Is that heterophobia I sense?
Heterophobia is a made-up word, of course, and utterly meaningless, not unlike the word homophobia. But since we use the latter word (erroneously!) to describe those who, in our estimation, possess an irrational fear of the homosexual lifestyle, or of homosexuals, it’s only fair that we posit the reciprocal term as well. Hence: heterophobia, which we can take to mean an irrational fear of the heterosexual lifestyle, or of heterosexuals.
I’m laying out this categorical framework to begin with, because I want it to be present in the reader’s mind prior to reading Deacon Greg’s take on some new “research” that has come out. One finds that the pastor does not exaggerate when he wonders just how anyone could possibly take this seriously:
Researchers at the University of Michigan have concluded that the love stories told in classic Disney and other G-rated children’s films — such as The Little Mermaid — are partially to blame for the pervasiveness of what they label “heteronormativity.”
Almost out of the gate, this one is worth a laugh: “heteronormativity” is just so darn pervasive, isn’t it, and it’s really the fault of the stories we tell our kids. Biological imperative has almost no effect on the sexual preferences our children will one day exhibit, right? Also, what’s wrong with heterosexual tendencies being pervasive? Should we take that complaint to mean that, in the eyes of the researchers, there should be fewer heterosexuals?
The article continues, in all its knee-slapping glory:
“Despite the assumption that children’s media are free of Sexual content, our analyses suggest that these media depict a rich and pervasive heterosexual landscape,” wrote researchers Emily Kazyak and Karin Martin, in a report published in the latest issue of the Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) publication Gender & Society.
Kazyak and Martin said they studied the role of heterosexual relationships in several of the highest-grossing G-rated films between 1990-2005.
The results, say the researchers, illustrate two ways that the children’s films “construct heterosexuality”: through “depictions of hetero-romantic love as exceptional, powerful, transformative, and magical,” and “depictions of interactions between gendered bodies in which the sexiness of feminine characters is subjected to the gaze of masculine characters.”
“Gendered bodies?” As opposed to…what, exactly? Ungendered bodies? It’s improbable that these researchers have, by this point in their lives, not seen at least their own nude forms, if not the nude forms of other people as well…and so it should be a reasonably safe assumption to make that they have at least a passing awareness that the “genderedness” (since we’re making up words anyway) of bodies goes a bit beyond how comfortable one is with expressing either typically “masculine” or typically “feminine” emotive and psychological traits. There’s a rather strongly biological component to things as well; I didn’t exactly get to choose whether or not a penis was included in my physiology; it was kind of just “there” from day one.
Do these researchers really suppose that the masculine “gendered body” and the feminine “gendered body” are little more than the results of arbitrary functions, which take no influence from the raw facts of biology?
Now, granted, just because one possesses e.g. male “hardware” does not mean that one will, with absolute reliability, elect to express male emotive and psychological traits. It is possible for a disordering, of sorts, to take place, such that expressed psychological and emotive traits to not more closely align with physiological traits, and both men and women can suffer from this. But do I need to emphasize the point that there is an inherent disorder in such circumstances, a dissonance between nature and psyche?
I suppose I do, actually.
“Characters in love are surrounded by music, flowers, candles, magic, fire, balloons, fancy dresses, dim lights, dancing and elaborate dinners,” the researchers observed. “Fireflies, butterflies, sunsets, wind and the beauty and power of nature often provide the setting for – and a link to the naturalness of – hetero-romantic love.”
God forbid that a man and a woman in love be depicted as something positive!
One wonders what else could be deemed to be hetero-imperialistic (since we’re inventing terms anyway) by this same reasoning? Perhaps only dirges should be played at weddings, lest the impressionable young flower girls mistakenly construe the happy music that typically accompanies matrimonial services as being some kind of message about the beauty and “naturalness” of “hetero-romantic love.”
The SWS press release on the research blamed what they called the “old ideals” of romantic relationships, specifically those found the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, which in many instances inspired the films’ storylines, for “such heavily gendered depictions and glorified portrayals of heterosexual relationships.”
The team says the results point to heterosexuality achieving a “taken-for-granted status” “because hetero-romance is depicted as powerful.”
Didn’t you know that biology and the reproductive instinct have nothing to do with it, good reader?
Ella doesn’t watch movies of any sort (she’s not allowed to), can’t understand more than a few simple words (and usually just glazes over when we read her a story…if she doesn’t try to eat the book), and probably doesn’t take away anything from illustrations in story books than the fact that colours are pretty. She loves to meet kids in general, but seems to have a bit of an affinity for boys in particular.
Clearly, we must have conditioned her — indoctrinated her, really — into acting that way. It couldn’t possibly be any sort of natural tendency expressing itself.
Steynian 370 « Free Canuckistan! (July 3, 2009, 3:48 pm).
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