Where is the love?

I have to admit that confusion is my default feeling after reading Chapter Two: Disciplining the Transgendered: Brandon Teena, Public Representation, and Normativity in the Sloop book.  This confusion is caused by several different factors.  First I think it is wise to acknowledge that the whole Brandon Teena case in itself is a complicated and somewhat confusing case study to analyze.  However, Sloop does not just focus on the case study itself, he branches out to analyze how the media framed this case and the discourse that it caused in society.  All of these layers of analysis within the chapter are enough to make one’s head spin (and I am hoping that I am not alone in this feeling, although it is okay if I am).

Throughout the chapter Sloop discusses how our society thrives on labels and boxes.  The fact that Brandon Teena did not fit into one box or adhere to one label was and still is troublesome to society.  We have discussed in previous classes how the fact that gender and sex is not a fluid construction in our society causes a great deal of trouble.  Sloop’s analysis of Brandon Teena just re-affirms that notion.  It also served to be eye opening as to how narrow minded our society truly is, which for me, is extremely disturbing.  What is even more troublesome for me is that only through the readings of this course and through the light in which Sloop discusses this case have I realized how narrow minded I have been when it comes to gender and sex.

One of the first things that Sloop discusses that caused me anxiety was when he analyzed the rhetoric surrounding the murderers and their motives for killing Teena. The media as well as the two men responsible for abusing and murdering Teena justify their actions by saying that they were hurt by the “deception” that they experienced.  While I can understand that people do not enjoy being deceived and lied to, I hardly think that is just cause for the brutal actions that both men inflicted upon Teena.  The fact that the media framed Brandon Teena as the one who was guilty of deception simply created an out for his two murders and gave society a reason to excuse the acts of violence and abuse that they participated in.  It is easier for our society to accept and understand something if we are able to relate to it.  Since majority of our society are unable to relate to Brandon Teena, the media needed to find a new spin on the story.  Everyone has experienced deception at some point and level in their life, thus the story becomes relatable.

The media makes this case relatable and accessible in other ways as well.  The audience is validated when it is revealed that there was something “wrong” with Teena, there was a deeper penetrating issue that caused his sexual confusion.  Either there was a hormone imbalance during his mother’s pregnancy or he was sexually abused as a child.  By exposing these tangible instances, it makes it easier for society to accept Brandon Teena’s actions.  We need to be able to create scenarios and instances to make it easier for the situation to accommodate our frame of reference instead of just accepting the fact that Brandon Teena thought he was male, wanted to be male, or whatever he believed. 

I also found it mildly horrifying that the media was so transfixed with determining what Brandon Teena’s true gender and sex was.  I understand that as a society, we need to be able to define the unknown in terms that we are able to understand, but it seems as if in the whole mix of all of this society and the media lost sight of the big picture: someone was sexually abused and murdered in what I see as a hate crime.  In all of the drama surrounding determining if Brandon Teena was male or female, gay or straight, transgendered or transsexual, we forgot one thing: despite what he was or how he identified, he was murdered, and shouldn’t that action in itself speak louder than defining his “true” identity?