Fags, Hags and Queer Sisters : Gender Dissent and Heterosocial Bonding in Gay Culture

This is an account of the importance of women and cross-gender identification in gay male culture. It offers a range of cultural readings from Tennessee William's classic "A Streetcar Named Desire" and Forster's "gay" novel "Maurice" through "Fiction", queer lifestyle magazines, "Roseanne", slash fan fiction and Jarman's "Edward II" to Almodovar's camp classic "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown". It takes issue with many of the sacred cows of gay politics, and offers a number of new concepts in lesbian and gay theory. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgements......Page 10 Fags, female icons and Stonewall......Page 12 Fags, hags and queer sistership......Page 20 1 From Pathology to Gender Dissent: Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire......Page 25 1.1 Streetcar: Perversion or great American (queer) art?......Page 28 Inversion: Maurice and unrequited desire......Page 31 Coming out: Stonewall and gay politics......Page 39 A Streetcar Named Desire: a gay play?......Page 42 From gender to libido (and back again?)......Page 48 1.2 Streetcar: a play with gender?......Page 54 Stanley Kowalski: Polack, stud, husband......Page 55 Miss DuBois: queer defiance?......Page 60 A case of sexuality or gender? Feminism and queer theory......Page 75 Homosocial regimes, male power and not getting fucked......Page 83 Pulp Fiction: fucking butch......Page 87 Homosocial dissent, female bonding......Page 93 Mapping heterosocial bonds......Page 98 Straight talking: get some Attitude......Page 105 Slash fantasies/heterosocial bonds......Page 108 3 Roseanne: Domestic Goddess as Heterosocial Heroine?......Page 113 Roseanne and political credibility......Page 117 Roseanne and homosociality: the queer challenge......Page 122 'I now pronounce you men': Queer marriage and the domestic goddess......Page 135 Mary-come-lately or gay goddess?......Page 143 4 Pedro Almodóvar and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: the Heterosocial Spectator and Misogyny......Page 149 A Case of public or private?......Page 150 Liberal titillation and the regime of the couple......Page 154 Queer opportunities......Page 159 Women on the verge of queer sistership?......Page 164 The woman's film as gay film?......Page 168 Edward II: queer homosociality?......Page 173 Hysteria and heterosocial dissent......Page 180 Fag Hag: a cautionary tale?......Page 193 Fags, hags and gender dissent......Page 200 Notes......Page 209 C......Page 228 H......Page 229 M......Page 230 S......Page 231 X......Page 232 "Why is so much gay male culture obsessed with women? Why do men who desire other men spend so much time and energy adoring women, bonding with women? Why is it that women seem to develop special relationships with gay men? Why is it so fabulous to be a screaming queen? In this book Stephen Maddison offers answers to these questions by looking in detail at a range of cultural texts from Tennessee Williams's classic play A Streetcar Named Desire and Forster's 'gay' novel Maurice through Pulp Fiction, queer lifestyle magazines, Roseanne, slash fan fiction and Jarman's Edward II, to Almodovar's camp classic Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Along the way he looks at the kinds of iconic divas, dames, bitches, studs and bad boys who have formed the gender archetypes that shape gay culture. Theoretically sophisticated, yet passionate, accessible and opinionated, Fags, Hags and Queer Sisters takes issue with many of the sacred cows of contemporary gay politics, and offers a number of new concepts in lesbian and gay theory. Taking its historical cue from turn-of-the-century notions of inversion, the book uses feminist and queer work on gender to argue that third sex models of homosexuality continue to inform gay culture in the U.S. and Britain. Maddison offers a radical new reading of Eve Sedgwick's work on homosocial male bonds, and develops new terms for understanding the cultural importance of relationships between gay men and women."--Jacket Fags, Hags and Queer Sisters is a provocative account of the importance of women and cross-gender identification in gay male culture. It offers a range of cultural readings from Tennessee William's classic A Streetcar Named Desire and Forster's'gay'novel Maurice through Pulp Fiction, queer lifestyle magazines, Roseanne, slash fan fiction and Jarman's Edward II to Almodovar's camp classic Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Theoretically sophisticated, yet passionate, accessible and opinionated, Fags, Hags and Queer Sisters takes issue with many of the sacred cows of contemporary gay politics, and offers a number of new concepts in lesbian and gay theory. It offers a range of cultural readings from Tennessee William's classic A Streetcar Named Desire and Forster's 'gay' novel Maurice through Pulp Fiction , queer lifestyle magazines, Roseanne , slash fan fiction and Jarman's Edward II to Almodovar's camp classic Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown .