Queer Theory And The Ballroom Community

Certain texts raise certain perspectives about belonging, whether it be belonging to particular groups through conformity to rules, or belong to a place where you find inspiration to express your own sense of individuality. The film Strictly Ballroom, directed by Baz Luhrmann portrays many different perspectives in regards to belonging. The opening scenes of Strictly Ballroom explore aspects of not belonging and non-acceptance. To belong to the world of ballroom dancing means sacrificing self-expression and individual identity. Scott Hastings represents the individual who repels against the group as it threatens to consume him. From this we understand that some people may have to sacrifice their own true identity to belong to a certain

The topic of sexual orientation is both sensitive and controversial. This is evident in events, such as the Pride Parade, and also in media, where authoritative figures preach against it and speak of its “sinful nature” (Emmanuele, Blanchard, Camperio-Ciani, & Bancroft, 2010). Sexual orientation exists in various forms, it differs in the way it is viewed by different cultures, and researchers propose different perspectives to explain the emergence of an individual 's sexual orientation. In the discourse of sexual orientation,

The word “gay” has gone through drastic changes. Traditionally, it was a positive term that meant to be “happily excited” or “jolly” (Merriam Webster, “Gay”). It was used regularly to express one’s feelings about life. Today, it has a far different meaning. Now people use the word gay to label homosexuals, those with feminine qualities, or those who do something thought to be outside of the norm for their gender. “Being gay” went from expressing someone’s happiness to describing his sexual preference. The definition of gay has changed so much that its original meaning has become archaic and lost to the times.

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning, Queer community also referred to as LGBTQQ is no stranger to oppression. “In 1600-1800, colonists discovered buggery (sex between men or between women) among Native Americans. In 1869, Dr. Karoly Benkert coined the term “homosexuality” to describe same-sex acts. In 1870-1910, homosexuals

Because language is relative/arbitrary, queer has various meanings, depending on evolution and history and also personal attributions. Queer has been used as an adjective to mean strange, questionable, or to not feel right, a pejorative against queer individuals, an identity relating to a person who does not conform to a normative sexual orientation or gender identity, a sexual orientation, and as a gender identity (such as genderqueer). However, there is an overlooked use of the word: queer is also a verb. What does it mean to queer something? There was a time when that phrase meant “to mess it up,” as in queering a

The word queer has been used to describe someone that does not fit into the social norms that the world sets, for example a girl that dresses masculine and has short hair is a queer. There are also people that fall into simple categories that use queer as an identifier for themselves, people in the gay lesbian and transgender communities often consider themselves to be queer as a sort of layman’s term today. An example of this in the ChYOR assignment would be the third ChYOR my article was on “queering art” bringing queer concepts to art, such as portraits of gay couples and dance duets with two male dancers. The article was very interesting because of the way that it talked about how little representation queer art has, and how that is slowly

This paper examines the social aspects of the sexual identity in America, illustrating how sexual identities have progressed, evolved, and transformed. Social categories have been created as a tool used for social divide and control, inadvertently creating stereotypical facts and discriminatory opinions on sexes; while also helping create social and welcoming communities, whose goals are to diminish ideals such as those. Concluding, this paper will have explained the dichotomous categories of different sexualities and the divides within them. The already established sexual divide leaves no room for those stuck in the in between of today's society, especially one as progressive as America’s. Derived from the examples giving, this paper argues

There seems to be a prevalent belief among queer theorists that there exists an archetype of the “ideal queer.” This person is subversive in everything that they do, and disrupts norms in all ways. Obviously, this ideal is different from dominant society’s view of the ideal queer - a person who keeps their identity to themself, is not “outwardly queer,” holds some type of stable corporate job, is “just like the rest of us” in all other aspects of being, and is decidedly non-radical. Of course, neither of these ideals are representative of the reality of LGBT individuals. Gender and sexual expression is infinitely varied, and cannot be boxed into categories which are palatable to one group or another. LGBT individuals who chose to marry or

Queer Evolution describes how queer transformed from a hateful word to a mainstream word. Although she specifically uses the history of the word queer, the same ideas can be said for many other words. Irvine explains “in the 1920s and ‘30s the word queer became synonymous with “pansy”, “sissy”, and even “pervert”. That is not the case anymore in

Contemporary political activists, in an effort to delegitimize homophobic narratives that stigmatize the “gay” identity, have argued that same-sex attractions are an innate and biologically fixed component of one’s character. By emphasizing the immutability of sexual orientation, civil rights lawyers have established “gay” identifying individuals as a separate class of people worthy of protection from discrimination. This pervasive and politically expedient ideology, which has now become the prevailing cultural attitude within liberal circles, is reflected in commercially successful pop songs such as ‘Born This Way’. Yet the ubiquity of this essentialist understanding remains problematic. For one, the fixedness of sexuality is biologically

In today’s culture, the word gay has developed three distinct definitions: jovial, happy, or good spirited, a homosexual individual, or something stupid, mostly by younger males (Anonymous). Today, the word gay primarily refers to a homosexual individual, having utilization as both a noun and an adjective to describe individuals attracted to the same sex. The alternative definition of carefree joy has gradually disappeared, the relic of another time. However, the pejorative use of describing something stupid or non-masculine endures, especially in the Anglosphere (Contributors).

Thirdly, queers challenge the categories as well as binaries of sexual and gender by questioning the categories and binaries’ reasonability. Queer theorists concern about how and why the categories of gender and sexuality are shaped, thinking the main reason is to better control people so as to achieve political goals. As de Lauretis (1991) stated, the existing strategies of homosexual, which is created based on the existing categories of gender and sexuality, is to ensure the “ center” integrated. Moreover, they reject and question the usefulness of categories. According to

Queer theory questions creations of normal and divergent, insider, and outsider.2 Queer theorists analyse a situation or a text to determine the relationship between sexuality, power and gender. Queer theory challenges basic tropes used to organize our society and our language: even words are gendered, and through that gendering an elliptical view of the hierarchy of society, and presumption of what is male and what is female, shines through. Queer theory rejects such binary distinctions as arbitrarily determined and defined by those with social power. It works to deconstruct these binaries, particularly the homosexual/heterosexual binary.4

In fact, Paul Gilroy’s (2010) concept of the moral economy can also be applied to the phenomenon of consuming music in queer dance clubs. In other words, the digital re-ordering music is a commodity, which is designed to meet the favor of its listeners. So, to encourage clubbers to feel they belong to the sphere is the basic principle of promotion. For example, the tailored remix for gay people in the gay club is the motivation that promotes this group to pay for it, which corporates with the clubber’ social experience. Besides, consuming the remix in the gay club is an emotional choice that creates the moral freedom to queer people. The remix music is tailored for this community, to produce the sense of belonging. The atmosphere somehow makes

Gender and sexual orientation is a topic that has been and still today is not talked about in such a way it should be because of how society has chosen to structure and control it. Social stratification is a system in which groups of people are divided up into layers according to their relative privileges (power, property, and prestige). It’s a way of ranking large groups of people into a hierarchy according to their relative privileges (Vela-McConnell 2016). People, who deviate from the norm of the “accepted” gender and sexual orientation that society has placed upon us, are stratified below the norm of a dominating binary gender and sexual orientation. People who are queer face the struggle of mistreatment and an unaccepting society that has been socialized to see and act on gender and sexual orientation to being a dualistic system.