Touching Queer Pasts and Embracing the Elegiac Affect of Our Present: Or, Taking Bette with You
This semester I taught an undergraduate course in NYU's Gender and Sexuality studies program entitled "AIDS Activism and Queer Publics." The following is a reflection letter I distributed to my students on the final day of the semester.
As you prepare to let go of this class, take Bette with you. What follows is a piece of rare archival footage from Bette Midler’s 1971 cabaret act at the Continental Baths in the smoky basement of the Ansonia Hotel in New York City. Though by now, like most Americans, you’re probably already familiar with Midler’s tenure as a Bathhouse musician, my hope is that perhaps now after taking this course, you can view this performance with a new kind of critical/scholarly appreciation. As you decathect and let go of “AIDS Activism/Queer Counterpublics,” perhaps this performance can linger on in your imagination as the apotheosis of so much that we have learned this semester about AIDS, about memory, about third spaces, and about critical nostalgia.
As you look and listen to Bette’s emotional, gloriously campy rendition of “I Shall Be Set Free,” what kind of diva-identification (David Roman) are you experiencing? What kind of viewer identification (Alexandra Juhasz) is enacted? As a contemporary queer viewer, how can you interpret this performance as the dirty trace and residue of a time that is no longer here; a time before AIDS. What kind of affective energies and intensities are being transmitted by and through this video? As you find yourself mourning the loss of the queer counterpublic life-world imbued in this performance, perhaps you will begin to understand and embrace the pull of a critical melancholia. You realize that to mourn Bette’s performance is to mourn the loss of an object that you never actually experienced first hand; one that you never quite had access to.
And what will you make of the shadowy aesthetics of this fuzzy video? The blurry black and white image (indicative of a time before the widespread use of color camcorders), the wobbly, unsteady camera view; the annoying loops and glitches in the screen—how might we approach these aesthetics with what Roman calls “critical generosity”? Listen to the voices in the crowd; the thunderous applause of the gay male patrons as they cheer in anticipation of Bette’s final belt. We cannot help but assume that many of these men, the vast majority perhaps, are no longer here; they too have vanished, washed away by what would be the first Armageddon of AIDS just a decade later. Indeed, the man who videotaped this performance (Jimmy Vitto) is no longer alive, therefore this video serves as much as a memorial to his life and death, as it does to the men and women who once occupied the murky hallways of the Continental Baths.
Though one day you will surely forget “AIDS Activism, Queer Counterpublics,” it is my hope that you will take these men with you; re—member these third spaces, and yes, even take Bette’s raspy voice along for the ride. Perhaps this will be your own "act of intervention": a refusal to let go of the ghosts of a recent queer past.
-Frank Leon Roberts
May 2009
As you prepare to let go of this class, take Bette with you. What follows is a piece of rare archival footage from Bette Midler’s 1971 cabaret act at the Continental Baths in the smoky basement of the Ansonia Hotel in New York City. Though by now, like most Americans, you’re probably already familiar with Midler’s tenure as a Bathhouse musician, my hope is that perhaps now after taking this course, you can view this performance with a new kind of critical/scholarly appreciation. As you decathect and let go of “AIDS Activism/Queer Counterpublics,” perhaps this performance can linger on in your imagination as the apotheosis of so much that we have learned this semester about AIDS, about memory, about third spaces, and about critical nostalgia.
As you look and listen to Bette’s emotional, gloriously campy rendition of “I Shall Be Set Free,” what kind of diva-identification (David Roman) are you experiencing? What kind of viewer identification (Alexandra Juhasz) is enacted? As a contemporary queer viewer, how can you interpret this performance as the dirty trace and residue of a time that is no longer here; a time before AIDS. What kind of affective energies and intensities are being transmitted by and through this video? As you find yourself mourning the loss of the queer counterpublic life-world imbued in this performance, perhaps you will begin to understand and embrace the pull of a critical melancholia. You realize that to mourn Bette’s performance is to mourn the loss of an object that you never actually experienced first hand; one that you never quite had access to.
And what will you make of the shadowy aesthetics of this fuzzy video? The blurry black and white image (indicative of a time before the widespread use of color camcorders), the wobbly, unsteady camera view; the annoying loops and glitches in the screen—how might we approach these aesthetics with what Roman calls “critical generosity”? Listen to the voices in the crowd; the thunderous applause of the gay male patrons as they cheer in anticipation of Bette’s final belt. We cannot help but assume that many of these men, the vast majority perhaps, are no longer here; they too have vanished, washed away by what would be the first Armageddon of AIDS just a decade later. Indeed, the man who videotaped this performance (Jimmy Vitto) is no longer alive, therefore this video serves as much as a memorial to his life and death, as it does to the men and women who once occupied the murky hallways of the Continental Baths.
Though one day you will surely forget “AIDS Activism, Queer Counterpublics,” it is my hope that you will take these men with you; re—member these third spaces, and yes, even take Bette’s raspy voice along for the ride. Perhaps this will be your own "act of intervention": a refusal to let go of the ghosts of a recent queer past.
-Frank Leon Roberts
May 2009
*Keywords: Decathexis, melancholia, mourning, affect, viewer identification, diva identification, third spaces/counterpublics, memory, critical nostalgia
Works Referenced:
Jose Esteban Munoz, "Ephemera as Evidence: Introductory Notes to Queer Acts" (1996)
Alexandra Juhasz, AIDS TV: Identity, Community, and Alternative Video (1995)
David Roman, Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and AIDS (1998)
Fiona Buckland, Impossible Dance: Club Culture and Queer Worldmaking (2002)
Douglas Crimp, Melancholia and Moralism: Essays on AIDS and Queer Politics (2002)
Sigmund Freud, "Mourning and Melancholia" (1915)
Thanks for taking me back, Frank. I remember the Continental as it was known in it's later incarnation, The Ansonia Baths, in the late 70's. In addition to its offbeat appeal, I also remember they had a jukebox that had a limited selection of tunes, and my friends and I, Pier Children that we were, would play The Fifth Dimension's "One Less Bell To Answer" over and over whilst hunting for the Catch Of The Day.
Were we being eclectic; channeling the spirits of a quirky past - or just sadly misguided? Who knows. It all just seemed to fit the atmosphere at the time! Anyhoo, thanks for educating the younger chil'ren and for giving them a taste of gaystory.
Posted by
Banjiboi |
5/06/2009
That d*mn Bette will have you in tears
Posted by
life |
5/28/2009
Charleston turned a pair of double plays to do the trick. The spyder jackets had at least one runner on in every inning but the first and outhit the RiverDogs by a 12-6 margin cheap columbia jackets.Lawal should be a focal point of the Yellow cheap polo shirts along with highly touted newcomer, 6-9 Derrick Favors, rated as the No. 1 power forward on the ESPNU 100. The Yellow Jackets
PayPal Payment. Enjoy your shopping experience on mensclothingstore.Usnike max shoes, one of the world's three major brands of Puma shoes, will build its factory in Lanshan county next year, Hunan province. Taiwan Diamond Group of Footwear production chooses its base in Lanshan county, which is one of top 500 companies in the world.
Posted by
Anonymous |
6/17/2009