scholarly journals Male parody, sketch comedy and cultural subversion : the work of Scott Thompson, Rick Mercer and Steve Smith

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle Deveau
Keyword(s):  
Gender Performance ◽  
Performance Techniques ◽  
Sketch Comedy ◽  
Master's Thesis ◽  
Gender Constructions ◽  
Queer Politics ◽  
Binary Gender

"Male Parody, Sketch Comedy and Cultural Subversion" is a Master's thesis that analyzes the male performances of Canadian comedians Scott Thompson, Rick Mercer and Steve Smith. Queer and feminist scholars suggest that subversive gender performance techniques such as camp can destabilize compulsory heteronormativity and binary gender constructions. Through the study of sketch comics Thompson, Mercer and Smith, it is evident that a range of masculine performances, both implicitly and explicitly in support of queer politics, are supported within popular comedy and Canadian maninstream media. The diverse comic techniques used by these actors prove effective in critiquing aspects of patriarchy, masculinity and heteronormativity as well as questioning essentialist assumptions behind social notions of hierarchy and marginality.

Male parody, sketch comedy and cultural subversion : the work of Scott Thompson, Rick Mercer and Steve Smith

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle Deveau
Keyword(s):  
Gender Performance ◽  
Performance Techniques ◽  
Sketch Comedy ◽  
Master's Thesis ◽  
Gender Constructions ◽  
Queer Politics ◽  
Binary Gender

"Male Parody, Sketch Comedy and Cultural Subversion" is a Master's thesis that analyzes the male performances of Canadian comedians Scott Thompson, Rick Mercer and Steve Smith. Queer and feminist scholars suggest that subversive gender performance techniques such as camp can destabilize compulsory heteronormativity and binary gender constructions. Through the study of sketch comics Thompson, Mercer and Smith, it is evident that a range of masculine performances, both implicitly and explicitly in support of queer politics, are supported within popular comedy and Canadian maninstream media. The diverse comic techniques used by these actors prove effective in critiquing aspects of patriarchy, masculinity and heteronormativity as well as questioning essentialist assumptions behind social notions of hierarchy and marginality.

A Queer Strategy of Equivocation: The destabilisation of normative heterosexuality and the rigid binary gender order

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antke Engel
Keyword(s):  
Identity Politics ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Minority Politics ◽  
Sexual Ambiguity ◽  
Queer Politics ◽  
Binary Gender

The critique of identity politics has opened up a sceptical attitude towards normative categories and demands for the coherence and stability of sex, gender and sexuality. At the same time reflections on mechanisms of exclusion within emancipatory movements and politics have also gained attention. Thus, not only (hetero-)sexism and homophobia, but also discriminations pertaining to the rigid binary gender order as well as racist discrimination are issues of importance to queer politics. Considering the critique of identity or minority politics, I have come to the conclusion that rather than to proliferate or to dissolve categories of sex, gender and sexuality, it is more promising to render them ambiguous: that is what I call a queer strategy of equivocation. Nevertheless sexual ambiguity is not progressive or liberating in itself. Instead, we have to realize that queer/feminist struggles against normative identities, a destabilization of binary, heterosexual norms or new forms of gendered or sexual existence are quite compatible with the quest for individualization put forth by neo-liberal forms of domination. Therefore, a strategy of equivocation should include the fight against social hierarchies, inequalities, and normalizations. The task is to consider simultaneously the working of and the intervention into different mechanisms of power; normalizations and hierarchizations, inclusions and exclusions work together, but not always in the same direction or without contradictions.

Migrating through Cultures, Deconstructing Masculinities and Gender Identities in Modern Islamic Literature

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Babatunde Ogunyemi
Keyword(s):  
Gender Performance ◽  
Male Dominance ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religion And Literature ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
Gender Constructions ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Political Understanding ◽  
Islamic Literature

Matters arising around feminism, sexualities and masculinities, male dominance and hierarchies, gender identities and the configuration of patriarchy in religion and literature have constituted some major trends in modern women’s writings, particularly women’s writings in the Islamic enclave. This work probes the motifs of women’s marginalisation, cultural masculinities, and gender constructions as they affect some selected modern Islamic fictions around the world. The work utilises Judith Butler’s theory of performativity and Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction to delineate and redefine women’s subjugation and freedom by foregrounding the political, cultural, social, and moral elements redefining the pragmatic Islamic societies arising from technology. Constant division and the discriminatory roles assigned to women in the Islamic enclave have had some negative influences in literature, which can be found in some analyses of Frantz Fanon’s works and Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. These discriminatory and divisible roles for women can sometimes have negative cultural and social implications for an economic and political understanding of Islamic literature. This work reconfigures and redefines gender performance, masculinities, and Islamic metaphysics in the selected Islamic fictional works of Saudi Rajaa Alsanea’s Girls of Riyadh, Sudanese Leila Aboulela’s Minaret and Kuwaiti Randa Jarrar’s Map of Home.

Mainstreaming female masculinity, signifying lesbian visibility: The rise of the zhongxing phenomenon in transnational Taiwan

Sexualities ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 182-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Ying Hu
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Gender Performance ◽  
Female Masculinity ◽  
Regional Flow ◽  
Queer Politics ◽  
Normative Constraints ◽  
Gender Neutrality ◽  
Gender Specific

“Zhongxing,” meaning “gender neutrality” in Mandarin Chinese, is the term typically used to describe young women who adopt masculine gender expressions affected by popular Japanese and Korean beautiful-boy styles and who assume a collective and prevalent presence in public space and popular culture in contemporary Taiwan. I examine how this cultural phenomenon evinces multilayered transnational convergence of globalizing western feminist and queer politics, commodified regional flow of Korean beautiful-boy image, and local Taiwanese T-Po lesbian subcultures in the process of Taiwan’s modern and international nation building. I also indicate the gender-specific consequences of cultural transnationalization on queer sexuality formation by elucidating how the rise of the zhongxing phenomenon mainstreams the unique form of female masculinity as a chic, politically progressive, and semi-normative gender performance for young women and represents lesbian visibility as a practice of insinuated signification rather than straightforward confession. Finally, I demonstrate how Taiwanese lesbians take advantage of the zhongxing discourse to conceive of a masculine inclination congruent with their female body and identification and to satisfy conflicting desires for queer visibility and social integration, revealing the subtle relations between normative constraints and the exercise of queer agency in a transnational cultural context.

Piano Performance Technical Analysis of The People United Will Never Be Defeated by Rzewski

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-171
Author(s):  
Liang Deng
Keyword(s):  
Technical Analysis ◽  
Piano Performance ◽  
The People ◽  
Performance Techniques

Abstract The piano variations The People United will Never be Defeated by Rzewski contains many modern piano performance techniques and skills. The difficulties of these techniques and skills in these enormous variations are far beyond the boundaries of traditional piano performance techniques and skills. This analysis will give a specific classification for these modern piano performance techniques and skills in order to provide a more comprehensive guide for the piano performers.

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