five of the articles of all time

i am a bunch of essays in a trenchcoat.

    I recently rediscovered, during a procrastination-driven google drive reorg, an old document containing links to some of my favorite articles of all time. So, as an introduction, I’ve decided to list five of my formative picks. Some of these I pulled from the old doc, some of them are more recent finds, but they’ve all had a profound impact on the way I interact with art/media/the world. 

RS Benedict, Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny 

Obviously a formative piece in regards to tumblrsphere MCU criticism, Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny puts an analytical spin on the question of “why did men look like that in the 70s and how do we get it back”. It focuses less on why men (gender neutral) looked like that, and more on why they don’t anymore. I love the way Benedict explains the McMansion-ification of A-list bodies, the rise of fitness/diet culture, the inverse relationship of sex in movies and post-9/11 American nationalism (my two favorite things). She details the exact timeline of the shift from Burt Reynolds to Chris Evans (aka the advent of mass laser hair removal). 

The most cutting paragraph in the entire piece lies around the middle, where Benedict makes (and supports) the claim that the purpose of the body in society has fundamentally changed. She writes: “A body is no longer a holistic system. It is not the vehicle through which we experience joy and pleasure during our brief time in the land of the living. It is not a home to live in and be happy. It, too, is a collection of features: six pack, thigh gap, cum gutters. And these features exist not to make our lives more comfortable, but to increase the value of our assets. Our bodies are investments, which must always be optimized to bring us… what, exactly?” The idea of the body as an entity that can have different purposes—vehicle, vessel, home, weapon, asset, etc. has shaped how I view the body in media. It gave me the words to describe how I feel looking at boring people’s boring pecs on a big screen.

Tim Kreider, I Know What You Think of Me 

    I Know What You Think of Me is one of the first articles I read that made me think “I have to save this for later”. I didn’t, and spent months searching “goat email op-ed” every time it crossed my mind. This piece spawned the gut-punch of a quote “if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known” that’s made the rounds on tumblr, and the whole article puts it into brilliant context. If you’ve only seen that closing line in web-weaving posts alongside Richard Siken, I have a surprise for you. Every paragraph is like that. Not kidding. One that really grabbed me and wouldn’t let go was this: “THE operative fallacy here is that we believe that unconditional love means not seeing anything negative about someone, when it really means pretty much the opposite: loving someone despite their infuriating flaws and essential absurdity.”, followed by a quote from Donald Barthelme’s short story Rebecca: “Do I want to be loved in spite of?” I’ve been stewing over that ever since. I love everyone I love in spite of one thing or another, but do I feel comfortable turning that spotlight on myself? What parts of me require people to spite them in order to love me? Is it even a question of wanting? Do I have a choice in how I’m loved? Will anyone be willing to love me in spite of my infuriating flaws/essential absurdity? This essay is simultaneously upsetting and comforting; it raises questions and answers them and then questions the idea of there being a question to begin with. 

Jacob Geller, Who’s Afraid of Modern Art?

    I spent a weekend recently binging Jacob Geller’s entire catalog of video essays, and all of them are fantastic, but the one that got me into him, the first one I ever watched, is the masterpiece Who’s Afraid of Modern Art?. In it, he covers all of the possible bases that could be covered when telling a story about a single act of vandalism. The accompanying 99pi episode dives into the event itself, while Geller reaches beyond the painting to make incredibly salient points about art, artistic value, and fascism. The video gives you an overview of his oeuvre and all the little bits and pieces he pulls together from all ends of media criticism to create informative and resonant essays. It’s almost overwhelming, the amount that he’s able to cram into a single video. It’s very delicately crafted from the beginning, so that, by the time you reach the Bolero-esque climax, every piece seems to fall into place. Itch.io depression sims or Robert Mapplethorpe exhibits might seem like non-sequiturs in a video about a 20th century abstract expressionist painting, but Geller links them all together in a remarkable way.

Jennifer Coates, I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out. 

    I don’t know where to start with this one. If you haven’t read it, carve some time out to sit down and do so. It’s probably the only essay that’s made me actually really cry for real. It has stuck with me since I first read it about three years ago and lives deep in the back of my brain at all times. I think it’s made me a quantitatively better person. It’s catalyzed an insane amount of gender-related self-examination, both in how I approach/navigate gender in discussion and how I approach my own relationship to it. 

I don’t want to flatten any of the extremely well-put points in the piece in order to sell it, so instead I’ll focus on the aspect that stood out and continues to stand out to me as opposed to other similarly well-argued pieces: the tenderness with which Coates writes about masculinity. She writes with so much love, so much deep nuance, and separates masculinity/femininity from the sort of morality with which they are commonly associated. I’ll elaborate on this in a future piece, but there’s a tendency to align masculine or feminine traits with goodness or badness. Coates deftly deconstructs this partway through the article when she describes her stance in a gender studies class, writing: “I say that I feel like claiming that self-sacrifice and kindness are feminine values that men are borrowing is like claiming that they are Jewish values that Buddhists are borrowing”. The idea of masculinity/femininity existing solely as descriptors, without value attached, was something I had never even considered thinking about, but since has become a core tenet of my own Gender Theory. 

I do wish, while all the caveats that Coates sprinkles in throughout her piece to make sure that it’s not taken as hostile by cis feminists are probably helpful to that end, that it wasn’t necessary for her to include them. I think it’s important to read things that actively deconstruct your worldview, especially if that worldview has become increasingly rooted in gender essentialism. But enough about that, I’ll let you read the rest and get your life changed or whatever.

Terry Gross, Bruce Springsteen: On Jersey, Masculinity And Wishing To Be His Stage Persona 

    I can’t help myself. Obviously I love Bruce, but I wasn’t about to link one of the (many) academic papers I’ve read on his working man’s drag and appeal to butchness. Instead, this interview is a remarkably insightful look into his formation as an artist and a person. I’m on like… the deepest possible layer of the Bruce iceberg, but for the uninformed: his stage persona as a butch working class man is just that, a persona. He’s putting on the gender performance of a lifetime by playing his dad onstage. This interview is perfect for washing the dishes to. I’d consider it the entry-requirement text in terms of discussing Bruce; it leaves room for research in every direction. If you’re not listening to the interview, I’d suggest soundtracking your read with my greatest hits playlist, from my incomplete discography deep dive last September (I’m going to finish it, I promise!). 

    I do believe that every one of these pieces (yes even the Bruce one) has been fundamental in shaping who I am/how I navigate the world today. I hope that these are even marginally as impactful to you. Also, I’m willing to discuss any/all of them at length, so please form your opinions and tell me about them.