we are all lesbians inside/the road to lesbianism is paved with good intentions
Guys, I can't even.
I especially like the juxtaposition of The Washington Post's article about the reaction to Tom MacMaster's "coming out" as the author of the blog "Gay Girl in Damascus" and the following day's article about Paula Brooks of LGBT news site Lez Get Real "coming out" as Bill Graber, a 58-year-old retired married man (he used his wife's identity! MacMaster's wife claims she had no idea her husband's blog existed either . . . a blog that he had for six years).
If there's any funny to be found in this, it's this:
In the guise of Paula Brooks, Graber corresponded online with Tom MacMaster, thinking he was writing to Amina Arraf. Amina often flirted with Brooks, neither of the men realizing the other was pretending to be a lesbian.
Two men pretending to be lesbians flirting with each other. Priceless.
Of course, the issues here are much bigger than I think I can even begin to comprehend at the moment. It's not just whom and what causes are hurt, how much this affects the credibility of voices who use the Internet to speak out on issues, about fact vs. fiction and the power of personal experience--or, in this case, "personal experience"--to inspire, but a whole cauldron of privileges, assumptions, audience reception, perspectives, authority, identity, anonymity, and the Internet age. At the crux of this is the feeling of betrayal and the resentment of an audience who has been duped. The revelation of this kind of duplicity also skews whatever truth might be in these accounts--the way you can say that good fiction aims at getting at truths that cross lines of gender, sex, nationality--and makes everything seem like rubbish. Really, it's just not a good idea to co-opt the voice of someone you're not and present it as truth.
Stephen argues something in the comments of that "A Note to My Fellow White Males" article that makes my head spin a bit:
@AaronWB To quote the king of white male “dudes”, I turn to “The Dude” aka the Big Lebowksy: “You’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole”.
You’re correct in claiming the creative nature of all blogs as somewhat fictional(lets face it people, there are no true fact checking mechanism like in real journalism) and thus is hugely dependent upon freedom of expression. Further, when reporting on anything controversial, you as a writer/blogger put yourself and your community in harms way. It’s just the way it is. Would you have said a white, northern male abolitionist was endangering his fellow southern black freedom fighters (also abolitionist) because said white male was putting those men in danger with calls to emancipation? Where’s the line? Or can only some people cross it?
I think more people would realize that in this forum if they could divorce themselves from the controversy. If this was a gay/lesbian arabic woman claiming to be the voice of young white males who are unable to find work (yes white males in that demographic are not better off than their female counterparts-just look to any economist, US census or business journal report data if you don’t believe me) and she was “outed”…you think anyone would pay any attention?
It never hurts to cast a critical eye toward both sides of a debate.
-Stephen
Tom MacMaster wasn't just making a call to action. He was sending out a call to action by claiming that, under this persona of a half-American, half-Syrian lesbian, that "she" herself had taken action, that "she" herself had experienced the consequences, that "she" herself had faced the dangers. So if, in the case of Stephen's presented scenario, if said white man was presenting such a call to emancipation in the voice of, say, a black slave who had rebelled against his masters and had succeeded, say, then I don't see why that wouldn't be harmful too. That is, that's frightening abut the Amina fallout is that people were willing to put themselves at real risk to find a person that did not exist.
Likewise, if someone from the middle class appropriated the voice of someone impoverished, I would question what that person may know of that experience.
At least if it's stated to be fiction, we have the powers of suspended disbelief, of straightforward doubt. When someone says "This happened to me," we take it on faith that, yes, this happened, and that, yes, this was how it felt, these were the consequences, it could happen to you like this. It's why stories like those of Rosa Parks' courage are so inspiring. It happened. It had a real effect. The consequences are survivable. It could happen again. You could do it.
That this whole thing has turned into a media circus is a separate issue. The question of appropriating a voice and presenting it as truth is it's own conundrum, not whether or not it necessarily garners attention.
It's like, say, adultery. The world will care if a politician or celebrity gets caught in bed with someone else and it'll be a Big Deal in the media, but that isn't to say that an affair in the boonies doesn't do harm to people.
It's not so much a question of writing what one wants to write in what voice one wants to, it's the fact vs. fiction claim. I don't even think this is a question of journalistic integrity, as Brian Spears tries to drive home, but Tom MacMaster wrote a personal blog as Stephen correctly points out. And personal narrative draws even more from trusting the narrator, which is why personal journals and diaries of famous figures get published and read. Blogs are their own monsters, of course, since they're public forums. I think of the line in Blind Assassin, in which the narrator notes that in order to be completely truthful, you must imagine one hand erasing what the other hand writes--and I'm not sure if that's possible with blogs, which are so public by nature. But readers do enter into a "contract" of trust with personal blog writers, a willingness to believe that what is written is true. when I see updates on my flist about the innocuous and big things happening in people's lives, I believe those things to be true, whether they affect me or not.
Can fiction have power? Yes. Uncle Tom's Cabin, anyone? Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?
But it's not the same power, per se. That is, if I said that I am really a 40-year-old man who is married (regardless of my race), I would inspire feelings of betrayal in a number of people who have trusted in my self-presentation as a lesbian.* And none of you who have trusted in and drawn from this identity would trust me from this point on. Credibility.
If I said I wasn't a fan of Carey making Melisande less evil and badass, does that matter if I'm lying or not? Probably not as much as if I said I weren't female, gay, or had not actually read the book at all (and thus had been forming opinions on no basis). But if you were invested in my liking Melisande's transformation, then that's a different matter. And there was a lot of investment in this blog. I haven't read it myself but I was literally linked to one of the posts on "Gay Girl in Damascus" the day before the news of MacMaster broke.
. . . And around and around in circles we go.
Like I said, a huge ball of issues. I've been pondering them and turning things around in my mind, trying to find if such voice appropriation is justified, if good was done from it (this sounds so Chaucerian, the problem that is perpetually posed by the sinning preacher dude in The Canterbury Tales), if the only problem was, well, getting caught (and it's a big problem because it has affected more issues than the blog itself was wrapped up in). I don't know.
*I am honestly still leery of self-identifying as such, because, really, what if I change my mind someday or meet Mr. Amazing tomorrow or in ten years?
I especially like the juxtaposition of The Washington Post's article about the reaction to Tom MacMaster's "coming out" as the author of the blog "Gay Girl in Damascus" and the following day's article about Paula Brooks of LGBT news site Lez Get Real "coming out" as Bill Graber, a 58-year-old retired married man (he used his wife's identity! MacMaster's wife claims she had no idea her husband's blog existed either . . . a blog that he had for six years).
If there's any funny to be found in this, it's this:
In the guise of Paula Brooks, Graber corresponded online with Tom MacMaster, thinking he was writing to Amina Arraf. Amina often flirted with Brooks, neither of the men realizing the other was pretending to be a lesbian.
Two men pretending to be lesbians flirting with each other. Priceless.
Of course, the issues here are much bigger than I think I can even begin to comprehend at the moment. It's not just whom and what causes are hurt, how much this affects the credibility of voices who use the Internet to speak out on issues, about fact vs. fiction and the power of personal experience--or, in this case, "personal experience"--to inspire, but a whole cauldron of privileges, assumptions, audience reception, perspectives, authority, identity, anonymity, and the Internet age. At the crux of this is the feeling of betrayal and the resentment of an audience who has been duped. The revelation of this kind of duplicity also skews whatever truth might be in these accounts--the way you can say that good fiction aims at getting at truths that cross lines of gender, sex, nationality--and makes everything seem like rubbish. Really, it's just not a good idea to co-opt the voice of someone you're not and present it as truth.
Stephen argues something in the comments of that "A Note to My Fellow White Males" article that makes my head spin a bit:
@AaronWB To quote the king of white male “dudes”, I turn to “The Dude” aka the Big Lebowksy: “You’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole”.
You’re correct in claiming the creative nature of all blogs as somewhat fictional(lets face it people, there are no true fact checking mechanism like in real journalism) and thus is hugely dependent upon freedom of expression. Further, when reporting on anything controversial, you as a writer/blogger put yourself and your community in harms way. It’s just the way it is. Would you have said a white, northern male abolitionist was endangering his fellow southern black freedom fighters (also abolitionist) because said white male was putting those men in danger with calls to emancipation? Where’s the line? Or can only some people cross it?
I think more people would realize that in this forum if they could divorce themselves from the controversy. If this was a gay/lesbian arabic woman claiming to be the voice of young white males who are unable to find work (yes white males in that demographic are not better off than their female counterparts-just look to any economist, US census or business journal report data if you don’t believe me) and she was “outed”…you think anyone would pay any attention?
It never hurts to cast a critical eye toward both sides of a debate.
-Stephen
Tom MacMaster wasn't just making a call to action. He was sending out a call to action by claiming that, under this persona of a half-American, half-Syrian lesbian, that "she" herself had taken action, that "she" herself had experienced the consequences, that "she" herself had faced the dangers. So if, in the case of Stephen's presented scenario, if said white man was presenting such a call to emancipation in the voice of, say, a black slave who had rebelled against his masters and had succeeded, say, then I don't see why that wouldn't be harmful too. That is, that's frightening abut the Amina fallout is that people were willing to put themselves at real risk to find a person that did not exist.
Likewise, if someone from the middle class appropriated the voice of someone impoverished, I would question what that person may know of that experience.
At least if it's stated to be fiction, we have the powers of suspended disbelief, of straightforward doubt. When someone says "This happened to me," we take it on faith that, yes, this happened, and that, yes, this was how it felt, these were the consequences, it could happen to you like this. It's why stories like those of Rosa Parks' courage are so inspiring. It happened. It had a real effect. The consequences are survivable. It could happen again. You could do it.
That this whole thing has turned into a media circus is a separate issue. The question of appropriating a voice and presenting it as truth is it's own conundrum, not whether or not it necessarily garners attention.
It's like, say, adultery. The world will care if a politician or celebrity gets caught in bed with someone else and it'll be a Big Deal in the media, but that isn't to say that an affair in the boonies doesn't do harm to people.
It's not so much a question of writing what one wants to write in what voice one wants to, it's the fact vs. fiction claim. I don't even think this is a question of journalistic integrity, as Brian Spears tries to drive home, but Tom MacMaster wrote a personal blog as Stephen correctly points out. And personal narrative draws even more from trusting the narrator, which is why personal journals and diaries of famous figures get published and read. Blogs are their own monsters, of course, since they're public forums. I think of the line in Blind Assassin, in which the narrator notes that in order to be completely truthful, you must imagine one hand erasing what the other hand writes--and I'm not sure if that's possible with blogs, which are so public by nature. But readers do enter into a "contract" of trust with personal blog writers, a willingness to believe that what is written is true. when I see updates on my flist about the innocuous and big things happening in people's lives, I believe those things to be true, whether they affect me or not.
Can fiction have power? Yes. Uncle Tom's Cabin, anyone? Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?
But it's not the same power, per se. That is, if I said that I am really a 40-year-old man who is married (regardless of my race), I would inspire feelings of betrayal in a number of people who have trusted in my self-presentation as a lesbian.* And none of you who have trusted in and drawn from this identity would trust me from this point on. Credibility.
If I said I wasn't a fan of Carey making Melisande less evil and badass, does that matter if I'm lying or not? Probably not as much as if I said I weren't female, gay, or had not actually read the book at all (and thus had been forming opinions on no basis). But if you were invested in my liking Melisande's transformation, then that's a different matter. And there was a lot of investment in this blog. I haven't read it myself but I was literally linked to one of the posts on "Gay Girl in Damascus" the day before the news of MacMaster broke.
. . . And around and around in circles we go.
Like I said, a huge ball of issues. I've been pondering them and turning things around in my mind, trying to find if such voice appropriation is justified, if good was done from it (this sounds so Chaucerian, the problem that is perpetually posed by the sinning preacher dude in The Canterbury Tales), if the only problem was, well, getting caught (and it's a big problem because it has affected more issues than the blog itself was wrapped up in). I don't know.
*I am honestly still leery of self-identifying as such, because, really, what if I change my mind someday or meet Mr. Amazing tomorrow or in ten years?