and observed, I think that the queer community prefers to be seen on the essential spectrum rather than construction because essentialism identifies them as individual people and not categorized and shoved in to a “group” with other people.  I think that is a reason as to why the queer community stands out as unique, which is something I highly appreciate.

Please click the link below to see my “artsy” piece.

Essentialism and Constructionism 

**Note: The fonts express a tone for each side. Such as for “Constructionism” the font is all bold because of the monotonous categorizing that must take place for this paradigm. In the same note, “Essentialism” is typed in different, unique font to represent the specific identity of an individual, which goes along with that paradigm. **

**ALSO: You guys should be able to see the document, but if for some weird reason you can’t, please don’t hesitate to let me know, PLEASE! Thanks!**

Race and Sexuality à la the Socialist Worker

The Socialist Worker is a newspaper and daily web site that describes itself as “presenting a wide array of left voices involved in today’s struggles and taking up today’s political questions.” Similar to the way in which Prof. Cruz-Malave presented 42nd St/ Times Square as a confluence of culture, race, and class under the sign of “gay,” the Socialist Worker unites under the umbrella of “leftist”/”socialist.”

Sherry Wolf (LGBT socialist activist who I think is awesome) discusses the judicial challenge on Prop 8, Perry v. Schwarzenegger. She talks about the irony of the fact that Olson and Boies (the challengers) plan to use the (essentialist) claim that sexual orientation is immutable and that, like racial minorities and religious groups, gays and lesbians should be treated as a “suspect class,” while the right wing is taking up the constructionist view. Also, she noted that Judge Vaugn Walker (who NOM is challenging because he is gay) ruled that the proceedings should be taped for YouTube, which I think is really cool!

South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer made an absolutely horrendous statement comparing welfare recipients to stray dogs. A blogger talks about her frustration with the statement, and with the country’s lack of frustration with the statement, a phenomenon that she attributes to the lack of political representation of the poor.

This article discusses the media coverage of the group of “missionaries” who are in prison under investigation for kidnapping after trying to take Haitian “orphans” (two thirds of whom had at least one parent) to the Dominican Republic, with the intention of finding American, Christian adoptive parents for them.  The media is practically portraying the group as victims, and the blogger the role that cultural and religious imperialism play in the coverage of the situation.

I chose these three articles because although they are not directly related to each other, they all address the underlying ideologies and hegemonies that influence these current events. (In my experience, if there’s one thing that socialists do well and reliably, it’s identifying instances of hegemony!) Sherry Wolf points out the essentialist/constructionist conflicts in the trial of Prop 8, and thinks about how the success or failure of each ideological approach to the case could have long-lasting repercussions for LGBT people. The blogger of “It’s racism, and they know it” looks at the realities of identity politics and the non-unity of people under identities of “class,” the underlying assumptions that we make about the nature of activism and how it affects current movements, and at the relationship between race and class in politics.

The article about the “Christian Right kidnappers” goes beyond the logistics and legality of the situation and instead looks at the ways in which notions of cultural, economic, racial, and religious superiority affected the reaction to the situation. The blogger points out that the same action by, say, Muslim missionaries, would have been met with outrage at their audacity at seeking to convert young children in the wake of a natural disaster… which is exactly what the Christian missionaries tried to do. Because the missionaries were white, middle-class, American, and Christian, though, the media has almost embraced them as victims. This reaction to their actions reflects an underlying (or not-so-underlying) affinity of many Americans to have these kinds of imperialist impulses and feelings of cultural/racial/economic/religious superiority.