A great big radical afroqueer transfemininomenon
Love, sex, gender, race. And television.
“Sapphic feels romantic, obviously poetic, but sanitized and discreet. Dyke is real and angry. I like it.”
This week at Public Seminar, Hannah Burns reflects on queer coming of age through media—and finding her place in the New York City Dyke March. Meanwhile, Marko Vuorinen joins the pride marches in Paris and reports on the new urgency of activism amidst rising anti-LGBTQ+ harassment.
Ronnie Grinberg chats with Mitchell Abidor about the machismo of prominent postwar Jewish intellectuals. Jake Neuffer visits the sewers of the internet and wonders: “How did a fringe group of radical misogynists gain outsized influence on the slang of my generation?”
Alexa Joy examines the politics of breakdancing and the erasure of Black women at the Paris Olympics. Madeline Adams looks at novelist Rita Bullwinkel’s portrayal of girlhood as a full-throttle battle. And Shelley Martin delves into the gender politics of Courtney Love’s problem with Taylor Swift.
From the Sewer of the Internet, a Slang Surfaces
Jake Neuffer
“Been gymmaxxing lately,” my friend quipped as he made a protein shake.
“Proteinpilled too,” I said.
My generation is speaking a new slang—new to us, anyway. Not quite ubiquitous, but familiar to that contingent of chronically online youth (and is that phrase not becoming a tautology?). These are phrases borrowed from incels, or “involuntary celibates,” an online community of radical misogynists.
Enter the Glow
Hannah Burns
Seeing yourself in characters, authors, actors, and lyrics is often a first step. It is the projection. The portal occurs when the lines begin to blur, when you start acknowledging it. The real transformation is what happens when a friend takes your hand and listens to your secrets in the dark until you can speak them in the daylight. You need a friend to get a beer with you after watching a film that made you nearly speechless, a person in your life to help you find the right words. The internet can provide that community, but it’s you who must reach for it. While the screen helps you see beyond yourself, the reach happens within, like when Owen’s chest opened and the purple glow spilled outward.
Rita Bullwinkel’s Headshot
Madeleine Adams
What connects these characters are their bodies: their grunting, ducking, perspiring bodies. Headshot is filled with the girls’ physical micro-choices: when to feint, when to strike, when to gracefully admit defeat, when to dredge up that last remaining ounce of courage. These choices, Bullwinkel seems to say, are the product of each girl’s philosophy and will eventually play out in other performances: wedding planner, actress, mother, administrative assistant. And the audience, even the bored parents checking their phones, read how the girls use their bodies for a sign of how they will step into and inhabit those roles.