In &/or Out
Last night, dom_ino and I watched Elizabeth. The movie more than held up on its third viewing. One of the obvious strengths of the film is Cate Blanchett's ability to show the process from vulnerable to powerful, indecisive to resolved, all in a flicker of her face, in her every gesture and movement.
What stuck in my skull this time is how much the movie has to say about issues of the public and the private. It was assumed that, since she was a woman, Elizabeth would have a hard time not ruling with "her heart". At one point, though, she asserts that, were she to choose, she could rule with the "mind of a man". She learns to compartmentalize her personal affiliations and passions to become the powerful public figure that England needed so badly to trust in. Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush) is her obvious advisor in this change, but -- judging from his intermittent expressions of surprise -- he is routinely impressed by how thoroughly and extremely she encorporates these ideas. Blanchett's performance highlights the difficult private process of swallowing often bitter logic, digesting it, and then fully encorporating it into her public persona.
Oddly enough, though, in what is assumed to be the male arena of politics, it is as a woman -- albeit a virgin -- that Elizabeth is able to take on the powerful role of full-fledged ruler. And it is the traditionally female (and therefore domestic and private by association) skills of make-up, hairstyle, costume, and theatrics that ultimately make her the nearly mythological public figure she becomes: The cold, pale skin; the short, red hair; the icy gown; the drawn demeanor; the commanding voice; the calculating stare: She is the Virgin Queen.
History tells us, though, that she led quite a worldy life, but that she also learned to fully negotiate her public and private faces.
___
After our last Queer Discussion group (a week ago Sunday), it occurred to me that I have become obsessed with issues of public and private. I worry about the disappearance of the "public" aspect of the library system I work for. We have chosen to emphasize the corporate at every turn: in changes of language and policy, in emphasis on entertainment (computers and bestsellers) over content and less marketed subjects, in sacrifice of quiet for busyness. I see a diminishing priority on securing space for quiet, safety, fairness, dialogue, and creativity. I connect that to queer struggles to keep streets and neighborhoods truly public, in struggles over the status of public parks, in the attempts to salvage the wasteland (mostly) that public education has become.
Beth pointed out, too, that she feels that our true "third space" (a place to meet with others that is not home or work) should be our own minds. We have forgotten how to reflect, be quiet, turn off our media, use our imaginations. We have forgotten how to be alone with ourselves as a way of imaginatively rehearsing our social and public relations. Not only have we lost a clear sense of the public, but we have also lost touch with our own privacy. I wonder if the old motto "The personal is political" has been taken too far so that we can no longer distinguish and instead have a dangerous mush.
___
I recently started to think about the strange phenomenon that is blogging. What might have begun in our minds as a personal journal has become something else: We are talking to ourselves talking to others. We tend to vacillate between a whole range of purposes that are alternately public and/or private: We confess; we strive to be honest with ourselves; we try to release steam or pain; we try to entertain; we try to educate; we try to create; we try to record and process inchoate experience, memory, and thought; we try to collect our "found" events. This space sits on a thin line between public and private. And I think about what this journal stands to do for me in terms of this odd combination of public and private: It helps me clarify my own sense of the private (what I will not post about); it helps me develop a sincere personal voice with which I can actually speak publically; it helps me build new relationships and communities; it gives me a forum to speak about serious public issues and be heard (as well as to hear); it practices my ability to handle differences in opinion; it gives me opportunity to be even more "out" with a wider variety of my personal selves.
I decided that my first attempt at a collection of essays will circle around this topic of the current state of the public and private.
___
This morning, I was brought into half-wakefulness by a roaring spring storm. Between 7 and 8, the rain turned to hail for about 5 minutes and rattled the windows and air conditioning units. Later in the day, it cleared up. The clouds were broomed away, the sun peeked out, and the temprature rose to somewhere around 70.
This oddly called to mind the mix of hot and cold, inward- and outward-ness, in Elizabeth.
Tomorrow, I am taking my odd day off in the middle of the week. I plan to feed my brain and gut, to relax some in the in-between space of my screened-in front porch.
What stuck in my skull this time is how much the movie has to say about issues of the public and the private. It was assumed that, since she was a woman, Elizabeth would have a hard time not ruling with "her heart". At one point, though, she asserts that, were she to choose, she could rule with the "mind of a man". She learns to compartmentalize her personal affiliations and passions to become the powerful public figure that England needed so badly to trust in. Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush) is her obvious advisor in this change, but -- judging from his intermittent expressions of surprise -- he is routinely impressed by how thoroughly and extremely she encorporates these ideas. Blanchett's performance highlights the difficult private process of swallowing often bitter logic, digesting it, and then fully encorporating it into her public persona.
Oddly enough, though, in what is assumed to be the male arena of politics, it is as a woman -- albeit a virgin -- that Elizabeth is able to take on the powerful role of full-fledged ruler. And it is the traditionally female (and therefore domestic and private by association) skills of make-up, hairstyle, costume, and theatrics that ultimately make her the nearly mythological public figure she becomes: The cold, pale skin; the short, red hair; the icy gown; the drawn demeanor; the commanding voice; the calculating stare: She is the Virgin Queen.
History tells us, though, that she led quite a worldy life, but that she also learned to fully negotiate her public and private faces.
___
After our last Queer Discussion group (a week ago Sunday), it occurred to me that I have become obsessed with issues of public and private. I worry about the disappearance of the "public" aspect of the library system I work for. We have chosen to emphasize the corporate at every turn: in changes of language and policy, in emphasis on entertainment (computers and bestsellers) over content and less marketed subjects, in sacrifice of quiet for busyness. I see a diminishing priority on securing space for quiet, safety, fairness, dialogue, and creativity. I connect that to queer struggles to keep streets and neighborhoods truly public, in struggles over the status of public parks, in the attempts to salvage the wasteland (mostly) that public education has become.
Beth pointed out, too, that she feels that our true "third space" (a place to meet with others that is not home or work) should be our own minds. We have forgotten how to reflect, be quiet, turn off our media, use our imaginations. We have forgotten how to be alone with ourselves as a way of imaginatively rehearsing our social and public relations. Not only have we lost a clear sense of the public, but we have also lost touch with our own privacy. I wonder if the old motto "The personal is political" has been taken too far so that we can no longer distinguish and instead have a dangerous mush.
___
I recently started to think about the strange phenomenon that is blogging. What might have begun in our minds as a personal journal has become something else: We are talking to ourselves talking to others. We tend to vacillate between a whole range of purposes that are alternately public and/or private: We confess; we strive to be honest with ourselves; we try to release steam or pain; we try to entertain; we try to educate; we try to create; we try to record and process inchoate experience, memory, and thought; we try to collect our "found" events. This space sits on a thin line between public and private. And I think about what this journal stands to do for me in terms of this odd combination of public and private: It helps me clarify my own sense of the private (what I will not post about); it helps me develop a sincere personal voice with which I can actually speak publically; it helps me build new relationships and communities; it gives me a forum to speak about serious public issues and be heard (as well as to hear); it practices my ability to handle differences in opinion; it gives me opportunity to be even more "out" with a wider variety of my personal selves.
I decided that my first attempt at a collection of essays will circle around this topic of the current state of the public and private.
___
This morning, I was brought into half-wakefulness by a roaring spring storm. Between 7 and 8, the rain turned to hail for about 5 minutes and rattled the windows and air conditioning units. Later in the day, it cleared up. The clouds were broomed away, the sun peeked out, and the temprature rose to somewhere around 70.
This oddly called to mind the mix of hot and cold, inward- and outward-ness, in Elizabeth.
Tomorrow, I am taking my odd day off in the middle of the week. I plan to feed my brain and gut, to relax some in the in-between space of my screened-in front porch.