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.

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.

For Whose Entertainment?: Images of BDSM in Pop Music, Part 1

(TRIGGER WARNING: The following series will contain discussions of the bondage/discipline/domination/submission/sadism/masochism (BDSM) subculture and sex positive feminism. While the series contains no descriptions of graphic or violent sex, if any of these topics might disturb you, please refrain from reading it.)

Introduction

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me!

            — Rhianna “S&M”

 “Do you know what you got into?/Can you handle what I’m ‘bout to do?/’Cause it’s about to get rough in you./I’m here for YOUR entertainment.”

            –Adam Lambert, “For Your Entertainment” (emphasis added)

Images of the bondage/discipline/domination/submission/sadism/masochism (BDSM) subculture have existed on the periphery of popular culture, much to the consternation of both the conservative and the BDSM community, for quite some time. Wearing leather, cuffs, collars, and corsets has become almost commonplace in images of popular culture and fashion, so much so that many who wear them might not even be aware of their significance to BDSM. As a teenager, when I bought my first leather armbands, I had no idea that they were related to BDSM culture.

Not until I was in college did I learn the significance of those armbands and other accessories I’d acquired in my infatuation with the goth subculture (corsets, leather collars, etc.). My interest in sex-positive feminism had lead me to an interest in the BDSM subculture, which I learned was actually, in some ways, more affirming of sexuality and more promoting of consent than traditional, straight-laced, “vanilla” culture. The problem is, for both conservatives and the BDSM community, that images of BDSM that get presented in popular culture do not adequately reflect all of the shades and flavors of BDSM. Conservatives would probably prefer that sex were not presented in popular culture at all, but because sex sells, I will turn to the BDSM community’s concerns when their subculture is portrayed by the mass media.

BDSM is not a subculture that can be easily grapsed. Those who are introduced to its ideas are often shocked or revolted at what is presented because it seems to stand in such stark opposition to how we are taught to think about sex and love. Somebody whips you and burns you with hot wax and you enjoy it? You willingly undergo sensory deprivation because you like it? You choose to be humiliated? The idea, initially, is inconcievable. So I will being by explaining what BDSM is and what it is not. BDSM is a complex and diverse subculture, so this post will be meant to give an overview and not a complete and detailed account of BDSM.

BDSM and Vanilla: Not So Different Underneath the Leather

Firstly, BDSM, at its core, is based on ideas that govern all relationships, sexual or otherwise, and its values are, essentially, not too different from those of progressive liberals who wish we could be more open and honest in discussions about sex and consent. Forget the stereotypes of whips and crops for a moment and think purely about healthy human relationships of any sort, be they BDSM or vanilla.

In all relationships, one person is generally “in charge” while the other person is content to let that person lead. Even in relationships that claim to be equal, a closer examination of the dynamics almost always reveals that one partner is usually the one to make the final decisions. There is nothing wrong with this. This does not mean that one partner makes the decisions in an authoritarian manner that leaves out the feelings of the other partner. This does not mean that one partner is coerced, manipulated, or forced to do anything. It simply means that, in any relationship, decisions affecting both partners will need to be made. This decision will most likely be discussed between both partners, both of their needs and wishes will be taken into account, but ultimately, the final decision usually lies with one partner.

Sometimes the final decision for one issue will be decided by one partner, and the final decision for another issue will be decided by the other partner. Each individual relationship has its own rules about who makes what decisions and how decisions are made. But in each relationship, someone is going to have more power than someone else. There is nothing wrong with this. It does not mean that all relationships are based on an abuse of power. I am simply observing that in relationships, there is a (sometimes sliding) distribution of power. (Also, I am not speaking of relationships in which one partner uses this power to verbally, physically, mentally, or sexually abuse the other partner. I am speaking of relationships in which the power between partners is managed in a healthy way that attempts to benefit both partners.) Often, these power imbalances accomidate the personalities and decision-making preferences of the partners involved and are beneficial to the functioning of the relationship.

While most relationships have this imbalance of power, in “vanilla”—the BDSM term for traditional romantic relationships and sexual practices devoid of BDSM play—partnerships, this imbalance of power is rarely discussed, both in and out of the bedroom. Couples tend to feel their way through the relationship blindly, and while they may have some unconscious sense of who is in control and who is not at any point in time, they rarely have direct discussions about them. They may fall into these roles out of habit or attempt to act them out based on social expectations.

In BDSM relationships, be they merely for the duration of a scene or long-term, discussions of control are extermely important. People in the BDSM community often identify themselves based on their role as a submissive (also called “bottom”), dominant (also called “top”), or switch (someone who switches between the role of a bottom and top). Other varities of these roles exist, but they often refer to specific kinds of play. A bottom might indentify as just a bottom, or he might also describe the role as that of a “slave,” someone who wants his top to keep a tight control over many aspects of his life both in and out of the bedroom. A bottom might also describe herself as a daddy’s little girl (DLG), meaning that she is looking for play with an older man who will treat her like a child in some respects. (Please keep in mind that all of this play is enacted by of-age, consenting, fully informed adults.) In the BDSM community, someone’s identification tells their potential partners what role they will take in sex play.

However, what playing out this role entails is different for every individual, and before play takes place, partners will have to discuss exactly what scene will be played out. Does the bottom want the top’s control in every aspect of his or her life, or just during play? What are their hard limits (acts that they will not perform under any circumstances)? How will limits be communicated? All of these things must be taken into account and discussed explicitly and in detail before any play takes place.

This brings me to the topic of consent in the vanilla and BDSM communities. In both, consent to sex and/or play is the ideal. However, in the vanilla community, because explicit discussions of what sex acts will be performed and who will take what role rarely take place, consent may not always be communicated effectively. Both men and women may engage in sex acts that they do not particularly want but feel that their partner expects. Partners may assume that because an act has been consented to in the past, it will always be consented to. Often, in the vanilla community, the lack of a clear “No” is interpreted as a “Yes,” even when that is not the case. This is a problem that sex positive feminism wishes to address. Ideally, when a sex act would be performed, both partners would enthusiastically consent or the act would not take place. Enthusiastic consent would need to be given at every stage of foreplay and sex, and consent on one occasion would not translate to consent in all occasions.

I do not think that this lack of sex positivity in vanilla relationships means that there is something wrong with vanilla relationships. I think that problem is that in our mainstream society, we are not taught how to have these discussions about sex, consent, and control, and so it might be difficult for partners to negotiate these boundaries together. They may have trouble talking about what they were taught was a taboo subject or they might lack the vocabulary in which to discuss their relationship. They may feel vulnerable or embarrassed. They may think that they are intuitively supposed to know what their partner wants and being told takes away from the romantic mood of the moment. All of these problems, however, can lead to poor communication about sex, which can lead to partners engaging in sex acts that they do not want.

Many sex positive feminists, who are working to promote open, honest discussions about sex and sexual relationships in our society, have turned to the BDSM community for ideas about how to talk about consent. Consent, in the BDSM community, is discussed in depth before the sex play even begins. Even after the scene has started, the top needs consent from the bottom to move on to new stages of play. Consent is and can never be assumed, and consent on one occasion does not mean consent for every future occasion. Limits are to be respected. Despite the shocking nature of much BDSM sex play, despite the difficulty for someone in the vanilla community to understand why a partner would want to be controlled, the knee-jerk reaction against BDSM can be softened when it is explained that everything going on is completely consensual. Consent in the bedrock of BDSM play and nothing happens without it. (I realize that no community is perfect and that violations do occur within the BDSM community, just like they do in the vanilla community. However, I believe that, in both communities, consent is the ideal. My argument is that in the BDSM community, partners are ideally expected to have discussions about power and limits in the relationship. In the vanilla community, these topics are often not discussed explicitly.)

Explaining these nuances of BDSM culture, however, is time-consuming and difficult. Most people don’t understand it, and so it exists on the periphery of our culture. It is something most people have a vague notion of, and they vaguely think of it as wrong, and that is all. So, when BDSM shows up in popular culture, the accessories, toys, props, and acts are shown, while the ideas underlying BDSM play—thorough discussion of control, limits, and consent—are ignored. For this reason, BDSM is more often than not misrepresented in popular culture. It can be used to show acts of violence enacted upon unconsenting women. It can be used as a tool for shock value. Most often, it is a backdrop over which pop can appear “edgy.”

These misrepresentations can lead to problems when partners see the images of violence, without the discussions of consent and limits, and believe that this type of relationship is what they should want, even if they personally don’t want it. When people expect sex or play to hurt or believe that it should inherently be violent, then there is a problem. When BDSM is represented in pop, it presents the violence but leaves out the discussions of power and consent, and the discussions of power and consent are what is most important to BDSM play. Sex can hurt, but only if the bottom wants it to. Sex can be violent, but only when fully informed, consenting adults have agreed upon what that will involve and what the limits are. Unfortunately, the viewers of BDSM-as-filtered-through-pop are unaware of these discussions, and so these viewers, particularly teenagers, can come away with ideas about relationships and sex that are based purely on control without limits and violence without consent.

Part 2 looks at common representations of BDSM in pop music videos.