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ABSTRACT
In White Innocence (2016), Gloria Wekker’s concept of ‘imperialist nostalgia’ (108) reflects the ways in which, in the Global North, dominant discourses and representations of nonnormative genders and sexualities are monolithically understood through white homonormativity. Such whitewashings create a binary dichotomy that associates queerness with whiteness, while Arab, black and brown people are represented as essentially homophobic and transphobic. The imagery of imperialist nostalgia, with its antipodean categorizations, consolidates the supposed white/queer/innocent triad, reinforces racism and xenophobia, but also denies the existence of past and present non-white queer realities. This article examines an alternative and multidimensional understanding of queerness, one that explicitly challenges ‘white gay innocence’ and draws on ‘critical nostalgia’ – described by Wekker as a type of nostalgia ‘with nonnormative sexualities as a basis upon which a politics of solidarity can take off, and for which hard work will be required’. More specifically, this analysis focuses on the first and second seasons of the television series Pose (2018, 2019), as well as on the novel Brother (2018) by David Chariandy. It will show how these two fictional works reinscribe black and brown queer subjectivities onto historicity and reshape a past that longs for a more critical future.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. I would like to thank the editors and the anonymous reviewer for their precious advice and helpful comments.
2. This shift (from ‘sex’ to ‘love’) reflects the dominant homonormative model and its socially accepted forms of nonheterosexualities that foreground (vanilla) love that is deemed suitable for support in the public sphere, while a larger understanding of desire and sexual freedom keeps on being stigmatized.
3. The acronym ‘LGBTQI+’ refers to gender and sexual diversities and communities. The letters correspond to various identities: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex. The acronym can contain more or fewer letters (‘LGBT+’, ‘LGBTQIA+’, etc), while the ‘+’ stresses its inclusive dimension.
Here, ‘TQI+’ is put between parentheses because Francken’s discourse focuses on sexual rather than on gender diversities. Besides, as it is suggested in this chapter, the recent social inclusion of some gays, lesbians and bisexual people does not entail the same ‘tolerance’ for gender diversities.
4. My translation. Original text: “Mannen die zich schminken, die hun wenkbrauwen epileren, die lingerie dragen, die een sacoche dragen, die zwanger worden.. Draait de wereld door of ligt het gewoon aan mij? Lang leve de gewone man die al die ongein niet nodig heeft om zich goed in zijn vel te voelen”. (https://nl.metrotime.be/nieuws/francken-reageert-voor-het-eerst-op-lingerierel [Accessed on 23/06/21]).
5. My translation and emphasis. Original text: “De holebibeweging heeft alles toch al binnen gehaald (huwelijk, adoptie, antidiscriminatiewet). Wat willen ze nog meer? Ze hebben op zijn minst dezelfde rechten als jij of ik. Het feit bvb. dat homo’s steeds vaker agressief behandeld worden in bv. Brussel, heeft alles te maken met het hoge aantal islamieten en kutmarokkaantjes en niets met ons, en dan maar op de socialisten stemmen... (Ironisch, maar wat zou hun volgende eis worden? Alle moslims uit Brussel?! Dat zou pas grappig zijn ;-)” (https://www.demorgen.be/nieuws/lees-de-integrale-kutmarokkaantjes-mail-van-theo-francken~b1289ad6/ [Accessed on 23 June 2021]).
6. Wekker, White Innocence, 108.
7. Queer thinking is indeed at odds with normality, as well as with clear-cut boundaries and categories.
8. Wekker, White Innocence, 108.
9. Ibid., 108.
10. See Ferguson, One-Dimensional Queer.
11. Wekker, White Innocence, 108.
12. Ibid., 109.
13. Love, Backward Feeling, 10.
14. Ibid., 1.
15. See note 6 above.
16. Ibid., 108–109.
17. My translation and my emphasis; original text: “heeft alles te maken met het hoge aantal islamieten en kutmarokkaantjes en niets met ons” (https://www.demorgen.be/nieuws/lees-de-integrale-kutmarokkaantjes-mail-van-theo-francken~b1289ad6/ [Accessed on 23/06/21]).
18. Wekker, White Innocence, 109.
19. Ibid.
20. Haritaworn, Queer Lovers and Hateful Others, 142.
21. Ibid.; my emphasis.
22. Wekker, White Innocence, 116.
23. Puar, Terrorist Assemblages, 28.
24. See Wekker, Politics of Passion.
25. Ferguson, One-Dimensional Queer, 3.
26. See note 18 above.
27. The third and last season of Pose, which will not be discussed here, was released in 2021.
28. For many, these negative experiences are nevertheless not stories solely pertaining to the past, but they are present realities that keep on being silenced by systemic racism and homonormativity.
29. The mother/father of the house is at the head of the queer family and its “children”.
Note: On 10 January 2022, MJ Rodriguez won a Golden Globe (Best Actress in a Drama Series) for her leading role in Pose and thus became the first openly transgender woman to win such an award.
30. Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Steven Canals, “Access”, 23ʹ16”.
31. Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Steven Canals, “Mother of the Year”, 48ʹ23”.
32. Elektra”s stealing from the Salvation Army can be read as a critical comment on the Christian organization”s political campaign against the decriminalization of homosexuality in New Zealand in 1986.
33. Janet Mock and Our Lady J, “Life’s a Beach”, 25ʹ50”.
34. Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Steven Canals, “Acting Up”, 17ʹ50”.
35. https://marksking.com/my-fabulous-disease/act-up-had-a-diversity-problem-should-pose-correct-it/ [Accessed 12/01/22].
36. Wekker, White Innocence, 109.
37. “Dougla people” refers to mixed-race people (mostly in the Caribbean and its diaspora) who are of African and Indian origins.
38. Chariandy, Brother, 16.
39. Hlongwane, “A Different Economy,” 180.
40. Ibid., 104.
41. For an in-depth analysis of Jelly as a queer figure: See Bomans, “Cric, Crac, Queer”.
42. See note 39 above, 185.
43. Ibid., 127.
44. Wekker, White Innocence, 109.
45. Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, 1.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Bastien Bomans
Bastien Bomans (he/him) is a PhD candidate at the University of Liège (Belgium) working in the postcolonial research unit CEREP (http://www.cerep.ulg.ac.be) and in the research group Feminist & Gender Lab. His PhD project aims to present a multidimensional reading of Trinbagonian ‘queer’ novels that foregrounds the literary intersections between the critique of heteronormativity with other critical paradigms, such as decolonialism, feminism, ecocriticism, ableism and specism. Bastien’s research interests include post/decolonial, Caribbean and diasporic theories and literatures, as well as feminist, gender, queer and LGBTQIA+ studies. Bastien Bomans, Langue et linguistique anglaises modernes, Département de Langues modernes, Université de Liège, Place Cockerill 3-5, 4000 Liège, Belgium. [email protected]