Gender and Art Criticism

Should Gender be Interpreted?
Kate Bornstein asserts that gender is nothing more than a line in the sand drawn by someone who says, “On this side you are a man, on that side you are a woman.” Kate being a transsexual says that the line needs to be blown away. The person who drew it is making arbitrary claims. However, if we think of gender as a work of art, one could argue that, since all art is open to interpretation, gender can certainly be interpreted as well. Susan Sontag, who writes on the interpretation of art, states that “the project of interpretation is largely reactionary, stifling. Like the fumes of the automobile and of heavy industry which befoul the urban atmosphere, the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities” (7). The fact is that people are programmed to interpret—they are interpreting everything, from what others say to their own thoughts and feelings. They can interpret their own feelings on sex, sexuality and desire. They can interpret their own gender, as Bornstein does. The big question is whether gender is like art—something that is created on a canvas or on a page or on a screen or on a stage. Shakespeare said all the world is stage—so perhaps everyone and everything is a work of art as well. Should it be interpreted? Should gender be interpreted? Sontag warns that “transparence is the highest, most liberating value in art—and in criticism—today. Transparence means experiencing the luminousness of the thing in itself, of things being what they are” (13). In a sense, this is what Bornstein says he is doing with his own transsexuality—interpreting his gender in the way that makes him feel most comfortable. What bothers him is when others interpret his presentation of his gender. For example, when other men express admiration for Kate’s beauty, Kate asserts that he does not know how to respond to the attraction of other men—it is not something he ever learned. This paper will show that gender can be interpreted but that at the end of the day there is unlikely to be any agreement over the interpretation just like with most great works of art the critics themselves are often divided.
Sontag states that “interpretation takes the sensory experience of the work of art for granted, and proceeds from there” (13). Bornstein states that gender is not something that can be taken for granted by everyone, that there is a process of interpretation that goes on even for transsexuals, which Bornstein discovered while in counseling: “For the first thirty-or-so years of my life, I didn’t listen, I didn’t ask questions, I didn’t talk, I didn’t deal with gender—I avoided the dilemma as best I could….it wasn’t ‘til I got into therapy around the issue of my transsexualism that I began to take apart gender and really examine it from several sides” (23). What Bornstein is saying is that his gender was for him something that simply was—and yet its meaning eluded him: he simply did not know what to think. Bornstein was a man? Bornstein was a woman in a man’s body? Bornstein became a woman with a woman’s body—but still had the sensibilities and instincts of a man? Not knowing how to deal with the sex instincts that are associated with the two genders, Bornstein found himself harboring a woman’s body after surgery and yet not having a woman’s mind or instincts—not knowing how to respond to compliments about his appearance from other men. Bornstein writes, “About five months into living full-time as a woman, I woke up one morning and felt really good about the day. I got dressed for work, and checking the mirror before I left, I liked what I saw—at last! I opened the door to leave the building, only to find two workmen standing on the porch, the hand of one poised to knock on the door. This workman’s face lit up when he saw me. “Well!” he said, “Don’t you look beautiful today.” At that moment I realized I didn’t know how to respond to that….To this day, I don’t know how to respond to a man who’s attracted to me—I never learned the rituals” (38-39). This sense of being unaware of the rituals says something about Bornstein’s own personal issues with gender. But it also gets to the heart of what Sontag is saying about interpreting art: “Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life—its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness—conjoin to dull our sensory faculties” (13). What is missing in this mad rush of life is the ability to just be and to just enjoy what is there without feeling the need to interpret it. Sontag starts off her essay by highlighting Aristotle’s approach to art—that art has utility and value because it offers catharsis, the effect of rousing and purging harmful emotions.
Art is worthwhile therefore because it has a cathartic effect. It does not need to be interpreted. Other artists might enjoy dissecting it to see how it works, to see how the cathartic effect is achieved—but this is not necessary, and that is Sontag’s point. Art should be accepted for what it is, enjoyed for what it is, embraced for what it is. Art has a purpose and the purpose is not to give intellectuals something to pour over as though the only merit of art was its ability to provoke conversation. On the contrary, art is there to be experienced. It does not matter at all whether one has something to say about it or not. The experience is what matters—the purgation of the emotions is what matters. Whether one wants to articulate that experience or not is immaterial—so how does this relate to gender?
If art should not be interpreted, as Sontag argues, then perhaps gender or sexuality should not be interpreted either. If art’s primary purpose is to cleanse the emotions and is thus experiential rather than intellectual, perhaps the purpose of sex has to be clarified as well. Bornstein spells a great deal of time interpreting gender and approaching sex, sexuality and gender in the same way an art critic might approach art—which is unnatural according to Sontag. Sontag as much as cries out, “Stop talking about art and simply experience it! Allow art to do its thing, to have an impact on you! You don’t have to give a commentary!” Perhaps this same line can be taken with sex: “Stop talking about it and simply experience it!” But if the purpose of art is cathartic, what is the purpose of sex? Procreation? Pleasure? If nature is to be any guide, sex is certainly procreative—but if one is interpreting sex from the standpoint of pleasure alone one could miss the procreative part. Bornstein does not even discuss the procreative aspect of sex and it does not fit into his discussion of gender. He has intellectualized gender to the point where it has become something wholly disembodied, and he is like a disembodied man walking around in a woman’s body. He might look attractive to other men even—but he does not know how to take that attraction. He has spent so much time interpreting gender that he has missed out on the experience—the meaning of what it is to be a man or a woman or to have sex.
As Sontag concludes, “the function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means” (14), and this is an important point to consider. What is the essence of gender? The arbitrary line drawn in the sand may actually have a great more to do with the essence of gender than Bornstein is willing to admit; after all, he has abolished the idea that lines matter or that essence is anything but what one wants it to be—and yet his own experiences show that essence still eludes him.
Works Cited
Bornstein, Kate. Gender Outlaw. Digital file.
Sontag, Susan. “Against Interpretation.” Against Interpretation and Other Essays.
Anchor Books, 1990.