Transgender
I chose to write this particular blog on the topic of minoriitizing and universalizing discourses of race, class, and gender on the Vh1 reality show “RuPaul’s Drag race”. This was a spin off of America’s Next Top Model where instead it was a pageant competition of transgendered men who presented themselves as women in which they where born male. This television show definitely contains universalizing discourses that strongly negate the social norms of the heterosexual male and female and not to mention transgendered and flamboyant males portraying themselves as women, how they see women or how women are supposed to act within their own eyes. What the characters on this show does is reflect socially accepted stereotypes and imagery of women back into society as they see it and the irony of it is that they themselves are the exact violation of the socially accepted norm by this action. In the show you see the men going about there day to day challenges and from how they act through out the show are very feminine and very much like women. Through out most of the show they are undressed or even dressed as men and at the end of each show they perform there talent of present there challenge and they are in full women’s attire and make up presenting this transformation into a women in both personality and now in appearance.
The universalizing discourse that I noticed was the fact that within the show, heterosexuality is not understood as the norm, and there are no categories of sexual orientation where there bi, homo, or hetero. Even though this show strongly opposes the constructed hegemony of society, within the show it goes unnoticed and they are within there own society where transgender is actually the norm and there are minoritizing discourses on sexuality. The plot of the show is to show drag queens in a beauty pageant, and that is understood to be the norm for that show. If someone competed on the show who was not a drag queen then he would be violating hegemony of the show, but in the bigger pool of American society he would not and vice verse. This relates to the Kipnis reading where they showed different representations of transgender throughout history and how instead of being looked down upon as in our current society doe, they were revered as high standing citizens where not discriminated against but instead where instances where they where heroes in there society. As in the case of the Catholic religion within the reading by Kipnis, where “the transgendered character” was a martyr for transgendered people by refusing to where male clothes because he was a man even though he identified himself as a female. Betty was sent to jail and tortured and after conforming for a short amount of time after, he went back to wearing women’s clothes and was then willingly prosecuted and killed for it. Betty is now the face of the Catholic religion but the fact that Betty was actually a transgendered male fell by the waist side because it did not match with social hegemony of present society.
The fact that this show goes against socially constructed norms and values regarding race, and gender of American society it can be looked at as universalizing discourses of sexuality, but in the same token it too does monoritize discourses on sexuality because by being on the show it is assumed that you are transgendered, and that is the norm for people that shows.
Lull, James. "Hegemony". 2-6-10
Transgender PowerPoint
***I was not able to log back on to the Kipnis reading to get the exact name of the transgendered person so in the text she will be referred to as Betty. I choose to keep this in for the overall purpose of the blog.
