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Social but Discreet

March 4, 2005, 1:23 pm

By Chronicle of Higher Education

Network administrators, take note: Your lectures to students on information security might be taking hold. Students at Eastern Illinois University are flocking to Thefacebook, the popular social networking site, but most say they are too savvy to post any personal information on the Web site.

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30 Responses to Social but Discreet

Guest - August 30, 2011 at 4:59 pm

Hi Clare, another great piece. I love your blog. Here is my latest on the future map for queer culture: http://criticalnewsscan.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-reset-your-desktop-to.html . Like you, I am not a big Gaga devotee. But I think that the future of queer politics is definitely going to be self-determination and fluidity, which will be a good thing to replace “not having a choice” and ironclad biologized categories like what we’ve seen for 20 years. Great work.

Eugene_OR - August 30, 2011 at 7:47 pm

It probably makes people uncomfortable because it proves that masculinity is a performance, not an innate quality. And, if masculinity can be performed, what’s the justification for male privilege?  You’re right.  GENIUS.

physioprof - August 30, 2011 at 9:30 pm

Gaga’s music and overall “ZOMFG WHAT IS SHE WEARING!?” shtick are corporate swill designed to appeal to the mass-market “edgy” demographic. Maybe she is so fucken sick of pretending to be transgressive as a marketing scheme that she just said, “Fucke itte, now I’m gonna *really* make people uncomfortable, not just fake it”. And that would also explain why some of those other corporate mass-market swill purveyors were horrified: “She’s just pretending, like we all do to bring home the bacon. Right? Wait! She’s supposed to be pretending! She is pretending!? Right? RIGHT!?”

brianesh73 - August 31, 2011 at 9:28 am

Not sure why the author label’s Gaynor’s desire to point fans to Christ as “ungrateful”.  I can’t assign that motivation when she is offering them what, or Who, she values most.  Author and fans may disagree with her without the label.

theseus - August 31, 2011 at 10:00 am

Hmm, there’s more than one way to be a drag king. “Lewd, crude and unsubdued” taken as “true drag king style” seriously misrepresents many more critical and politically-minded forms of drag-kinging which question the unthinking reproduction of this type of masculinity (e.g. North Carolina’s Cuntry Kings)

socafish - August 31, 2011 at 10:01 am

Physio right on. All shtick and corporate swill, the next logical marketing step after Madonna. 

Baby, we will make money this way.

tenured_radical - August 31, 2011 at 11:51 am

Point well taken, although I think Jack Halberstam’s work points to the sexism and comic elaboration of male crudity as fundamental to the genre, which isn’t unthinking or simply reproductive at all.   As an aside –you don’t think the  name “Cuntry Kings” is lewd, crude or unsubdued? 

missoularedhead - August 31, 2011 at 12:29 pm

Eugene, I think you’ve hit the proverbial nail on the head.  It is acceptable for men to drag because everyone *knows* it’s “just” a performance.  They don’t give up some essential male quality when they present as a woman.  Women, on the other hand, are expected to constantly conform/perform femininity, and thus, when they don’t, it’s uncomfortable.  
I’m not a huge Gaga fan, truth be told, but I can appreciate someone who subverts not only gender paradigms, but who, even while being within her alloted category, still manages to critique it.  Come on, the meat dress? ‘Look at me, I’m a piece of meat to you.’ Dang, that’s a powerful statement, and most folks completely missed it.

tenured_radical - August 31, 2011 at 1:01 pm

More context necessary:  leading them to Christ was intended to de-gay them.  Ungrateful may not be the word:  contemptuous?

Eugene_OR - August 31, 2011 at 2:00 pm

Yes, she makes incredible amounts of money, but being ‘edgy’ and pushing people’s boundaries is what artists have been doing for hundreds of years.  Why do you write her off as a corporate shill and not acknowledge that she is doing really sophisticated social commentary (why else would physio be so upset, unless she hit a nerve) and performance art?  Is it because you don’t like the commentary she’s making?

socafish - August 31, 2011 at 2:05 pm

Edgy.. hardly, 
Pushing boundaries right… just like Marilyn Manson. {n*amt.ofpush/limit *newrecords}*flesh_exposed/contract%= $$$$$

There actually are edgy artists out there who were not created, backed and packaged by media companies

physioprof - August 31, 2011 at 7:26 pm

“pushing people’s boundaries”

In her usual corporate swill shtick, she’s not pushing the boundaries of anyone who is a potential purchaser of her product. What she is doing, rather, is fluffing the egos of people who want to tell themselves that they, themselves, are “edgy boundary pushers”. The reason this particular “drag king” performance got so much attention–and even from her fellow corporate swill purveyors–is that it, at least arguably, really did for once push boundaries.

Tom Mason - September 1, 2011 at 12:34 am

In reference to your title — perhaps they should stay there…

What value can we find in a behavior shown to impart so many medical pathologies in its practitioners?   Actually read some literature on the destruction of the human body and psyche of homosexuals and figure out that this behavior simply does not earn a place as a cause célèbre (well, except perhaps for the self-aggrandizing).

Petulant adolescent mewlings about how society should embrace deviance is nothing new…even Democrat and sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan saw this as the end state for a affluence-spoiled culture many years ago.  Gaga is simply the latest symptom.

Tom Mason - September 1, 2011 at 12:37 am

Actually, Dr. Robert Spitzer (who championed removal of homosexuality from DSM-IV) has stated that homosexual reparative therapies should be a right for all gay persons.  Gloria was simply going about it in a different way. 

urbanexile - September 1, 2011 at 9:07 am

I agree with Physioprof’s brilliant comment that Gaga is “ fluffing the egos of people who want to tell themselves that they, themselves, are “edgy boundary pushers”. And the sequitur  is “when, in fact, they are not.” 

Your juxtaposition of Gaga and Annie Lennox was revealing, Lennox being so much more convincing and compelling in her kinging that Gaga who, as usual, seems like a little girl playing at being offensive to the adults. Lennox’s music and voice over all are triumphantly more important than Gaga, but Gaga’s all we’ve got now. 

Like you TR, I am not a fan of Gaga’s sound artifacts: her songs are lacking in lyrical interest, the rhythms are dull, the instrumentation mechanical and her truly beautiful voice is rarely heard for the unique instrument that it is because it’s always bathed in production. Gaga serves, I think, for as a useful “interruptor” for some people, a kind of re-boot to their cultural perceptions, and that is to the good. But her music and videos are not artistically great or even good. I find it interesting that these two women chose to king fundamentally as Elvis (though Gaga comes off as a mini-Fonzie). Can you ever king as someone more sophisticated? Or is Elvis, simply put, still the king?What turns me off is that hyperproduced acts like Gaga take up all the air in the cultural sphere from real outliers, real outsiders, who are not  just play-acting like Gaga is but are truly what they are and therefore unacceptable to the folks handing out the money. Gaga is no different from any of Andy Warhol’s “stars” in the 80′s. As Warhol said  ”I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They’re so beautiful. Everything’s plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic.” I guess Gaga wants to be plastic, too.

elsie - September 1, 2011 at 12:00 pm

The thing that fascinates me about her is the cultural commentary on fame and celebrity that she does from within celebrity. Part of what is brilliant about Jo Calderone at the VMA was aspirational aspect of performance, Jo demanding the spotlight. People are so focused on the commentary on masculinity that they’re missing other elements of the performance in terms of Jo Calderone as a character with hopes and dreams of celebrity, the construction of the character as the hanger-on beside the celebrity, pursuing the spotlight. Jo Calderone is a drag king, but Jo is also Kevin Federline.

Mstrx - September 1, 2011 at 12:21 pm

Now my take is totally different (I respect and enjoyed the opinions here, but…)

Gaga released “Born this Way” around the same time Spears released “Hold it against me.”  One morning show lined up Spears for the summer (ABC?) and the other lined Gaga (NBC?  Who knows – no matter).  Naturally, Gaga stole the attention from Spears. And as I read articles on both (yes, I admit I like pop culture), I sense a kind of competition between the two.

Gaga’s recent MTV performance-persona undermined that of Spears.  I saw the whole thing less in the vein of Halberstam and more like two divas duking it out for attention and money.  Gaga won.

tenured_radical - September 2, 2011 at 8:11 am

Srsly?

Merle Graybill - September 2, 2011 at 9:15 am

Excellent view on reactions to the Lady’s alter ego. You go Gaga

New_Kid - September 2, 2011 at 1:45 pm

Test (sorry, TR, please ignore)

drnels - September 2, 2011 at 3:22 pm

I’ve been talking about Jo/Gaga all week as part of a tradition that starts at least with Bowie/Ziggy Stardust if not before and includes so many other pop stars who have played with gender and taken on other identities.  Personally, Jo Calderone wasn’t as interesting to me because it was a one night thing. Now, if she releases an album for Jo like Garth Brooks did with Chris Gaines and so many others, then we’ll really have something to talk about.

And Britney is still making her gay fans very happy.  I was at her concert in Hartford last month, and she called out to her gays, and we all screamed back.  The place seemed filled with gay men from teen to middle age amidst all the women.

I did think the leaning in to kiss Britney was a bit creepy, but I wasn’t sure if it was planned or not. And, gender aside, I’m never into anyone leaning into anyone like that.  I don’t like it when anyone plays around with me like that, anyone of any gender or sexual identity.

Katie Chenoweth - September 4, 2011 at 1:06 pm

Who knew the Chronicle had trolls?

Pickaweb Marketing - September 5, 2011 at 11:36 am

Lady gaga is like the modern Madonna

Mstrx - September 6, 2011 at 9:05 am

I’ve seen quite a few drag king shows; and in a few cities (east and west coast and one in Europe).  They are boring.  The performers are mostly angry with a chip on their shoulder.  I’ve never enjoyed them a much as I’ve enjoyed drag queen shows.   There… finally said it.

Vance Maverick - November 1, 2011 at 8:50 pm

This nicely illuminates why “Make me one with everything” didn’t go over well with the Dalai Lama.

rkitchner - November 2, 2011 at 6:13 am

Anyone who objects to “this way of thinking about verbs” probably doesn’t find joy in the act of thinking. What “matters” is not always what is important, but rather what is enjoyable. Thank you Ms. Ferriss; You made my day.

dank48 - November 2, 2011 at 8:55 am

Ancient and probably apocryphal two-author graffiti:

My mother made me a homosexual.
If I buy her the yarn, will she make me one?

11223435 - November 2, 2011 at 11:29 am

I’ve always loved the factitive verb! Great to see it mentioned here!

Anytime someone has got snarky with me about my grammar, I just ask them what they know about the factitive, I give them the definition, I give them several examples, and I walk away beloved as before.

iriselina - April 14, 2012 at 3:15 am

 Loved reading this article. I was asked once (and I taught at a theological college): Should one say,” Let us pray”,  or ” Shall we pray”?  (We were discussing the liturgy). I thought the former was more friendly and inclusive and not a command by the priest.  If I’d known about factitive verbs then, what should I have said, I wonder, though my  theological colleagues and students  might not have understood what it was all about !!
I have also struggled to teach that one can ” make ” a point in an argument which is quite different from “making” a cake .Tadros calls these factive and non-factive verbs..but I don’t see all these terms in the OED nor in Webster.Are there special dictionaries of grammar then? Pray enlighten me.Thanks

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