This is not a polished essay. This is not an academic essay. This is barely related to pop culture. But, goddammit, I've wanted to scream at someone the past few weeks for some of the backlash I've seen against "It Gets Better" and I need to vocalize how I feel. You've been warned.
Before proceeding, I recommend you all read Jasbir Puar's horrendous piece that really typifies this problem.
Ready? Now the essay begins.....
Someone needs to ship Jasbir Puar off to an island of stupid, where she can shout her stupid pieces of stupid as stupidly loudly and self-righteously as she stupidly wants.
What? Was that not eloquent enough? Pardon me; I was just inundated with stupid.
The problem with Jasbir Puar’s essay (and quite possibly the problem with Jasbir Puar in general) is that she’s an academic with her head so far shoved up her ass that she believes she has indeed pushed through the ass, up the esophagus, and is indeed seeing out her own mouth and thus has a new and better view on the real world.
This is not to say, of course, that I have a problem with academics with their heads shoved up their asses. I am one. My ass is a delightful place. But at the end of the day, I don’t think I’m dealing with the real world. I may write that all food is shit and vice versa in Bartholomew Fair, but I’m not going to fish stuff out of the toilet and serve it for Christmas dinner. Jasbir Puar, however, is all too ready to serve us her shit and call it “macaroni.” Were she a philosophy professor of the Descartes persuasion, she would criticize the masses for not crossing busy streets at any time, since you could not be sure any of those cars were real.
This is not to say also that academia has nothing to provide the real world. Some great ideas for social change have originated in the academy. But there is a time and a place for everything…
Also, if you think I’m being hard on Jasbir Puar, let me assure you here and now that this is my calm version. I’ve censored out many other personal attacks and name calling. I will just say here and now that I do believe this woman is an idiot and whenever I see her name in print, I cannot help but think of the line in Annie Hall, “How you got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing!!”
The problem is that these videos are not meant for academics. Hell, they’re not meant for most adults. They are meant for teenagers. And not just any teenager. Dan Savage is not aiming these at the out and proud queer who refuses to identify by a gender, is head of his/her QSA, and regularly owns local conservatives young and old in debate….unless that is an elaborate front and s/he is contemplating suicide because s/he isn’t straight. Yes, the big S-word: suicide. These videos are made for teens on the brink of suicide.
I’ve said it once and I’ve said it before: I hate Gay People. Actually, sorry, I’m not being inclusive enough. I hate Queer People. At least the types who can’t seem to take one second, step back from the situation, and realize “IT IS NOT ALL ABOUT YOU!” That’s why vidoes like this exist. Because some queer young adults realized there was a movement going on and realized, “Hey, this isn’t about me. I have been fortunate enough to have the circumstances [be it family, friends, community, or just disposition] in my life that I have a healthy attitude towards my sexuality. I fully realize that anyone who has a problem with it is at fault, not me. [pause] But I want you to talk to ME! I WANT THE BIG ATTENTION ON ME! Don’t just focus on those suicidal kids! Help out me and my comparatively minor problems!”
[Oh, and for any of you who cannot appreciate the word “comparatively” in there and think they’re equivalent, please go to the blackboard and write “If given the choice between jumping off a bridge or having people presume I’m a gender I’m not, I would say ‘flip a coin because they’re both just as bad’” 1000 times.
Also, I will admit I’ve never been able to sit through that whole video. I find it more difficult to watch than Two Girls, One Cup. I can only make it about a minute in before the self-satisfaction gets to me. These are kids who have had the privilege (oh man, I love using that word – it automatically makes the other side wrong) to be in a situation where they can be out and proud and do not recognize that their issues are not the biggest ones at the moment. Honestly, if you’re fifteen and out in high school and okay, shut up about how it does not get better. Because YOU ARE WALKING PROOF that it IS getting better.]
These videos are not made for these people and they certainly are not made for academics. They do not acknowledge radical queer politics or the various strains of debate in queer theory. They do not discuss Judith Butler’s arguments on gender and sexuality. Because, were I to venture a guess, the average suicidal queer youth could not give two fucks about these. He can’t tell a Halberstam from an Edelman. She just wants to make it through high school intact, for his parents not to kick him out if they find out, and find the light at the end of the tunnel, whatever that light may be – be it college, a city, or independently living in that same town. Yes, these are all baby step versions of eventually fighting the good fight for complete equality between heteros and queers and races and transgenders (but not too much equality because we don’t want to be assimilationist). But Puar seems to want to launch into crazy PhD math (which, from the sounds of it, disproves everything you learned in high school) when these kids are still struggling with their multiplication tables.
Let’s look at one of her other complaints:
Most of the contributors are white, upper-class, gay men.
Upper-class I can’t defend really. The big ones are celebrities. That’s how the universe works. Non-trans…well, we got the same problem, since they are sadly few and far between. These are problems with society as a whole, but you can insult your cliché here about babies and bathwater.
As for white gay men, yes it was started by one. Many have answered the call. So have women though. And, if you watch the Pixar one though, for example, you see more diversity. What we need is more people contributing, thinking of other ways it does get better aside from the direction Dan Savage draws. Because it does get better in a lot of ways, Mr. Savage just mapped out his own way and, like Watchmen and the comic book, people confused the invitation to a wide direction of avenues with a format that must be followed.
However, pouting and sulking and threatening to take all your blocks and go home because no one wants to play your game is not going to help diversify the offerings. If you want the message to be augmented, you have to augment it. Oh, and the message is “It gets better.” Not “Make it better” or “It doesn’t get better.”
Puar writes, “Ultimately, the best part of the viral explosion of Savage's project is that so many have chimed in to explain how and why it doesn't just get better.”
I completely agree. You know, if I’m a queer teen who is on the brink of suicide…I really want to hear it doesn’t get better. I want to hear supporting arguments for why I should stick my head in that noose. Because, this may be a surprise to you Ms. Puar, but that is what those are. Supporting arguments for suicide to this kid. These videos are meant literally to talk someone off the ledge. These are not academic arguments. Sometimes it gets better, sometimes it doesn’t. Guess what? That’s life! But if I know someone whose wife left him and job fired him, I’m not going to talk about how hard it is to date someone nowadays and the crappy economy as he stands on the 20th story balcony, am I? I’d be honest, but would you really recommend that? If you’re trying for some Malthusian tactic right now by decreasing the population as a whole via teen suicide, okay, I can respect that. Everything else though….uh uh.
I would love to see Ms. Puar working at a queer suicide hotline. I think it would go something like this, but with more crying and stuttering on the youth’s end and more smug, self-assurance on Puar’s.
Puar: Hello?
Queer Youth: Hi. I’m thinking of killing myself.
Puar: Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. It just gets worse as you get older. If you’re lucky, it may just stay as it is.
Queer Youth: Oh. And I thought being a transgender was bad now.
Puar: You’re transgender?! [laughs] Oh man, you’re fucked. It’s just the shit for you! You’re not gonna believe it, but if you stay around a bit longer, you’ll get downright nostalgic for these days.
Queer Youth: Wow…
Puar: Yup. Remember now sweetie, down the road, not across the street!
And “Make It Better?” Yeah, no one has been saying that at all since Stonewall. Great job, innovators! These people really could get a gig in corporate America with this ability to repackage something so inane and something we already have in excess into something that sounds new and daring. Then they really could make their own, lovely assimilationist “It Gets Better” video!
[Also, aside: please stop acting like you’re such a radical, Ms. Puar. At the end of the day, you are very likely tenured or tenure-tracked at a very prestigious graduate department. You moved to the liberal mecca and pay your taxes just like everyone else you criticize, so your bluster don’t impress me.]
The problem with both of these other tactics is that they fail to recognize the point of the It Gets Better campaign. It’s a painkiller. Painkillers help. They have their problems, but they help. You can get addicted to them and lose sight of reality. They can have adverse side effects. But they make the time to recovery (or in this case, adulthood) easier. Sometimes, painkillers even aid in recovery. If you don’t believe in “It Gets Better,” I urge you to get your wisdom teeth removed and to refuse any form of painkillers, on the basis that they will not heal your wounds immediately.
It doesn’t always get better in adulthood, but I know for a fact it gets better for some and from the fact that there are clearly alive transpeople and queer people of color, I’d venture a guess it gets better for at least a few of them as well. And if it doesn’t get better, well then, the kid will only find himself more disappointed and kill herself anyway. Thus the videos have done no real harm than delay the inevitable, unless you really take umbrage with the delay.
In short, I guess my problem is, I don’t know what Puar wants. She’s just a vicious, destructive beast, ripping things up and saying “Nuh-uh” because they aren’t perfect. She’s being a typical academic, and in academia, those folks are my heroes. They’re bad-asses and a delight to watch. But I feel the same way about Jack Bauer and Dirty Harry in their own universes. I was horrified when the real world took up Bauer-logic and supported torture and I am equally aghast to see Puar attempting to do so to Dan Savage and a campaign aimed at a very real problem. There were a slew of suicides. Let’s all say it again: there were a slew of suicides. Don’t tell kids “it won’t get better” before they have a chance to find out for themselves. Don’t shallowly shout “make it better” as if no one has thought to utter those sentiments before. If you want to make something better that you believe it broken, make “It Gets Better” better. It’s a great idea. It has flaws. But it’s time to step out into the real world and recognize that fixing those flaws is better than picking at them till the whole thing collapses.
