The Big Phallus Theory: The Big Bang Theory, Nerd Culture, and Women

(While I tried to avoid them, you may find some SPOILERS for The Big Bang Theory in this post.)

 

One of my favorite sitcoms is The Big Bang Theory. While the show is not always strong on plot and rarely portrays life in academia accurately, its likeable characters and nearly unending stream of insider gags for nerds make it an entertaining means of spending half an hour. I love Leonard, the everyman. I enjoy Sheldon’s elevated dialogue. And I can both sympathize with and laugh at Howard and Raj’s awkwardness. I also appreciate that it features a smart, sensible heroine, Penny, who isn’t afraid to assert herself and can talk back to the guys.

What I can’t stand is that, like most of nerd culture and the wider culture, the show often reeks of sexism. Some of it, like Howard’s frequent lewd comments that reduce women to sex objects, I can ignore. Indeed, if I restricted myself only to popular culture that presents women as nothing less than fully realized human beings, I’d probably never be able to watch another movie or television show again. I’ve become so used to explicit sexism, in the form of derogatory comments about women, in my media diet that, I confess, I often recognize it and then choose to ignore it. It’s one of the patriarchal bargains I make as a feminist and a woman living in a culture that recognizes my gender’s worth only in so far as it meets certain standards of sexiness, attractiveness, and compliance. What does bother me about the show that I haven’t been able to ignore so easily is the implicit sexism in the lack of female nerd characters.

Seriously, where are the women nerds? I see them everywhere in real life. They attend conventions, they go to the movies, they cosplay, they talk about Star Wars and Star Trek  and play Skyrim and Dungeons & Dragons. They consist of the majority of people that I know and I’d say nearly all of my female friends are nerds. I know women who can code websites, quote Lord of the Rings, act out scenes from Doctor Who, recite the noble gases and their atomic weights, and kick your ass in Call of Duty. Why are these women not represented, or even acknowledged, in The Big Bang Theory? I’m not even asking why they aren’t main characters–though a show about four female nerdy friends would be awesome and so much more entertaining than Sex and the City–so much as I’m wondering why, in the show’s universe, they don’t even seem to exist.

Well, one might point out, what about Amy and Bernadette? Perhaps, in the strictest sense of the term “nerd,” someone who is brilliantly smart and obsessives over even the tiniest minutiae of something, Amy and Bernadette are nerds. They’re both smart, they’re both biologists, and they both have Ph.D.s. To give credit where credit is due, just a few decades ago it would have been unthinkable to have not one, but two women characters in the S.T.E.M. fields on a television show. However, Amy and Bernadette are still ultimately defined in the show by their relationships with their male significant others. They are judged, and often found wanting, by their ability or inability to meet cultural standards of attractiveness, and they do no participate in what has come to be the domains of nerd culture–things like comic books, science fiction shows and movies, and video games. There are no women regularly featured in the show who enjoy these pursuits, even though such women exist in real life.

In real life, however, nerd culture often has just as much, if not more, of a problem with sexism than The Big Bang Theory does. While The Big Bang Theory ignores nerd women and pretends that they don’t exist, real life nerd culture can be downright hostile toward women attempting to claim the identity of “nerd.”  Whether its people accusing women of only pretending to be nerds in order to hook up with guys or creating the “Idiot Nerd Girl” meme that I’ve attempted to reclaim in this post, a lot of guys seem to want women out of their conventions, their role playing games, and their Internet spaces. But why? The most obvious answer is sexism, but it would be too simple to leave it at that, so I’m going to dig a little deeper.

Though the cultural perception of nerds is changing, it is still largely a negative one, as evidenced by the male main characters on The Big Bang Theory. All of them, in some way, have failed to live up to to our culture’s unrealistic and burdensome ideals of masculinity. None of them are physically strong. Neither are they particularly attractive. They know little of sports. They aren’t charismatic or suave or charming. They aren’t physically or emotionally tough. They prefer the comforts of their apartments to the outdoors. Nerdy men are, as the show and the wider culture seem to suggest, not masculine. The show has frequently paired short, wimpy Leonard with Penny’s tall, dark and handsome beaus to make this point. Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj could often be better described as “feminine” than masculine. There is, however, one group that is lower than nerds on the social hierarchy: women. Whatever male nerds are, they are still more masculine (and thus higher on the hierarchy of patriarchal culture) than women. But when women start entering nerd spaces–and demanding an equal right to be there and be recognized as nerds–they challenge the modicum of masculinity that nerd culture has been able to salvage for itself. They also challenge the perception of women, within both nerd culture and the wider culture, as nothing more than accessories that convey masculinity, and thus worth, on a man. (Think about how, when Howard was first dating Bernadette, he worried that she wasn’t good-looking enough. An attractive girl conveys to society that there is something “manly” or “masculine” about the man she is dating, thus increasing his worth in the eyes of patriarchal culture.)

I think there is a place for women in nerd culture, and I’m sure that women will continue to attend cons, play video games, and go to special screenings of Star Wars. Just as women have fought, and are still fighting, for their right to inhabit the biology labs and physics departments where Bernadette and Amy have managed to reside, I suspect that women will continue to exist in nerd spaces and gradually gain acceptance there. I also suspect that, as nerd culture continues to grow within the mainstream, the stereotype of nerd men as less than masculine will diminish.

However, just because the stereotype of nerds as feminine may disappear does not mean that sexism within nerd culture will necessarily end. Though I would be very glad to see our culture expand its definitions of masculinity beyond its currently narrow confines, I suspect that this will do very little to challenge the standards of beauty to which women, even nerdy women, are held, both inside and outside of nerd culture. Maleness, I still sadly suspect, will still be privileged within nerd culture, in part because nerd culture is inherently exclusionary. To be a nerd, it helps to be male. It also helps to be white, cisgender, and educated. I suspect being able-bodied helps too, though I have seen a broader spectrum of ability represented in nerd culture than I have in mainstream culture. It is required that one be at least middle class, as I doubt the working class has the time and money that are necessary to indulge in nerdy pursuits. Gaming systems can be incredibly expensive, as are books, DVDs, and high-speed Internet connections. One must also have the leisure time to master the games and fantasy worlds present in nerd media. Sadly, in many ways, nerds are often primarily defined by what they consume.

I would like to think that nerd culture is smart enough to look at its own privilege and try to include a wider range of people. After all, many of us nerds define ourselves by our inability to fit in, our difference from mainstream society, and our stories of bullying and rejection. Perhaps we could use those experiences to sympathize with those whom society bullies and rejects. Until more nerds are willing to make this effort and look beyond their own privilege, however, I suspect that nerd culture will largely remain another old boys club.

Uncanny Clowns for Fallen Angels: Darren Lynn Bousman and Terrance Zdunich’s The Devil’s Carnival: Episode 1

(Because I’d rather be safe than sorry with TRIGGER WARNINGS, this post contains a brief mention of suicide and some discussion of intimate partner violence. Also, while I tried to keep them to a minimum, there are some SPOILERS for The Devil’s Carnival: Episode 1.)

Yesterday, as a present to their loyal sinners (aka fans), Darren Lynn Bousman and Terrance Zdunich released a trailer for their second episode of The Devil’s Carnival, an independent film series based around devilishly delicious retellings of Aesop’s fables that inverts our common conceptions of Hell and Heaven.

You probably already know of Darren Lynn Bousman—he’s a director of the popular Saw franchise. Terrance Zdunich has done a little bit of everything, not limited to illustrating, writing, and acting. The two previously worked together on a rock opera, Repo!: The Genetic Opera, an excellent movie that didn’t receive nearly as much publicity as it deserves but that has found a cult following, anyway. (Seriously, Repo! is my favorite movie. I can probably recite the entire thing: Erherm. “The not-too-distance future. An epidemic of organ failures… Chaos! Out of the tragedy…”—Wait! I’m writing a blog post. Sorry.) This past year, to the delight of fans like myself, Bousman and Zdunich released their second collaboration, The Devil’s Carnival: Episode 1, which they publicized themselves by doing a road tour of the movie, shown in small theaters across the country. At the Q & A with Bousman and Zdunich in my city, they said that they wanted to make going to the movies fun again. They certainly did. The event featured not only the movie but also local performing acts, audience participation, and a costume contest. (And, you know, a chance to meet and shake hands with Bousman and Zdunich themselves! In person! A friend and I left the theater squee-ing. I’m sure we weren’t the only ones.) The experience was not unlike going to a shadowcast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, except for the fact that Repo! and The Devil’s Carnival are genuinely good movies that can be enjoyed in a non-ironic way.

Of course, when I say that The Devil’s Carnival is a good movie, I think it’s a good movie that requires a certain peculiar disposition. It’s for the freaks, the geeks, the weird, and the imperfect. (Or, at least, those who proudly self-identify as any one of those things.) I’ve seen the film classified as horror, but I don’t know if I would call it that, exactly. It’s macabre. It’s dark. There’s blood. And suicide. It’s creepy. It’s morbid. It’s uncanny. It’s a little confusing. And there’s singing. Lots of singing. But it’s not the upbeat, catchy singing of popular musicals. It’s completely unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and with Hollywood recycling the same old franchises and plot lines in order to create blockbusters, the sheer novelty of The Devil’s Carnival can be, in itself, arresting. I find it disarming. The eeriness of the film followed me for a long time after I’d left the theater. What I mean is, this is a movie that, like Repo!,  challenges its audience to think, to mull over the story. It unsettles more than it satisfies, partly because it is the first in a series and so must leave its viewers wanting more. But its different-ness, its newness also demands contemplation. It turns familiar conventions on their heads and mashes together the whimsical and child-like with gore and the grotesque. Also, Lucifer, the devil, is the good guy. But he doesn’t exactly inspire the warm fuzzies that we tend to associate with “the good guys.” He’s harsh and he’s fair. I think he’s brilliant, but then, I’m a fan of devil-centric stories. Why? Because I’m a freak and a geek. I’m weird and I’m imperfect.

Despite its refreshing unusualness, The Devil’s Carnival is also very traditional. Its plotlines follow retellings of Aesop’s Fables, updated to apply to contemporary situations.  For all of its inversions, the film is essentially a morality tale. Don’t be greedy and selfish. Don’t trust others naively. Grieve, but then move on. I agree with these proverbs, but it’s the film’s portrayal of the second one that I find a bit unsettling, as the moral is applied to a teenager, Tamara, who, the audience is lead to believe, dies at the hands of her abusive boyfriend. On the one hand, the film could be read as blaming the victim—faulting Tamara for getting into a bad relationship in the first place, even though, at the start of the film, she appears to be trying to leave her abuser.

On the other hand, however, the film does treat the problem of intimate partner violence as serious, literally an issue of life and death, when it is too often dismissed not only by popular culture but also by policy makers. The Scorpion, Hell’s shadow of Tamara’s earthly amore, is not left blameless, though he also does not suffer nearly as much as Tamara does, at least not in the first episode of the series, anyway. The film also explores our culture’s perception of True Love, ultimately concluding that our ideals about love are just as dangerous and deceptive as they are sweet and coddling. I, personally, do believe that, to some extent, our culture’s perceptions of True Love probably contribute to the pressure that women feel to stay in abusive relationships, in addition to other social and psychological factors. Women are taught that we are not worthy unless we are loved, or appear to be loved, by someone else. We are also taught that a good and loving woman stands by her man, no matter what he does, even if he manipulates and hits her. We are taught that anything, even abuse, is worth True Love. None of this is true, of course, but it is perpetuated by our culture’s depictions of True Love. By challenging the concept of True Love, the film does, at least to some extent, grapple with a cultural element of intimate partner violence.

Ultimately, while the three human main characters, including Tamara, are punished for their flaws, at least part of the responsibility is thrown at the feet of God, who in the movie’s universe, is an unrealistic perfectionist, creating imperfect humans and then blaming them for their failings and barring them from Heaven. Were his creations always happy and care-free, the film suggests, God might approve of humans, but he can’t abide them as they are—flawed and surrounded by the troubles of the world. Lucifer, as the film portrays him, may be strict about his six hundred sixty-six rules, but at least he gives humans a chance to learn from their failings. He has “grace for cheap,” while Heaven offers nothing but indifference.

As I said, this is a film for the imperfect, for those who don’t fit in, and who have strange and macabre tastes in movies. In part, this cult appeal is due to the aesthetics of the movie, but I also think it has to do with the film’s depiction of Hell. In The Devil’s Carnival, Hell is for the flawed, the monstrous, and the imperfect. It’s a place where strange people—people who wouldn’t fit in Heaven and probably wouldn’t want to go there anyway—have a hope of finding their place. When I, dressed in a black corset, black gloves, and knee-high boots, went to the local showing of The Devil’s Carnival¸ I hardly stood out. There were people wearing all kinds of bizarre costumes and clothes, accented with outlandish make-up and multiple piercings and tattoos. We all looked awesome, but anywhere else, we would’ve looked freakish and probably received stares and disapproving looks. United by our love of Repo! and the work of Bousman and Zdunich, we fit right in with each other. Our difference became something to celebrate. What I like about The Devil’s Carnival, more than its delightful creepiness, is that, like a few other cult movies such as The Nightmare Before Christmas, it gives people like me a chance to get together and revel in our strangeness. Bousman and Zdunich didn’t just create a film—they’ve made an event, an experience, and a community of fans.

I have no predictions for the next episode in the series. I expect it will treat viewers to a more in-depth look at the universe that the first film established. I suspect there will be more fables. I’m quite sure that there will be more haunting songs. Whatever it brings, I’m very much looking forward to it.

Synergia: What is Creative Writing? Part 3

Before reading the final installment in this piece, please refer to Part 1 and Part 2.

Dinner was, fortunately, not the awkward affair I’d been afraid of. The ten of us were seated at two long rectangular tables pushed together. Dr. Smith and her partner sat at one end, while Erinne, Alex and I sat at the other. I intended to stew in my own misery and mourn the loss of my four-point-oh, but then someone ordered a bottle of wine and Alex started making jokes about the poets and authors he’d run into during the conference.

Jalia took out her camera and snapped shots of everyone toasting to another successful year of AWP. When our plates of food came, she took artsy photos of everyone’s dishes before we started eating. Veronica talked about the exposure our university’s literary magazine got at the conference and her hopes for making it a reputable journal. Dr. Smith and her partner discussed how nice it had been for them to catch up with friends and professors from their grad school days. Erinne said the conference had inspired her to start working on the next chapter of her novel and she’d also made some good contacts for publishing jobs.

Eventually, we finished our dinners and the bottle of wine, and the conversation turned to what we’d all be doing after graduation. Some of us had no idea. Some of us wanted jobs. Some of us were still waiting to hear back from grad schools. All of us dreamed of being writers. Maybe someday we’d submit a panel and get to present at AWP. Maybe we’d get to join our idols like Art Spiegelman and Jhumpa Lahiri as keynote speakers. Maybe, someday, breathless and excitable undergrads would run into us there and whisper, “Oh my god! Isn’t that the author of—?” Or maybe they’d make fun of us and wonder why their professors ever recommended our books. Or maybe we’d attend just as an excuse to see each other and drink wine together again.

I didn’t speak to Dr. Smith much, if at all, that night. I did, however, leave dinner and go back to my hotel room feeling peaceful and pleasant and not caring much about my GPA or what anyone else thought of my writing.

* * *

I mentioned before that writing about other people’s lives is neater and tidier. It’s easier to impose an ending on an experience or situation when the author is not still struggling with it. In my own life, such complete endings are rare. I wish I could I say I confronted my professor about her comment and asked for an explanation. I wish I could say that I met her in her office and swore an oath to prove her wrong—that I would be a true creative writer and a social activist! Or I wish I could say that I argued my case and brought her around to my way of thinking about writing and activism. I did none of those things. For one thing, I was too afraid. I felt too small to call out my professor, someone that I had previously admired and would have never thought to question. For another thing, I was too angry and bitter. I eventually got over the loss of my perfect GPA, but I was still hurt that someone who shared my passion for both poetry and feminism could so completely misunderstand my work. I was afraid that if I tried to bring up the subject with my professor I would either rant or cry. Both scenarios were mortifying, so I never put myself in that situation to begin with. I stayed silent and nodded “hello” when I passed her in the hall, but I never brought up her comment on my capstone.

For a while, after I graduated and the sting of her comment wore off, I wished I would have said something. Now, though, a year later, when I’m no longer angry, I wonder if it would have even mattered. It wouldn’t have changed my grade, but it might have restored some of my previous admiration for her. It might have allowed me to graduate thinking of her as a friend and mentor and not just another academic. It might have also built up some of my confidence in my own writing. Even if she would have held to her remarks, I think the fact that I was willing to justify my work might have made me believe that my writing was worthy of defending.

To be a creative writer is to believe in the value of your work, even when no one else does. It is to write constantly, even when you don’t think your work is any good, because you must practice your art. It is to submit to contests and publications and agents again and again and again, despite the rejection letters and the setbacks. It is to post on the Internet, even if the only readers you attract are detractors. The writers who believe in the value of their work enough to continue in the face of such trials are the ones who finally attract an Internet following or win a contest or get their work published.

And writing is not easy. It’s a solitary business. It’s often taken me away from the excitement of everyday life, sometimes so much so that the only stories I  have to write about are those of my friends. Or sometimes I find that, really, I fall back on writing my friends’ stories and not my own because I don’t have enough faith in the importance of my own life and experiences. Who would care about my life? I often think. Sure, I’ve done things like attend one of the most prestigious writing conferences in the U.S., but I didn’t do anything while I was there. While my friends were out getting drunk with people like Eli Shipley, I was in my hotel room writing poetry. The only thing that happened to me at AWP was I took a heavy blow to my self-confidence.

But taking a heavy blow to one’s self-confidence is an experience that nearly everyone has had. While I haven’t forgotten about it or gotten over it, I have moved past it and am now able to look back on it with some perspective. Maybe that’s all the meaning or ending that any story can hope to have. I just have to realize that it does have meaning, and maybe that meaning will connect with other people too. In telling that story, in shaping it with that meaning, I am a creative writer. If I use that story as a commentary on the arbitrary lines between academic disciplines, I’m still a creative writer. If I use that story as part of a larger meta-narrative that explores the nature of writing itself, well, then I’m still a creative writer. Being a creative writer means seeing the value in words and stories and messages and putting them together to create art. It means being dedicated to the craft of writing. A year after my professor told me that I wasn’t a “true” creative writer, I’m still here and I’m still writing. And I’m only just beginning to come into my voice.

Synergia: What is Creative Writing? Part 2

Part 1 appears here.

I flopped onto the red, paisley hotel bedspread and opened my laptop. “Thank god, free wi-fi!” I muttered. The hotel in Washington, D.C., had not provided free  Internet connection. My friend Erinne, Dr. Smith, I, and assorted other students and professors from the English department had been there for the past four days at the Associated Writing Programs conference (AWP), one of the biggest and most prestigious conferences in the creative writing field. Now I was itching to check Facebook and my email.

We’d been held up in Baltimore because of a snowstorm and couldn’t fly back to Detroit until the following morning. So we’d found a hotel—paid for by Dr. Smith’s English department credit card—and were getting ready for dinner, which Dr. Smith and her partner, another professor, had offered to buy. I was planning to enjoy as much of the free food and accomodations as I could before returning to campus, where I would find myself touching up final papers and studying for exams. At least, I thought, I have my capstone out of the way.

“Hey, our grades for our capstones are up!” my friend, Erinne, said, looking up at me from her spot on the other bed, where she sat with her laptop. I watched her scroll for a moment before her face broke into a grin. “Hey! I got an A!”

“Nice! You were great, though. You deserve it,” I said as I waited for my email to load. At the top of my inbox, starred and marked “important,” was an email from our capstone advisor with the subject line “Final Grades.” I eagarly clicked on it.

Dear Em, I wanted to mention this to you in an email so it didn’t surprise you when you read the attached comments from your graders…

What? What’s that? That didn’t sound good. That didn’t sound like the comments I usually got on papers. I was a straight-A student. I didn’t get comments like that!

…I wanted to let you know that I don’t think Dr. Smith meant her comments in a hurtful or negative way. I think she was only making an observation about your creative work and your presentation….

Hurtful or negative? What did that mean, “hurtful or negative”? What did Dr. Smith say?

…It was a pleasure having you in the class and you did a fine job on your project and presentation…

I skimmed the rest of the email and then downloaded the attachment. I couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, couldn’t breath. What did Dr. Smith say?! I’d always thought Dr. Smith had liked me and my writing. Why would her comments be so ambiguous that they could be construed as hurtful or negative?  I didn’t have to wonder long. The attachment opened and I bit my lip as I read Dr. Smith’s comments.

I believe that, in her heart, Em is not truly a creative writer. I think she is a theorist and an activist who uses her writing to draw attention to issues of social justice.

Not truly a creative writer? Not truly a creative writer?! Since when were creative writers not allowed to write about social issues? I scrolled down the attachment to see what my grade was, but a part of me already knew: seventeen points out of twenty, an eighty-five percent, a solid B.

To many students, this news would be a relief. To me, it was devestating. For three and a half years I’d cultivated my GPA of four-point-oh like a rare rosebush. I’d monitored it constantly, ensuring that it always received just the right amount of care and work. I pruned out imperfections before they festered into problems and prided myself on its beauty and perfection. It was my everything, my best thing. It defined me. And now, like a rot that sank deep into the root, this one missing point had ruined everything. Sure, my GPA was still good, but it was no longer perfect, and for three and half years, perfection had been all that mattered to me.

“That bitch!” I snarled, loudly enough for Erinne to hear. Even though I was still in shock, I wanted some sympathy.

“Huh?” Erinne asked, taking out her earphones.

“That bitch, Smith! She said about my capstone that I’m not a real creative writer!”

Erinne narrowed her eyes. “That’s crazy! Your presentation was so good!”

“Thanks,” I spat. “God, I hate her!”

Erinne nodded.

“And I got a B!”

“Really? But your presentation was better than mine.”

“My GPA is ruined!”

Erinne sighed. “Wow, that sucks. But we’re graduating in a few months, anyway. It’s really not going to matter in the long run.”

“I just…I can’t believe she did that!”

Erinne shrugged and put one of her earphones back in. “Just remember, soon it won’t matter.”

Erinne seemed uninterested in commiserating with me further, so I planned to spend the rest of the evening sulking privately.

However, my self-pity was quickly interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Hey, guys! It’s Alex!” a friend of Erinne’s and mine called. “Dr. Smith and the rest of us are ready to go to dinner. You coming?”

Erinne took out her earphones and hopped off her bed. “You coming?”

I sighed.

“It’s free,” Erinne reminded me.

“I guess…”

* * *

What is creative writing? To a roommate who was a brilliant writer but who claimed she was  uncreative, I used to say that all writing is creative. And in a way, it is. All writing, from the worst fan-fiction story to Shakespeare’s masterpieces is creative in the sense that it is choosing words and putting them in an order that has never before been formed. From there, these sentences are arranged in a way in which they are unlikely to ever be arranged again. In the sense that all writing is forming something new, all writing is creative.

There is also, I would argue, a creativity in critical and analytical writing, particularly in the fields of poststructuralism and deconstruction, fields that I learned to love from my old professor, Dr. Smith. Say what you want about Derrida. He’s esoteric, dense, reflexive, and performative. But he is also creative. No one wrote theory like Derrida, and those that have tried it since usually just end up copying him instead of forging new ground. Derrida was a theorist, yes, but there’s also something poetic about his theory. He was—dare I say it!—a creative writer.

There is also, again I would argue, an element of social justice in many creative works in the so-called “canon.” Toni Morrison is praised for her rich characters and lyrical prose, but her stories also often center around the plight of African-American girls growing up in a culture that snubs their beauty and their minds. Is Toni Morrison a creative writer? You’d be hard-pressed to find a critic who’d say she isn’t. Is she an activist for social justice? Of course! She’s been very open, both in her novels and her public speeches, about her fight against racism. Does categorizing her as one—an author or an activist—negate the other? Of course not!

I often find myself drawn to writers who straddle the line, if there is any line to begin with, between social critics and creative writers. David Sedaris might make his readers laugh out loud, but he also subtly draws our attention to the U.S.’s class pretentions and cultural insensitivity. Judith “Jack” Halberstam, a professor of cultural studies who has written many books about the intersections between homophobia and capitalism, writes in a critical style that has been described as “playful,” but which I find poetic. Ani DiFranco plays guitar and sings lyrics about gender and class inequalities. The creativity, for this diverse array of people, is in how they compose their message through well-placed words and well-formed sentences. The subject matter, at worst, certainly does not detract from the superior writing. At best, it enhances the writing, allowing the writing itself to perform the message of the text. The reader isn’t merely told the message through a direct statement—“homophobia is bad”—or through the actions of a main character—Sedaris goes to France and doesn’t find the stereotypes he expected. The writing itself becomes an element of the message. (Ani DiFranco places her message within the legacy of a folk tradition, which her musical style and lyrics reflect.)

This isn’t an idea that I came up with myself. I actually learned it in my four years as an undergraduate creative writing major at a small, Midwestern university. I idolized my creative writing professors, and in doing so, I not only absorbed their wisdom regarding the craft of writing but also their social and political awareness. They wrote poems and novels and short stories, but they also read Foucault and were just as likely to talk about power and the panopticon in class as they were punctuation. They loved writing and words but they also had a sense of responsibility to the broader culture of which they were a part. One of my professors wrote creative nonfiction pieces about the impoverished American Indian reservation where he’d previously taught. Another professor was very open about her role in exposing a serial date rapist after a number of her female students had come to her for guidance and compassion after being assaulted. These were people who’s teaching I loved, whose creative works I respected, and whose social awareness I wanted to emmulate. I didn’t see any conflict between their creative writing and their activism.

Honestly, I still don’t.

The third and final installment of this piece appears here.

Synergia: What Is Creative Writing? Part 1

(While I write a lot of critical essays, I also write creatively, mostly poetry and nonfiction. I thought I’d experiment with posting a creative  piece I’m currently working on.)

“It’s sort of like The Great Gatsby, isn’t it? Like Nick Carraway.”

“I’m sorry, sir?” I took a deep breath and tried not to fidgit. I had just presented my undergraduate capstone project, and after giving a dramatic reading of several of my creative nonfiction pieces, which were met with resounding applause from my classmates, my professors were grilling me about my work. If they liked my presentation and felt I answered their questions adequately, then I passed. But if something went wrong, I failed and the past three and half years of hard work to earn my creative writing degree were meaningless.

Dr. Truman ran one of his large, pink hands through his thin thatch of straw hair as he replied. “I mean, the point of view in your pieces. You’re on the outside, always watching everybody, never judging. You’re an observer.”

“Oh, well, yes, I guess so.” I searched for an response, one that would make me sound smart and literary and creative. Then an idea came to me. “But isn’t that our duty as writers—to observe the world around us?”

Fortunately, Dr. Smith came to my defense. “I think, Dr. Truman, if I could just interrupt briefly, that this project is unique because not only does it tell a story but it also attempts to bring critical theory into everyday life through examining life experiences with feminism and queer theory.”

With a new surge of confidence, I continued: “Thank you, Dr. Smith. Exactly! And as critical theorists, it’s also our duty to observe the world as well and point out trends and inequality where we see them.”

Dr. Smith smiled at me. I smiled back.

Dr. Truman nodded and stroked his double chin. “Yes, I think I see that.”

I held back a sigh of relief.

* * *

How does one write creative nonfiction when nothing seems to happen to one? In many of my stories, I find the events of my life building toward a sort of crescendo that never resolves. I almost get into a crazy romance or almost win the lottery, but then these dramatic scenarios never pan out or live up to their tumultuous potential. I’ve traveled, but throughout my journeys to China or England or Germany I’m usually so jet-lagged and so hell-bent on squeezing the most out of the few precious moments I have there that I’m in too much of a sleepy daze to write about my experiences. I also don’t find traveling to be greatly revelatory. I learn things about other cultures or places while I travel, but I rarely learn much about myself.

I’m also not funny, which is almost a prerequisite for being a successful creative nonfiction writer. Either you have to have overcome an addiction or some sort of abusive relationship or you have to be funny. If you have all three and a good agent, you can write a bestseller. Overcoming mental illness is good too, but like most of my experiences, my depression and anxiety have never made for a three part story arc. Instead of being like the lover you meet unexpectedly, spend years with, and finally leave and make peace with, my experiences with mental illness have been more like a day-to-day slog. They’re the lazy roommates that showed up one day and have never left, and I try to work around them as best I can. I expect this is most people’s experience with mental illness, but it doesn’t exactly make for a thrilling memoir, or else we’d all be on the bestseller lists.

What I do have, however, are dramatic, funny friends. And as a creative nonfiction writer, this is the next best thing to being dramatic and funny myself. My friends get into the crazy relationships, triumph against some horrible disease, or make amusing quips, and I go along for the ride. If I’m there when it happens, I figure it’s just as much my story. Right? So I change some names, make up a few details, invent some dialogue, and omit certain identifying particulars, and I have a meaningful, amusing story that I think people will find worth reading. I may only be a supporting character, but I still get to narrate from my own point of view.

It’s also much easier to bring order to someone else’s life than my own. In other people, I don’t see the self doubts, the neuroticism, or the apprehensions. I just see the final product, the front that we all put on to impress the rest of the world. I know it’s a front, but that doesn’t mean I’m not as duped by it as everyone else. I look at people on the bus and think that just because they’re wearing a suit or Gucci pumps they must have life all figured out. Most likely they’re looking at me and, despite my jeans and t-shirt, thinking the same thing. When other people relay their lives to me, I can pick out patterns or romanticize them. In my own life things just seem to happen at the whims of chaos, and I never quite know what I’m getting into until it’s already over. It’s easier to package other people’s lives into neat, tidy stories with a theme and a meaningful ending. My own life never seems to make sense.

Click here for Part 2.

Women Warriors Alone: Kill Bill vol. 1, Lady Gaga, Hyper-Irony, and Feminism

The desert air hangs heavy and hot over the highway asphalt. An enormous, bright yellow truck roars toward the horizon. In the blur of its speed, its only identification comes from two words, painted in pink, on the back of the truck: “Pussy Wagon.”

This description could easily fit either Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill film or Lady Gaga’s music video for the song “Telephone,” which references the film. Put the two together and you have a delightful mess of hyper-irony, a meta-pop culture. Gaga is referencing Tarantino, and Tarantino references, well, a little bit of everything.

In a way, when I watched Kill Bill, I felt as though I was seeing it backwards, and not just because the plot is non-linear. My first introduction to the movie had come through watching the “Telephone” music video, in which Lady Gaga and Beyoncé escape prison, a(n) (presumably) abusive lover, a murder scene in which they are the perpetrators, and the police, all from the cab of a yellow truck with “Pussy Wagon” painted on the back. The critical readings of the “Telephone” video were all quick to point out that the video was referencing Kill Bill, not only with its Pussy Wagon but also with its jumpy narrative about vengeful, powerful women.

So, when I finally watched Kill Bill, I knew, obviously, that the movie had come first. Still, in the chronology of my own life, “Telephone” had come first, so while watching Kill Bill, I’d see something—a yellow truck, subtitles, unusual camera angles—and think, “That’s just like in ‘Telephone’!” Such is the state of our popular culture, which builds reference upon reference to itself. I’d seen the reference before I’d seen the original. Then again, if Walter Benjamin and the postmodern critics are to be believed, we now live in a culture in which the original is so easily copied that it no longer has any meaning, and we are constantly surrounded by references that do not really refer back to an original. Gaga referenced Tarantino, who references classic cinema, comic books, and anime, among a whole host of other media, within Kill Bill. These forms of media regularly reference novels, myths, and plays. To trace their origins back might be interesting but isn’t the purpose of this post.

Having viewed Kill Bill backwards from the lens of “Telephone,” however, I wonder if the music video served, in some way, as a rewrite of the movie. While I can certainly find feminist undertones in Kill Bill—a strong, independent female protagonist who is not overly sexualized; an emphasis on the sexualized nature of the violence women are, regrettably, all too often subjected to; a cast of female characters who exert their own agency and skills to obtain power instead of relying on men or their sexual allure—I don’t feel confident declaring it a feminist film. (Though I think it does pass the Bechdel test.)

I found several aspects of Kill Bill problematic, but my greatest source of discomfort with the movie came from its presentation of women as natural enemies and especially how the conflict between the female characters was racialized. I also want to point out that I’ve only seen volume one of the series so far, and I realize that many of my current problems with the film may be addressed in subsequent volumes. My biggest problem with volume one was that the female characters, while all strong and independent, were set against each other as adversaries. Within the movie itself this isn’t a problem, but the movie exists within the entire cannon of popular culture (and, in fact, frequently makes clear through its references that it exists within popular culture), and within much of that popular culture exists a stereotype that women are naturally catty and suspicious of each other. The movie does nothing to challenge this stereotype.

The struggles between the women are also racialized, as Uma Thurman’s character’s two adversaries are African-American and Asian. Well, I didn’t find the conflict between Thurman’s character and Copperhead too problematic. While race is present in the scene in which they dual, it isn’t a central part of their conflict, and I found their recognition of their shared identity as mothers interesting. However, in Thurman’s character’s dual with O-Ren Ishii, ethnicity is centralized. O-Ren Ishii mocks Thurman’s character as a white girl with a samurai sword, only to be bested by her in the end. The dual perpetuates the tired trope, found in films like Dances with Wolves and Avatar, of white people taking on an exotic, foreign culture and mastering it better than its own natives. Again, within the context of the film itself, this might not be problematic, but the film exists within the wider scope of popular culture and it does little to challenge the racial/ethnic stereotypes of that popular culture.

I found the animosity between the women almost surprising, in a way, because I could have easily seen them all coming to realize that they’d been manipulated by the mysterious Bill and joining together to take him down. In fact, I almost expected Thurman’s character and Copperhead to team up, bonded together by their motherhood. The film easily could have presented a sisterhood of women fighting together against their shared manipulation. Instead, they fight each other. The Pussy Wagon could have lived up to its reclaimed title as a vehicle full of women out to take back what’s theirs.

In the “Telephone” music video, however, the Pussy Wagon lives up to its reclaimed name. Of course, the “Telephone” video doesn’t just reference Kill Bill. It also pays homage to Thelma and Louise, a film I confess I have not seen. (I know, I know! For someone who loves analyzing pop culture, I’m so far behind!) However, I have seen the classic scene where Thelma and Louise drive their truck off the edge of the cliff, and though I hadn’t seen the entire film, at the end of the “Telephone” video, when Gaga and Beyoncé drive the Pussy Wagon off the cliff, I knew enough to think of Thelma and Louise.

By referencing both Kill Bill and Thelma and Louise, the “Telephone” video blends the independence of both movies’ heroines, the cinematography of Tarantino, and the sisterhood of Thelma and Louise. It presents Gaga and Beyoncé as partners in crime who help each other achieve their goal of revenge against the men who’ve hurt them and then help each other escape. It also presents Gaga and Beyoncé as equals, irregardless of their races. It is, in a sense, what Kill Bill might have been.

I’m not trying to say that Kill Bill isn’t a good movie. I loved finally seeing Tarantino’s renowned cinematography for myself and I very much want more. As an action film, it was excellent. Its protagonist was also a refreshing break from the usual role of women in action films, in which they are usually toys or temptations for the male characters. However, the film exists within the larger field of popular culture, a field to which it itself makes frequent references. The film places itself within pop culture as a whole, and so I, as a view, must do the same. While I found its heroine to be strong, independent and compelling, it did little to challenge stereotypes about women’s relationships with each other and racial tropes about white people being better at non-Western cultures than the non-Westerners. However, the beauty of a referential pop culture is that it invites rewrites and critiques from other forms of pop culture. By combining the strength of Kill Bill with the sisterhood of Thelma and Louise, the “Telephone” music video provides such a corrective while tipping its cap to Tarantino’s signature style.

 

With the Slightest Little Effort of His Ghost-Like Charms: Identity and the Appeal of Jack Skellington and The Nightmare before Christmas

The Florida sun shone off the pale yellow and pink pastels of the hotel walls. Samantha, Joe, [not their real names] and I sat on the curb while leaning against our luggage and instrument cases. Despite the brilliant, white sunshine and the heavy humidity, we were all dressed head to toe in black. The last hold-outs of the Goth craze of the early 2000s, we each sported thick, black eyeliner, black t-shirts, black jeans, and black boots. Samantha was also wearing a lacey, black tutu over her pants, which must have been warm but looked fetching on her petite frame.

Joe yawned. “When is the bus supposed to get here?”

I glanced at my watch. “About fifteen minutes ago.” We were on our way back to that conformist institution called high school from a marching band trip to Disney World. There we were misfits and band geeks, weird in our penchant for black nail polish and obscure music. But here on the curb, even in the brightness of the Florida sun, we fit in with each other, a black murder of crows amongst gaggles of white swans.

Samantha yawned too and pulled a pillow out of her backpack. It was white and round and covered in fleece, thick black yarn stitches slashed through the middle and two large black, familiar eyes stared up at us.

“Oooo! That’s awesome!” I squealed with delight.

“Jack! Jack! Give me Jack!” Joe shouted as soon as he saw the pillow. He snatched it from Samantha and hugged the plush face of Jack Skellington, Tim Burton’s anti-hero of The Nightmare before Christmas, that icon of angsty, Goth high schoolers and Hot Topic posers.

“Give it back!” Samantha whined. She reached for the pillow and then playfully slapped Joe when he held it out of her reach.

“Hey!” he barked and then grudgingly returned the cushion.

“My Jack!” Samantha said, holding it against her chest, over her heart.

* * *

What is it about Jack Skellington, about Nightmare before Christmas, that so appeals to teenagers, especially those who take to wearing black and listening to heavy metal or alternative rock music alone in their rooms? It’s been almost twenty years since the movie came out, and yet I still see that cartoon skeleton face nearly everywhere—usually in malls and usually around Halloween and Christmas. Many children’s movies have not been nearly as resilient and many of them certainly haven’t appealed so heavily to the teen market. Even more haven’t stuck with me personally, but Nightmare before Christmas has. Even in my twenties, I have a Jack Skellington poster in my apartment. I own a Jack Skellington tote bag. I even decorate my Christmas tree with Nightmare decorations and two of my favorite t-shirts feature screen-prints of Jack and Sally. What about this quirky movie keeps it coming back every Christmas? Why are teenagers, some probably born after the movie came out, still drawn to Jack’s eerie smile? And why can’t I, even after I’ve long left Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny behind, give up on Jack Skellington?

For those of you who missed out on Tim Burton’s dark fairy tale, I’ll give you a summary: The premise of The Nightmare before Christmas is that each major holiday—Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving—is created in a magical town. Halloween, naturally, is created in Halloween Town, a village made up of twisted castles and crumbing walls and inhabited by vampires, an evil scientist, werewolves, and a whole host of other ghouls and goblins. Despite their macabre appearance, the inhabitants of Halloween Town are friendly, helpful folk. They just have an aesthetic that inverts our own. Skulls and rotting hands are beautiful while snowflakes and Christmas trees are ugly. While Halloween Town is officially run by a mayor, the real boss in town is the local celebrity, Jack Skellington the Pumpkin King, the scariest monster in the world. Jack, seemingly, has it all—a castle home, good friends, and adoring fans. But he’s bored. He feels stuck in a rut, doing the same thing year after year. So one night, after the town’s usual Halloween festivities, he takes a walk through an enchanted forest and finds the magic doors to the other holiday towns. He stumbles into Christmas Town, inhabited by efficient and ever-smiling elves and, of course, Santa Claus, and is amazed. He decides to bring the joy of Christmas to Halloween Town, but the fiends and phantoms just can’t wrap their heads around the concept of Christmas. So Jack modifies the holiday into a morbid parody of Yuletide. The well-meaning but misguided residents of Halloween Town decide to bring their version of Christmas to the world, so they kidnap Santa Claus and Jack takes off in a coffin-shaped sleigh pulled by eight skeleton reindeer to deliver presents of dead rats and giant snakes (all wrapped in black paper and topped with festive black bows) to terrified little girls and boys. The National Guard eventually shoots down Jack’s sleigh, and he realizes that he’s made a terrible mistake. He isn’t meant to be Santa Claus—he’s the Pumpkin King, destined to give people a good scare on Halloween! He rushes back to Halloween Town and sets Santa Claus free. Christmas is restored to its usual cheeriness, and Jack has a renewed sense of who he’s meant to be and what his purpose is. He goes back to his patch of jack-o’-lanterns and his town full of ghosts, knowing that that is where he belongs.

To really understand the appeal of this movie to a certain subset of people, especially teenaged people, I think it’s worth comparing Halloween and Christmas in our culture. Halloween is a dark holiday, a holiday to playfully face our fears and find out that they maybe aren’t that scary. It’s also a holiday to explore our identities. We try on new clothes, new costumes, and new personas. It’s a time when it’s socially acceptable for “good girls” to look promiscuous, normally polite and well-mannered children can indulge their love of sweets, and teenagers and college students can pull pranks across the neighborhood. Halloween is about celebrating the Others of our culture, whether those others are the scary misfits, creepy monsters, or our own secret fears and identities. Christmas, conversely, is a holiday that invokes and virtues of generosity and good will. It’s about spending time with family, eating good food, giving and receiving presents, and basking in the warmth of companionship in the depths of winter. It’s a holiday upon which we’re supposed to be jolly. If Halloween is about facing the parts of ourselves we usually keep hidden, Christmas is about putting on a front of our happiest, most idealized selves.

But what if your idealized self isn’t what your family or your culture tell you you’re supposed to idealize? Or what if you just can’t stand pretending to be cheerful when you really feel anxious and sad? Or what if you just want to be honest about those dark, hidden parts of yourself that you’re told you’re supposed to keep secret? As a teenager, I felt like that, and I know I’m not the only one. In high school, I watched the popular girls cake on the newest eye shadows and mascaras featured in Vogue.  I overheard them talk about the latest diets and weight loss regimes mentioned in Cosmo. I saw them sashay into class wearing designer jeans sported by major actresses. And they were smiling, always smiling! They told the teachers what they wanted to hear and they told their boyfriends what they wanted to hear. To me, it all seemed so fake, like they were wearing a mask, a costume.

With my black clothes and eyeliner, I was wearing a costume too, but at least I felt that my costume was of my own making. I wore it to please myself and no one else. I was, in my own eyes, a rebel. Instead of designer clothes, I wore thrifted outfits. Instead of memorizing the lyrics to the latest pop songs, I memorized the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe. My friends and I flaunted our difference. We felt sad inside, so we wore our sadness outside. We felt like the world of popular, pretty people had rejected us, so we rejected the world of the popular, pretty people. What they thought was ugly was beautiful to us, and we found beauty in the dark, secret places that everyone told us were ugly.

Of course, a great deal of this rebellion was, at least on my part, based in jealousy. I’d be willing to bet that a lot of other teenagers also harbor a similar resentment to the popular people, the pretty people, the people-pleasing people. For whatever reason, they seemed to have what we didn’t, whether it was in conventionally attractive looks, better social skills, or just the stamina to repress what they were really thinking and mold themselves into whatever they needed to be in a given situation. Other people liked them. Looking back now, I realize that these popular kids probably felt as sad and lost as I did. They were just better at throwing up a front of confidence. They faked it till they made it. I, for a variety of reasons—depression, anxiety, and probably just plain stubbornness—couldn’t do that. So I proudly wore my difference in fishnets and Converse while a tiny part of me wished that I could be pretty and popular. Like Jack Skellington, I fit well in ghastly, gruesome settings, but sometimes I grew weary of being a misfit, an outsider, a monster.

As I mentioned, I’m sure I wasn’t the only teenager to feel this way. High school is indeed a strange period in life. You have a child’s impulsiveness but you’re morphing into an adult’s body. You’re being given adult responsibilities—driving, getting your first job, considering college or trade school or the military—but you still live with your parents and are expected to obey their rules. You’re starting to form your own opinions about important topics like politics and religion but you still giggle when somebody accidentally farts or burps in class. You’re told that these are the best years of your life, but you spend a lot of time feeling stressed out about classes and directionless when you think of your future. If I may over-simplify: in a sense, high school is full of a bunch of people who haven’t quite figured out yet who they are. So some of them learn to pretend that they’ve figured it all out, while others learn to revel in their awkwardness. The pretenders are like Christmas. They seem cheerful and virtuous and get their validation from pleasing the people around them and fitting in. The revelers are like Halloween. They try on a bunch of different personas, usually personas that invert cultural norms and values. They get their validation from shocking people, from defining themselves as outsiders.

And this brings me back to the appeal of The Nightmare before Christmas and its protagonist, Jack Skellington. Jack, like so many teenagers, including my friends and me, is a monster, an outsider, a misfit. He’s a celebrity on Halloween and in Halloween Town, but to the rest of the world, and certainly in a cheery place like Christmas Town, he’s a creepy skeleton, a symbol of death and darkness. Also like my friends and I, and many other teenagers, Jack enjoys his difference. It makes him special. And while it might scare normal people, his difference is what makes his friends adore him. But difference can still be lonely and tiring, and like Jack, sometimes a lot of us outsiders just want to be normal and happy, like everyone else. So Jack does, for a little while, become like everyone else. In a place where Halloween is normal, Christmas becomes like Halloween—a chance for Jack to try out other, hidden parts of his identity. Instead of being macabre, he gets to be jolly. But instead of transforming Jack from a beast to a prince, as so many fairy tales do, The Nightmare before Christmas affirms Jack’s difference. It makes him realize that he is a monster and that being a monster is, for him, a good thing. Watching Jack’s transformation into Santa Claus and then back into the Pumpkin King allowed me, and I suspect still allows a lot of teenagers, to feel affirmed in our own weirdness. We might want to be like the always happy elves or always happy popular people, but we, like Jack, knew that that wasn’t who we really were.

Of course, we’re all different from everyone else in some way, but high school is a time when many people feel pressured to put on a front of happiness and conformity. And a lot of people, like my teenage self, feel uncomfortable with that front. While we’re often told that we’re just going through a phase or we’ll grow out of our discomfort, some of us build out identities on our rebellion, our difference. We don’t want to give it up. We don’t want to be told that we’ll blossom into princes or princesses, even though we might be frogs now. The Nightmare before Christmas is a fairy tale that says otherwise. It tells us that even if we try to be what everyone else wants and expects, that’s not who we are and we probably won’t succeed in our façade. Like Jack, we’re outsiders and monsters. But also like Jack, we can enjoy our difference. We can use it to find a sense of purpose and meaningfulness. We might be monsters, but that’s okay.

* * *

In many ways, I’ve come a long way from that girl draped in black and sitting on a curb in Florida. Eventually in college I learned how to put on an act of confidence, and I’ve played that part long enough now that most of the time I can convince myself it’s not just a role. I’ve figured out how to balance my black humor and sarcasm, which make me happy, with a smiling disposition and cheerful demeanor, which make other people happy and usually make me happy too. I’ve mostly moved past my anxiety and depression and stubbornness, though they still haunt me from time to time. Though most of my wardrobe still consists of black clothes, I’ve also branched out into blue and red and green and even orange and purple. I’ve cut back on the eyeliner considerably, and I only bring out the fishnets and boots on special occasions (like Halloween!). A lot of people would tell me that I’ve grown up.

In other ways, however, I’m still not so different from that high school girl I used to be. As a newly minted graduate in a poor economy, I often look at my up-and-coming friends and feel plagued with self-doubt. In their photos on Facebook, they’re all smiling, and their status updates chronicle their successes in jobs and relationships. Of course, I rejoice at their victories in finding jobs and starting careers when the economic climate is so set against them. In one sense, their success gives me hope. But another part of me, unemployed and single, feels as though I’m stuck in a rut in my hometown. My twenties, I’m finding, are still an awful lot like my teenage years, especially in regards to being faced with new adult responsibilities while still feeling childish. I’m finding that a direction and a purpose in life do not come along with a diploma and a degree.

So, much like my teenage self, I still squeal with delight when I see the softball-like face of Jack Skellington grinning at me from the window of The Disney Store or Hot Topic. He reminds me that feeling like an outsider doesn’t have to be lonely or isolating. I can enjoy my monstrosity and play with my identity. Every day can be Halloween, in which I try on different personas, different aspects of myself, until I find one that I like and that fits. In fact, being different can lead me to a renewed sense of purpose of help me find my own meaning in life. I may not know what that is yet, but like Jack, after comparing myself to the conventionally attractive and happy people, I might just decide that it’s better to be a monster after all.