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I am particularly concerned about the lack of a sound framework from which to contemplate
queercrip in picture books. For many adults, the issue is resolved simply by treating alternative
identities as irrelevant. Consequently, the homosexual and disabled (homodisabled) youngster learns that
what would validate her or his identity and existence is unimportant. For this reason, I
investigate those sexual identity categories that are in fact the effects of institutions,
practices, discourses with multiple and diffuse points of origin (Butler 1999, xxix). Since bodies
are sociopolitically and socioculturally constructed, picture books also play a role in that
construction. Hence the question, Do picture books produce new meanings, or do they simply represent
(mirror) meanings that already exist? This essay is therefore implicated in trying to forge an association between creation and
representation. But the cohesion and harmony of the picture book becomes problematic due to disparate
cultural, social, religious, and political entities. Accordingly, the intersections among these categories
need to be interrogated in order to explore the possibilities of divergent and unstable sexual
configurations. Because I want to destabilize normative sexual practices, the term queercrip becomes useful
in that it helps challenge fixed sexual and physical identities . I use queercrip throughout this essay to challenge normative
sexuality. Santiago Solis 117 Specifically, by examining how the characters are represented in four versions of the story of Snow White, I
explore a variety of sexual and sexualized relationships and configurations between and among the characters. According to Robert McRuer and
Abby Wilkerson, a
and disabled people stem mainly from their own bodies. From this perspective, rehabilitation, restoration, and normalization are the appropriate
goals. In this essay, however, I challenge these heterosexist and ableist beliefs.
Queen: Slave in the magic mirror, come from the farthest space, through wind and
darkness I summon thee. Speak! Let me see thy face.
Magic Mirror: What wouldst thou know, my Queen?
Queen: Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?
Magic Mirror: Famed is thy beauty, Majesty. But hold, a lovely maid I see. Rags cannot
hide her gentle grace. Alas, she is more fair than thee.
Queen: Alas for her! Reveal her name.
Magic Mirror: Lips red as the rose. Hair black as ebony. Skin white as snow.
Queen: Snow White!
Solis 07 (Santiago Solis, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Queercripped, Hypatia, Volume 22, Number 1,
Winter 2007, pp. 114-131 (Article), Indiana University Press, axheyd)Each book manifests or illustrates
particular conceptualizations of homosexuality and disability : for example, Wagner-Kochs depiction is
inspired by a spiritual or religious persuasion; Hacks interpretation foregrounds a hip, modern retelling that features seven multiethnic dwarfs;
Santores rendition emphasizes a classical and nuanced artistic style that focuses on the emotional texture of human experience; and Guells
portrayal captures the seven dwarfs boundless humor, Snow Whites physical beauty, the Queens malevolent witchcraft, and the Princes
passionate love for Snow White. Nevertheless, although
heterosexual and able-bodied conformity, the story of Snow White deviously sustains a set of social and political boundaries based on
heterosexist and ableist frameworks. For instance, the Queen dies soon after giving birth to Snow White. However, a lack of clarity about the
Queens sudden death serves to set up an antithesis between the deserving beautiful and the undeserving sickly. Not only does Snow Whites
unparalleled and meriting beauty appear to cause her mothers death, but also her breathtaking beauty inspires horror, envy, and hatred from her
stepmother, the new Queen. After the Queen orders a huntsman to kill Snow White, the huntsman is mesmerized by Snow Whites beauty and
reluctantly spares her life. Snow
that it legitimates. Focusing on the beautiful body helps categorize corporeal differences
into acceptable and unacceptable physical traits.
normal from the unattractive and abnormal,
bodily differences based on normalizing somatic attributes. One of the most damaging
assumptions Snow White perpetuates is that homosexuality and disability are not
beautiful. For example, the dwarfs maintain an obscure presence because they are viewed as physical anomalies. As icons of
deviance, the dwarfs unattractive bodies are defined by the other characters ideal beauty .
The dwarfs thus comprise a sort of third entity, defined by the masculine Prince and the
feminine Princess. But since the dwarfs are positioned as the opposite of the masculine
Prince and simultaneously as the antithesis of the feminine Princess, their role remains
ambiguous. This ambiguity might explain why in this version of the story the dwarfs occupy such a marginal position that they actually
resemble legumes rather than people. In this sense, their disability, and by implication their sexuality is
so aberrant in terms of physical expectations that they are reduced to the level of dirt: they
work in the mines.
hazardous.
According to Rosemary Garland Thomson, The logic that governs this cultural narrative, then, is that eliminating the
anomaly neutralizes the danger. . . . It is the logic of theodicy: if something badlike having a disabilityhappens to someone, then there must
be some good reasonlike divine or moral justicefor its occurrence (1997, 36). Perhaps this is why a theological doctrine informs this
particular version of Snow White. A moralistic approach facilitates the conceptualization of disability as wicked and evil. For example, the
seven dwarfs visual representation contains dehumanizing elements that center on the ableist belief that physical deformity is the dire
consequence of a sinful body. The
by virtue of what appears to be their own free will they toil in the obscure mines . The
relationship here between religious sentimentalism and disability is a problematic one that leads to treating the dwarfs, not as sources of
inspiration, special children of God, or objects of pity, but as demonic.
saint or even the Virgin Mary, the dwarfs are depicted as lost souls, condemned to hard
labor underground in the shadows of darkness.
depicted as overtly bizarre.
all seven
dwarfs
are
Apparently, they were sentenced to manual labor in the mines as a form of castigation.
Such
unfavorable and undesirable, the dwarfs representation as dirty sinners stands in sharp contrast to Snow White, who is able-bodied, beautiful, and
good. The
dwarfs are inferior: weak, flawed, and sick. In this respect, the dwarfs disability is a test of
their moral character. They are responsible for their own suffering. Punitive notions toward the dwarfs
position them as culpable; their abnormal growth becomes synonymous with unnatural
phenomena that they should have prevented and avoided. The dwarfs own perspective is
never considered. They remain subordinate, viewable, yet invisible. Their marginalization is central to the
issue of how disabled people are often transformed from human oddities to evil creatures, with some sort of unidentifiable ailment requiring
persecution, isolation, and containment.
Snow White: [telling the dwarves a story] Once there was a princess.
Doc: Was the princess you?
Snow White: And she fell in love.
Sneezy: Was it hard to do?
Snow White: Oh, it was very easy. Anyone could see that the Prince was charming. The
only one for me.
Doc: Was he, um, strong and handsome?
Sneezy: And was he big and tall?
Snow White: [dreamily] There's nobody like him anywhere at all.
Bashful: Did he say he loved ya?
Happy: Did he steal a kiss?
Snow White: [singing] He was so romantic. I could not resist.
Solis 07 (Santiago Solis, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Queercripped, Hypatia, Volume 22, Number 1,
Winter 2007, pp. 114-131 (Article), Indiana University Press, axheyd)
As in several other versions of the story, the wicked Queen
it perpetuates the notion that serious topics such as homosexuality and disability should
not be discussed with youths . Consequently, we never get to ask such questions as, How might the dwarfs help young readers
create an imagery of queercrip desire and identity? The question of same-sex desire does not surface from the
dwarfs representation because it is unequivocally prohibited through the dwarfs
infantilizationspecifically, some of the dwarfs look and dress like children. In addition, embedded
throughout the story are multilayered aspects of patriarchal, sexist, and heterosexist biases, which are founded on
the general assumption that women are weak, subordinate, vulnerable, and heterosexual.
For instance, following Snow Whites birth, the King is presented as a proud and happy father. This retelling of the story offers an opportunity to
witness a loving family unit containing two devoted heterosexual parents (the King and Queen) and their lovely daughter. But a more striking
feature about this family portrait is that it presents heterosexual marriage as natural and benevolent; heterosexual desire is normalized by its
distinctive public and open status. Thus, the
To be allowed to remain in the dwarfs house, Snow White must cook, clean, wash, sew, knit,
and take care of the dwarfs. In this particular situation, even though the dwarfs are desexualized they
are not portrayed as disabled, but as heterosexual men who expect the woman to look after
them in exchange for protection. In that connection, the dwarfs attempt to control Snow White by instructing her
not to open the door to strangers. As men, they are depicted as rational and knowledgeable,
while Snow White is punished for not honoring the mens wisdom . As a result of her failure to do as she is
told, Snow White lies comatose, thereby showing that disobeying men has severe ramifications. But, ultimately, because the
dwarfs are not complete men, they are unable to save Snow White. A true man, the Prince,
is needed to save herbut only after the dwarfs and the Prince negotiate a price for her body, as if she were a commodity. In the end,
the Princes rescue implies that only a heterosexual and able-bodied mans love can save
Snow White, after which she marries the Prince in a white gown, signifying her innocence, virginity, loyalty, and compliance. In this
elegant presentation of the story, the colorful and vivid illustrations seem so realistic that the myths they
portray appear natural and true. They invite the reader to accept the relationship between
the disabled and the nondisabled as obvious and righteous. The storys heterosexist slant seems at first to be of
minimal significance. However, upon closer inspection, one discovers that the tale is heterosexist through and through. Ultimately, the
effects of heterosexism and ableism become so well fused that they occupy a seamless, yet
central position. The illustrations carefully create an exaggerated physical divide between the dwarfs and Snow White. But this
physical divide also translates into a sexual divide between the disabled and the nondisabled.
Consequently, when one compares the dwarfs assumed deformity to either Snow Whites presumed beauty or the Princes supposed masculine
it becomes unimaginable to ask, Would a dwarf have sex with Snow White? Would
he have sex with the Prince? Instead, we might be more inclined to ask, Why would Snow White
want to have sex with a dwarf when she can have sex with a Prince? But we would
certainly not even dare ask, Would the Prince have sex with one of the dwarfs instead of
having sex with Snow White? One effective way to construct Snow White as beautiful and
desirable is to create dwarfs that appear hideous. In this regard, ugliness will not suffice, for
repulsiveness is even more striking. In literal terms, sexuality is what connects humans to each other. Hence, as
sex appeal,
the process of dehumanization turns the dwarfs into unsexed subjects, their asexuality
becomes a mark of their inferiority and marginalization. As undesirables, the dwarfs are
defined solely in relation to their inability to have sex. Accordingly, their sexual orientation is
never in question, for the issue is resolved even before such a connotation arises. The
homosexual dwarf is therefore an oxymoron, as the story (and by implication, society)
dichotomizes homosexuality and disability. If the homosexual, on the one hand, and the disabled
atrocity . None of the dwarfs can be a homosexual because none of them has a choice in the matter. Their
disability does not allow them that option.
Doc stood his ground against the city mans thugs. Who the hell do you think you are
coming here and demanding me to hand over our hard earned minerals? Shouted Doc,
Get the HELL out of our damn mine before I sever each of your heads and mail them to
your wives. The thugs got uneasy once Grumpy grabbed the hand-mortar and pointed it
at them. He isnt joking, Said Grumpy, But if I have to blow your brain to smithereens I
guess well just skip the mailing step.
appears that the dwarfs have willingly extricated themselves from mainstream
society by deciding to live in their own isolated world. Ultimately, the story fails to position
the dwarfs inevitable need to remain sequestered as demeaning and unfair; a meaningful
explanation about why they prefer to live in isolation is lacking. Perhaps all we can say about the dwarfs
segregation is that they managed to make the most of a bad situation. Their isolation allowed them to earn a
livelihood in the mines without being mockedas social outcasts, the dwarfs become economically productive, selfdetermined, and autonomous. In this way, they challenge their classification as corruptors of the
norm. But unfortunately, the story portrays the dwarfs as infantilized and downplays the
fact that they are independent men with significant power over their lives.
......Dopey lay in bed with Happy, both of which were far more delighted at the time then
his name would suggest. It was the middle of the night and Dopeys bed has been given to
Snow White. The two desperately tried to keep quiet but soon the creaking and rocking of
the bed was too much. The two crept out the room and jumped on each other in the
kitchen. Dopey but Happy against the cabinet and began to plow him with the fervor his
years in the mine gave him.
Hence, they are depicted as passive and complacent, rather than active and political participants. In addition, by positing a heterosexual identity
as the norm, this type of narrative ensures that when homoerotic acts occur, they are invariably overlooked. But once we examine this particular
variant of the story more closely, we begin to uncover concealed homoerotic episodes. For instance, when
...Snow White is bent over Sleepys bed, about to perform oral sex on an unconscious him
while Bashful is penetrating her anally. Snow Whites young, feminine body is something
that Bashful is unaccustomed to, having spent most of his sexual encounters in the arms of
the other Dwarfs. Her vaginally virgin body was perfect for Bashful to lose his male/female
virginity to. Snow White all the while was too concerned with remaining quiet and sly
enough to prevent Sleepy from unexpectedly waking up, who was in a deep comatose at the
time. The sheer thrill of getting caught aroused her, especially considering Doc, who was
against any form of sexual interaction with women, was right underneath them. After
discreetly undoing Sleepys pants, she wrapped her succulent tongue around his cock. The
sight brought Bashful, who was always one to be sexually uncomfortable quickly, to a
passionate and powerful orgasm. He came in Snow Whites asshole just as she let out a
fervent moan. Suddenly Sleepy jolted awake and let out his load all over Snow Whites pale
face
Fernando Guells Walt Disneys Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Walt
this one the dwarfs are given names and thus a true identity: Doc, Happy,
Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy, Bashful, and Sleepy. However, as part of the dwarfs individual
identities, each is characterized as having some sort of physical ailment or personality flaw.
For instance, Doc has a superiority complex that makes him pompous and crass. Happy is overly sentimental and addicted to
high-spirited proverbs. Sneezy experiences sneezing episodes that are provoked by hay fever. Dopey is unable to
speak and appears to have a developmental disability. Grumpy is a grouchy and unwavering pessimist. Bashful is
extremely timid and introverted. And Sleepy is a narcoleptic. Thus even though the dwarfs vices provide comic relief,
they are also used metaphorically to indicate pathology.
..Grumpy tackled the Stepmothers henchman and brought him to his knees. His fist
broke through the steel helmet, shattering both the mask and his face. He pushed the fallen
knight to the ground and swung around to intercept the other cronys attack. He
uppercutted him in the crotch, stole his sword, and decapitated him. Sneezy, who had just
finished dueling the guard captain (whom laid motionless on the ground), came to
Grumpys side. The two stared the dozen remaining armored soldiers in the eyes. Through
the eye slits in their helmets, you could see pure fear in their pupils.
The dwarfs lack physical and mental health; they suffer from physical deterioration and
psychological decadence. Their sicknesses serve a dual function. First, the dwarfs physical and
mental weaknesses become a good and justifiable reason for exile; but, ultimately, they symbolize
an appealing vulnerability because they create the perfect pretext for Snow White to
nurture them back to health as if they were sickly children in need of treatment and cure.
Once again, we see that the dwarfs infantilization allows Snow White to assimilate into the role of the
nurturing, motherly figure in order to protect her own virginal purity. After having eaten
the poisonous apple and fallen into a deep sleep, then, there was only one cure for the
Queens sleeping spellloves first kiss (17). And, indeed, after endlessly searching for his true
love, the Prince knelt beside the sleeping Snow White. Then he leaned down and kissed
her. Snow Whites eyes fluttered open. . . . Then the Prince lifted Snow White onto his white
horse and they rode off together (24). Only the Prince, with his privileged hetero-corporonormative qualities, could ever posses Snow White both romantically and sexually. The
desexualized dwarfs, in contrast, lack the socially sanctioned physical traits that would allow
them to lust over Snow White (or over each other, for that matter). From this perspective, the right to
fall in love and to sexually desire belongs only to heterosexual and able-bodied characters. At times, some
of the dwarfs (specifically, Dopey) seem to be overlaid with sexual desire for Snow White.
Nevertheless, their lust cannot be taken seriously. After all, can a group of elderly, disabled
men dare to sexualize and gawk at a young, virginal woman without violating the belief
that disabled people are asexual and morbid objects of pity? In order for the story to remain pure and
innocent, the seven dwarfs are stripped of their sexuality. Snow White, however, remains
sexualized in order to incite jealousy from the Queen and to be sexually stimulating to the
Prince.
Prince Charming let Doc in close, feeling overwhelmed with emotion. He had never been
with a man before, and Docs firm hands made the Prince coo like a school girl. He often
had fantasized about Sir Walter, his fathers right hand man and his trainer as a child,
cornering him in the stables. The fantasies didnt end there, the Prince had many near
misses where he was caught stroking his Steeds dick. He dreamed him and Sir Walter
passionately fucking the Horse and proceeding to be fucked by him as well. However all the
Prince could think of now however was Docs strong grasp on his own cock. He began to let
out a slow groan. Doc had far more sexual experience than him, and he was delighted to be
taught like a schoolboy. Finally the Prince seductively bent over and brought his trousers to
his knees, inviting Doc.
Solis 07 (Santiago Solis, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Queercripped, Hypatia, Volume 22, Number 1,
Winter 2007, pp. 114-131 (Article), Indiana University Press, axheyd)
Ultimately, in Snow White, fantasy
objectionable, indecent, and immoral. Through subtle and open forms of marginalization
and silencing, it
reinforces and extends homophobia and ableism. Consequently, as the process of homogenization
and normalization suppresses alternative sexual and bodily identities, the young female
reader may begin to replicate privileged ways of being in the world. After all is said and done, Snow
White herself is the embodiment of the classical beauty that girls (but not boys) are
expected to reproduce. Snow White continues to be a popular fairy tale because it perpetuates sexual and bodily ideals that the
mainstream values and sustains. The idealized virtuosity and desirable beauty of Snow White her
presumed feminine qualities (subservient, virginal, defenseless, dependent, delicate,
refined, ablebodied, and heterosexual)help produce the ideal image of how young girls
should behave or what they should look like. In a society in which the male gaze dominates, the female body
is already viewed as an object of desire, and Snow Whites objectification is not seen as problematic from that perspective.
The female body, and the heterosexual and able-bodied female in particular, becomes a site for a specific kind of sexual desire. However, what is
striking about the
Snow White story is that rather than explicitly rejecting the undesirable
homosexual and disabled body, it simply disqualifies them as nonexistentinsidiouslythrough
omission. Furthermore, the rhetoric of infantilization that is used to represent the seven dwarfs serves multiple purposes. First, the physical
shortcomings that the dwarfs presumably embody confirm ideas about manhood; their disabled
bodies explicitly contradict normal conventions of masculinity (sexuality, virility, and so on). The dwarfs are
represented as displaced children, and therefore not as real men. Second, the dwarfs are emasculated. Since the Prince is the only
one who can view Snow White through the male gaze, it is only he, not the emasculated and infantilized dwarfs, who can claim sovereign
authority over Snow White. And since society presumes everyone is heterosexual unless stated otherwise, the
Prince is
automatically assumed to be only and exclusively heterosexual and, therefore, he must fall in love with
Snow White. Third, because of the masculine prowess the Prince displays, young boys (but not
girls) are expected and even encouraged to identify with him. Since the Prince epitomizes heterosexual and
able-bodied manlinessphysical qualities that are recognized and admired by mainstream societyyoung boys quickly learn to emulate these
bodily traits and behaviors. To reiterate, contemporary
and diversities. Hence, countering heterosexism and ableism demands more than positive representations requiring assimilation into the
dominant culture; instead, representations
problematize . For example, in the four versions of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs examined here, we witness time and again how
the seven dwarfs play a supporting role, serving as a marker for larger narratives about normalcy and legitimacy (Davidson 2003, 57).
However, as
sexual fantasies are allowed to surface from the dwarfs bodies, spaces of dialogue
emerge, spaces from which children can explore humanizing possibilities (Greene 1988). But how
can teachers and parents transform newfound sexual fantasies into age-appropriate conversations? How can fairy tales like Snow White help
initiate constructive dialogues? Is it preferable to talk openly about sexual fantasies, or should they continue to function as unacknowledged
sexual perversions? These questions force us to consider what sexual practices are most valued in our culture as well as what sexual knowledge
deserves to be validated and discussed. According to Jonathan Silin, When
are
uncomfortable whenever the child has too much knowledge or information about anything
queercripped, which brings me back to my opening remarks. In retrospect, my innocence (or ignorance) of
homosexuality as a child made me fearful of my homoerotic fantasies. For me, the
presumption of hetero-corporo-normativity was extremely limiting in that I grew up feeling
ashamed and socially ostracized. Because homosexuality was not part of my daily experience, I grew up with a
great deal of self-hatred. I knew I was different and this difference impelled me into a
world of darkness where I remained well into adulthood, for only then was I allowed the opportunity to express
my sexuality. Hence the questions: If my sexuality was silenced as a child, how might homodisabled
children feel about themselves? Do they feel valued and appreciated as they read different
versions of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? Fortunately, queercripness has made heterocorporo-normativity questionable, a politically charged phenomenon to be problematized
and challenged rather than presupposed or elided. This questioning has begun to unpack what it means to be a child
seeking information about sexual identities. However, at what age is it appropriate to talk openly with children about queercripness? In other
words, how young is too young before a childs sexuality ceases to be suppressed or denied? How can a childs sexual identity be incorporated
into the childs natural development? When, how, and why do we attempt to regulate the childs sexual identity by reproducing hetero-corporonormative practices that support acceptable feminine and masculine behaviors? And how do these social practices work to protract the
institutionalization of homophobia and ableism? While we deliberate over such questions, one thing is certain: the
concealment of
sexual identities related to homosexuality and disability will only assure the continued
isolation of children, especially homodisabled youths, who seek guidance and support. It is
because of this group of children that I offer this analysis of Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs, in the hope that they will not have to grow up, as I did, in distress over their
sexuality.
This connection between homosexuality and menacing contagion that Burroughs makes explicit in the erotic exhibitionism of the Red Night
trilogy obviously goes beyond parody of homosexual adventure and fantasy taken to extremes.
explosive sexual politics that point, by their very extremity, to Burroughs's acute
awareness of how society reads the homosexual body, and demonstrate his urgent need for
vindication. Homosexuality is the toxic in the horror autotoxicus of the body politic,
condemned to the margin along with society's other outlaws--its toxic waste (the drug
addict, the schizophrenic); all are banished in the social project of preventing the
transmission of social disorder and preserving the life of the body politic from collapse.
Since the AIDS epidemic, this horror of homosexual contagion, more than a psychological threat ("homosexual panic" to be prosecuted in court),
is supplied with tangible proof of its toxicity or "unnaturalness" for the reactionary thinker, actually fueling arguments to read this epidemic as a
sign from an Old Testament God punishing acts contra natura with plagues. While Burroughs makes no reference to this cultural backlash in
Cities--the Red Night plagues prefigure and can be only coincidentally connected with AIDS and its social fallout--his portrayal of homosexuality
painfully emphasizes how culture's message about toxicity is inscribed on the gay male body. When the Red Night trilogy moves into the Age of
AIDS, with Dead Roads (1983),
continuing to align his homosexual heroes with the greatest "natural" disasters--plagues
and
homosexuality as disorder, rather than being victimized or overpowered by it, turns the
cultural bias against the "outlaw" on its head--a fatal strategy that transforms the
homosexual's mythic toxicity and problematic exile into a paradoxical means of
empowerment and resistance. Burroughs forces this cultural analogy between toxicity and
homosexuality to the limit, pushes the "needle to nova," by flaunting the kind of
"degenerate" sexual activity that we see in the nightclubs described above, reinforced with
casual references to fin-de-sicle decadence
outlaws with the planet's most threatening and destructive powers. Banished to the
margins of existence, they not only identify with civilization's toxic horror, its disease and
corruption, they thrive on it.
Kim and Audrey Carsons are described as "slimy morbid youths" who adore "abominations,
unspeakable rites . . . [and] the reek of the terrible Red Fever" in the plagued cities along their journey (PDR, p. 16). In Burroughs's homosexual
saga, the "excremental" elements (which pay tribute to Swift's satirical travelogue) are perversely central to his vision. 47 Figuring prominently at
the head of Cities is the obscene "Invocation" that sets the tone for the trilogy's "escatology": 48
Kendra
, Instructor of English at Indiana University, completing her dissertation, "The Obscene Wisdom of William S. Burroughs.", 19
Autotoxicus in the Red Night Trilogy: Ironic Fruits of Burroughs's Terminal Vision, Configurations 5.1 (1997) 135-169
97 Horror
This astrophysical black body, looming menacingly behind the scenes, is personified in a schoolboys' play
set en abyme in Cities. The play, "Cities of the Red Night"--which might be subtitled "The Curse of
Your Anus" (from Uranus, where this toxic heredity began)--resembles an animated sci-fi cartoon. A
mysterious character named Nimun appears onstage dressed in a "cloak made from the skin of electric
eels" (CRN, p. 328). Nimun is described as an endangered species, "the only survivor of a very ancient
race"; yet he is endowed with "strange powers," and it is rumored that "he alone is responsible for the Red
Night" (p. 328). During a magic trick in which he implodes into a "spinning black disk" via his
"exposed rectum," the Red Night scene, "wigs, clothes, chairs, props . . . naked bodies," is sucked along
with him into a "BLACK HOLE!" (p. 328). In this black magical reversal we see how Burroughs
comically empowers the "homosexual" by aligning it with the ultimate trope of catastrophe.
Nimun's catastrophic disappearing act is reminiscent of the fate of the "talking asshole." But it also
points to the utopian dimensions of Burroughs's vision, to the "spirit of the Black Hole . . . of total
revolution and total change," apotheosized as the elusive "Deercat" in The Western Lands (p. 243).
"Such visions," Burroughs remarks, with double-edged humor, "are the enemy of dogmatic system" (p.
241, my emphasis). This revolutionary potential for the black hole/asshole was forecast in his
earliest writing, where it figures not only as an eclipsing orifice, Baudrillard's "inverse implosive
radiation" allegorized, but also as an aperture for expansive vision, imaginative creation, a camera's eye:
"Gentle Readers, we see God through our assholes in the flashbulb of orgasm" (NL, p. 227). 61
This obscene theophany mocks [End Page 166] the orgasmus of devout rapture and the Christian
prohibition of sodomy, while sanctioning the homosexual "eye view," a vision that draws the annihilating
flash of the atomic bomb into its queer frame of reference. It is in this spirit of annihilation that Kim and
his Wild Fruits worship the God of Panic, of "the black hole, a place where no physical laws apply"
(PDR, p. 202). This chthonic brotherhood represents "the utopia of nihilism, the negation of negation, the
world annihilated," 62 and their magic invocations celebrate the "creation of ANUS, the foundations of
chaos" (PDR, p. 94), philosophically embodying a new world order--disorder.
This kind of ambivalence, in which the black hole/anus figures as a source of potential creation as well as
disorder and degradation, is the essence of carnival, where the "grotesque body" with its
disorderly excess is celebrated as a fecund principle of the natural universe: both destruction
and fruitful return. 63 Burroughs's "inverse" creations awaken this carnival spirit (the man with the
talking asshole even works for the carnival).