Jakten på det "queera ögonblicket". Om det subversivas (o)möjligheter

Abstract

The main question in this article is how and where subversion is possible. As a point of departure the author uses the work of Tiina Rosenberg, a researcher of theatre and gender at Stockholm university, who presents a theory on subversion, or "queer moment", produced by women in male clothing on stage. The article argues against the idea that this genre disturbs the heterosexual normativity and order of gender; instead it seems to reproduce that same order, partially through the relations between the characters and partially through the reason for female cross-dressing presented both within and outside these particular dramaturgies. Three examples are analysed: the stage play Twelfth Night (Shakespeare) and the motion pictures Yentl (Singer/Streisand) and Victor,Victoria! (Edwards, Hoemburg/Edwards). By focusing on both the male character who finds himself attached to the disguised woman, and on the female character who is attracted to the same, the author concludes that while the male character does not question his sexuality but rather the gender of his 'male' friend, the female character is easily led astray by superficial words and clothing and hence reproducing the stereotypical female behaviour. The male character, on the other hand, reproduces male (hetero)- sexuality as potent and capable of 'seeing' through any disguise. Hence, heteronormativity is found to play an important part in the entire dramaturgy-not only in the ending scene where everything is set right through falling disguises and weddings. However, the subversive part of the cross-dressing woman on stage or in film is not completely disregarded and the author presents, by using the theories of Teresa de Lauretis and Judith Butler, a possible identification with a woman in male clothing as a way of expressing a (lesbian) desire based on a fetishist use of male clothing as a symbol of disavowing both female and male fallocentric desire.