Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide

Meuret 1

In Lois Tyson’s novel, Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, he voices about lesbian criticism, gay criticism, and queer criticism and theory that are branches under the school of LGBTQ theory. LGBTQ’s main objective is to make more than one sexual orientation known and to have that writer’s experience (of sexual orientation) be significant in their literary work, specifically homosexuals. This drawback of sexual discrimination does not just portray to homosexual writers, but in society overall. Furthermore, this issue that homosexuals undergo is the result of the lack of knowledge that heterosexuals contain for the queer community. Queer is a term in which all nonstraight people can be categorized under and have a sense of

Gay sensibility is viewpoint of a homosexual and their experience on their life. Whether it’s through how they interpret literature, music, or express their emotions (Tyson 330). But what is condensing about this term is the fact that it is tied with emotions. But the thing is everything that we go through is emotional, whether we want it to or not. Queer theory in general is all about categorization and making the abnormal feel normal, despite of what the mainstream says about them. According to Tyson, the American culture has become homophobic in a sense, but the matter is, it has not. In my personal opinion, yes there will be racists out there, yes there will be homophobics, but it’s just something that is new and have to get adjusted to. Staying that homophobia still exists creates anxiety for homosexuals and sometimes causes internalized homophobia which is self-hatred.

Above all, it is clear to see that there are many limitations to gay criticism. LGBTQ is a new concept and will have many flaws. But unlike the other schools of theory, it is based on its own ideas of sexuality and the way a text should be visualized. In general, LGBTQ primarily focuses on make sexual orientation an important part of a literary work because everyone’s experiences matter in the end, homosexual or

He became too apprehensive to reveal his sexual desires to his religious mother; who was too distracted about his missing sister. He diverted himself with theatre, which he enjoyed. The first theme that was repeatedly seen throughout the film was compulsory heterosexuality. An example that introduced this theme was when Randy and his friends (Efrem and Justine) confronted him about being gay, he laughed in denial and played the comment off casually. In this scene, Randy felt guilty and trapped because he could not escape his sexual desires. He felt unworthy because he could not be redeemed for his sins. Another theme that was introduced was sexual identity. It seems that a majority of the characters were going through confusion with sexuality identity. For example, one of Randy’s friends, Justine was ashamed for being a virgin and wanted Randy to have sex with her because no one else in the school seemed willing enough to do the job. I think that the reason why Randy performed this task was because he was falling under the pressure of heteronormativity. Maybe he was thinking that his sexual urges would disappear? But the aftermath of losing his virginity, made him lose his