Hiding in Scarfaceism
A Critique of James Somerton and a discussion of Puritanism (pt. 1)
Queer film theory and why it matters begins with Somerton defining Film Theory as “Discussing the essence of cinema and providing conceptual frameworks for understanding a films relationship to reality and society as a whole”, and then describes how film analysis is different from it. He also discusses examples of film theorists in the early and mid 20th century trying to philosophize filmmaking, and describes how queer-coding uses film language in its own glossary.
He comes into this perspective in a misguided Frankfurtianist way, only describing one part of Film Theory, the use as a social criticism, while ignoring how it’s also a way of judging the psychological lens on which film and scenes are made. Desire is a meta-structure: Take the film Inception but framed more in a body of layers, an Onionism of thought that travels throughout mind and body.
Somerton couldn’t be more wrong on how he describes the history of film theory: It has no set beginning, as the history of Film Theory had it’s roots in Theatre-esque Theory: The theatre had philosophical aims inside of it: Sharing stories of Love, Adventure, Hate, and Self-Reflection, as the four major theories of 19th and early 20th century Plays.
Somerton then goes on to describe Queer Theory, expressing a non-essentialist view, and describing cishets as the default. “A man or woman can be automatically assumed to be cisgender or heterosexual. […] He isn’t just a man, but a gay man. Straight is the Default and furthermore Straight is the Objective.” (Somerton, “Queer film theory and why it matters”, 8:07)
I agree with him, but diverge with him on that there is no Default, or even an objective. Cisgender-Heterosexualism is framed actually as the main template: LGBT people assimilating into this main template is one of the goals for the Spectacle regarding LGBT people.
Somerton expresses this view in a more 21st Intersectionalist way: favoring a oppressor-oppressed view of straight-gay relationships, which is fine for arguments outside of film theory, or even literature theory in general.
But here’s the kicker: He pre-describes a “queer reading” in some films, even though there is no queer reading or straight reading objectively, or in a way that makes sense. Looking for gayness in films isn’t really a good objective tactic for viewing film theory.
Somerton describes the cishet viewing of history:
that “it’s like queer people just popped up in 1969, or that trans people didn’t exist until Caitlyn Jenner: Suddenly these people just materialized, the lack of cultural awareness and historical coverage of these people is the main reason why straight people say that we choose to be gay or choose to be trans” (paraphrased).
That, I agree with: There is a cishet view of historiography that has trespassed and harshly, not even with a trace, revised history across, well, history. But there isn’t a essentialist view of history, and there isn’t a non-essentialist view of it: the Spectacle is regressive.
The spectacle is a history-changing hyper-automatization of lgbtphobes and trump supporters screaming that it’s “not about race”. A hyper-storm of alt-kid progressives and post-obamaist-positivist boomers and gen-xers hiding true radical politics in favor of Dhar Mannism. It isn’t a static history, nor is it the product of pure-revisionism as some conspiracy theorists think it is.
Even with Somerton, a seemingly non-neoliberal and seemingly anti-capitalist theorist, he still seems neoliberal when you consider this for a while: It seems that either he is being paid to say neoliberal slogans sometimes, or he is forced to mold his actual views to fit that of the capitalist New World Order in fear of censorship, which reasonably could be the latter.
The world isn’t a cold dead place, so why do neoliberals frame it that way? It’s almost if people who think that all film theory is “woke bs” aren’t actually thinking in terms of a theoretical way, but a practical lens: viewing everybody who blatantly views the world in a writers pen as “beta” or “soyboy cuck snowflake sjw”. But it isn’t a meta-analysis of Tom Macdonaldist worldviews of life: It’s a moderate view of conspiracy theorist meta-theorizing of RW writers like peterson and shapiro, translated for boomers.
“there is more ... and ALL OF IT YOU CAN KNOW.”
-Jimbear, also known as MIJ.