“There’s no-where to go but up; it
will eventually get better for you with time.” This is the overarching message
that the “It Gets Better” videos found all over the Internet contain; the
concept that personal suffering related to LGBT experience will diminish with
time and acceptance from the environments that surround an individual. Upon
searching for the perfect “It Gets Better” video, one that represented a myriad
of intersectionalities in terms of queerness, race, disability, age, location,
gender, but had no such luck. I watched video upon video of personal testimonies,
individual experiences and stories of overcoming adversities that were shaped
by queer identities, until I stumbled upon “It Gets Better: Google Employees;
Facebook Employees; and Apple Employees”. These videos display “messages of
hope” from employees of perhaps the top three most- influential corporations of
the century, yet I found myself being disappointed with the choices of visibility
and fundamental concepts that these fortune-500 companies chose to exhibit. It
gets better, but for whom? For people who escape their rural, conservative
neighborhoods for metropolises in California, New York, and abroad (Gray, 2007)?
Does it get better for those who aren’t able to attend college, or serve as
miniature geniuses that are hired to these elite conglomerates? Does it get
better for the disabled, the elderly, or the minorities who lack the
educational and structural resources that allow them to escape to “a better
life”(Clare, 2001)? What I want to know is, who exactly does it get
better for, and why are we having to change ourselves homonormatively in order
to be accepted in our hegemonic, heteronormative society (Dodson, 2012)?
The fundamental problem I have with
the “It Gets Better” videos relies not in the good intention that these personal
testimonies may include, but rather, the lack of celebrating one’s self as “irrevocably
different”, thus shedding the shame and personal hatred that results from societal
oppression (Clare, 2001). Our identities do not depend on the amount of money
that we accrue, the education that we obtain, or the personal decision of
fleeing our rural or suburban roots for a more diverse metropolis: “Identity
can live in many places all at once- in the communities we make home, the food
we eat, the music we play and dance to, the work we do, the people we feel wild
and passionate about, the languages we speak, the clothes we wear” (Gray, 2007;
Claire, 2001).Our identities aren’t fixed, static states of being, but rather,
fluid and porous; the lack of exhibiting the concept of embracing queer
experiences in opposition of society defining what is deemed “normal, worthy,
or accepted” is what I feel “It Gets Better: Google/Facebook/Apple Employees”
directly fails to address. In further analysis, for a person who is disabled, watching
this video might discourage their sense of self, as all of the testimonies came
from able-bodied employees, thus allowing the view that disabled people’s
bodies are been stolen and seen as wrong, broken, or tragic in our society to
perpetuate through lack of representation and visibility in our work force
(Clare, 2001).
Several of the personal stories
that were shared in the “ITB: Google Employees” video portrayed the idea that
in moving away from conservative, less busy, suburban or rural areas would lead
you to the hustle and bustle of city life, giving you increased opportunities of
acceptance and hope for a better life: “You feel this magnetism like you’re
never gonna get out, you’re never going to go anywhere. It [living in a small
town] draws you in, you feel like there’s no hope, that no one will ever
understand you (Google employee, 2010).” This metronormative perception
directly relates to Mary Gray’s article, “From Websites to Wal-Mart”, where she
writes, “Perhaps the overriding reason for our surprise at the sheer publicness
and brash visibility of LGBT youth in Christian bookstores and Wal-Marts is
that rural environments are presumed to be (more) hostile to queer desires and
genders and, therefore rural LGBTQ-identifying youth must have already left
their small towns for the big city” (Gray, 2007). Reclaiming spaces,
whether they are located in more isolated, country areas, or suburban towns is
essential for empowering queer youth to embrace the present, rather than yearn
for an idealized future revolving around escape. I understand the “IGB: Google employees”
video’s aim to motivate queer youth toward success, but I felt hesitant due to
the reality of those who might not be able to afford college, move to the big
city, or get hired by one of the top corporations in the world. In the future,
I will choose to glorify alternative videos that uplift queer experience
through invigorating the current; providing optimism for modern struggles
through reclaiming a diverse collection of identities, in varying locations and
assorted socio-economic spheres.
Clare, Eli. "Stolen Bodies, Reclaimed Bodies:
Disability and Queerness" Popular Culture 13(3) 359-365. 2001
Dodson, Leigh. “Queer Rurality, Working Class Queer
Cultures, and Queer Anti-Urbanism.” Fem 80. Girvetz, Santa Barbara. 2/22/12.
Lecture.
Gray, Mary “From Websites to
Wal-Mart: Youth, Identity Work, and the Queering of Boundary Publics in Small Town, USA” American
Studies, Volume 8
Better in Tech. (2010, October 10). It Gets Better: Google Employees. Retrieved February 27, 2012, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYLs4NCgvNU
I couldn’t agree more with everything that was stated. The “It Gets Better” campaign has great intentions, but they are failing when it comes to showing diversity within the queer community. This idea that “it gets better” is being focused on those able-bodied, educated and urban established individuals, but ignored disabled rural setting individuals, as well as others. I personally use to have the state of mind that it would get better in high school, once I moved out of my rural home and came to UCSB. It’s true, it has gotten better and so I assumed it would get better for everyone else to, but it was not until recently that I realized that it was because I moved to a more urban setting and that when ever I decided to go back home, I would be thrown back into this world where I would have to hide who I was all over again. From personal experiences, it came down to this idea of “La Familia” that Alamaguer brings up in his article when it comes to the queer Latino community. One is not willing to choose to be openly queer since “the openly effeminate Chicano gay man’s rejection of heterosexuality is typically seen as a fundamental betrayal of Chicano patriarchal cultural norms” (Almaguer 118). Choosing to break this cultural norm is choosing to go against ones cultural roots, which can typically lead to rejection from one’s family, since any type of queer related identity “challenge the very foundation of “la familia” (Almaguer 118). If someone from a Latino rural setting were to create an “It Gets Better” video, it would make a greater impact to those that could relate. This same idea can help pave the way towards doing the same for any other type of identity.
ReplyDeleteTomas Alamaguer “Chicano Men: A Cartography of Homosexual; Identity and Behavior” in Social Perspective in Gay and Lesbian Studies ed. Peter Me Nardi and Beth Schneider, 1998.