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Friday 2 March 2012

In defence of minding your own business.-subject to edit

Just some fun one minute sketches. Playing around with tropes and cliches, bit obvious, but they were fun to do and it was nice to break out the pen.
The top image is a Marlon Brando impersonator, in one of his most famous films:
I found this interesting because the image of the biker, in the motorcycle gear has been fetishished and embraced by the gay community. This appropriation of a culture, with it's language and attitude is a means of dealing with those who would traditionally target you.
In the same way that women have appropriated 'bitch' and black people the word 'nigger' taking control of the means of attack and engaging with it on a cultural level allows a means of defence. Literally robbing it of its power to harm.
Cultural appropriation of those who normally target minoritys is very prevalent in the gay community.
Tom of Finland was a talented artist, known for taking the image of Marlon Brando, and drawing what was effectivley  gay  slash fiction .
I like the irony of the moustache, in England at least, once known to represent a type of masculinity is know identified strongly in the gay scene, meaning it's death among the straight population.

These quick drawings are only on the surface about gay rights, they are really about cultural appropriation, and the absorbtion of that culture in to another, which is what i find interesting. Normally such things are seen as patronising, such as in the case of the Halloween costumes.
But absorbtion of straight,very masculine culture in to the gay culture, who simply remove the violence aimed at minoritys and keep everything else, i believe actually frees up men and women from those old tropes that keep us defined in limited social positions.
Seeing a group take our cliches and exaggerate them, allows us perspective , enabling us to disband such narrow definitions of ourselves, leading to much more consideration of the individual.

Thank you for looking at this post, if you have thoughts i would love to hear your views.

8 comments:

  1. Never really thought about it that way, but they do spin it so it looses the power it once had, or at least it does when they feel like it. Many tend to use it to their advantage when they want to and other times spin it so it makes you seem the bad guy. All depends on the perspective it's coming from I guess.

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    1. Thanks Patt, for me i always think the moustache thing is hilarious. It used to be tough guys that wore it lol, now it is purely worn by gay men imitating the men who used to bash them.

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  2. Award nominations and our all-time favorite Marlon Brando

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    1. Yes Marlon Brando, he is iconic now, part of world culture.

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  3. Awesome pictures I wish I could draw like that!

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    1. Thanks, i'm actually working on detailed versions, these were just quick sketches done in a cafe, what do you think of the idea of cultural appropriation being sometimes a positive act?.

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  4. What are they serving in that cafe? I would very much like to draw like this!!!

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    1. Put some of your art up, i would love to see it.

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Message me, i always reply. I love hearing peoples thoughts or views about what i make.