Finding Out, Ch11: Queer Transgressive Aesthetics

Alexander, Gibson, and Meem ask, “if, as often happens in capitalist societies,  art is commodified and accepted as part of the popular culture, can it still be considered transgressive? Are there ways in which art popularized and commodified in a culture can transgress traditional boundaries  by reaching an audience that would not necessarily seek exposure to that which is more clearly transgressive?” (293). I believe that it definitely can. Art can still make people uncomfortable and urge them to question the values held by themselves and by society. If it is on the edge of acceptability, then it pushes the boundaries of what is appropriate. It may be a smaller resistance than more extreme, outrageous works, but it is still resistance. Even after something becomes acceptable, even taken for granted, the original work is still transgressive--as Alexander, Gibson, and Meem point out at the start of Finding Out, we cannot judge the past by pretending that events occurred in the present. In the late 19th century, some women, such as Victoria Woodhull, advocated “free love” in sexually restrictive Victorian society. Woodhull, refusing to take back her statement that she was a “free lover,” said, “I will supplement this by saying now: That I will love whom I may; that I will love as long or as short a period as I can; that I will change this love when the conditions to which I have referred indicate that it ought to be changed; and neither you nor any law you can make shall deter me” (Schneir 154). This “free love” is now accepted: nearly everyone in America follows this pattern in their relationships by dating. Is this, then, no longer transgressive? Much of our capitalist system relies on Woodhull’s idea of “free love” as it is enacted in society. The idea is sold to us on holidays, in television shows, movies, commercials, books, magazines. Dating services and speed dating events are sold to us, so that “free love” itself has been commodified. Although it no longer pushes the boundaries of social acceptability because it has been accepted into society--it has become the new boundary--“free love” and Woodhull’s actions are still transgressive as a product of the time and place in which she lived.

Schneir, Mariam. Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings. New York: Vintage Books, 1972.