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Jun. 3rd, 2014 11:17 am
A bougie moment
Yesterday was the retirement party for one of my most beloved colleagues. Turnout was high, and included not just people from our workplace but members of the academic programme he worked most closely with and various professional organisations. Standing out among the button-down shirts and floor-length skirts was a guy with a Celtic moustache wearing hiking shorts and a t-shirt with a gym logo. I kind of rolled my eyes at the inappropriateness of grad students and went back to the buffet.
As the ceremony started, I was appalled to see Mr Camp Counselor sitting at the front of the room with the other speakers. He was actually the head of the programme, and his speech was as rambling and uninspired as his appearance; he sounded exactly like the Wyoming backwoodsman he was. Afterwards, I remarked to a coworker, "You're getting up to speak at a retirement party, put on some damn pants." She replied that that was just his "look" and she had respect for the way he remained "true to his persona". More eye-rolling. "Everyone has multiple personae," I said, "and part of being a grown-up is knowing which one is appropriate for a given situation."
But maybe I'm generalising too much from my own experience again? It's said that one of the reason homosexuals have been historically overrepresented in the dramatic arts is that we learn performativity from a very young age. By puberty at the latest, we know we have one self that the world will allow us to inhabit and another that we can only express in restricted situations. (The pioneers in gay lib, of course, are the ones who said, "Fuck that!" and chose to present that more fabulous self everywhere.)
More likely, though, this is just another good bourgeois virtue that I've fully internalised. Every situation in life--school, church, work, camping, etc.--has its own uniform and its own corresponding code of behaviour. Respectability is linked to learning the fine distinctions between them and ignoring them marks you as (at best) a bohemian and (more often) low-class, countrified, Other. It's made me cynical of the notion that there is a "true self" which it is a virtue to express always. If your behaviour isn't indexed to context, then it's antisocial--and we all know nothing good can ever come of that.
As the ceremony started, I was appalled to see Mr Camp Counselor sitting at the front of the room with the other speakers. He was actually the head of the programme, and his speech was as rambling and uninspired as his appearance; he sounded exactly like the Wyoming backwoodsman he was. Afterwards, I remarked to a coworker, "You're getting up to speak at a retirement party, put on some damn pants." She replied that that was just his "look" and she had respect for the way he remained "true to his persona". More eye-rolling. "Everyone has multiple personae," I said, "and part of being a grown-up is knowing which one is appropriate for a given situation."
But maybe I'm generalising too much from my own experience again? It's said that one of the reason homosexuals have been historically overrepresented in the dramatic arts is that we learn performativity from a very young age. By puberty at the latest, we know we have one self that the world will allow us to inhabit and another that we can only express in restricted situations. (The pioneers in gay lib, of course, are the ones who said, "Fuck that!" and chose to present that more fabulous self everywhere.)
More likely, though, this is just another good bourgeois virtue that I've fully internalised. Every situation in life--school, church, work, camping, etc.--has its own uniform and its own corresponding code of behaviour. Respectability is linked to learning the fine distinctions between them and ignoring them marks you as (at best) a bohemian and (more often) low-class, countrified, Other. It's made me cynical of the notion that there is a "true self" which it is a virtue to express always. If your behaviour isn't indexed to context, then it's antisocial--and we all know nothing good can ever come of that.
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