Paste your essay in here…“Identity politics is an orientation towards social theorizing and political practice, rather than a coherent body of ideas with a settled political character. Its central feature is that it seeks to challenge and overthrow oppression by reshaping a group’s identity through what amounts to a process of politico-cultural self-assertion,” (Heywood 186). While there have been various forms of identity politics, nowhere has the struggle for a sense of selfhood and identity been more pronounced than in queer identity politics and liberation movements (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Having urged people who were what was considered to be ‘sexually deviant’ to counteract societal shame and ostracization with gay pride, these movements have fueled debates over and challenged the notion that one’s sexual orientation can entirely define a person’s identity. This provides a feeling of belonging and agency to those previously denied. However, while such politicized identity-based movements do have their benefits, “they also serve to maintain the series of conceptual binaries upon which much of Western thought rests,” (Heckert 105-106). As such, this not only maintains this social hierarchy of ‘us versus them’ but restricts the fluidity of individuals in order to adhere to a certain label rather than letting them express themselves in whatever form they wish without any consequence. This is seen in Blue is the Warmest Color, particularly with the main protagonist Clementine’s struggle to comprehend her complex sexual identity; a struggle that is anything but ameliorated by the pressure from the people in her life such as her family, friends, and even her lover Emma. As such, this essay, using Blue is the Warmest Color as a case study, seeks to explore how queer identity politics, despite having its benefits, create these binaries that might result in the loss of sexual fluidity and thus, causes a loss of agency to those who are already denied.
The graphic novel explores the relationship between Clementine and Emma that dates back from the former’s teenage years to her untimely death. The story first begins with Emma travelling to the house of Clementine’s parents to gain access to her personal diaries. The perspective then shifts to a teenage Clementine’s where she talks about her chance encounter with a blue-haired young woman and is struck with love at first sight. In spite of the doubts that she has about her sexuality, she instead decides to start a relationship with an upperclassman called Thomas because she wants to feel ‘normal’. Six months later, however, unable to have sex with Thomas, Clementine breaks up with him. Feeling depressed, she is helped by one of her male friends, Valentin, to whom she confesses everything; Valentin’s confession that he is gay comforts her. Wanting to cheer her up, Valentin takes her out to a gay men’s bar; she soon drifts off to a lesbian bar, and again meets the blue-haired woman who introduces herself as Emma. The two keep in touch and become friends while Clementine falls in love with her. Despite the many obstacles such as the homophobic rants from her schoolmates and Emma’s complicated relationship with her partner Sabine, the two confess their feelings for each other and consummate their relationship. This happiness is broken when Clementine’s parents find out and hence, disown her. This trauma still haunts their relationship which manifests into many arguments regarding Clementine’s closeted situation and ultimately results in her cheating on Emma with a male colleague. This leads to Emma throwing her out and Clementine gaining an addiction to pills in her depression. While they reconcile due to Valentin’s intervention, their happiness is again short-lived when Clementine, having had a seizure during their reconciliation, is given only a few days to live at a hospital, much to her parents’ and Emma’s sadness. She soon dies having written the last pages of her diary and the story concludes with Emma remembering Clementine urging her to live life as she knows it.
To reiterate, through the exploration of the relationship between these two women, Maroh’s aim was to depict the reality of what members of the LGBTQ community have to face in determining how they identify as (Bussel). Sedgwick similarly argues in Epistemology of the Closet that standard binary oppositions that stem from identity-based movements about gender and sexuality limit freedom and understanding. She argues that the definitions of sexuality upon which these early movements were based are way too simplistic to cover the nature of human sexuality and lead to misunderstandings regarding expectations about the subjective sexuality of people (Sedgwick 8-10). In the book, this can be seen in Clementine’s struggle in understanding her own sexuality which creates feelings of anxiety and frustration. This is not helped any further by the external pressure to conform to a certain label as symbolized by Emma’s insistence for her to ‘come out’ and take part with her in the pride movement. Clementine does not want to come out because sexuality, to her, is “the most intimate thing there is” and not something to be politicized which stems from her trauma of being disowned by her parents. It is clear that while she does desire to conform to a certain identity in order to ease her ‘anxieties and frustrations’, all she really wants is to be free and happy like everyone else but on her own terms (Maroh 131). However, the insistence to maintain these binaries that are a result of such identity politics remain an obstacle that she unfortunately could not surmount.
Politicized movements do have their benefits. For instance, they provide one a sense of fraternity with other individuals with similar contexts. It is also true that “there can be no politics without some sense of identity because it is through a wider identification (with a party, a movement, a specific goal) that political practice is made possible,” (Weeks 101). However, this notion has devolved to the point where queer politics now depend on a politicized subject defined in opposition to institutionalized heterosexuality. In identity politics, the categories upon which social divisions depend are reified. Thus, the concept of heterosexuality cannot exist without homosexuality and the hierarchy that the movement sought to remove still remains reinforced, leaving those who remain non-binary excluded. This can have detrimental impacts, as seen in Clementine’s depression, addiction, and eventual death.
Secondly, institutions that have an inherent heterosexist bias cause people who are otherwise considered to be the purportedly sexual minority to deny their being. This bias and the subsequent denial that stems from it is manifested in the form of ‘the closet’- “the defining structure for gay oppression,” (Sedgwick 71). Michael Brown, building off of Sedgwick’s idea of ‘the closet’, explains how the power of ‘the closet’ is such that it determines the extent to which ‘gay’ and ‘non-gay’ geographies exist, whether it be one’s school or workplace (Brown). There is a particular scene in the comic where Clementine is confronted by her peers over her acquaintance with Emma who comes to see her at school, likening her to the “perverts and sickos” that hang out at the gay bars that Valentin and Clementine went to (Maroh 63) and as such, ostracize her from their social group. While their accusations were completely unfounded and without any reason, it shows that the heterosexist bias is ingrained in the various institutions that we have today.
Acceptance is imperative in order to develop a healthy and true sense of self. It is a condition for true happiness; not having acceptance can be detrimental. This can be seen in the contrast with the reaction between Emma’s and Clementine’s parents towards the discovery of their daughters’ true sexual identity. In an intimate conversation that Emma and Clementine have, Emma shares her own experience of queer sexuality where she explains that when she discovered that she was attracted to girls, she tried to go against her desires and “bury [her] secret deep inside of [her]self,” ready to stay hidden in the closet. However, it was her mother that, seeing the drastic changes her daughter was going through both physically and emotionally, took the first step in discussing sexuality with her. Emma tells Clementine, “I would never have dared to take the first step… she didn’t push me one way or another… she just wanted me to be happy and accept who I was” (Maroh 76). Here, Emma’s mother overturns the bargain of the promise, where the proclamation “I’m happy if you’re happy” contains the caveat, “to be made happy by things that make me happy” (Ahmed). The initiative taken by Emma’s mother can be considered queer in itself for it subverts this stipulation as for Emma’s mother, Emma’s self-acceptance is the happiness condition—as long as she is actually ‘herself’ she can make both herself and her mother happy. As such, Emma is able, through the acceptance of her queerness, to form a community. Her queerness thus becomes not only her sexuality but also the grounds upon which she builds a satisfying adult identity (Miller 44).
In contrast to this, Clementine’s parents reject their daughter’s queerness when they discover that she and Emma were sexually involved. Her father, in his anger, threatens her with an ultimatum that if she left with Emma, she was no longer his daughter. The difficult choice that Clementine’s father demands her to make between her family and lover reinforces the caveat in the aforementioned promise “I am happy if you are happy” which is “I am only happy if the things you choose to do make me happy”. This ultimatum symbolizes the bias towards heteronormative institutions. What is considered to be “good, normal, natural, blessed sexuality,” purportedly happens “within the confines of [heterosexual], married, monogamous relationships, has procreation as its aim, and occurs without toys or pornography,” (Miller 41). Having chosen her lover over her family and thus, trapping herself between what is considered to be ‘queer’ and ‘normal’, Clementine never fully accepts her true fluid self and this results in her emotional and subsequently physical undoing.
Thirdly, ideas that are socially constructed such as class and race tend to have a heterosexist bias which leads to the denial of sexual subjectivity. As such, queer movements, in theory, advocate for a more egalitarian society absent of such biases. However, the reality is a lot different; studies show that these biases based on class, race, and sex still exist even within liberation movements, reinforcing these binaries. Classism has been a problem in queer social movements. Valocchi notes that “the creation and emergence of a gay collective identity was often linked to middle-class conceptualizations of homosexuality” (Valocchi, 1999). As Harr and Kane note, “working class conceptualizations of homosexuality, which often included specific gendered "types" or subgroups of homosexuals, were ignored by privileged gays and lesbians, in the latter group's efforts to achieve acceptance by, and integration within, dominant heterosexual society,” (Harr and Kane 285).
While this is not as obvious as it is in the movie adaptation of Blue is the Warmest Color, the classism is very much implied in the book. This is seen in the stark differences between the backgrounds of a working-class Clementine and an upper-middle-class Emma as well as their priorities and attitudes towards queerness. For instance, in this one particular scene where after having dinner with Clementine and her parents at their home, the two have a conversation in bed where Emma asks Clementine why she would not tell her parents the truth about their relationship to which Clementine replies, “I don’t know how my father would react but my mother…you should hear how she talks about ‘homos’!” (Maroh 123). While lighthearted, there is also basis in her trepidation for her parents are anything but liberal. As such, she is unable to accept her queerness fully for she is burdened with the knowledge that her desire to be in a relationship with Emma would put everything else she knows about herself and her life at risk (Miller 45). In comparison, when asked about how accepting her parents were in terms of her sexual subjectivity, Emma nonchalantly replies, “Mine are tolerant. That was never a problem.” The indifference with which this statement was made reflects the ease and privilege that Emma was granted by her circumstances in life and also, reflects her inability to recognize her own agency and privilege, and later on, Clementine’s anxieties and struggles to conceptualize the complexity of her sexuality. This inability to recognize their differences in what conceptualizes sexuality can also be seen in the scene where the two argue seemingly yet again that ends in Emma storming out of the room carrying the pride flag, leaving an anguished Clementine to deal with her own demons (Maroh 132).
So in conclusion, while identity politics, at least in the queer context, does have its benefits in the sense that they provide feelings of camaraderie to those in similar situations as well as the fact that the whole aim of the movement was to counteract societal ostracization with gay pride, one cannot deny that it serves to create these binaries upon which a lot of Western thought rests. It is due to these binaries that non-binary people such as Clementine are excluded and alienated from the mainstream and are confined to a certain amount of choices rather than allowed to explore their complex sexuality. This can be the cause of one’s emotional and physical undoing as evidenced by the anxiety that plagued Clementine’s life which she tried to solve with pills but only resulted in her death. People must be aware that binaries are arbitrary; dividing people into these two extremities often leads to finding more significant within-group differences than between-group differences and it culminates into false expectations of how men and women, especially those who are sexually non-normative, should be. By allowing for a more fluid approach to gender and sexuality, people will be able to better identify themselves however they choose and as such, build a more wholesome and confident identity.