Smell Like a man, man.

This old spice commercial is appalling. This hetereosexual african-american man attempts to envoke jealousy in heterosexual females. Why should only regular old straight men use old spice body wash? "because it will make you smell super hot!"
So sexist. A standard homosexual male or female isnt allowed to enjoy the delightful smell that is Old Spice body wash? This complete oversexualization of body wash only attempts to speak at heterosexual couples, reinforcing the stated "natural" sexual orientation in society.

How dare Old Spice tell us what a man should be? This commercial simply works upon gender binaries by showing that this is how a man should be.
"Smell like a man, man"

This word choice thoroughly asserts Derridan linguistic tactics. He questions himself suggesting the actual answer, that using the body wash is a positive thing. He mentions the kitchen that your husband creates with his "bare hands" signifiying the idea of masculinity and thus desirability of the heterosexual male back to the female.

Clearly this bricoleur makes use of various devices to grab the attention of straight women everywhere into making their men seem completely inferior. He wants them to believe that he can represent every good thing in life she wants, making something out of essentially nothing.

It seems the Old Spice guy has a case of serious scopophilia.. he is way too happy about showing himself off and having others want to smell like him. He embodies Freudian ideals and that of symbolic imagery using himself as the subject of desire.

This man is also repressing the feminine. He asks how the ladies are doing, but says "fantastic" before any viewer could even think or believe he actually cared!

To Queer or not to Queer.. that is the question.

            

           The word “queer” sounds … queer. I’ve only ever heard this word used randomly and usually as derogatory term. Actually, I was told it was offensive to say this word by one of my teachers in sixth grade. He didn’t give a reason, but I’m guessing he associated the word “queer” with something like the word “faggot”. When you look up “queer” on dictionary.com , there is an overwhelming amount of definitions that pretty much  are all negative. For a noun, the definition is “ a homosexual, esp. a male homosexual”. Apparently it also means counterfeit money! As an adjective, queer can mean unusually different, shady, deranged, or unmanly. 

            Butler defines the word “queer” as a verb; to queer something. She uses it as making something off center, and to reveal the true queerness. The way Butler defines queer makes me think of an eternal state of being. At one point Butler says, "to appear under the sign of lesbian, but that I would like to have it permanently unclear what precisely that sign signifies," (308). I like to imagine her posing the question before she goes out somewhere, "to queer today or not to queer?" 

            Queer Theory is a type of theory that is used to deconstruct the heteronormative texts we see every singly day. The definition of “queer” in terms of queer theory is less about a single definition, but is more of an embodied analysis. The basis of the theory is the discussion about whether gender and sexuality come naturally to each person, or if they are socially constructed.

Butler thinks that gender and sexuality are both a “repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts that produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being”. Queer theory is a response to the “naturalness” that heterosexuality implies. Being homosexual has been and will be considered by most people a deviation from what is normal and natural. The theory is in response to heterosexism, the discrimination based upon the ideals that normal equals heterosexual which equals superiority. Queer theory is encased in the idea that the clarity of one’s gender produces the idea that heterosexuality ideals. Butler says that there is a general problematic gesture of identifying homosexuality. The very word “homosexual” is a part of a homophobic discourse.

Identity politics is something Butler talks about quite a lot. The meaning is that a person bases their politics or beliefs in categories that take hold of their identity. Some examples are woman, lesbian, middle class. Butler dislikes identity politics because they attempt to normalize people. She states that there is an “identity category disease” that attempt to “regulate instruments of regimes, when used as rallying points”. These rallying points are affirmations, like one saying to oneself, “I am a woman”, and “I am a lesbian”. Butler feels that an assumption of an identity for a political reason means to join the oppressed, and to be colonized, which is to assume the identity of someone else.

The idea of identifying with a certain group seems powerful to me at first, but in Butler’s terms, it’s troublesome. By conceding to a particular group, I am normalizing myself into that label, and I am being reclaimed with another whole identity that I did not even realize I was assuming. Is it really possible to not be recolonized at all? At some point in our lives, everyone goes through identity politics. Butler herself does; saying that sometimes she goes to events “as a lesbian”. 

Here is a link to Entertainment Weekly's "Landmark moments in Gay Hollywood". It starts off with 1959, when cross-dressing was the most honest Hollywood got about LGBT people. Reading through the list, and seeing how "queerness" operates and has changed in popular culture, I've realized that gayness has become a lot more sexualized. A little over ten years ago, when Ellen Degeneres came out on her own television show, some networks refused to air it. It amazes me that that was such a short time ago. However, the fact that gay marriage still is not legal is a reflection of the fact that a majority of society is stuck on the problem of "queer".

If Judith Butler gets pleasure from the instability of the category of "being a lesbian", she will feel that way for a long time. I think she says it best; "If I claim to be a lesbian, I 'come out' only to produce a new and different closet," (309). We have these social constructs, and a certain amount of the population is trying to get rid of heterosexism. A big part of the world also unfortunately encourages this discrimination.