Meg Ready's Reviews > Mostly Dead Things

Yes it has Queer Ladies... deeply repressed and/or alcoholic women. Is this really doing the queer community any favors?

Thanks for your question, Stephanie! My short answer is yes. But I want to be careful of placing an additional burden on queer writers or any writer who is marginalized to be a monolith of their community, especially because for those writers in the margins there is already an expectation that you'll write about your identity, and even when it's not the central tension, it often becomes the focus of critical reviews. As a writer, I can't tell you how many workshops I've been in that pin my gender or sexuality with the material even if that's not the point—while my male colleagues are given the freedom of expression without identity — the privilege of the universal. I also want to say that representation matters. There are still very few mainstream lesbian writers, producers, directors, and so any normalization of queerness I believe is a favor, if an imperfect one. I also think we've reached a point where we can have multiple narratives about queerness that are messy in their portrayal of humanity because it does very little for the community at large if we expect artists to portray idealistic, or whole, versions of queerness as if that will be more convincing of our humanity (especially when we consider how much unlearning is required to feel whole/enough/however you want to describe it and for many of us, that feeling of health, of being complete, may always remain elusive). To me, it seems more honest to show the apertures in childhood and adulthood that encourage destructive behavior and conformity. I found Arnett's elliptical narrative of repression, shame, and intimacy to be heavily flawed (but I think that's the point) and for me, it was more indicative of the socialization and coping mechanisms that capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy promote. Is it a Great Love story? No, but it's not meant to be, and the choice of location, age, and substances belie the lack of freedom many queer folx (myself included) find themselves circling. There are queer poets like Chen Chen, Kaveh Akbar, and sam sax who write about queerness, repression, and substance use but aren't tasked with being representative of the queer community, so I do wonder about how much gender plays into our expectations of narrative, and what we can do in the future to expand beyond the confines of what we think queerness means, and ways to call attention to how oppression impacts the queer community without relying on erasure or self-destruction. I believe it does us fewer favors as queer folx to be hypercritical of one another (when the majority is already taking on this work), but particularly womxn who already face impossible/nonexistent standards as artists. We need writers like Arnett who unveil how silence around queer sexuality results in shared trauma that shapes communities.

I'd highly recommend T Kira Madden's memoir "Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls." It deftly moves from wound to celebration, and the prose is stunning.

Thanks for that well argued response Meg! I agree entirely with your point about not burdening marginalized authors with requirements for how queer characters are portrayed.