Queerly Beloved

We are gathered here today…

OK, I’m not quite that dramatic. Mostly.

I do want to formally announce a pivot away from the medieval. While I intend to use my knowledge of medieval history and literature to inform the way I approach modern media, I’m more interested in centering my blog around the things I find interesting in the moment, rather than attempting to fit the categories I created before I knew what I’d enjoy doing.

Everything I do comes from a queer lens. As an openly queer and transgender person, I interact with the world in a unique way. The way I understand social constructs, especially those of gender and sexuality, seems to be very different from the accepted majority. I think there is so much more to the human experience, however, and my job as a literary scholar is to find those moments of layered meaning.

Take Episode 1X05 of Our Flag Means Death called “The Best Revenge is Dressing Well.” In this episode, Stede (a.k.a. the Gentleman Pirate) is attempting to teach Edward (a.k.a. the Blackbeard) the manners of the noble classes. To this end, they assume false identities to join a dinner party on a nearby French vessel. Antics ensue, of course, as the main French characters at said party are played by Nick Kroll and Kristen Schaal.

While Stede is teaching Edward the functions of various cutlery, this exchange takes place:

Stede: “It’s not just eating. We’re dining. And remember. Dining is….”
Stede and Edward together: “pageantry.”

Our Flag Means Death S1x05 “The Best Revenge is Dressing Well”

It reminds me of Judith Butler. Butler is a philosopher and gender theorist, whose work informs much of queer and gender theory in academic circles to this day. While I think a lot of her work is inaccessible for the general public, the big take away from her 1990 book Gender Trouble is that gender is performance.

What I, and many scholars/feminists, take from Butler’s work is the understanding that gender is not an inherent identity linked to your body. Rather, you choose to perform your gender when you decide what to wear, how to cut your hair, how to behave, etc. Each person’s gender is therefore unique to themselves, because behaviors, clothes, and styles, etc. are not inherent to any gender over another.

So, when Stede reminds Edward that fine dining is about pageantry, about presenting a face to the nobles that allows you to avoid humiliation and retain standing, I felt excited. They’re teaching each other how to code switch-how to behave differently depending on the circumstance.

Queer and LGBTQIA+ people code switch all the time. Many of us do it naturally or subconsciously as a form of protection. Perhaps being our true selves puts us as risk for losing a job, losing family, housing, or even our lives. This is why safe spaces are so important, these are spaces where people can be themselves. Sometimes, the only place they can be themselves.

And so I return once again: queerly beloved. The queer things I love profoundly and deeply, ranging from the medieval to the modern; the subtle to explicit; the silly to the profound. Thank you for giving me the time and space to share these thoughts.