Between Gazes
Camelia Elias
queer
 queer theory assumes that sexual
identities are a function of
representations
 (Homo)sexuality is different from:
 sexual difference (essentialism): "chromosomal sex"
(Eve K. Sedgwick)
 gender difference (constructionism): "compulsory
heterosexuality" (Gayle Rubin, Adrienne Rich)
theory
 (Homo)sexuality has no determinate, or
determinable:
 essence/nature/biology
 construction/culture/system
 (Homo)sexuality is ‘perverse’:
 queer
 que(e)r(ie)s the heterosexual gender system:
 “[it is] not criticism through the categories of
gender [but a] criticism of them” (Eve K.
Sedgwick) Gender Trouble (Judith Butler)
Thomas Mann & Gustav Mahler
Free indirect discourse
 “In free indirect speech, the narrator takes
on the speech of the character, or if one
prefers, the character speaks through the
voice of the narrator, and the two
instances are then merged”
(Gerard Genette,
Narrative Discourse:
An Essay in Method, 1980)
 He wore an English suit with quilted
sleeves that narrowed round the delicate
wrists of his long and slender, though still
childish, hands. And this suit, with its
breast-knot, lacings and embroideries, let
the slight figure something ‘rich and
strange’, a spoilt exquisite air. (Mann)
Gay criticism
 Why are there so few works engaging with male
homosexuality?
 Why are homosexuals hardly represented in
works of art, in spite of the fact that many a
notable writers and filmmakers are gay?
 If male homosexuality is represented in film, why
is this representation presented in an ambiguous
way (most often than not)?
 Why does gay love never end in unity but
always in displacement, loss, marginalization,
and death?
The third body
 the ephebe (the adolescent youth, natural,
inexperienced)
 the he-man (the mature athlete)
-- (the intellectual, the teacher, the aesthete)
the implied gay subject
the incarnation of difference and enactor of
representation
Gay spectator/subject
 The gay spectator:
 represents a site for identification with the narrative
subject
 a site for specular erotic pleasure in his object
 the gay subject fulfills two functions:
 enacts a general relationship of desire through
traditional narrative forms
diegetic and extra-diegetic gazing
 enacts a specific narrative function that is
recognizable only to the gay spectator
The artist, intellectual, teacher
 looks at and desires the object of his
constructing gaze
 the gaze construes, projects, fantasizes,
and represents the object of desire
 the gay subject rarely has intimate
relations with the object of his gaze
Cultural separations
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Mind and body
Voice and image
Subject and object
Self and other
Desire and consummation
Thought/feeling and action
Observation and surveillance
 “We don’t establish families, we just
wander off looking horny, solitary, sad, or
dead” (Waugh, 639)