Queer Theory

Queer theory came to life during the early 1990s during the time when Male Gaze was being studied more to understand more about it. Thus emerged the theorists of Queer theory. Some of whom are Lauren Berlant, Judith Butler, Gloria Anazaldua, David Halperin, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Also you could class Laura Mulvey a theorist of Queer theory because without the in depth studying of the Male Gaze theory, Queer theory would’ve been unheard of. So in some respects, you could call all of these people the founders of Queer theory.

“Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant, the mainstream. There is nothing in particular to which is necessarily refers. It is an identity without an essence” (David Halperin). I find this quote to perfectly sum up Queer theory as it focuses on what the word “queer” actually means. Me being a 17 year old teen, I have heard the word “queer” being used to refer to the word “gay”. As I have researched into this theory, actually found out that queer is just another word for strange. At first, when I was told I was going to be learning about Queer Theory I actually thought “So we are learning about gays?” only because of the way I heard queer being used. But as I started learning about it I found out that Queer theory isn’t all about gay, it isn’t saying this is gay and this isn’t. What Queer theory does is that it questions gender. It does this by using the audience perception of something, questioning their opinions. Say, within a music video, you see some guy followed by lots of girls adoring him yet he is wearing a girls dress. This brings up the question “How do we know what is or isn’t gay?”. This is because when you see a human wearing a dress you immediately assume that they are a female, so the audience would be thinking that the character is in fact a female. But then upon closer inspection the audience would notice that the character is in fact a male. This relates to the question because the audience would be thinking “he must be a drag because he is wearing a dress, which then makes him gay... But then there are girls following him and he is enjoying that, so is he straight?”. Now it is difficult to answer this question because 10 years ago, a guy wouldn’t be caught dead wearing pink, but know it is more socially acceptable and seen as trendy to wear pink. I’m using this as an example because it shows something that bended gender becoming accepted, and it sort of answers this question. The reason why I have chosen this example is because a decade ago wearing pink was a very feminine thing to do, but over the recent years it has become more and more popular within the male culture to do this.

With our music video we were thinking about how to apply Queer theory into our music video, but we struggled to think of a way to because of our music genre we have chosen. We are doing an indie-rock song, and through research into music videos of band of a similar nature we came upon the fact that they just show the males in a ‘hedonistic life-style’ way. That is if there is any narrative. Even when there is performance though, the band will be wearing clothing that represents the social group of which stereotypically would have a hedonistic life-style.

By Lewis Finney