Gay-Consumer-Capitalism :: Essays Papers

Gay-Consumer-Capitalism Politics of a subject-action-object formula have meaningful terms insofar as the terms relate to each other. This holds at several levels beyond the strict sense that the triad requires three parts. It can also be the case that the three parts are all expressions of one, or that all three are parts of some absent presence. In Nicola Field’s criticism of a Queer Valentine’s Carnival in London in 1993, and of gay identity and lifestyle as bases for politics in general, a Marxist analysis reduces the subject and action to properties of the object against which they act. At this level, the theoretical move has little justification but the strategy employed at a lower level. However, understanding an argument at this level opens the critical possibility of both disturbing the tendons holding together fixed relations to the object and exploring the ability of the object to bear the weight of the other two terms. I will deploy this criticism in the instance of Field†™s Over the Rainbow, specifically in â€Å"Identity and the Lifestyle Market†, but the argument presented therein exceeds the methodology I have identified and I intend to reinforce the constructive thinking that takes place, but still in the context of this paradigm for (counter)criticism. Field’s argument in â€Å"Identity and the Lifestyle Market† simultaneously takes ‘capitalism’ too seriously and fails to take constructed identities seriously enough, but still raises significant points for political encounters with capitalism, (homosexual) oppression, and identity itself. To begin with, Field’s argument runs a familiar Marxist course from capitalism as historical or present source of all problems to a tool of politics (used against that problem) back to the tool’s association with capitalism. Capitalism causes oppression and identities of sexuality, thus using identities of sexuality endorses capitalism because it is from capitalism. â€Å"The politics of identity are about bypassing the roots of oppression and concentrating on the symptoms† (Field 51). While the phrase ‘roots of oppression’ does not appear in every paragraph, a reference to the â€Å"real causes† of â€Å"the problem† is woven through every significant political argument of the article. This strategically obfuscates what â€Å"the problem† really is by seeming to refer so much to â€Å"it† that Field’s never elucidates a full understanding, except to mention those instances of oppression that support her argumen ts. What about cases of oppression, pain, and suffering other than worker’s exploitation?