Embedded Files
I want to write about gender. Having not found many suitable vessels for it in the past two quarters, I paused my investigation of it. Now I would like to explore how it is treated in scholarly conversation and media. These areas are new to me, so I think they will provide fresh insight into the nature of gender that will both interest and benefit me.
From The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Public domain.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
A 1975 musical comedy horror film written by Jim Sharman and Richard O'Brien ("Rocky").
O'Brien wrote the stage production The Rocky Horror Show on which the film is based. He is British-New Zealand ("Richard O'Brien"). He is a third sex (Fidgen). He does not believe in binary gender reassignment (Duffy).
Rocky follows a straight couple into a mansion of queer people led by Dr. Frank-N-Furter who creates an ideal man and traps the couple inside the mansion for the night. Later he and the other residents are revealed to be aliens from the planet Transsexual and he is killed by the other aliens before they transport the mansion to Transsexual.
The film has a large queer cult following, and builds a world within the mansion where queerness is non-queer and non-queerness is queer. The mansion can be seen as an extension of the planet Transsexual. The source interests me because it provides a snapshot of how transness was viewed around this time period and by O'Brien. I would like to investigate how Rocky conveys meaning simultaneously to queer and non-queer audiences about the experiences of trans people. I would approach the source mainly through film and gender analyses, possibly with a sociological lens.
Access: I own a copy.
Testo Junkie
A 2008 auto-theoretical fiction book by Paul B. Preciado (Hansen).
Preciado is a transmasculine feminist (Molina). He was born in Spain, studied in the United States, and is a professor of gender theory and political history of the body in France.
Testo Junkie follows a fictional representation of the author, BP, following the death of a close friend, GD, and through his dating VD, until GD's funeral. BP ingests testosterone as a rebellion against the pharmaceutical structures that reproduce gender. Intermittent are chapters on the history of contraceptives and gender, as well as theory on the role of gendered structures in upholding capitalism.
The book builds the world in which BP lives to match the pace of the theory presented in the intermittent chapters. I am interested in how the narrative of an otherwise nonfiction book makes it engaging and novelesque. Thus, I would like to investigate the specific effects of an intermittent narrative/theory and how Preciado relates these chapters to each other. My main modes of analysis would be rhetorical and literary, for each mode of the book.
Access: I own a copy.
Splendor Euphoria
A 2017 electronic pop album by SuperKnova (SuperKnova, Splendor Dysphoria).
SuperKnova is a genderfluid transgender woman (SuperKnova, "@superknovamusic"). She wrote Splendor Dysphoria as a therapeutic outlet during her early gender transition (Logan). She makes music for creative and representational purposes. She produces her own music.
The album proceeds sequentially with episodes of confusion and anxiety about individual gender leading into episodes of self-acceptance and finally of hope for queer joy.
Splendor Dysphoria builds the personal world of someone going through identity questioning, particularly related to gender. It interests me because I relate to much of it. I would like to investigate how exactly music can be therapeutic, particularly by creating a world with a representational character. Musical and literary analysis would probably be most helpful, with some rhetorical analysis.
Access: I own a copy.
References
Duffy, Nick. "Rocky Horror star Richard O'Brien: Trans women can't be women." PinkNews, 8 March 2016, www.thepinknews.com/2016/03/08/rocky-horror-star-richard-obrien-trans-women-cant-be-women. Accessed 11 April 2024.
Fidgen, Jo. "Richard O'Brien: 'I'm 70% man.'" BBC, 18 March 2013, www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21788238. Accessed 11 April 2024.
Hansen, Sarah K. "Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era by Paul B. Preciado (review)." philoSOPHIA, vol. 6, no. 1, 2016, pp. 166–170, doi.org/10.1353/phi.2016.0015.
Ivan-Zadeh, Larushka. "The Rocky Horror Picture Show: The film that's saved lives." BBC, 19 June 2020, www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200618-the-rocky-horror-picture-show-the-film-thats-saved-lives. Accessed 11 April 2024.
Logan, Stevie. "SuperKnova." Bops & Flops, 6 November 2019, bopsandflops.com/coverstory/2019/11/6/superknova. Accessed 12 April 2024.
Molina, Ángela. "Llamadme Paul." El País, 29 January 2016, elpais.com/elpais/2016/01/27/eps/1453910313_124066.html. Accessed 11 April 2024.
Preciado, Paul B. Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era, translated by Bruce Benderson, The Feminist Press, 2013.
"Richard O'Brien (born 1942)." BBC, 8 April 2008, www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/content/articles/2006/08/31/richard_obrien_feature.shtml. Accessed 11 April 2024.
SuperKnova. "@superknovamusic." TikTok, www.tiktok.com/@superknovamusic. Accessed 12 April 2024.
SuperKnova. Splendor Dysphoria. SuperKnova, 2017, superknova.bandcamp.com/album/splendor-dysphoria.
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show." American Film Institute, web.archive.org/web/20170918201823/http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=55624. Archived 18 September 2017.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Directed by Jim Sharman. Michael White Productions, 1975.
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