“Materialization,” in Butler’s piece, refers to the act of making the idea of the body into the body as a physical entity in society. Butler’s emphasis on materialization puts strong note on the fact that “bodies that matter” only exist as such because they are created to. To the author, “‘sex’ is a regulatory ideal” (Butler, 235). It acts as a societal norm, keeping people in the binaries of right and wrong, male and female, subject and object. One must correctly perform their gender and sex in order to be even viewed as a person.
I am particularly interested in Butler’s view of the heteronormative expression of gender, and the way it dictates all aspects of identity. That “…‘materiality’ is formed and sustained through and as a materialization of regulatory norms that are in part those of heterosexual hegemony” (Butler, 243), such that even being outside the “norm” of heterosexuality must be within the guidelines of the hegemony. Thus, a lesbian is a lesbian, only so far as she conforms to the hegemonic definition of a lesbian. The following music video is a satirical look at the stereotypical (hegemonic) view of lesbians as being quick to move in with each other. It also alludes to such ideas that lesbians wear plaid, don't use make-up, and are rather masculine.
(Turner and Lounsbery)
The video also makes a cultural commentary relating to race. The song is performed as a rap, a historically African American music form. In line with such culture, the women in the song, though all white, dress and use a noticeable "rap-like" voice and language. In this way, they are acting African American, as so many white rappers are accused of in popular culture. Not only are they materializing their sex, gender, and sexuality, as Butler might point out, but the singers are also materializing a race, though it is not what society would point out as their own.
In obvious ways, the rappers are performing a "racial formation," which Omi and Winant define as "the sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed" (Omi and Winant, 55). To me, though it is played out jokingly, it is obvious that, in addition to commentary on their sexualities, the women in the video have inhabited the formed popular idea of the African American race, at least as it applies to rappers.
Like Butler's explanation of sex/gender materialization, Omi and Winant's "racial formation" is an explanation of making the cultural idea of an identity into a physical, "easily" seen thing. The same way I know what a woman is, I know what a black man is. Without the visual and etymological differentiations between black and white, male and female, hetero- and homosexual, we would all simply be humans. Without the categorizations, there would not be the system of control held by the hegemonic norm. If we could not see the color of a person's skin or the shape of their body, would there be an "us" or a "them"? I think not.
Like Cavallaro, I feel that the human body is "a flexible idea, which can be interpreted in diverse ways, depending on time, place and context" (Cavallaro, 99). If I were blind, I would not be able to interpret the color of a person's skin, their sexual orientation, or possibly even their sex/gender. In a world of blind inhabitants, identity would be completely subjective. We would have to believe what we are being told when a person describes themselves to us. The body would no longer be the cultural material that we have created; it would be the ideology that begins the materialization. The difference would be, though, that the materialization would begin with the individual body. It would no longer be a mound of clay, subject to cultural dictation.
Works Cited
Butler, Judith. “Bodies that Matter." Feminist Theory and the Body: A Reader. Eds. Janet Price and Margrit Shildnick. New York: Routledge, 1999. 235-45.
Cavallaro, Dani. The Body for Beginners. New York: Writers and Readers Publishing, 1998.
Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1994. 53-76.
Turner, Amy and Kathryn Lounsbery. "U-Haul: The Music Video." ThatsWhatSheSaidShow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0MxsQnWRX0
Your comments about how blindness would affect your interpretation of other people remind me of the show "dating in the dark". The contestants must rely largely on what the person tells them and what they are saying to make a decision as to whether or not they like them. I too wonder how the world would be if we were blind to everyone's appearance. Knowing human nature, I question whether we would find some other way of judging one another and discriminating.
ReplyDeleteYou make some great connections here between Butler and Omi and Winant's arguments, and your application of these texts to the video you found is very compelling. I particularly like your reading of the ways that race, sexuality, and gender are being deployed in the video as mutually constituting norms and identities. Your analysis of hegemony is also quite astute when you write "even being outside the “norm” of heterosexuality must be within the guidelines of the hegemony. Thus, a lesbian is a lesbian, only so far as she conforms to the hegemonic definition of a lesbian". And as your analysis of the video points out, such a definition is inherently a racialized one. You might think about how the very category of "lesbian" (as well s the category of "heterosexual") is circumscribed by racial norms that are materialized through the processes Butler, Omni, and Winant describe. Toward the end of your post you raise the question of the category of "the human" and suggest that "without the visual and etymological differentiations between black and white, male and female, hetero- and homosexual, we would all simply be humans." However, how might Butler, Omi, and Winant (or some of the other authors we've read) help us to trace the ways that the very category of "the human" is predicated upon racialization, gender, and sexual norms? In other words, you might ask how norms of gender, sexuality, and race have and do shape what is considered "human" to begin with such that "the human" is not found underneath or outside of such categories and practices. Something to think about. Great job on your post and on your analysis!
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