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Title: Becoming Unrepresentable
Author: Francesca
Date: 5/1/2018
Language: en
Topics: identity, branding, media

Francesca

Becoming Unrepresentable

I’m not going to tell you what conclusions to come to regarding

identity, outreach, or our relationship to mass media. I don’t think I

have that to give you anyway. Plus, I’ve been trying to avoid “you

should” lately. I’ve only written here the conclusions I’ve come to for

myself and I’m going to try to show you the tools I used to get to them,

in the hopes that you might pick up these tools and use them to come to

your own conclusions. They will be at least a little different than

mine, I’m sure.

What Do I Mean When I Call Myself A Freak?

It wasn’t until I started making friends with people from a Pre-Occupy

Wall Street Era anarchism that I heard certain language used more

intentionally than I’m used to hearing in queer or artist circles. The

use of the term ‘freak,” as in “I love Jimmy, she’s a total freak,” was

used differently. I remember a specific instance where a security guard

sized me up and ran me off property before I even got to the front door

of a library where I was meeting a friend. “I mean, you look like a

freak” was my friend’s explanation and it was, of course, completely

true.

I heard the usage too, in the context of putting together weekly dinners

and trying to find like-minded people to come to the house and hang out,

in phrases like “yeah, we gotta try and meet all the freaks in town.” It

was used as a term of endearment, and even something that measures

character, exactly because in these circles and in any other circle, it

denotes people that aren’t able to do what they’re supposed to do in

accordance with cultural law. I guess I’m not afraid of sounding edgy

when I say that I think a freak is someone who is punished for operating

as a contradiction to the state of things and keeps operating anyway. I

look up to freaks because they’re getting by with the methods they

chose, not the ones provided. If that’s too edgy to be taken seriously,

then you don’t have to take me seriously, but ‘freak’ is what I aspire

to.

My Beef With Identity Marketing

I think outreach is rad. I mean I’m writing this whole thing, right? But

I split hairs between outreach and marketing.

Marketing requires branding. I’m weary of branding for all the obvious

reasons. But it’s not even necessarily as simple as feeling like a

watering down effect happens when we begin to do marketing, though I

think that’s true too. I think the real issue is more fundamental. I

have nothing to say that I think is going to be totally relevant to a

Mass. I’m not able to believe that people are so simple or that they

should strive to be condensed into a universal identity. I don’t accept

“Well, everybody wants to be sexy/the boss/famous/etc.” because I think

those common desires are artificially planted as entry points into

identities and act as more of a threat than an option. “If you don’t

want ____ then you are a freak and you will be punished.”

In this way, audiences aren’t really tapped into, but are instead

constructed by marketing efforts themselves. I’m not so excited about

constructing people. I don’t want to offer my rebellion or

dissatisfaction as a rebel identity that you wear like a hat. I don’t

want to become a kind of social programmer that designs an ideal

militant or outsider who we all now aspire to become. A hero that some

might be able to fill out better than others, maybe even allowing those

individuals access to levels of escape from responsibility for their

actions or any other power that comes from accumulating social capitol

and correct identity. A local antifa guy talks about the correct books

he’s reading and his correct and sexy street fighting tactics and has

been around long enough for the people around him to overlook his

assault of a woman here, or the betrayal of a friend there. This, I

think is where I like to separate my definition of ‘freak’ from the

umbrella of identity, even the identity of a ‘truly free person’ or the

identity of a ‘freedom fighter’ as denoted by their choice of flag

colors. There is actually no perfect freak or hero freak or any

condensed freakhood to aspire to.

The reason I’m uninterested in branding a free identity is because, when

you cut past the patriotism and all the other bullshit freedom-branding

that’s already going on, and you look at even the most genuine desires

for real fulfilment, you might find that there is no one single freedom

that everyone wants. To believe that there is, I think is a convenient

copout and what you’re really doing is taking advantage of the

requirement to have identity, a chore that modern culture tasks us with.

You’re selling identity, the identity of a naughty rebel or an enemy of

the state, and when you can be identified by a market, by the news, by a

police force etc., you can be represented by it. And Jesus Christ, I

can’t tell you how badly I wish companies would stop representing me.

(I’m totally about to though...)

Another Beef, But This Time With Representation

When a news anchor goes to an occupation or a riot and puts a mic in a

disobedient face and that person actually tries to explain their

actions, why is it that by the time the news station has condensed the

event into a news story, the interviewed occupier sounds like a complete

moron? Is it at all similar to multibillion dollar companies selling

not-white, not-men main characters in their multimillion dollar films as

characters against rebellion, for justice and legal order, characters

who learn to appreciate ‘peace’ and oppose ‘violence’? Who learn to stop

biting the hand that feeds or to compromise their dissatisfaction for

what is perceived to be more mature or possible, some middle ground

between what I want and what’s already allowed? Why is it that when they

represent us, we look more manageable on screen than we look when we

stand up for ourselves, in the streets of Charlotte, Stonewall,

Ferguson, etc.? Who are we being represented for? Are we hoping that our

homophobic parents will see us in a hollywood movie or on the news and

call us up and say, “We now see that you’re totally harmless and we

think we can learn to forgive you for being a freak?”

Or maybe they’re not showing us who we are, but a version of ourselves

they might consider not arresting. One that doesn’t act out. Or one that

can “just throw a hat on over those dreadlocks and get behind the

been said a thousand times, but it’s worth saying again — representation

is a trap. I don’t want to be represented. I don’t want to be shown an

ideal version of myself. I want to be left to my own devices.

When I come to conclusions like this, I’m faced with the question of

survival and sustainability. Or at least my level-headed friends will

make me face them:

• Positive representation in media might construct a world where

strangers don’t light our community centers on fire or jump us on our

way home.

• Yes, positive representation will come with compromises, maybe more

compromises than victories, but if the small up-sides to being

represented in media are the difference between life and death, maybe we

might be willing to live badly if it means getting to live at all.

That’s complicated for me. If I were to force myself to answer the

question “but what are you FOR? What do you WANT?” I can confidently say

that my answer wouldn’t be “survival.” I do hear the above argument,

that survival is fundamental, and for most people, important enough to

justify not living the life you really want. Living in accordance with

American Dream brand ethics, for the sake of survival maybe. Absolutely,

that is definitely possible and obviously, even digestible. But to that,

I would say that I often think that the only thing worse than the world

becoming unsurvivable, is it continuing to be painfully or boringly

survivable, as it is now. Survival looks like wearing straight people

clothes to your job, not stealing your food when you’re still waiting

for pay day, voting for your favorite warlord because this one might not

take as many things away from me. Or you can THRIVE in it. Maybe one day

I’LL get to be the warlord. Maybe one day I’LL get to be the one that

ensures my employees act professionally.

For me, if rejecting representation means rejecting a mass forgiveness

for my freakhood, I’ll do without it. It’s true, I will get drinks

thrown at me from cars because I don’t ‘pass’ as a man or woman, or I

will be kicked out of libraries or lose jobs or maybe even some family

because of how I live my life. That won’t look like ‘survival’ in the

way we’re talking about, and maybe at some point, it won’t be survival

in any sense at all. But still, I can do better than forgiveness and

tolerance. In fact I already have, in the eyes of the people close to me

and to most strangers I get along with out in the world. Even the people

I don’t get along with, the drink throwers, the hecklers, the

assailants, do not tolerate me, in their own way. Good. I’m not a joint

pain or a hole in your sock, I’m a human being and I don’t want a

relationship with masses of strangers mediated through movies, news

outlets, and law. I would rather live and relate to others honestly and

defiantly.