Poststructuralist critique has been used to analyze various forms of art, including literature, film, and visual arts, to explore the ways in which they challenge and disrupt traditional notions of gender, sexuality, and identity. This approach often focuses on the concept of "queerness," which is defined as an attitude towards life that challenges normative assumptions about heterosexuality and cisgender identity. Queer art is thus characterized by its playfulness, ambiguity, and resistance to fixed categories and definitions. Poststructuralist critiques provide insights into how this type of art subverts dominant discourses, introduces uncertainty and ambivalence into established meanings, and celebrates multiplicity and diversity.
One of the central ideas of poststructuralist critique is that language and meaning are always constructed rather than inherent or fixed. In other words, meaning arises from context, historical contingency, and power relations rather than some essential truth or objective reality. This view applies to the study of queer art, which often uses unconventional representations of bodies, genders, and relationships to question and destabilize prevailing ideologies.
Drag performance artist RuPaul famously said, "You're born naked and the rest is drag." This statement highlights the idea that gender identities are socially constructed and can be fluid and mutable rather than innate or permanent.
Another important aspect of poststructuralist critique is its emphasis on intertextuality, or the relationship between texts and their cultural contexts. Queer art frequently references and appropriates existing cultural symbols and tropes, such as religious imagery or fairy tales, in order to challenge and reframe them.
Artists like Fiona Apple have used biblical imagery to explore issues of sexual desire and female autonomy. Similarly, filmmaker Todd Haynes has incorporated elements of classic cinema into his gay-themed films like Carol and Far From Heaven, which play with nostalgia and melodrama to subvert traditional narratives about heterosexual romance.
Poststructuralist critique also pays attention to how power operates through language and discourse. Queer art may use ambiguous and ambivalent forms of representation to challenge dominant modes of power and control.
Some performances by drag kings and transgender performers feature genderfucking, a deliberately confusing mix of masculine and feminine characteristics that challenges the binary division of gender. Similarly, some queer literature depicts characters who defy easy categorization, such as the protagonists of Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit or Sarah Waters' Affinity, who refuse to conform to conventional norms of masculinity and femininity.
Poststructuralist critique recognizes the importance of multiplicity and plurality in artistic expression. This view celebrates diversity and difference, rather than seeking to impose uniformity and standardization. In the world of queer art, this means acknowledging the wide range of identities and experiences that exist within the LGBTQ+ community. It also means recognizing the varied ways in which people negotiate their relationships, desires, and identities. As writer and critic Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick wrote, "We are all, each of us, a mass of contradictory desires."
Poststructuralist critiques provide valuable insights into the way queer art subverts, confuses, and disrupts dominant ideas about sex, sexuality, and identity. By playing with language, appropriating cultural symbols, and embracing ambiguity and multiplicity, it pushes back against traditional notions of normalcy and normality, offering new possibilities for self-expression and liberation.
What insights do poststructuralist critiques provide in understanding subversion, ambiguity, and multiplicity in queer art?
In the context of poststructuralism, queer art has been defined as art that challenges binary gender roles and normative sexual orientations (Boddewyn 2014). This form of art is often characterized by its refusal to conform to traditional notions of masculinity and femininity, which are seen as oppressive and limiting.