COMM 3110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Judith Butler, Heterosexuality, Aretha Franklin

• School: Fordham University
• Department: Communication and Media Studies
• Course: COMM 3110
• Professor: Mary L.Rothschild

Document Summary

Identity categories tend to be instruments of regulatory regimes, whether as the normalizing categories of oppressive structures or as the rallying points for a liberatory contestation of that very opposite (308) Sites of unnecessary trouble categories control more than they liberate. Butler argues that even coming out places several restrictions on an individual. We are out of the closet, but into what? (309) Society has a particular set of beliefs about how an individual who identifies as gay is supposed to look or act. There can be no clear-cut definitions of sexuality. Each identity consists of complexities and pluralities. Questioning the idea that there is a right" or wrong" way to be homo- or heterosexual. Gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original (307) Repeatedly acting in a way that is associated with being either hetero- or homosexual is what defines one as such.