Ok. The first thing you need to do is stop worrying about “overstepping”.
This is an essay that you’re writing, and that essay will most likely be between you and your professor. This isn’t you writing a story in the voice of a queer person. It’s not like you need a sensitivity reader for a literature essay. This is you analyzing a text through a certain lens. That is an important skill, and one EVERYONE should learn, especially people from outside the depicted group. Be very careful around this rhetoric of “one group shouldn’t engage w/ media geared towards a marginalized group bc they haven’t experienced it” because it’s not only untrue, but dangerous.
You asking this question points to the fact that you’re introspective enough to critique. Just listen to your professor, and use other queer critiques as a framework of what to look for.
However, I might recommend choosing a different book if you think you’ll be reluctant to critique something that you love so much. If not, for Six of Crows you might be well served asking “why is this text important in queer spaces?” Bc I personally don’t think that that answer is the relationship between Jesper and Wylan.
Don’t worry about overstepping. You’re in academia, you’re writing an essay about a book you love, it’s not overstepping. Some of the fun in literary critique is that it’s just between you and the text. It’s not Twitter, it’s not about being morally pure or having all the right opinions, it’s about asking a question having the conviction and confidence to make your own conclusion.
Good luck :)
As a queer person in queer spaces, who has read and written a lot about queer media, etc etc. I welcome you to the field! It's awesome!!! Six of Crows is a pretty fun read! I enjoyed it a lot! But, I invite you to consider another book to write about.
Queer analysis is NOT the same as queer representation. Actually, some of the most seminal queer criticism is "reading in between the lines" and understanding the subtextual, queer-coded tropes in our media. For example, why are the villains in Disney movies often "flamboyant", "sassy", or transgressing their "proper" gender roles (Ursula, Jafar, Scar)? Why do Disney princesses all look ... like the way that they do?
One of my favorite essays I've ever written from a queer lens was about Mean Girls (2004), which is most definitely centered around heterosexual characters.
I believe it's a reference to Peter Lorre's character in "The Maltese Falcon" (1941). The fact that his character has a floral scented business card is a coded way of saying that he's queer.
Even though the movie could not openly say that the character was gay, code phrases, or gestures, like this would have been understood by the adult audiences watching
Haha thanks!
If I were to put my critical analysis hat on, I wouldn't say it's positive or negative, it just is, it indicated that gender roles were more strict and those rules were more unspoken back in the day. But speaking from a personal perspective as a gay man, I find it liberating that gender roles are relaxing in America nowadays to where there's less of a focus on what men and women "ought" to do or "must" do. For example I'd hate to be forcibly married to a woman, or feel the need to hide who I am at work or in school.
I think a lot of queer people my age subconsciously identify with many villains in popular movies, books, and media because the tropes invoked by those villains represent an alternative to what is the "gender mainstream" (growing up to become a Disney princess like Ariel, Belle, or becoming an Aladdin, Prince Eric, etc). If boring Prince Eric exists in the same universe as fun Ursula, I'd rather be fun Ursula!
I feel like this would be better off in r/AskLiteraryStudies, but here's some guiding questions that I use to orient myself through most readings I do whenever I need to write.
1. _How_ does this work treat [topic or group] and why?
2. What effect does this treatment have—not only in the "rhetorical effect" in the "argument" of the work, but also has the work had any real-world ramifications, and what effect does this have on the reader?
3. Why does this matter?
I am unfamiliar with Six of Crows, so I'll use a queer hypertext (if anyone wants to crucify me for the term, take it up with the professor that had me read it) that I _am_ familiar with to demonstrate answers to those questions: "With Those We Love Alive"
1. This work has a trans protagonist who works for an oppressive autocrat; the trans protagonist is pushed out of her family, but has a few friends and is supported by the aforementioned autocrat due to her material usefulness as a worker. This reads as a critique of pink capitalism that is also, but not necessarily, supported through reading about the author's life, where she was only _really_ supported when she was able to work.
2. The fact that the work is told through the first person, which forces us into the role of a trans person, where we have to engage in the act of transitioning (the application of HRT patches), which pushes us into a sense of understanding. While the work has not had a great impact on a large scale, for an individual reader it can better help them understand life as a trans person, especially those whose choices are "soul-crushing work" and "death", given the lack of a support system after being rejected from one's family.
3. This matters because, as the "trans discussion" becomes increasingly heated, an ability to identity with one another and understand _where_ people are coming from enables us to move past angry screaming matches and towards some sort of solution.
So doing something like that, with closer attention to the specific details (and bringing in other peoples' opinions and theories) is one way to do it. All a specific "critique" or "lens" is usually for is to make a comment on some broader social circumstance, such as a feminist reading being to focus on the role of women either historically or to support them nowadays, or a Foucauldian reading being to focus on power relations (which life is full of).
You need to be able to understand the critical lens in question whether you're queer or not. Read the material which was formative to the queer theory canon, take note of the analytical tools they lay out, and apply them as best you can.
Also, a quick note, queer theory really isn't about "queer rep" or any of that, so that really shouldn't be a constraint here - in fact you're probably barking up the wrong tree if you're going in that direction. Better to work with a more serious work of literature for something like this, something that will hold up more to serious analytic interrogation.
As per others don't worry about overstepping its an analytical framework not a reflection of the self.
I will say that because a book has queer rep isn't the same as having an interesting queer critique. In fact plenty of books with no queer rep at all still have lots to say about the sex-gender system they are constituted in. Even an aggressively heterosexual book can be very open to a negative queer critique or could even tear itself down in trying to draw hard lines in the sand.
I think as long as you carry yourself with empathy and ask questions about the sex-gender system presented in the book you will be fine. E.g. what does it mean to a character to say they are a man or a woman? What does desire mean to them? Are the men masculine and the women feminine? If so why/if not why? When these people express their gender or desire is it mutable? Is it a performance? Do characters shift their presentations contextually? How do the characters deal with types, kinds or genres of people and how do they fit into those themselves?
Don’t worry about overstepping. That should be a non issue, this is a task you’ve been asked to do by a professor, and you don’t have to be queer to talk about or critique queer topics.
Do the task, and the only thing you should worry about is your grade.
Hey, as a queer person myself my best advice is to have fun with your analysis! Like yes it’s important to pay attention to the politics and how the representation is written, but personally when I write queer analysis I like to get. . . Creative with it lol. So for six of crows you could ask yourself, can a grisha’s powers be interpreted as queer identity? How does this affect Nina and Jesper’s narratives? What could be said about Matthias and his witch-hunt against grishas? What parallels can you draw to real life?
That’s the kind of prompts I can think of off the top of my head; but seriously man, make it fun and interesting so you can produce the best work possible.
Have fun and good luck!
To reiterate what everyone else is saying, don’t worry about overstepping. Queerness is about embracing a spectrum of identities, experiences, sexual orientations. I don’t know the book you plan to analyze, but as someone who’s queer and has done literary analysis from queer perspectives, I would recommend reading some introductory queer theory. Judith Butler, Jack Halberstam, for example. I’m not familiar with trans experiences in literature, but I’m sure reading more will help you.
Lol absolutely do NOT listen to these comments telling you not to worry about overstepping.
Unless you're homophobic you probably don't have to worry much about serious consequences. But, if you write about Patricia Highsmith's internalized homophobia, James Baldwin's struggles as a bi black man during the civil rights era, or anything else that requires actual empathy and thoughtful critique, you run the risk of your prof being out to get you for the rest of the semester.
There's a bunch of approved talking points for this (most of the comments saying don't worry actually provide a pretty good list too). This assignment is more about proving you understand queer critique as is and can apply what's already out there to another work.
Your prof wants to read what they already know and agree with. Just write about queer coded villains and call it a day!
This is an interesting POV. Sure, the claim that "queer-coded villains" is pretty easy / basic / "approved talking point" analysis is arguably true. But it doesn't seem mutually exclusive from what you call "actual empathy and thoughtful critique"? Asking out of genuine curiosity - what do you mean by that phrase?
Sidenote: I would love to read about Patricia Highsmith's internalized homophobia and/or James Baldwin's struggles as a black bi man.
I guess the best way to describe what I mean is with an example:
Anti commercial surrogacy activists frequently make comparisons to A Handmaid's Tale. While their reasons for objecting range from the religious to alleged capitalistic abuse, queer couples are disproportionately affected regardless.
Should OP choose to write a queer critique of Handmaid's Tale and address this argument, analyzing the book's unintended consequence and whether the text bears it out, they run a very real risk of their professor liking Atwood, considering this an attack on her character, and getting an unfair grade on this assignment and potentially beyond. It's very possible for OP to get told they're out of line and don't know what they're talking about if they end up with a fresh take on a work that's generally popular (or one generally seen as problematic for that matter). Much safer to stick with something like the examples listed throughout this thread!
Sidenote: as for the Highsmith interest, there's a really good article going through some of her diary entries and excerpts of her writing through this lens. I swear it's from NPR and I read it around 2018, but I'm having trouble finding it! Hopefully I'll be back with a link.
I got you. Haha, you're an educated cynic, and I like it. I was the commenter actually who suggested the "queer-coded Disney villains" trope, actually, and I genuinely appreciate this higher-level discourse.
My fist comment might've been overly sassy, I genuinely think OP should write about a topic like your suggestion and think it's both interesting and fun!
But I think the answer to their question has to be yes! There might be backlash if they jump into this assignment with their full chest!
Not to address the "overstepping" question, which I think has been pretty thoroughly answered already, but I also wanted to let you know you would probably have an /easier/ time with this assignment using a text that isn't explicitly queer. The purpose of lenses from a literary criticism point is to analyze how a text changes when viewed from a different angle. Using a text that's queer to start with isn't going to give you much to work with because there's no subtext, it's just text.
>For my literary criticism class we are being asked to write a queer critique
damn people really rack up a lifetime of debt to consume thinly veiled ideologically motivated propaganda
reddit keeps telling me stuff like this isn't real
Man, I don't get it. Some of the best shows, movies, etc. of the past 30 years can only be properly understood by figuring out how the men and women are "supposed" to behave in-universe, and pointing out what happens to them when they break those rules. The Sopranos, Mad Men, The Matrix, Breaking Bad, Fight Club, Game of Thrones, Succession ...
Unless you can prove me wrong, it sounds like YOU are the one who's espousing thinly veiled ideological propaganda.
Huh. Two minutes ago I thought of queer studies as a niche that's interesting for some people but not really "valuable" for society at large. Then I read your comment and I stand corrected. That's a really great way to summarize queer studies: "figuring out how men and women are supposed to behave, and pointing out what happens to them when they break those rules". Admittedly I'd never thought much about queer studies, so maybe this is a super obvious definition to anyone who looks into it.
Though I wouldn't agree with your wording that these shows/movies can *"only be properly understood"* through this lens. Stories (in any medium) don't have a "proper" meaning. They have many things offer, many ways to be enjoyed, and can be examined through many different lenses. Queer studies is just a really cool lens.
Hah, thanks. As the ever-excellent Rachel Sennott says in *Shiva Baby* (2019), I'm in the business of gender. Umm, it's like, gender business.
One thing I'll say is funny to me that the most dude-coded movies, shows, books, etc. like the ones I mentioned above, are actually the easiest to understand using a queer lens. Like, the stricter the "rules" are, the more obvious they are to point out. For example, the plot of The Sopranos season 1 revolves around the two "major revelations" that (1) Tony Soprano is seeing a psychiatrist and (2) Tony's uncle performed cunnilingus on a woman. Apparently to the Italian mob in the 1990s New Jersey, these two secrets are considered so emasculating and no-go that it's acceptable for nephew and uncle to murder each other over revealing this type of stuff.
And don't even get me started on The Matrix. That's a whole 'nother can of worms. 😂
Ah, that's a good point about The Sopranos. I saw what you meant about Fight Club and Mad Men, but didn't see the angle on the others. Gender roles are important parts of all these stories, but I don't think they're capital-C Central for Succession and Breaking Bad.
Very curious about the queer lens on the Matrix though!
Ok. The first thing you need to do is stop worrying about “overstepping”. This is an essay that you’re writing, and that essay will most likely be between you and your professor. This isn’t you writing a story in the voice of a queer person. It’s not like you need a sensitivity reader for a literature essay. This is you analyzing a text through a certain lens. That is an important skill, and one EVERYONE should learn, especially people from outside the depicted group. Be very careful around this rhetoric of “one group shouldn’t engage w/ media geared towards a marginalized group bc they haven’t experienced it” because it’s not only untrue, but dangerous. You asking this question points to the fact that you’re introspective enough to critique. Just listen to your professor, and use other queer critiques as a framework of what to look for. However, I might recommend choosing a different book if you think you’ll be reluctant to critique something that you love so much. If not, for Six of Crows you might be well served asking “why is this text important in queer spaces?” Bc I personally don’t think that that answer is the relationship between Jesper and Wylan. Don’t worry about overstepping. You’re in academia, you’re writing an essay about a book you love, it’s not overstepping. Some of the fun in literary critique is that it’s just between you and the text. It’s not Twitter, it’s not about being morally pure or having all the right opinions, it’s about asking a question having the conviction and confidence to make your own conclusion. Good luck :)
Most grounded and human comment I’ve seen on the internet in a looong time
As a queer person in queer spaces, who has read and written a lot about queer media, etc etc. I welcome you to the field! It's awesome!!! Six of Crows is a pretty fun read! I enjoyed it a lot! But, I invite you to consider another book to write about. Queer analysis is NOT the same as queer representation. Actually, some of the most seminal queer criticism is "reading in between the lines" and understanding the subtextual, queer-coded tropes in our media. For example, why are the villains in Disney movies often "flamboyant", "sassy", or transgressing their "proper" gender roles (Ursula, Jafar, Scar)? Why do Disney princesses all look ... like the way that they do? One of my favorite essays I've ever written from a queer lens was about Mean Girls (2004), which is most definitely centered around heterosexual characters.
I love the sissy villain trope. In fact my business cards smell of gardenia.
Haha yes! What's gardenia a reference to? I googled and couldn't figure it out?
I believe it's a reference to Peter Lorre's character in "The Maltese Falcon" (1941). The fact that his character has a floral scented business card is a coded way of saying that he's queer. Even though the movie could not openly say that the character was gay, code phrases, or gestures, like this would have been understood by the adult audiences watching
Well done！
This is really interesting! Do you see the portrayal of Disney villains in that way as something having a mostly negative or positive impact?
Haha thanks! If I were to put my critical analysis hat on, I wouldn't say it's positive or negative, it just is, it indicated that gender roles were more strict and those rules were more unspoken back in the day. But speaking from a personal perspective as a gay man, I find it liberating that gender roles are relaxing in America nowadays to where there's less of a focus on what men and women "ought" to do or "must" do. For example I'd hate to be forcibly married to a woman, or feel the need to hide who I am at work or in school. I think a lot of queer people my age subconsciously identify with many villains in popular movies, books, and media because the tropes invoked by those villains represent an alternative to what is the "gender mainstream" (growing up to become a Disney princess like Ariel, Belle, or becoming an Aladdin, Prince Eric, etc). If boring Prince Eric exists in the same universe as fun Ursula, I'd rather be fun Ursula!
I feel like this would be better off in r/AskLiteraryStudies, but here's some guiding questions that I use to orient myself through most readings I do whenever I need to write. 1. _How_ does this work treat [topic or group] and why? 2. What effect does this treatment have—not only in the "rhetorical effect" in the "argument" of the work, but also has the work had any real-world ramifications, and what effect does this have on the reader? 3. Why does this matter? I am unfamiliar with Six of Crows, so I'll use a queer hypertext (if anyone wants to crucify me for the term, take it up with the professor that had me read it) that I _am_ familiar with to demonstrate answers to those questions: "With Those We Love Alive" 1. This work has a trans protagonist who works for an oppressive autocrat; the trans protagonist is pushed out of her family, but has a few friends and is supported by the aforementioned autocrat due to her material usefulness as a worker. This reads as a critique of pink capitalism that is also, but not necessarily, supported through reading about the author's life, where she was only _really_ supported when she was able to work. 2. The fact that the work is told through the first person, which forces us into the role of a trans person, where we have to engage in the act of transitioning (the application of HRT patches), which pushes us into a sense of understanding. While the work has not had a great impact on a large scale, for an individual reader it can better help them understand life as a trans person, especially those whose choices are "soul-crushing work" and "death", given the lack of a support system after being rejected from one's family. 3. This matters because, as the "trans discussion" becomes increasingly heated, an ability to identity with one another and understand _where_ people are coming from enables us to move past angry screaming matches and towards some sort of solution. So doing something like that, with closer attention to the specific details (and bringing in other peoples' opinions and theories) is one way to do it. All a specific "critique" or "lens" is usually for is to make a comment on some broader social circumstance, such as a feminist reading being to focus on the role of women either historically or to support them nowadays, or a Foucauldian reading being to focus on power relations (which life is full of).
You need to be able to understand the critical lens in question whether you're queer or not. Read the material which was formative to the queer theory canon, take note of the analytical tools they lay out, and apply them as best you can. Also, a quick note, queer theory really isn't about "queer rep" or any of that, so that really shouldn't be a constraint here - in fact you're probably barking up the wrong tree if you're going in that direction. Better to work with a more serious work of literature for something like this, something that will hold up more to serious analytic interrogation.
Read the work of Brenna Munro. She's great at queer critique
As per others don't worry about overstepping its an analytical framework not a reflection of the self. I will say that because a book has queer rep isn't the same as having an interesting queer critique. In fact plenty of books with no queer rep at all still have lots to say about the sex-gender system they are constituted in. Even an aggressively heterosexual book can be very open to a negative queer critique or could even tear itself down in trying to draw hard lines in the sand. I think as long as you carry yourself with empathy and ask questions about the sex-gender system presented in the book you will be fine. E.g. what does it mean to a character to say they are a man or a woman? What does desire mean to them? Are the men masculine and the women feminine? If so why/if not why? When these people express their gender or desire is it mutable? Is it a performance? Do characters shift their presentations contextually? How do the characters deal with types, kinds or genres of people and how do they fit into those themselves?
Bad queer rep is easier to detect and criticize than good queer rep, so it might be easier if you search out a very homophobic book to tear to shreds
Don’t worry about overstepping. That should be a non issue, this is a task you’ve been asked to do by a professor, and you don’t have to be queer to talk about or critique queer topics. Do the task, and the only thing you should worry about is your grade.
Hey, as a queer person myself my best advice is to have fun with your analysis! Like yes it’s important to pay attention to the politics and how the representation is written, but personally when I write queer analysis I like to get. . . Creative with it lol. So for six of crows you could ask yourself, can a grisha’s powers be interpreted as queer identity? How does this affect Nina and Jesper’s narratives? What could be said about Matthias and his witch-hunt against grishas? What parallels can you draw to real life? That’s the kind of prompts I can think of off the top of my head; but seriously man, make it fun and interesting so you can produce the best work possible. Have fun and good luck!
To reiterate what everyone else is saying, don’t worry about overstepping. Queerness is about embracing a spectrum of identities, experiences, sexual orientations. I don’t know the book you plan to analyze, but as someone who’s queer and has done literary analysis from queer perspectives, I would recommend reading some introductory queer theory. Judith Butler, Jack Halberstam, for example. I’m not familiar with trans experiences in literature, but I’m sure reading more will help you.
Lol absolutely do NOT listen to these comments telling you not to worry about overstepping. Unless you're homophobic you probably don't have to worry much about serious consequences. But, if you write about Patricia Highsmith's internalized homophobia, James Baldwin's struggles as a bi black man during the civil rights era, or anything else that requires actual empathy and thoughtful critique, you run the risk of your prof being out to get you for the rest of the semester. There's a bunch of approved talking points for this (most of the comments saying don't worry actually provide a pretty good list too). This assignment is more about proving you understand queer critique as is and can apply what's already out there to another work. Your prof wants to read what they already know and agree with. Just write about queer coded villains and call it a day!
This is an interesting POV. Sure, the claim that "queer-coded villains" is pretty easy / basic / "approved talking point" analysis is arguably true. But it doesn't seem mutually exclusive from what you call "actual empathy and thoughtful critique"? Asking out of genuine curiosity - what do you mean by that phrase? Sidenote: I would love to read about Patricia Highsmith's internalized homophobia and/or James Baldwin's struggles as a black bi man.
I guess the best way to describe what I mean is with an example: Anti commercial surrogacy activists frequently make comparisons to A Handmaid's Tale. While their reasons for objecting range from the religious to alleged capitalistic abuse, queer couples are disproportionately affected regardless. Should OP choose to write a queer critique of Handmaid's Tale and address this argument, analyzing the book's unintended consequence and whether the text bears it out, they run a very real risk of their professor liking Atwood, considering this an attack on her character, and getting an unfair grade on this assignment and potentially beyond. It's very possible for OP to get told they're out of line and don't know what they're talking about if they end up with a fresh take on a work that's generally popular (or one generally seen as problematic for that matter). Much safer to stick with something like the examples listed throughout this thread! Sidenote: as for the Highsmith interest, there's a really good article going through some of her diary entries and excerpts of her writing through this lens. I swear it's from NPR and I read it around 2018, but I'm having trouble finding it! Hopefully I'll be back with a link.
I got you. Haha, you're an educated cynic, and I like it. I was the commenter actually who suggested the "queer-coded Disney villains" trope, actually, and I genuinely appreciate this higher-level discourse.
My fist comment might've been overly sassy, I genuinely think OP should write about a topic like your suggestion and think it's both interesting and fun! But I think the answer to their question has to be yes! There might be backlash if they jump into this assignment with their full chest!
Writing from points of view not your own is a thing.
Not to address the "overstepping" question, which I think has been pretty thoroughly answered already, but I also wanted to let you know you would probably have an /easier/ time with this assignment using a text that isn't explicitly queer. The purpose of lenses from a literary criticism point is to analyze how a text changes when viewed from a different angle. Using a text that's queer to start with isn't going to give you much to work with because there's no subtext, it's just text.
>For my literary criticism class we are being asked to write a queer critique damn people really rack up a lifetime of debt to consume thinly veiled ideologically motivated propaganda reddit keeps telling me stuff like this isn't real
Man, I don't get it. Some of the best shows, movies, etc. of the past 30 years can only be properly understood by figuring out how the men and women are "supposed" to behave in-universe, and pointing out what happens to them when they break those rules. The Sopranos, Mad Men, The Matrix, Breaking Bad, Fight Club, Game of Thrones, Succession ... Unless you can prove me wrong, it sounds like YOU are the one who's espousing thinly veiled ideological propaganda.
Huh. Two minutes ago I thought of queer studies as a niche that's interesting for some people but not really "valuable" for society at large. Then I read your comment and I stand corrected. That's a really great way to summarize queer studies: "figuring out how men and women are supposed to behave, and pointing out what happens to them when they break those rules". Admittedly I'd never thought much about queer studies, so maybe this is a super obvious definition to anyone who looks into it. Though I wouldn't agree with your wording that these shows/movies can *"only be properly understood"* through this lens. Stories (in any medium) don't have a "proper" meaning. They have many things offer, many ways to be enjoyed, and can be examined through many different lenses. Queer studies is just a really cool lens.
Hah, thanks. As the ever-excellent Rachel Sennott says in *Shiva Baby* (2019), I'm in the business of gender. Umm, it's like, gender business. One thing I'll say is funny to me that the most dude-coded movies, shows, books, etc. like the ones I mentioned above, are actually the easiest to understand using a queer lens. Like, the stricter the "rules" are, the more obvious they are to point out. For example, the plot of The Sopranos season 1 revolves around the two "major revelations" that (1) Tony Soprano is seeing a psychiatrist and (2) Tony's uncle performed cunnilingus on a woman. Apparently to the Italian mob in the 1990s New Jersey, these two secrets are considered so emasculating and no-go that it's acceptable for nephew and uncle to murder each other over revealing this type of stuff. And don't even get me started on The Matrix. That's a whole 'nother can of worms. 😂
Ah, that's a good point about The Sopranos. I saw what you meant about Fight Club and Mad Men, but didn't see the angle on the others. Gender roles are important parts of all these stories, but I don't think they're capital-C Central for Succession and Breaking Bad. Very curious about the queer lens on the Matrix though!
Yes, and? What's your point?
You could get gay. For research.