So I'm really a gay boy? And I still need to see "I'm Not There."
It seems that criticism on Todd Haynes has rather exploded since the last time I looked (while writing my thesis, in 2004). At the time, I was able to find less than a handful of academic articles to reference, and had to resort to quoting interviews and movie reviews. Now not only are there multiple articles on all his works, but even an entire book (The Cinema of Todd Haynes: All That Heaven Allows) on him. Amusingly, critical reception of his past films has also shifted. When "Velvet Goldmine" first came out, and even when I was writing on it, it was largely under-appreciated, generally misunderstood, and dismissed as at best a "potential cult favorite." Now, reading the aforementioned articles and film reviews for "I'm Not There," I see it being referred to as one of his masterpieces. Hah. Amazing what a couple of years can do. And while I'm pleased that I no longer have to defend my love of that movie and my conviction that it is an excellent piece of cinema, I kind of feel like all these critics so suddenly enthused over it are infringing on my property.
That's not what this entry is about, though. This entry is about Jon Davies' chapter in the book I just mentioned, titled "Nurtured in Darkness: Queer Childhood in the Films of Todd Haynes." I'm rather interested in the claims Davies makes about queer (male) childhood there, because most of them are rather applicable to my own. Well no wonder all my heroes, idols and obsessions are male queers then.
In writing about Haynes' "especially notable" and unusually "insight[ful] and imaginati[ve]" treatment of queer childhood, Davies talks about Haynes' interest in the "transformation of suffering into salvation, discipline into defiance," and "resistance and transformation through queer boys' performances of ...loneliness, dysfunction and sensitivity" (58). He also mentions the "fantasies, stories and 'lies'" that are "make-believe taken too far" (60). Further characteristics of a queer childhood, apparently, are "feeling singularly alien to one's straight surroundings," as personified by Wilde's extra-terrestrial origins in "Velvet Goldmine." "What exciting and satisfying explanation for our feelings of difference and alienation," Davies exclaims, "we are actually from another planet entirely" (63)! Finally, it appears that "artifice, mimicry and fandom" are a "distinctly queer way of consuming and representing," as well as "fascination with posing and performing people as aesthetic objects" (66).
(Entirely aside, I love this characterization of Haynes' queer children: "they are not realist representations but metaphors of queer survival and radical possibility... not simple characters but complex creatures patched together from unmitigated artifice: passionate aficionados of television, theatre, spectacle, art, glam rock, dandy style, elaborate kink and above all, stories, dreams and imaginings." Not that I dispute the metaphorical nature of these children, but for representations that are "not realist" I sure know an awful lot of boys like that...)
Now, he is talking about queer boys specifically, so I am not sure how much of the above characteristics he would assign to the normal straight girl-child experience, but still. I think those of you who know me well know why I identify with his descriptions. Lonely, estranged child immersed in stories, perhaps too much? Check. My sister will tell you that I have a habit of "lying" that is not exactly lies... that is, I tell stories that never "really" happened, but I do not mean to lie when I tell them--if you ask me, I will swear that they did in fact happen this way, and I will believe it. I tend to generally reconstitute real events into fiction as soon as they pass, and remember them that way. I think a lot of my memories are things I imagined that did not really happen. (One of my childhood memories is talking to Jesus when I wanted to discuss my issues with the Bible with him. I thought that if he appeared to the apostles, surely I could summon him to have a chat. This was obviously all imaginary, but it remains in my mind as clear as any other "real" memory from that time.)
This, by the way, is why I so love Marc Bolan. I feel he rather did the same thing, and his insistence on the fact that his meeting a Wizard really truly did happen, as well as that talk of a dinosaur mural coming to life on his wall makes perfect sense to me, even without drugs.
The suffering-into-salvation thing is also particularly pertinent. This is one of my primary attractions to Oscar Wilde, whom I really blame for undue influence over my personality ever since I listened to his story "Star-Child" when I was very young. I went through an entire phase where all I wanted to read were suffering-orphan stories, where the orphans would eventually be rewarded for their suffering in the face of abuse through some kind of deux-ex-machina transformation. I would call it "Cinderella syndrome," except the way I played it (and I did, both with my dolls and through pretend with friends, although I never told them WHY I wanted to play the slave girl or abused servant) the rescue did not come from the Prince but from the sheer fact of enduring the abuse. My enduring affection to "The Little Princess" stems from this phase, and that book is responsible for my love of the word "queer," forever tied to imagination and strange attraction and a slight tinge of loneliness, as well as solemn green eyes in a pale face framed by black hair. I still consider pale skin/green eyes/black hair as my ultimate type for girls. That book really was a locus of a lot of things for me (socialism, too!).
As for alienation, I used to make-believe I was an actual alien too, dropped off here and due to go back to my home planet when I turned 17. Angel Gabriel was my astral companion/imaginary friend in this make-believe, who supervised my stay on Earth.
I think I need not go into my fondness of artifice, posing and performance, considering I always have and still do try to construct myself as a story that I am writing and experiencing at the same time. There are some rather funny photos from my childhood that were taken when I was surreptitiously trying to pose as whatever character I was "performing" at the time, hoping to create the photo as a specific scene without telling any of the other participants. Mimicry and fandom? Most of my fandom stems from my admiration of others who I feel have perfected the art of mimicry and construction of identity-through-collage. Wilde again, Bowie... Heck, my love of Mika is due to his enaction of pastiche. I do not particularly want to be original in anything--my aim is more of pulling together enough diverse elements so that the end result is something new, but entirely intertextual.
A lot of this became more prominent after the move to the US, when I was rather obviously feeling displaced, alienated, different, and was mocked and lonely in school, but what I find rather odd is that it did not, nevertheless, originate there. My daydreams of being an alien and secluding myself with books and identifying with oppressed orphans all took place in Russia, where I was in general a well-adjusted child, accepted well enough among my peers, etc. (Although I did have only one good friend, who first made my acquaintance when I was in the habit of spending recess hiding out behind sheds because I'd been ostracized by the other kids and falsely accused of stealing, so perhaps...)
One thing that I find interesting now is that I had a habit of the time of making up a story, and then making myself act as though it were real, in the hope that it would become so--partly through sheer will, partly through the rather Wildean idea of art influencing life, or of acting something making it be so. I still do that, although less explicitly. It's curious that I've kept this all the way from when I was 5 years old or so.
But I am rather losing track of the point now. Oh yes, the point is that no wonder I love Tood Haynes. But I am wondering how many of these experiences are universal, and not restricted to queer male children, since they really seem to me to be potentially extremely common. So if any of you feel that Davies' characterization of queer childhood describes you equally well, please post here! I really want to know.
That's not what this entry is about, though. This entry is about Jon Davies' chapter in the book I just mentioned, titled "Nurtured in Darkness: Queer Childhood in the Films of Todd Haynes." I'm rather interested in the claims Davies makes about queer (male) childhood there, because most of them are rather applicable to my own. Well no wonder all my heroes, idols and obsessions are male queers then.
In writing about Haynes' "especially notable" and unusually "insight[ful] and imaginati[ve]" treatment of queer childhood, Davies talks about Haynes' interest in the "transformation of suffering into salvation, discipline into defiance," and "resistance and transformation through queer boys' performances of ...loneliness, dysfunction and sensitivity" (58). He also mentions the "fantasies, stories and 'lies'" that are "make-believe taken too far" (60). Further characteristics of a queer childhood, apparently, are "feeling singularly alien to one's straight surroundings," as personified by Wilde's extra-terrestrial origins in "Velvet Goldmine." "What exciting and satisfying explanation for our feelings of difference and alienation," Davies exclaims, "we are actually from another planet entirely" (63)! Finally, it appears that "artifice, mimicry and fandom" are a "distinctly queer way of consuming and representing," as well as "fascination with posing and performing people as aesthetic objects" (66).
(Entirely aside, I love this characterization of Haynes' queer children: "they are not realist representations but metaphors of queer survival and radical possibility... not simple characters but complex creatures patched together from unmitigated artifice: passionate aficionados of television, theatre, spectacle, art, glam rock, dandy style, elaborate kink and above all, stories, dreams and imaginings." Not that I dispute the metaphorical nature of these children, but for representations that are "not realist" I sure know an awful lot of boys like that...)
Now, he is talking about queer boys specifically, so I am not sure how much of the above characteristics he would assign to the normal straight girl-child experience, but still. I think those of you who know me well know why I identify with his descriptions. Lonely, estranged child immersed in stories, perhaps too much? Check. My sister will tell you that I have a habit of "lying" that is not exactly lies... that is, I tell stories that never "really" happened, but I do not mean to lie when I tell them--if you ask me, I will swear that they did in fact happen this way, and I will believe it. I tend to generally reconstitute real events into fiction as soon as they pass, and remember them that way. I think a lot of my memories are things I imagined that did not really happen. (One of my childhood memories is talking to Jesus when I wanted to discuss my issues with the Bible with him. I thought that if he appeared to the apostles, surely I could summon him to have a chat. This was obviously all imaginary, but it remains in my mind as clear as any other "real" memory from that time.)
This, by the way, is why I so love Marc Bolan. I feel he rather did the same thing, and his insistence on the fact that his meeting a Wizard really truly did happen, as well as that talk of a dinosaur mural coming to life on his wall makes perfect sense to me, even without drugs.
The suffering-into-salvation thing is also particularly pertinent. This is one of my primary attractions to Oscar Wilde, whom I really blame for undue influence over my personality ever since I listened to his story "Star-Child" when I was very young. I went through an entire phase where all I wanted to read were suffering-orphan stories, where the orphans would eventually be rewarded for their suffering in the face of abuse through some kind of deux-ex-machina transformation. I would call it "Cinderella syndrome," except the way I played it (and I did, both with my dolls and through pretend with friends, although I never told them WHY I wanted to play the slave girl or abused servant) the rescue did not come from the Prince but from the sheer fact of enduring the abuse. My enduring affection to "The Little Princess" stems from this phase, and that book is responsible for my love of the word "queer," forever tied to imagination and strange attraction and a slight tinge of loneliness, as well as solemn green eyes in a pale face framed by black hair. I still consider pale skin/green eyes/black hair as my ultimate type for girls. That book really was a locus of a lot of things for me (socialism, too!).
As for alienation, I used to make-believe I was an actual alien too, dropped off here and due to go back to my home planet when I turned 17. Angel Gabriel was my astral companion/imaginary friend in this make-believe, who supervised my stay on Earth.
I think I need not go into my fondness of artifice, posing and performance, considering I always have and still do try to construct myself as a story that I am writing and experiencing at the same time. There are some rather funny photos from my childhood that were taken when I was surreptitiously trying to pose as whatever character I was "performing" at the time, hoping to create the photo as a specific scene without telling any of the other participants. Mimicry and fandom? Most of my fandom stems from my admiration of others who I feel have perfected the art of mimicry and construction of identity-through-collage. Wilde again, Bowie... Heck, my love of Mika is due to his enaction of pastiche. I do not particularly want to be original in anything--my aim is more of pulling together enough diverse elements so that the end result is something new, but entirely intertextual.
A lot of this became more prominent after the move to the US, when I was rather obviously feeling displaced, alienated, different, and was mocked and lonely in school, but what I find rather odd is that it did not, nevertheless, originate there. My daydreams of being an alien and secluding myself with books and identifying with oppressed orphans all took place in Russia, where I was in general a well-adjusted child, accepted well enough among my peers, etc. (Although I did have only one good friend, who first made my acquaintance when I was in the habit of spending recess hiding out behind sheds because I'd been ostracized by the other kids and falsely accused of stealing, so perhaps...)
One thing that I find interesting now is that I had a habit of the time of making up a story, and then making myself act as though it were real, in the hope that it would become so--partly through sheer will, partly through the rather Wildean idea of art influencing life, or of acting something making it be so. I still do that, although less explicitly. It's curious that I've kept this all the way from when I was 5 years old or so.
But I am rather losing track of the point now. Oh yes, the point is that no wonder I love Tood Haynes. But I am wondering how many of these experiences are universal, and not restricted to queer male children, since they really seem to me to be potentially extremely common. So if any of you feel that Davies' characterization of queer childhood describes you equally well, please post here! I really want to know.