The Bird Cage

Queer as defined by Webster - 'often disparaging : homosexual (2) sometimes offensive: gay'

Wikipedia defines queer as "an umbrella term for minority sexual orientations and gender identities[1] that are not heterosexual, heteronormative or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual) communities as being oppressive or assimilationist.

Judith Butler notes that "The term 'queer' has operated as one linguistic practice whose purpose has been the shaming of the subject it names or, rather, the producing of a subject through that shaming interpellation." Butler continues to state that queer is "an invocation by which a social bond among homophobic communities is formed through time" 

She posits queer as a unifying term for the 'norm' to state, 'I am not that, for that is queer'. 

Queer theory - any sort of gender relegating processes that dismiss the notion of  heteronormative categorizations. 

Queer is used as a term to root the idea of heteronormativity, of some semblance of a natural sexuality. Without something for the 'norm' to point at and state 'that is queer' there is no ability for them to say 'we are normal'. In 'Imitation and Gender Insubordination' Judith Butler addresses her discomfort with categorizing herself as a 'lesbian' stating that she 'would like to have it permanently unclear what precisely that sign (lesbian) signifies.' 

The term queer has been recently 'reconquered' by queer theorist who have seemingly taken the word back, to signify what though? They have used it to show that without the notion of queer, or homosexual, there would be no way to define heterosexual, or straight. The binary requires opposition in order to privilege one aspect of it. 

Identifying under any specific identity inherently brings about a conflict, especially while identifying with a sexual identity. Sexuality, in a Lacanian sense, disrupts the symbolic by providing a brief exposure to the real. Jouissance, the essence of sex, cannot be represented in our symbolic world. And because sex is the essence of sexuality, sexuality cannot be represent in the symbolic either. Thusly to identify oneself with specific sexuality is to identify as unrepresentable aspect within our world.

Identifying as straight or queer takes on even more difficulty when looking at the aspect of gender as merely a performance. 

'Drag constitutes the mundane way in which genders are appropriated, theatricalized, worn, and done; it implies that all gendering is a kind of impersonation and approximation. If this is true, it seems, there is no original or primary gender that drag imitates, but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original; in fact, it is a kind of imitation that produces the very notion of the original as an effect and consequence of the imitation itself"

Gender is nothing but a simulacrum, which is why drag often is used to produce a comedic effect within films. We see the reality behind the act of performing in a 'gender not our own' as comedic and must laugh or face the haunting notion that something truly is queer about it. 

One of my favorite representations of drag comes from the Robin Williams and Nathan Lane film 

The Bird Cage 

The scene above shows Albert Goldman (Nathan Lane), a gay man in the film, dressed in drag. The father of the bride to be, Mr. Keeley (Gene Hackman ), truly believes Albert is a women as he cannot comprehend the notion of drag. What then does Albert represent? To Mr. Keeley, Albert is a heterosexual woman who loves her husband, and enjoys traveling about the world with her husband Armand (Robin Williams). But to Armand, Albert is a gay man dressed in drag. 

In this situation, as in all situations, the truth of the matter is subjective. For to be viewed as a 'heterosexual female' one must perform as a woman, dress like a 'woman', act within the confines of what we call 'feminine' and 'enjoy' sex with a man. The necessity of female genitalia is a moot point here as an observer would, in most instances be unable to differentiate while the observed remains clothed.  Albert accomplishes all of these things thus convincing Mr. Keeley that she in fact, is Albert's wife. 

The trouble in identifying as anything comes when one asks the question 'How can a single entity be both a man and a woman at the same time. Identifying oneself within the confines of gender does not work as gender itself is merely a representation of itself, and endless series of simulacrum with no original, merely a performance of a performance. 

Curtis

The Binary Of Desire

Before I enter into a conversation about feminism, I would first like to spark a discussion on an interesting article I stumbled upon the other that instantly grabbed my attention due to our recent class discussions. The article talks about Zestra, an arousal oil developed by middle-aged women to enhance females sexual sensitivity targeting older women who’s physical sexual pleasure may have weaken in age or after giving birth. In recent years, men’s erectile dysfunction and the products used to help “maintain erections that last for hours,” has been extensively broadcasted in American media. Sexually explicit commercials have been aired on television and radio programs during prime time hours and especially during programming that guarantees high viewing. So why is it that feminine products that essentially have the same affects as Viagra and Cialis have not been widely broadcasted? I for one have never seen a commercial for Zestra during the Superbowl.

            Rachel Braun Scherl, co-founder of the laboratory that created and produces Zestra, has struggled with getting Zestra commercials and ads out into the media ever since it was created. She notes that even before the ads were developed and rejected by advertisement companies, case studies were developed on how the product may be blanketed by the media. Even though the commercials lack the sexual undertones that male sex enhancing drugs promote, television companies only agreed to have the cosmetic advertisement air during the late night hours of 12am to 4am during shows like “Bad Girls Club.” I put emphasis on the word cosmetic because although the product serves similar medicinal purposes as Viagra, Zestra was released as a cosmetic and not as a drug.

By allowing male sex enhancement commercials to air during prime television American society essentializes a “mans” need for sexual pleasure and puts shame on women’s desire as something that needs to be hidden or at least portrayed through patriarchal ideology. Women’s pleasure therefore is only appreciated through a misogynistic undertone; this is exemplified in Viagra and Cilalis commercials where the young and beautiful women can’t wait to finally get it on because an erect penis pleases all! Only within this male/female sexual binary do people feel comfortable with women’s sexuality: while the bodies of older women are blatantly ignored, the older male body is celebrated. Here I’d like to reproduce a quote from the article:

Said Rita Melendez, associate professor of sexuality studies at San Francisco State University: "If they really can't run these ads, it's telling women they are not - or should not be - in control of their desire, or that there is something shameful about their sexual desire, and that has huge implications for their ability to control pregnancy, partner abuse and sexual health. You're putting something so core to women in the realm of male control, or at least outside of female control."

            The misogynists voice takes precedents in maintaining the gender binary within all American institutions where femininity can only be safely represented under strict gender opposition reinforced through masculinity. Women’s desire is only appreciated through a masculine lens where patriarchal rule can be maintained. What this means is that female desire can only been portrayed through this misogynist lens before it is dismissed as erotic or promiscuous, and not in the sexually alluring definition of the word.

            So why is women’s desire so threatening to men? Or rather, why does our society encourage us to praise men’s sexual pleasure and shun women’s? Feminist critic Héléne Cixous askes similar questions,

For me, the question ‘What does she want’? that they ask of woman, a question that in fact woman asks herself because they ask it of her, because precisely there is so little place in society for her desire that she ends up by dint of not knowing what to do with it, no longer knowing where to put it, or if she has any, conceals the most immediate and the most urgent questions: ‘How do I experience sexual pleasure?” What is feminine sexual pleasure, where does it take place, how is it inscribed at the level of her body, of her unconscious? And then how is it put into writing? (233)

The need for women to conceal their sexual desire isn’t something that appears blatantly obvious to all women within society i.e. it isn’t something that people are aware of. Because the world has always been formatted towards the male privilege, the oppression of women as the unnatural other isn’t inherently obvious to all humans. Cixous says this is because there has always been a phallocentric position of power throughout history.  Both men and women are blinded by the already established cultural representations that maintain the binary system of opposition, which always privileges men. Perhaps it seems so shocking that middle-aged women might need a product to enhance their sexual sensations simply because there’s a greater worth established with men’s sexual pleasure than women’s; which is why it’s more acceptable to talk about erectile dysfunction than a woman’s lack of vaginal sensation.

Cixous says that the structured order we live in today is no different than throughout history. To demolish the hierarchal opposition would require “peoples born of the unconscious.” By this Cixous is saying that it is impossible to abolish this binary system through the invention or creation of something different. “There is no such thing as ‘destiny’, ‘nature’, or essence, but living structures, caught up, sometimes frozen within historicocultural limits intermingle with the historical scene to such a degree that it has long been impossible and is still difficult to think through a transitional period – where the classical structure appears as if it might crack.” (234) The existence of a gender harmonized world depends on peoples born detached from the structure and born of a self we cannot and do not yet know.

            Butler agrees with Cixous by recognizing that gender is always determined by a male/female opposition structure. She furthers this thought by saying that somehow through this opposition one’s sexual identity as either female or male has always been established; that is the “norm” that men desire woman and woman desire men. To quote Butler,

In psychoanalytic terms, the relation between gender and sexuality is in part negotiated through the question of the relationship between identification and desire. And here I becomes clear why refusing to draw lines of casual implication between these two domains is as important as keeping open an investigation of their complex interimplication. For, if to identify as a woman is not necessarily to desire a man, and if to desire a woman does not necessarily signal to desire a man, and if to desire a woman does not necessarily signal the constituting presence of a masculine identification, whatever that is, then the heterosexual matrix proves to be an imaginary logic that insistently issues forth its own unmanageability.

Any implication that this desire could be reversed or that desire exists without the need to classify within gender norms presents deviance within the structure. And since these gender/sexual binaries already and have always existed within language, they will always act as discursive productions that essentialize gender within one’s identity. Butler argues that only through drag can this intrinsic gender binary be exposed and mocked.

For anyone who wants to check out the whole article on Zestra here’s the link:

Zestra Article

Adrienne
         

'The informant is real?'

(note. This post is attempting to be written without recognizing that there are two more Matrix films following the first.)

The Matrix provides a fantastic medium in which to analyze the ideas Baudrilard presents regarding the simulation of Reality. Let's start by assuming that we have both working knowledge of both the Matrix and Simulacra and Simulation. The crew provides a vast array of how we can view life once we accept that we are living within a world that has become a simulation of a simulation. First we have Cypher, the informant who gives up Neo. He despise the world in which Zion exists (which I will refer to as Zion from here out) and wishes only to return to his state of 'ignorance is bliss'. He believes that even though he was living a lie, buying into that lie is a better life then constantly running from Sentinels and Agents. His is the pessimistic view who acknowledge that we live in a false reality but long to return to their state of unknowing. The cyber-pimp Mouse follows nothing but his desires which are nothing but a creation of the simulation (in literal form, the girl in the red dress). His is the id of the crew, the 'I don't care that it isn't real, it still feels good.' He tricks his mind, even for a short time, into believing that the simulation is reality. He states that 'to deny our impulses are to deny what makes us a human being'. But aren't these impulses generated within the simulation, which would make them anything but human. If this is the case then to their impulses are what make them even more fully integrated into the simulation and into the false world of the Matrix.
The three main characters, Neo, Morpheus and Trinity difference revolve around their interpretations of the Prophecy, as given by the Oracle. Morpheus fully buys into this prophecy, basing his life around the fact that he will find 'The One'. Trinity is skeptical as she is told she will fall in love with 'The One'. And Neo is told he is not 'The One'. But wait a second. What exactly is this 'prophecy'. It is merely a statement from within the simulation stating that someone can free them from it. The statement comes from within the Matrix, not from Zion, which means that it has necessarily voided its ability to produce a truth (much like language necessarily cannot describe what it is attempting to.) While on their way to the Oracle Trinity states that 'The Matrix cannot tell you who you are'. To which Neo replies 'But an Oracle can?'. he recognizes that their idea of escaping the simulation/symbolic world is impossible if they rest their hopes on something developed within that system. This is why the Oracle tells Neo that he isn't The One. Had she told him the truth it would have conflicted with Neo's idea that the Matrix/Oracle can tell him who he is.
Well who are any of them when they are within the Matrix? They are nothing but a simulation of their Zion self reproduced within the Matrix, a world in which they should have the ability to control. Not one of them has allowed their brain to give up to the fact that the Matrix is in fact a simulation. The crew even attempts to differentiate the 'real' from simulation by all wearing sunglasses while in the Matrix. By wearing shades they make an effort to separate themselves from the simulation around them. Neo however tends not to wear sunglasses, immersing himself in the Matrix (figuratively, and at the end literally with Mr. Smith). By immersing himself within the simulation he acknowledges that he is himself but a simulation, and as such is able to do anything he would like to. The rest of the crew attempt to hold onto the notion that there is a shred of real within the simulation.
Morpheus himself, the champion of Zion, is held back from full enlightenment by grasping on to notions of the 'real'. In his fight scene with Neo he states that physical properties don't matter, that speed and power are really nothing and yet he states two minutes later that Neo is 'faster then that'. By holding on to these notions he limits his abilities to fully free himself from his tie with the Matrix as Neo eventually does.

This notion that Neo must fully free himself from the 'simulation' in order to become 'The One' is proved in a two step process at the end of the film. First Mr. Smith calls him Mr. Anderson, to which Neo replies "My name is Neo". This simple statement signifies the rejection of the simulated self that denies the simulation (Mr. Anderson) and the assumption of the fully simulated self. 'Neo' is nothing but his call name online, a fully simulated world. Stating that 'He is Neo' is him stating that 'He is fully simulated.' This further rubbed in our face when Mr. Smith says 'Goodbye Mr. Anderson' and kills Mr. Anderson. 'Neo' Fully rises from the dead, because of his recognition that his simulated self as no relation to his actual Zion self. He then rises from the 'dead' and dives into Mr. Smith. This dive into Mr. Smith shows the limitations the Agents themselves have within the Matrix. They are tied into the notion that they are an entity, even though they acknowledge they're living in a simulation they are tied to their image(which is why any person can turn into an Agent but must change their look to look like an Agent.). Neo's shattering of Mr. Smith's image shows the limitations those who attempt to maintain the simulation have.

The Fascination With Autobiography

Joan Didion was an obvious choice for my post. One day I picked up Play It As It Lays and didn’t put it down. Though Maria has been criticized as an unlikable and often infuriating protagonist I was drawn to her. I had to know the women behind the protagonist but had forgotten that the author’s character is not necessarily the author. It is uncomfortable to be presented with a character that is a copy without an original. Maria feels familiar so I assume that she must be a representation of someone. Attaching her to Didion allows me to cop out of the anxiety caused by what is in fact my self-identification with Maria.

Attaching a text to an author places the consequences of the text onto an individual.  The individualization of the author functions to assign personal responsibility for the implications of a text onto the author while ignoring the greater cultural force that lies beyond the author. This individualization is accomplished by the glorification of the author, a choice that the Paris Review’s archive of author interviews pays testaments to.

I was absorbed by the 1977 interview between Joan Didion and Linda Kuehl but was disappointed by the 2006 interview between Didion and Hilton Als. It wasn’t Didion’s responses that had changed, it was the interviewer, or the force behind the interviewer.   

Both interviews begin with “the circumstances in which the interview was conducted.” These circumstances are meant to set the scene, presenting the interview as a story itself. Due to the untimely death of Kuehl, Didion herself describes the circumstances of the1977 interview, and offers her opinion of her interviewer. This individualizes Kuehl in a way that Als is denied. There is an artificiality to the 2006 interview that denies the interview as an interaction between two people, or two forces. It is problematic that the interviewer is briefly named at the beginning of the interview only to be thrown back into the safe anonymity of  “interviewer.” The status of the interviewer as anonymous privileges Didion’s responses while ignoring the agenda of the interviewer.  Why is the interviewer asking the questions she is? Why are these questions important? How do these questions function to the glorify the individual author?

Four questions struck me in particular.

1.)“Did any writer influence you more than others?”

Writer’s are of a different breed. They have been grouped into an awesome and exclusive club where all they ever seem to do is chain-smoke cigarettes, fuck, and write, of course. (I cannot deny the timing of my witnessing Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf smoking in The Hours and the start of my nicotine habit.) Authors are going to influence each other but an essentializing relationship amongst all writers is problematic. As Didion points out, when she was starting to write, male novelists had a particular role in the world while women novelists had no defined role.

2.)“When did you know you wanted to write?” 

A myth exists that there is always a moment in which the author realizes they want to be a writer. It is a glorified awakening to their calling, a theatrical event that mimics the seduction of drama. An epiphany.  

3.)“What are the disadvantages, if any, of being a woman writer?”

The interviewer turns to gender when Didion does not list any women writers as her influences. This attempts to individualize Didion through her sexual identity. Didion complicates this by stating that she doesn’t seem to recognize what a “feminine” writing style is.   

4.)“Was the book autobiographical?”

The author’s background is of the utmost significance to the interviewer. There is a longing to understand what compelled the author to write the text, as well as a tendency to bestow significance to every detail of a text though details are often arbitrary. For example, one could argue that the reason for the separation of mother and child in Play It As It Lays represents Didion’s own longing for a child. However, Didion asserts that the daughter is absent from the text simply because she was unsuccessful at writing the character. 

The fascination with autobiography is especially strong if you lie on the poles of hate or love of a given text. This is either an attempt to identify oneself with the author and text or to distance oneself from the author and text. A sloppy attempt at distancing is a hasty response to one's simultaneous attraction and repulsion to the text; you are horrified yet drawn to Maria.  In fact, Play It As It Lays itself demonstrates the reliance on setting and biography (“the facts”) while simultaneously suggesting that they do not apply.

There is an inclination to apply autobiographical meaning to a text whenever possible. However, a text is most fully experienced when we abandon the search for the author and allow ourselves to become intimate with the text. It is an abandonment of meaning and embracing of being. An intellectual “jouissance” perhaps.

Touchy Feely

Before one gazes into a mirror, Lacan believes that the have a demented and fragmented idea of the self; for they have not come into contact with a cohesive and coherent idea of their body as a whole. The “self”, that includes the physical body and the mind, would essentially remain in bits and pieces until the subject is able to view the “self” as a whole, by means of their physical image in a mirror. This phase of development precedes what Lacan refers to as the “Mirror Stage”.

The “Mirror Stage” is an important and necessary phase in Lacanian psychoanalysis because it is the stepping stone for creating a whole coherent image of the self, which is necessary for one to become a part of socio-cultural society. Lacan uses the example, and the truth, behind a child seeing him or her “self” in the mirror or a reflection for that matter, for the first time in their lives. This reflection affects the individual to such an extent, that they “misrecognize” their reflection as real coherent “self” because in “actuality” it is merely just an image; therefore an illusion, an idea.

The child sees its own reflection in the mirror, and for the first time he or she begins to believe itself as a whole ‘self’. Lacan says this idea of a ‘self’ is an “illusion” which implies it is visual. For Lacan, the term ‘visual’ is essential to understanding what he calls ‘the Imaginary’ register, which constitutes the visual realm prior to the individuals ability to use language as a means for perceiving what is seen.
Therefore, ‘the Imaginary’ is a key component in the construction of language and building meaning. Prior to language, the infant can only distinguish what it thinks it is from what it is not by pure visual stimulation. This is Lacan’s explanation for ‘the Imaginary’ as being primarily revolved around sight and visual images that in turn allow the individual to distinguish ‘the other’ from ‘the Other’. Thus by seeing the image in the mirror the child sees ‘an other’, but “misrecognizes” this as its own ‘self’. However, this image still leads the child to the idea of ‘the Other’ as a structural possibility, and leads to ‘Otherness’, imposing a relationship that distinguishes things from other things; faces from other faces. Visual distinctions are in fact, what permit the child to recognize things that are not its “self”.

Complications arise when a blind person is introduced into the context of Lacan’s theory. If a blind person cannot see their reflection in the mirror then how would they be able to form any idea, or “illusion,” of a clear identity? Lacan does not seem to take this into account with his essay on the “Mirror Stage” because a key concept to this theory is the child’s recognition upon seeing itself. That is, this seeing itself, allows it to consider its “self” as a whole, and by recognizing this ‘whole’ the individual is capable of realizing that prior to the “Mirror Stage,” they were fragmented bodies in “bits-and-pieces”.
Since a blind person cannot make this visual distinction, and, therefore, does not have the ability to distinguish themselves as either fragmented, or as a coherent self, then theoretically they would be incapable of distinguishing “the other” from “the Other”, which in Lacanian theory relies solely on images. Without the ability to make this distinction a blind person cannot compare their image to that of “the Others”, which means they cannot form the idea, or “illusion,” that is necessary for the subject to create an “identity.”

What Would Lacan think about this objection to his theory? How does a blind person obtain any cohesiveness if they do not have any ideas for what things look like? What sorts of thoughts or images stream through a blind person’s mind when they are thinking?

In order to attempt answers to these questions, we must then bring forth the Lacanian idea that the individual exists within another register, alongside the “Imaginary” known as the “Symbollic”, where these two crucial networks intertwine to constitute the visual linguistic sense of the world. Since these two networks are intertwined it is crucial to note that ‘the Imaginary’ creates the visual apparatus that is described through language, and language itself is a structure known as ‘the Symbolic’. A blind person does not make this connection between the visual-linguistic of ‘the Symbolic’ because they lack the latter.
Yet, as said in Ashelys post, “human beings are constructed through, and as Language,” perpetuating the idea that language is what constitutes our close-to-being-true reality. Therefore, reality for a blind person would still consist of language, but it would not consist of the necessary visual element described as such by Lacan. What this implies is that a blind person cannot exist within ‘the Imaginary’ which is a necessary precursor for entering ‘the Symbolic’. Since a blind person does function within ‘the Symbolic’ without ‘the Imaginary’ in a visual sense, we can assume that they certainly obtain some type of cohesiveness from touch and phonic, and this ‘touching’ and ‘hearing’ constitutes their own, subjective form of ‘the Imaginary’. But since a blind person experiences ‘the Imaginary’ in a different manner from ‘normative culture’ it displays an experience that is subjective, which means their individual experience differs from the norm. However, Lacan states that there is no such thing as true subjective experience, that is to suggest that we all experience the “Imaginary” and the “Symbolic” in similar, highly determined and influenced ways. But then again, for a blind person to exist in this type of symbolic order, would be impossible, as Lacan leaves out, consciously, or unconsciously the recognition of other human senses. This example of a blind person illustrates how “the Imaginary” and “the Symbolic” are not as strict as Lacan makes them out to be, and can, in fact, be experienced differently. Thus this sort of Lacanian philosophy has the potential to become shattered due to the lack of universal structure that it attempts to contain.

So, if all a blind can do is “feel”, then do they have feel thoughts instead of visual thoughts? Is the feeling of feeling thus transposes in their mind to perform some sort of sensation that is unfathomable to the un-blind community?

Take yourself off the tripod

The film attempts to portray the notion of freeplay through it's camera work. If we take what is being filmed as 'reality' and the camera's lens as our own symbolic notion of knowledge (or our view of reality) we can then begin to understand what the film is attempting to have us understand. What is happening during the film would not necessarily be happening in Derrida's daily life. He admits to be very cautious around the camera lens and goes into a meditation about improvisation. He would not have done such without the camera, though he likely may internally meditated on the subject or not brought it to mind at all. So, the simple act of viewing changes the actions of the perceived. The individual would be present (in the world) regardless of a camera being present in the room. but it is strongly affected and altered by the simple act of presence and such affects the understanding of it. Much like the camera our individual perceptions of reality base our understanding of the world around what we see. While we take what we are seeing as being the absolute truth, our presence is actually affecting the very reality we are viewing, constructing it (as the camera constructs the shot its takes) much like we would construct the sign of 'tree'.
The rapid and fragmented camera angles serve as a parallel to Derrida's notions of the sign having infinite meanings because language is missing ' a center which arrests and founds the foreplay of substitutions'(Derrida). Such, we see each camera angle as representing a slight substation of the sign, which in this case is Derrida. This views Derrida in his simplest form, exterior looks alone, and thus forces us to grasp that even something as simple as exterior form, can take on an infinite number of meanings. Each person is their own camera angle filming 'reality'.
By incorporating mirrors we do not, as viewers, get a sincere and centered image of Derrida. Our eyes go left, our eyes go right, and at times it is even difficult for us to tell where he is positioned in the room. These images of Derrida being split into two different directions are editorial decisions that successfully perpetuate the philosophies within Derrida’s revolutionary text, “Structure, Sign and Play.” The mirror implies the belief that we exist within a decentered universe, and that no ideas about who we are, what we do, what we know, are at all fixed. So in these instances involving mirrors, Derrida’s physical existence at the time of these interviews can take place in several places; hanging from the wall, sitting on the couch, and we could even say, streaming through the mechanics of a camera, aiming “to show that the text is at war with itself”(Barry, 69).
Within this metaphor one might say that Derrida's deconstructionist attitude would be for each person to step back from the camera and analyze why they are shooting a scene in that particular way, that is to say, what causes one to view life from that particular angle. The mirror shots of Derrida with the camera behind him, give us a taste of just how interesting wandering down that path may be.

Take yourself off the tripod.

The notion of love that Derrida presents is extremely interesting. Is it the ‘who’ we love or the ‘what’? Is it possible to tell the difference?
The first thing that came to mind to help break down this question was the classic phrase ‘love at first sight’. Personally I’ve had moments where someone walks by and I become paralyzed. Its as if time stops and my brain goes on overdrive. My mind instantly ‘falls in love’. But thinking back on those moments, I’ve come to realize that when I say ‘fall in love’ I really mean, ‘attribute characteristics; that my mind has created, that I find attracted, and that I desire, to a woman.’
It is the ‘what’ that we initially fall in love with. Derrida says that all love starts with a seduction. This seduction is (in every instance of my own at least) always a revealing of this ‘what-love’ to be true. It is a characteristic which we attribute to our beloved as being true that they actually show as such (at least at first) which allows us to be seduced. From this point forward we find ourselves attempting to either find more characteristics within our beloved that we hold as being lovable, or find characteristics that they themselves have, which we try to 'learn to love'. We attempt to replace our original signified 'love' with a new signified and by doing so, either buy into ourselves and fall further in 'love, or finding out that we have done nothing but shift our own understanding/meaning of our 'beloved' find our center fall apart and in doing so fall 'out of love' with the person. 'It's not you, it's me' is an appropriate sentiment.
On the topic of love, the notion of the 'I' is also mentioned by Derrida. What Derrida is saying, is that if we strip someone of the what(that is, the "things" ie. what they wear, what they listen to, what kind of movies they watch, etc.) then we are essentially losing an entire impression of "who" that person is. So in a sense then, in response to what Derrida is suggesting here,  these "whats" are what construct the "I" in many ways, and they play important roles then, in defining who the "I" is in a universe full of other "I's". For example. I choose the clothes I wear, hoping that others will understand a more inner part of me that has the potential to be expressed somewhat outwardly by what I choose to wear; how I present  myself, is thus how I want others to perceive me as. This is just a small example, a very simple one. But essentially, the "I" that is mentioned here, is in fact both constructed and represented by the "what". Furthermore the "what" is a mere "supplement" of the self. That is to say, that these supplements are what we use to construct and further 'develop' the external notion of "I".

"We Don't Know Anything, We Are Nothing, Without Meaning"

“You can’t use a bulldozer to study orchids” exemplifies Saussure’s ideal that language is arbitrary. Saussure explains that, “the patterns and functions of language in use today depends on the emphasis on how meanings are maintained and established and how language functions in a grammatical structure.” In the lyrics of this song the meaning of the word love is illusive. A later mention of the group Holland-Doizer-Holland provides a particular definition to the word love. Holland-Doizer-Holland was a group that composed over 200 Motown hits, their favorite song topic of course being love. Just as Saussure says the meaning of a word depends on its relationship with other words you associate with it at the given time. The group outlined two main interpretations of what love means by pairing the word love with dissimilar words.
Take the song “Ain’t To Proud To Beg” by the Temptations for example. The writer’s link words like begging, pleading, and leaving with the overall theme of love. Listeners immediately link the concept of love with definitions of heartbreak, loss, and pain. While on the other hand their song “Baby Love” associates words like “sugar pie” and “honey bunch,” two words that we immediately link to desserts and flavors we tend to find enjoyable. While the first song leaves reminisces of misfortune and sorrow in regards to love, the other defines love as a longing and of something desirable.
Saussure’s mention in the song complicates this binary idea of love as something good or something evil. Structuralism points out that the meaning of the word love, or any word that remains in its own seclusion, will always be unstable. The word love standing on it’s own therefore meanings nothing at all. Each individual will integrate meaning to the word depending on previous context that they have instilled into the words meaning. This could be hearing that word in songs, seeing it portrayed on film, or from personal experiences one incorporates into its meaning.
The lyric “You can’t use a bulldozer to study orchids,” may stand to challenge the idea that language is not contained within the object but rather is associated with it. Perhaps Saussure is suggesting that you can’t use literary theory that deconstructs the educationally implied concept of meaning to study language. The only way that we as educated literary critics can analyze language and the use of language within these theories is to use the meanings that we have established to each word through it’s unique and random place within context. “You can’t use a bulldozer to study orchids,” plays with the illusive meaning of words in context that individuals may not normally recognize, though the meaning is implicit to the reader or in this case to it’s listener. It also implies through the previous lyrics, “no understanding, no closure, it is a nemesis,” that language is inescapable and forever. There is no outside of language and the structure of meaning because nothing can be understood without it. It would therefore be impossible to use anything but language to study language and meaning.

-Adrienne