the other day i read two articles in the NY Times magazine that were something of review essays about film, tv and books in popular culture. they struck me for a few reasons: first, my work of being unsettled is about breaking down the barriers that i’ve been trained to live in (due to family of origin, social conditioning, internalized colonization, and so on), and that also obviously must include personal relationships; second, these close personal relationships (and questioning them) explicitly effects gender and sexuality (and of course race, class, culture and so on); and, third, everywhere there are signs that society and its members are looking for new ways to be in relationship, with each other, the cosmos, and our selves.
The first article, ‘The split-screen marriage‘ (B. Dolnick, NY Times magazine, 1/4/15) addresses how over-sharing with technological tools (email, text, web chat, and so on) doesn’t actually encourage closeness, but might even mark more distance. Dolnick writes in conclusion, that some characters in literature “have access to riches within themselves — storehouses of memory, acres of association, infinite varieties of feeling and thought — that they can only ever guess at in each other. This…is what they ought to be sharing with each other…. [T]hough we would much prefer to forget, that the canyon [of human relationship] is deep and dark and that it will not be bridged by text messages.”
The second article, ‘Girls’ club‘ (L. Loofbourow, NY Times magazine, 1/18/15) responds to the new crop of Tv shows that are for the most part ‘created by women and center on female characters.’ Loofbourow notes that TV shows more recently focused on male anti-heros raising haunting questions about fallen masculinity, and have given way to ones that evidence collaboration and resilience, even in the face of great tragedy: ‘[T]hese shows mark the dawn of promiscuous protagonism: a style of television that, rather than relying on the perspective of one (usually twisted) character, adopts a wild, roving narrative sympathy.’ Loofbourow concludes that ‘promiscuous protaganism is interested in truths that are collectively produced. Its greatness stems not from a single show runner’s bleak and brilliant outlook but from a collaborative vision of art that admits a spectrum of shades.’
And while i don’t have any direct answers to what this all means for my personal relationships, let alone my critique of white supremacist capitalist heteronormativity, at least bringing these questions to bear is a vital step. Hopefully?