Hello Readers!
Hello Readers!
Welcome to my blog I'm going to write about Queer Theory and Marxist Criticism this task is given by Dr. Dilip Barad.
👉 Queer Theory
Queer Theory is field of critical theory that emerged in early 1990s. Feminist challenges to the idea that gender is part of essential self and upon gay and lesbian studies close examination of the society constructed nature of sexual act and identities. Feminism was contrast between sex and gender - Queer Theory offers the view that all identities are social construction.
👉What is Queer Theory
An approach to literary and cultural studies that rejected traditional categories of gender and sexuality critical theory that emerged in 1990s. It is not only sexual desire but it is emotional desire. Queer Theory does not concern itself exclusively with homosexuality - it is about all forms of identity.
👉What lesbian/gay critic do?
1. Identify lesbian/gay episodes in mainstream work and discuss them as such (for example, the relationship between Jane and Helen in Jane Eyre), rather than reading same-sex pairings in non-specific ways, for instance, as symbolising two aspects of the same character (Zimmerman).
2 . Set up an extended, metaphorical sense of 'lesbian/gay' so that it connotes a moment of crossing a boundary, or blurring a set of categories. All such 'liminal' moments mirror the moment of selfidentification as lesbian or gay, which is necessarily an act of conscious resistance to established norms and boundaries.
👉Examples
Manvendrasingh Gohil
- Manvendrasingh is Indian prince from Rajpipla
- Th 42 years old is only person of Royal lineage who has openly proclaimed to being a gay.
- He runs charity works with the LGBT community
👉Dostana Movie
- Dostana was the first mainstream comorcial movie that shows homosexuality as the theme of the story.
- It was a stereotypes and everything given a comic angle.
- Kirron kher accepting her son dating another man was step forward towards acceptance.
- 👉 Dickson Experimental Sound film.
1894, a poorly shot 17 second experimental film shows two men dancing, holding each other “awkwardly”. This was the first ever depiction of homosexuality that ran a stride of uncomfortability in the audience. The film was called Dickson Experimental Sound Film commonly labeled online as The Gay Brothers. It was shot to check the mixing of sound in moving images by William Dickson. The experiment did not work but the footage somehow became a benchmark.
Nineteenth century and in the mid 1930s and 40s, Hollywood saw its queer characters as nothing but flamboyant, laughing stocks who were just there to establish a twitchy note within the films. Conventional sexual behaviour between the same sexes was not accepted on the silver screen and was only used to typify homosexuality as a mental illness. “Sissy” looking man or the “hardboiled” woman in a film came only to enrich the negativity as perceived by the white Christian middle class culture.
👉 Meghadhanushya (The Color of Life)
https://youtu.be/DbkTKRm942c
Meghadhanushya ( The Color of Life)Released in 2013, this is the first Gujarati film on homosexuality and was directed by former Ayurveda practitioner K R Devamani. It is partly narrated by Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil, who is widely known for being the son and probable heir of the Maharaja of Rajpipla in Gujarat. In an interview with a Gujarati news channel, Gohil explained how the film is a bold attempt to subvert misconceptions about homosexuality and show the discrimination and stigma that is faced by the gay community.
Marxist Criticism
Marxist criticism, in its diverse forms, grounds its theory and practice on the economic and cultural theory of Karl Marx (1818–83) and his fellow-thinker Friedrich Engels (1820–95), and especially on the following claims:
In the Marxist literary analysis, the evolving history of humankind, of its social groupings and interrelations, of its institutions, and of its ways of thinking are largely determined by the changing mode of its “material production”— that is, of its overall economic organization for producing and distributing material goods.
What Marxist critics do
1. They make a division between the 'overt' (manifest or surface) and 'covert' (latent or hidden) content of a literary work (much as psychoanalytic critics do) and then relate the covert subject matter of the literary work to basic Marxist themes, such as class struggle, or the progression of society through various historical stages, such as, the transition from feudalism to industrial capitalism. Thus, the conflicts in King Lear might be read as being 'really' about the conflict of class interest between the rising class (the bourgeoisie) and the falling class (the feudal overlords).
2. Another method used by Marxist critics is to relate the context of a work to the social-class status of the author. In such cases an assumption is made (which again is similar to those made by psychoanalytic critics) that the author is unaware of precisely what he or she is saying or revealing in the text.
3. A third Marxist method is to explain the nature of a whole literary genre in terms of the social period which 'produced' it. For instance, The Rise of the Novel, by Ian Watt, relates the growth of the novel in the eighteenth century to the expansion of the middle classes during that period. The novel 'speaks' for this social class, just as, for instance, Tragedy 'speaks for' the monarchy and the nobility, and the Ballad 'speaks for' for the rural and semi-urban 'working class'.
4. A fourth Marxist practice is to relate the literary work to the social assumptions of the time in which it is 'consumed', a strategy which is used particularly in the later variant of Marxist criticism known as cultural materialism.
👉Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin, 1936)
A classic movie by Charlie Chaplin is a Marxist film? Chaplin was always sensitive to social problems. England has always been the land of socialist battles. Highgate cemetery is a sufficient proof of how deeply related England is to Marx’s life.
This film could be seen as a social accusation toward industrialization . If one wants to better understand what proletariat alienation is, this is the film to see. This movie is based on a simple concept which it explains well through stereotypical and ironic characters.
A society that works in a crazy context cannot be fit for man, who continuously searches to be free. If it is only a critical film more than constructive one, it reflects a particular aspect of industrial proletariat problems, a very old problem that is a socialist vindication but at the same time, is the basis of Marx’s philosophy.
👉Avatar
Avatar was described by Yong Tang as a ‘Marxist Saga on a Far Distant Planet’ It is one of the only films to show how Marxist ideas in a film can be reflected literally in real society.
In January 2010 the Chinese Government banned Avatar despite its popularity. People have speculated that this is because the film shows the rise of socialism and how it can overcome capitalist nature, this is shown within the film as the Na’vi fight against the Human population and is speculated that people may think they can rise up against the current regime and have a similar situation as in Avatar appear in China. This may sound extreme but it has happened. In 2010 Palestinian Activists in the West Bank dressed up as Avatars and protested against the Israeli population of the area, and the barrier built across their land. Even while they were dressed up the Israelis gassed the protesters while they were demonstrating near the border.
👉The Story
Avatar itself actually shows an invasion of a planet, as the Humans are aliens they are robbing the planet of its natural resource. They do this with massive military power and have huge amounts of machinery and equipment. As the Humans mine the materials we see the pure size of the human occupation and this is pure capitalist pressure as the Na’vi are peace lovers who live in their own little colonies.
But Avatar is a great example of how socialism can rise up and be massively powerful. This and this happens when the Humans push the Na’vi over the edge when they destroy the Na’vi home.
The scene showing the destruction of the Home tree shows how helpless the Na’vi are from the power of the Humans. They have no way of fighting back and they have to allow the Home tree to get destroyed. But as in all good Marxist movies the Na’vi rise up and fight back against the Humans and eventually force them back, and destroy everything that they have achieved on the planet, and they get their planet back.
Citation
- Bdaloni, L. (2019, September 16). The 10 best movies influenced by Marxist philosophy. Taste of Cinema - Movie Reviews and Classic Movie Lists. Retrieved September 16, 2021, from http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2015/the-10-best-movies-influenced-by-marxist-philosophy/.
- Google. (n.d.). Marxist criticism. Google Docs. Retrieved September 16, 2021, from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dDC7Wm9xrg0zXBiS22ftDGZXtvr8oBvAccJWWyUoYCk/edit?usp=sharing.
- Google. (n.d.). Queer theory. Google Docs. Retrieved September 16, 2021, from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PHuDoHUT5Ayb4BhqqHeAoYh-6UzJtKl1yytaEUBaV6E/edit?usp=sharing.
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