Queer Chat Time! Our Flag Means Queer Futurity, or Munoz + Waititi 4 Ever

[radiantfracture]

This is the post where we take the Muñoz doll and the Our Flag Means Death dolls and make them kiss.

So I’ve been doing a (roughly) fortnightly series here reading José Esteban Muñoz’ book of queer theory Cruising Utopia (2009, 2019), chapter by chapter.

And then we all watched Our Flag Means Death.

It just seems right to try a mashup and see what happens.

Muñoz’s project in Cruising Utopia is to find and (re)claim visions of queer utopias in order to provide inspiration for livable queer futures outside of the stultifying constraints of capitalist heteronormativity.

Pirates are semi-famous for somewhat similar endeavours. Can Our Flag Means Death do some of that work (and play) with and for us? What visions can we use it to conjure?

We could boil down the central questions of the first three chapters of Cruising Utopia sort of like this:

• How can the utopian visions of past queer communities inform our visions of a future that's livable for all queer folks, not just the privileged few?
• What do the utopian visions of the past tell us about what we are missing and longing for right now?
• What practices already exist in our present communities that could provide inspirations for queer futures?

So some questions about Our Flag Means Death might be these:

• What images from the past (history, media) do you see Our Flag Means Death talking back to?
  • Ex. histories of piracy, readings of history, queerbaiting in mainstream series, Black Sails?
• What are you longing for that these pirates have? How does OFMD illuminate what is missing in the present?
• What about this show (or how it came to be) could be useful in thinking about how to make queer art / art about queers going forward?
• Alternatively, what do you know about queerness and community that Our Flag Means Death doesn’t yet know?

For example, I really like that you do not have to be cool to be part of this queer pirate crew. In fact, trying to be cool makes you miserable, fake, and impossible to live with (Izzy Hands, the French). Being a big ridiculous grimy mess is ideal on the Revenge. I appreciate this.

Anyway, the formal invitation is to think about Muñoz with OFMD, but feel free to party any way you like, provided it's respectful and consensual.

And if part of the way you appreciate things is to talk about what's flawed or disappointing about them, that is welcome, too.

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Previous posts on Munoz:

Munoz Chapter 1

Munoz Chapter 2

Munoz Chapter 3



{rf}

Comments

[kindkit]

2) What are you longing for that these pirates have?

Blackbeard's beard? (I described it on Twitter as my beard goal--possibly achievable in about 2030. Le sigh.)

More seriously, and barely half formulated, but: to be loved because of one's secret shames and not despite them? A big part of what Ed loves in Stede are the things Stede has always been taught to be ashamed of: his gentleness, his pleasure in things like a fine fabric and a good lavender soap, his sheer over-the-top extra-ness. And Stede loves Ed's secret self too, the one who wants to care about fashion and go to parties and maybe not kill people so much. That's not the whole story--Stede loves Ed's swashbuckling boldness and brilliance, and so do we as audience, and Ed loves the courage the Stede doesn't even know he has. It's the courage to leave his marriage or stand up to a bunch of rich bullies at a party, rather than physical courage, but I think that may make it all the more valuable to Ed, who's seen physical courage aplenty.

The way they treasure each other's weakness and weirdness is a beautiful thing. I don't think the desire to be loved like that is specific to queer people, but I think all too many of us still experience hiding whole aspects of ourselves, maybe being ashamed of them, so it's likely to speak more to us than to a cishet audience.

As for the other characters: there's a culture of acceptance/affirmation among Stede's crew despite clashing personalities. It comes through in regards to sexuality and gender, but I also think of things like Buttons's friendship with Carl, and how everyone reacted to Carl's death. It's a very big deal to Buttons, so it's a big deal to them too. Nobody says, "Oh, come on, it was just a bird, why do you care?" I'd say it was like a nerdy online space, except that nerdy online spaces are usually full of gatekeeping and the tyranny of small differences. And "the queer community," if that's even a useful term, is divided in all kinds of ways.

Both of these, I guess, are examples of the way the show explicitly values that which is often dismissed as valueless. I'm thinking especially of feminine-coded things here, from decorative objects to stories to skills like sewing to personality traits like Lucius's emotional insight and supportiveness.


. . . wow, I guess I had a lot more thoughts about this show than I realized. I may come back and comment more another time.

[radiantfracture]

A big part of what Ed loves in Stede are the things Stede has always been taught to be ashamed of: his gentleness, his pleasure in things like a fine fabric and a good lavender soap, his sheer over-the-top extra-ness.

I love that Ed finds Stede's actions (like having a library) wild and bold.

the show explicitly values that which is often dismissed as valueless

That's such a perfect way of putting it -- in the first few episodes, it might look like Stede's gentleness and caring for his crew are comedic failures in piracy, but in the end they're the core strength of that community. Even the crew might not realize what he's done for them. (I knew it when we saw the image of all four flags flying at once.)

I may come back and comment more another time.

Please! Any time. This was awesome.

[radiantfracture]

Blackbeard's beard? (I described it on Twitter as my beard goal--possibly achievable in about 2030. Le sigh.)

Sigh. Mine has gradually climbed beyond my neck, but my dream of sideburns is still just that -- a dream.