Utopia? Fuck that. or (how queerness and the quest for meaning are futile, but thats ok.

Queerness, or at least my understanding of the word, means to be other. Queerness means

to exist in a world where you are deemed less than. Where you are inherently broken. Where you

did not make the proverbial cut to make it into a world of opportunity and pleasure. My grasp on

queerness so far has come through lived experience, as I am guiltily charged as being a dirty

rotten queer. My understanding of both the word and the societal meanings that it carries has

flourished during my time digging through various theorists, authors, filmmakers, artists,

attempted murderers, ect. While I am learning and engaged in these works, I feel that examing

Queer Theory comes loaded with questions in regards to its value and worth. What is the point,

of the word and its implications, if my learning of it secondhand? Isn't queerness something you

figure out on your own? Have I really figured anything out on my own? Queerness may mean to

be other, but how does that otherness play out in heteronormative society and for what reason

does it play out? What impact does it leave on a society who clearly does not give a damn about

the other? Does this impact even matter? Through the works of Foucault, Lorde, Solanas, and

Araki, I will attempt to figure out this interplay of queerness and normative society, and the

perceived end goal of queerness, which is to destroy and create out of necessity.

Learning from theory is a second hand experience. When reading any scholarly literature,

the authors perspective, thought processes, and prior life experience dictate what they believe.

While this disconnect from first hand experience can be jarring, theory allows for a synthesis of

ideas from both the author and the reader. Taking from lived experience, and the lived experience

of others, allows for a much more clear and focused understanding of the situation. This is even

obvious in the field itself, as theorists work off of one another to synthesize new ideas. The
theorist who is most called back upon in Queer Theory is Michel Foucault. Foucault's

understanding of the structures that hold up modern society serve as a basis in which all other

theory can be placed.

Foucault, in his work The History of Sexuality Vol. 1, comes to the conclusion that

modern power and normative society dictate what is right and wrong. Power is produced from

one moment to the next at every point, or rather in every relation from one point to the other

(Foucault). Power is produced from a place of regression, it is produced to stop something from

happening. To fulfill bourgeois norms and to police the citizenry. This power also has the ability

to create. In this case, it creates oppression manifested through straightness. Straightness is

adherence to power systems. Blind acceptance. To be straight is to not go against society and to

be neutral in a sense, where as queerness is the logical rejection of power and oppression. While

queerness is a rebellion, it has been used as a mode of institutional management for those in

power because it is an identity. It regulates and places people into societal groupings. To oppress,

culture has placed more focus on the identity of the sex act, as opposed to just the act itself.

Homosexuality is only a label that was created by scientists to categorize undesirables. The word

is only powerful because it allows for society to humanize queers. It wants queers to feel like

they fit in. That there is a place for them in a hegemonic system of power (Foucault). Foucault

notes that this oppression has lead to a more perversive and secret society (Foucault) for queer

people who reject the mentality of fitting in. This rejection of society is manifested through a

grasp on the erotic.

There are many kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise. The

erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly

rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order to perpetuate itself,
every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the

oppressed that can provide energy for change (Power). In The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as

Power, Lorde deems the erotic as the power that innately resides in all people, the capacity for

joy. Normative society plays down this power which rises from our deepest and nonrational

knowledge (Power). Lorde calls for a claiming of the erotic. Of the innate desires that cannot

be put into coherent words. This claiming of power goes against the normative society that

Foucault illustrates. Claiming of the erotic is not the claiming of an identity, but the act of

actually finding what makes a human a human. Lorde states that to be utilized, the erotic must

be found. Finding of the erotic leads to using it as a tool of liberation, noted by acclaimed

attempted murderer, Valerie Solanas.

Humor is not a body of logical statements which can be refuted or proved, but is rather a

quality which appeals to a sense of ludicrous (Warner). I feel that Solanas entire worldview can

be casually boiled down to: FUCK THE WORLD. FUCK MEN. FUCK POWER. FUCK IT

ALL. DESTROY. DESTROY. DESTROY. There isnt much nuance to be found in The SCUM

Manifesto, what is there is a revolutionary battlecry. A cry for freedom from society, done

through murder and general aggression against the main problem that plagues society, man.

Solanas calls for an extermination of all men, as they are the leaders of normative society, the

ones who carry out every oppression that occurs against queers and women. She sees men as:

eaten up with guilt, shame, fears and insecurities and obtaining, if he's lucky, a barely

perceptible physical feeling, the male is, nonetheless, obsessed with screwing; he'll swim through

a river of snot, wade nostril-deep through a mile of vomit, if he thinks there'll be a friendly pussy

awaiting him. He'll screw a woman he despises, any snaggle-toothed hag, and furthermore, pay

for the opportunity (Solanas). At one point in the manifesto, she even paints trans women as less
than, because they are only attempting to be women. This reading of general destruction

against all oppressors, while flawed, is exemplified through disidentification. As is becoming

increasingly clear in performance theory and cultural studies, the racialized body and racial

politics enable and justify difference. While the notion of difference and its relation to the

racialized body requires the inscription of the minority subject, the location of agency is

paramount (Arrizon). Disidentification is a term coined by Jose Munoz. Disidentification is

used by queers to access texts that are not formally considered queer. Disidentification subverts

cultural norms, and allows for a queer reading on any piece of media. If this piece of media can

anyway service the queer community, why should it not be used? Solanas manifesto is a rallying

cry to take the power back, act upon otherness, and create a utopia of your own desire. To

destroy what already exists out of a need to be able to exist.

Foucault, Lorde, and Solanas discuss the existence of queerness in normative society, the

power queerness gives, and how it can be used as a revolutionary tool against oppressive

systems. The purpose of queerness is to destroy and make new, but what happens when this

revolution takes place? How does revolutionary queerness combat power, and is it successful?

The piece of scholarly work that has taken these intersecting ideals, and melded them into one,

coherent statement on queerness and its relation to normative society, is a film by noted auteur,

Gregg Araki. Arakis film, The Living End (1992), takes from Foucaults history of normative

society, Solanas use of satire, and the erotic, creating an artistic representation of a queer snot

nosed rebellion and a utopia that exists in no place.

Luke and Jon sit across from each other in Jons kitchen, recuperating after their first

night of physical engagement. Jon is quiet and shy, shaken from the night before. Luke fucked

him. He fucked him, regardless of the fact that he has AIDS. It was a good fuck. It was real.
Perhaps, one of the first times it has ever felt real. He chuckles as Luke makes small talk about

his fears of bourgeois society, and power systems. Theres thousands, maybe millions of us

walking around with this.. thing inside of us, this time bomb ticking you know. Making our

futures finite. Suddenly, I realized, we can say fuck work, fuck the system, fuck everything.

Dont you get it? Were totally free. We can do whatever the fuck we want to do! (The Living

End dr. Araki). Jon takes notice to this. He has never heard anything like this before. These

words of power that play out over light breakfast and soft house music. It could be any house. It

could be any breakfast. It could happen between any normal couple in the United States in

1992. This awareness of societal norms and embrace of the erotic eschews the normative

viewpoint of queers that mainstream art provides the masses. Luke claims the erotic for himself

as a tool of destruction. There is no want or desire to fit into the norm. He wants nothing more

than to use his rage and love as a tool to dismantle the society that deems him as less, even

though his grasp on his own erotic may not actually accomplish anything. As noted, this

conversation could take place in any location, in any household, between any couple, queer or

not. Luke goes on and on about his want for destruction, but Araki states that this conversation is

of no importance, as both Luke and Jon are still tied down to normative society. Empty words

only fit for light chatter over breakfast. Luke and Jon do not have a happy ending to look forward

to because they are an afterthought. There is no escape without action. While living in a

hegemonic power system, no choice but rejection is only valid. Arakis gloomy outlook on the

fate of modern society takes greatly from Solanas work when he allows his characters to realize

that a course of action must be taken. Lie, Fuck, Cheat, Kill, Steal are the mottos to live by, but

make sure you can laugh all the while. Destruction of the norm is the new norm.
 Luke prepares to fuck the man who picked him up on the side of the road, as the mans

wife abruptly bursts into the bedroom. Shock is painted across her face. Its not the seventies

anymore, when being married to a bisexual was fashionable! (The Living End). Carpenteresque

music blares. Jon watches blankly as she thrusts her knife into his chest, their dog licking up the

blood as he bleeds out. Jon wipes the blood from his face, and makes a hasty retreat to the door,

while the wife looms over the corpse of her bisexual lover. She cannot take her eyes off of her

hand and her handywork. In three minutes, Araki states through biting satire of the middle class,

and suspense film, that queers cannot exist in this world. That no matter the level of wealth,

perceived love, or social status, being queer is just not fashionable. Queers are the outcasts,

riddled with diseases, always on the outside, never truly able to fit into the modern world. This

scenes earlier placement in the film is rather intentional, as it incorporates three minutes of

unusually goofy and trite gore porn that derails the tone and pacing. Queerness disrupts

normative society and art, much like the murder of the bisexual man. Araki could care less that

he is breaking the conventions of tone, mood, and story, and why should he? He wishes to

service no one, he just wants to laugh in the face of a shocked audience, trying futilely to connect

to these queer outsiders. They are trying to fool themselves into thinking that they actually feel

for these characters, even though they would do the same as the wife and kill them off. Arakis

hostility asks the audience to kill all expectations of society and the art that is produced through

it. There is no other want than that of destruction. One of Luke and Jons first interactions with

each other, is when Luke questions Jon about an article he is writing on the death of cinema,

acknowledging Arakis intent to destroy the art form and leave nothing left in his wake except for

a blank slate. A quiet place where he can exist on his own without normative society or the

stereotypes of the queers who try to fit in. A utopia found in no place and no time.
 Luke and Jon end their sex and murder filled road trip on a beach at no apparent time. No

one is around them for miles, they sit alone, only with each other. Luke takes off Jons pants,

puts a revolver in his own mouth, and thrusts. As this act of one sided love comes to a close,

Luke pulls the trigger. There is no gunshot. There is no hard cut to black. There is no blood, no

screaming.There is only the clicking of an empty chamber. Luke sits up quietly, as Jon sits up to

embrace him. They sit as the sun beats down upon them, having apparently found their own

utopia outside of society. This utopia is not what Luke or Jon were expecting, as death seemed to

be the only end goal to their trip. They are not allowed to break free of society, they are forced to

continue living until the disease ravages their bodies and finally kills them. The world continues

on. While there is no escape, no one true way to a perfect utopia, Jon and Luke have each other.

Here, Araki is deeming utopia as no place as opposed to a good place. Through the blank

backdrop and wide, symmetrical angles, Araki positions Jon and Luke nowhere in particular.

They sit outside of society, but still reside inside the conventions of it. Their journey has

showcased an attempted killing and destruction of heteronormative society, but it was nothing

more than an attempt. Jon and Luke find solace in both their failure and friendship, even with the

knowledge that they will most likely return to a society not created for them only to die. This

solace exemplifies melancholy and hope, that even if there is no true utopia that can be reached,

it is society that is broken, not the innate desire to hope, or the desire to feel connection to

another. The search may have been futile, but everything already is. Why should a search change

anything?

Queerness seems ready to destroy and create a new world out of the ashes of the old one,

but can this goal be fully met? Much like Jon and Luke, we as queers can move forward with

hopes to begin again, but normative society has already left an impact on this beginning. Queers
cannot seem to move at all because of society. There is no breaking free, only condescending

acceptance and the ability to marry legally. Eternal Damnation. Even if society is completely

abandoned, it was once there. It was still experienced. There cannot be a clean slate. Because of

this, one would not be wrong to wonder: Why even care about queerness if there is no point?

While this question is valid, I suggest that queerness lets us fully understand the futility of

heteronormative society, and why being othered, even in futility, is the future.

Theory confirms through second hand experience that society is wrong, not queers. That

your one singular experience is valid, because it has occurred before. We exist because we

have failed society, but since society is already failed, what's the difference? It helps us

imagine a world free of intolerance, where all past social norms are null and void. It gives us a

plan to act upon. Even if that plan is futile and this all means nothing as we slave away under

capitalism, there is still an inherent sense of hope present. Queerness is to be other, to be

subversive, but it is also to be hopeful, to dream of a utopia, no matter the cost or the inherent let

down of no such place existing. Queerness is a comfort to fall back upon. Society might be futile,

and my actions against society may be futile, but there is a morbid beauty in constant fighting

and rejection, a sense that someday, maybe everything will be for something. I have learned to

embrace this morbid beauty, and that even in the despair, a sense of hope cannot be taken away.

A sense that I am latching onto with reckless abandon. I could care less if Im wrong or right, at

least I feel that I have some sort of fucking purpose.

 Works Cited

Arrizon, Alicia. "Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of

Politics (review)."Theatre Journal. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 01 Oct. 2002.

Web. 21 Mar. 2017.

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1: The Will to Knowledge. Vol. 1.

London: Penguin, 1998. Print.

The Living End. Dir. Gregg Araki. 1992. DVD.
Lorde, Audre. Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power. Tucson, AZ: Kore, 2000.

Print.
Solanas, Valerie. SCUM Manifesto. London: Verso, 2016. Print.
Warner, Sara. Acts of Gaiety: LGBT Performance and the Politics of Pleasure.

Ann Arbor, MI: U of Michigan, 2013. Print.