In Dee Rees' queer coming of age story, Pariah, we get to see someone rarely depicted on the big screen: the Black, masculine presenting lesbian. It was fascinating to watch Lee and Laura borrow from traditional masculine norms in their dress, language, and behavior. The two friends refer to each other as 'man' and wear baseball caps, baggy shirts, and boxer shorts. Not a single word of dialogue would have had to change in the scene outside the club when they talk about how many girls' numbers Lee scored that night had the characters been male. That, along with the shots of Laura dancing with the women in the club challenged what it means to be a Black woman in every way possible.
The brief dance clips actually reminded me a little bit of the way Mario was depicted in Pelo Malo. The camera doesn't really sexualize either of them but captures their cool, confident masculinity in a way that almost makes us want to be like them. There's a similar technique used in Tomboy directed by Celine Sciamma, another film I watched recently. There, the neighborhood boys are shown in their full masculine glory taking their shirts off for a soccer game, spitting on the ground, and wrestling by the lake. These kinds of characters, although they come from different films and different countries, give us a sense of what it means to be masculine.
When women embody traits so deeply associated with men, we're forced to separate masculinity from maleness, like Halberstam writes in Female Masculinity. Watching Laura dance under the strobe lights with several women is obviously different than watching a man do the same thing. A man in that position would be reinforcing every conventional notion of being a 'real' man, from wearing baggy clothes to getting girls. A woman like Laura, however, particularly as a Black woman, defies every societal expectation. She's not sassy, she's hard; she's not going steady with some guy, she's in the club with multiple women. In moments like the club scenes, Black female masculinity is not something to hide or be ashamed of. It's something that's truly magnificent.
Hi Holly!! I really liked your in-depth observations of female masculinity demonstrated by Laura. While I was watching the movie, I focused more of my attention of Alike, so reading your take on Laura's performance of masculinity made me think more about her character and significance of performativity.
ReplyDeleteI really like the ideas you brought up. Especially the last two sentences, it makes me wonder how the idea of the club as a place of freedom can connect back to Paris is Burning and ball culture in general.
ReplyDeleteHi Holly! Love the title :) - I thought your comparisons of Alike and Laura to the cis male-centered standards that society tends to value over other embodiments of masculinity/maleness were really interesting... your writing made me think about the notion of what it even means to be a "real man", and how that can sometimes be viewed as a detriment towards masc-presenting women (for example- in this sense of regarding them as a faint shadow of a man/an imposter of sorts). Through this, I just had a moment where I was like... even though that is the ""standard"" (heavy quotes), it's quite boring/one-dimensional (a white/cis/hetero/able-bodied standard of masculinity, that is). I love your description using the word "magnificent", as that's the best word I can think of at present to describe the layered, complicated expressions of masculinity/maleness that were present in this film, as well as in the world at large.
ReplyDelete