Introduction

Normal (2009)

 

Normal is produced under HBO films based on the play by Jane Anderson, Looking for Normal starring Jessica Lange (Irma) and Tom Wilkinson (Roy/Ruth). The movie gives a spotlight to a married couple life, Irma and Roy, after they celebrate their 25th Anniversary. The surprise is when Roy admits to pastor and Irma that he wants to be a woman. He has considered it for a long time that he is born woman but trapped in a man’s body. After his decision, Roy faces difficulties, firstly of course from Irma, his son, Wayne, pastor and fellowship of the church congregation, and work colleagues. Roy has a few people to lean on.
After its release, Normal has been nominated for Best Performance by an Actor and Actress in Golden Globes, USA 2004 and in Primetime Emmy Award 2003 it has been nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress, Outstanding Made for Television Movie, Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special, and won for Outstanding in Main Title Design and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Movie, and etc. (www.imdb.com)
 

Objective
This movie is worth analyzing. In this paper I would like to discuss Roy’s effort in revising his identity. To help me develop this essay I am considering some gender theories, like queer, performativity, mind/body dualism, and posthumanism body.
 

Discussion

In The Wrong Body

Body/mind dualism in Bordo’s essay emphasizes that the construction of the body is apart from the true self (3) Body is considered as the prison of the mind, even body suggests negativity. Bordo says that the culture has created dualism in which describes man as active and woman as passive, man is represented as day and woman as night, man is created powerful and woman is powerless, man as the mind and woman as the body. As mentioned, if body suggests negativity it means woman as source of all bad things (4). Bordo adds that the feeling of uneasy and self loathing suffered by many women because of the culture makes them feel that they might have been in the wrong body. In the movie I watch the situation goes the other way around. Different from Bordo’s example, it is not about the woman under patriarchy system, but rather focuses on mind that has been considered as separate or different thing with body.
In Normal, Roy has admitted to pastor along with his wife, Irma, that he has been a woman for so long time born and trapped in a man’s body. His marriage with Irma has already turned 25th year and Irma has given birth to a son and a daughter. The movie has depicted enough how culture shape what both men and women should do and what should not do in a society. And feeling of living in a wrong body causes Roy in a stressful condition that he wants to perform the genital surgery in order to make him complete. The desire to reach completeness in here suggests Roy’s mind that contradicts with the existing body. As the story goes, this film not only gives Roy a spotlight, but also his daughter, Patty-Ann. Patty-Ann is a way opposite of her father. Although given in small scenes, Patty-Ann complains about being a woman, having vagina and breasts instead of penis. She does not like how she feels during period and gets angry putting herself a bra. When going to school she prefers something unusual.

Heterosexual Contract, Performativity, & Social Sanction

In such situation I connect it with Judith Butler theory of performativity. In her essay it is stated that “Gender identity is a performative accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo” (520). In short, gender is a social construction, result of performative acts which survives from generation to generation. Social sanction and taboo says that those who fail to perform to what is right will end up being punished.
The movie tells us that Roy has been a man performing masculinity. Roy has been obeying what Butler calls as heterosexuality contract. He works in a man field, married to a woman for 25 years, and has children. Reproduction in heteronormativity is said to be a compulsory matter in family to extend kinship system (524). Moreover, sex, gender, and heterosexuality have been explained as historical products which are considered as natural for years. Gender is not a mere an individual choice but like an actor with a script ready to perform. But in case of transvestites, punishment will play its role again. Butler insists that gender has been made to adjust with a model of truth and false and to serve social policy and control. Those who fail to perform gender will be punished but those who do well only suggest the essentialism of gender identity.
After the admittance Roy faces many social sanctions. He gets bullied by men in his work station, gets his car written you are not normal, gets expelled from congregation which holds strongly a Christian conservatism, and fought with his own son.
The story has been somehow set in a heteronormativity way. Irma as a woman deals with her domestic job, being a housewife instead of working outside, doing house chores, wearing dresses, putting some make up on, etc. Roy is working with men dealing with machines, which stresses man things, Roy’s son, Wayne, makes a music band, travels around, grows himself beard, and portrayed having sex with some chicks. During thanksgiving visit, he enjoys watching football with Roy—although Roy has started changing a little bit at that time. Even, Irma insists Wayne to carve the turkey which suggests making him a man as a head of the table, Roy’s daughter, Patty-Ann, always gets scolded by Irma if she starts acting like a boy and behaving what a girl should not behave.
After deciding what he wants to be, Roy starts to perform his (new) gender step by step, acting what woman (in society) will typically do; gets dressed, puts make-up on, wears jewelry, wants cooking job, and so on. He firstly goes to the store buying some dresses and woman’s stuffs. Although still dressed like a man, he tries to wear perfume and a pair of earrings to work which absolutely causes a fight. In the movie Roy has insisted Irma to let him do house chores. Gradually, Roy starts wearing a cardigan and takes estrogen pills, and grows himself breasts. At work, Roy does not even complain, being grateful instead, he accepts working in the desk. His also changes into Ruth.  

Becoming Queer

Roy in my opinion is a queer. In my understanding, queer people freely define who they are, what they want to be. They are able to define themselves as straight today, bisexual tomorrow, or gay in the following days. In the article entitled Queer and Heteronormativiy, the term ‘queer’ develops from crazy and deviant to a theory, it also defines people of LGBT and those who live outside social norms. Queer time and space by Judith Halberstam helps me understand Roy’s identity as a queer.
Queer time is defined as a term for specific models of temporality within postmodernism, once someone goes outside frame of bourgeois. In Western culture, Bourgeois somehow rules the time for reproduction, time for family and time for inheritance and makes those times sounds desirable. People who walk out the rules are considered as immature, dangerous, and pathologized. On the other hands, Queer space is defined as how those queer people create their own space in which normative people will not use that space because as we know that queer people are mostly not welcome and really take time to adjust themselves to get admittance in the normative time and space. (6)
Roy himself has bought the time for reproduction, for family, and for inheritance. But, after playing all the rules for a long time Roy prefers to walk out the frame. He has grown hair, dressed like a woman, and put some make up on. His decision makes him prohibited to attend the church although trying to sit in the very back row. Society seems not ready to accept such thing. In terms of space Roy does search for church that will accept him for the way he is and he agrees to move his job back in the desk. However, Roy still embraces heteronormativity value as he still decides to be husband and father but furnished with domestic job.
I also consider two things. First, the movie DVD cover written “Noᴙmal” with letter R faces backward and second, the movie introduction shows the original title “Looking for Normal” with italized letter N in word Normal. For me they suggest an idea of being normal in different way. In seeking the right body, Roy believes that changing sex to a woman’s body is something to do—in deeper understanding it is normal thing to do than living in an unwanted body.  Back to opinion on freedom to define identity, Roy still defines him normal after performing sex change operation although society thinks the opposite.
 

Posthuman Body and Cyborg

  

Several weeks ago, there was this posthuman body discussion which gave me an insight about what posthuman body means. It was said that posthuman body refers to the situation of body that has no longer function as it did before. It does not have history as it is a new construction because of power and pleasure. Human with the rise of technology can modify their body as they please.
In the introduction of posthuman body by Judith Halberstam and Ira Livingston, The posthuman body is a technology, a screen, a projected image; it is a body under the sign of AIDS, a contaminated body, a deadly body, a techno-body; it is, as we shall see, a queer body (3). Technology makes the body queer. Besides, it is also said that queer itself in American has been part of posthumanism agenda. People can gain multiple identities yet this situation does not make a culture. Posthumanity is not about making an authentic culture or an organic community but about multiple viabilities (18) The posthuman consists of many things such as Queer, cyborg, metametazoan, hybrid, PWA; bodies-without-organs, bodies-in-process, virtual bodies and etc.
Besides a queer, Roy represents a cyborg as well. Donna Haraway says that humans are all chimeras, hybrid of machine and organism; humans are becoming cyborg (1). In the late 20th century the emergence of machines confuse the natural (organism) and superficial (machine), mind and body, human and animal, nature and culture. Modern medicine is one of example that makes human cyborg.
Before performing sex change surgery Roy has been consuming tablet of estrogen and testosterone blocker even it is scheduled along with Irma with her progesterone. Gradually Roy grows breast and becomes sensitive once his breast touched. In the movie Roy has been reported to be too sensitive and get angry very often. The hormone makes his hand smoother and in one scene it is sliced just because he wants to open a jam bottle-like. The nature of his body has been contaminated with chemical so it causes changing in his hormonal system.   
Conclusion
This movie portrays gender issues suffered by Roy/Ruth who wants to perform genital surgery because he thinks that he lives in the wrong body. He has been living for so long time playing all the rules of heteronormativity. Jane Anderson seems to underline Butler’s theory of performativity that gender is mere social construction. In the movie Roy/Ruth tries to play role as male and as female at the same time. In my opinion he is a queer as he freely defines his identity although social values or society gives him hard days; quarrel with Irma and Wayne, bullied by colleagues, banned to attend church by fellowship in the congregation. The gender issue in this movie can be a representation of defining identity in the postmodern era. Besides, the movie also presents the posthumanism—when humans are dependent with technology, they can modify their own body as they please, and turn into cyborg.







REFERENCE

Anderson, Jane. (2013). Normal. United States: HBO Film.
Bordo, Susan. (1993). Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body. California: University of California Press.
Butler, Judith. (1988). Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory in Theatre Journal. The Johns Hopkins University Press (available on: http://links.jstor.org)
Halberstam, Judith. (2005) “Queer Temporality and Postmodern Geographies,” in a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York: New York University Press
Halberstam, Judith and Ira Livingston. (1995). Posthuman Bodies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Haraway, Donna. (1991). “A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology, and socialist-feminism in the late twentieth century.” in Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of nature. New York: Routledge.