Is queer visibility always desirable? What are the politics and conditions of visibility? Who gets to produce the representations and who gets to consume them?
Two queer scholars engaged such questions as part of an April 18 queer media symposium at Northwestern University, 1800 Sherman, Evanston, organized by graduate students Margo Miller and Hollis Griffith, and sponsored by the Center for Screen Cultures and the Department of Radio, TV and Film.
Kara Keeling, assistant professor at the University of Southern California, presented 'Queer Times/Black Futures,' about queer histories and futures in cinema. She compared Isaac Julien's 1988 film Looking for Langston, about Langston Hughes, to the 2005 documentary The Aggressives, directed by Daniel Peddle. The latter follows six young masculine-identified women in New York. These include Marquise, who joins the Army but disappears just before the Iraq invasion.
According to Keeling, Langston simultaneously 'renders the Harlem Renaissance legible' and locates Black gay desire in a project of recovering queer moments that have been 'hidden from history.' The Aggressives, however, organizes time idiosyncratically and, except for the war, it is usually difficult to establish when things happen. Marquise's disappearance might prompt audiences to ask 'Where is she?' However, Keeling asked about the ethical implications of looking for someone marked by a 'refusal to remain bound by the visual economy' of the film and of the surveillance of the army: 'the benefits of visibility are unevenly distributed.' Keeling suggested that rather than ask where Marquise had gone, we ought to ask, 'When is she?' By this, Keeling was referring to the need to consider how young, trans-identified and disenfranchised African Americans try to resist the surveillance of institutions like the army, seen as their only escape, by leaving the literal and cinematic timeline of the film. In that sense, for some, 'a queer Black future looks like no future at all.'
Kelly Kessler, an assistant professor at Rutgers University, presented 'Gabbin', Glammin', and Growin': The Evolution of The L-Word's Online Community.' Kessler is both a fan and theorist of the show, and a member of Second Life, an interactive site that allows participants to live in a computer-generated virtual simulation of The L-Word. Much of her talk was based on a live interactive demonstration of her participation in the fan group. According to Kessler, Second Life, created by the show's producers only gives the illusion of democracy and diversity. According to Kessler, avatars ( online personae ) require people to subscribe to gender roles. In addition, participation requires considerable technological dexterity and is defined by access to funds—adding accessories, even basics like hairstyles and clothing, requires participants to pay extra. Women are reduced to feminizing stereotypes like full makeup and long hair; the default persona is young and highly sexualized. All this means that Second Life only 'reinforces the cultural, economic, and ideological hierarchies of the show.'