Isis King was the first transgender contestant to be on the reality series "America's Next Top Model". She was born a male and transformed herself into a women. Isis, 23, was voted off the show after a bikini photo shoot. She was nervous about showing her body because she was a transgender. Tyra Banks brought Isis onto her show and introduced her to a surgeon (Dr. Marci Bower) who paid for and performed her transgender operation.
Check out this clip of the Tyra Show:
What do you think led to Isis becoming nationally known? Was it being transgender? Being on America's Next Top Model? Both? What do you think of this episode?
Isis interviews with Paul Wharton and discusses her transition from being a male to female and the struggles she faced during her transition. Paul goes into a discussion about Isis being a role model because he feels that she represents the LGBTQ community. He describes Isis has being an "iconic voice".
Check out this clip of the interview Isis had:
To continue our discussion from class: How is Isis representing queerness? Is Isis an authentic representation of queerness? Is the media's coverage of Isis as being the first transgender on ANTM being commodified? What type of hegemony is being displayed here? Is it cultural? Is Isis's "voice" an inclusive representation of queerness? What do you think of this notion of Isis being a role model for the LGBTQ community?
This blog brought back particular memories of incidents that have occurred on our campus. A student who identifies with the LGBTQ community was assaulted on green street because they identified as gay. As a response, the LGBT Resource Center and other sponsors have created a Hug-In day on Green street that will bring visibility to this community. The odd part is that this has been going on far longer than NOW. What makes it authentic? Nothing. It is not, authentic, especially when you consider the things stated by ISIS during the interview with Paul Wharton. I think that, to answer Kortney's question about Isis's authenticity, this is not authentic. Her popularity is due to the urban popular as mentioned in one of our previous articles that has made her identity commodifiable and visible. Isis states that "it is nothing new." The fact remains that mainstream society has become "tolerable" (for lack of better term) of the LGBTQ community and are now focusing on ways to gain more viewers that identify with one of these categories. I think this is just a replication of discreet situations that have progressed and become more visible due to the transition within society from being heterosexually based versus being diverse as far as gender and sexuality goes. Yes, Isis's voice is a representation of queerness in the sense that her difference is being exploited by society only for economic surplus, and is disguised as an act of advocacy through the responses and visibility that she receives by popular demand. I am completely neutral to the situation considering that I am a Christian woman. However, my academic pulls allow me to be more understanding of the situation and to conceptualize it in a way that does NOT seek to make the LGBTQ community expendable. Furthermore, I think Sender's analysis of market segmentation explains Isis's scenario best because it allows us to see the two-dimensional space in which her representation occupies. Therefore, her visibility has turned into a niche for making a sale while making academic scholars want to go deeper into the sexual nature that makes her an icon as well as a commodified individual of difference.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to Isis' queerness, I definitely feel as though she's a perfect representation of such. Honestly, the word queer seems to represent such a large array of identities. The word, when literally defined simply says strange or odd and I am seriously not in accord with this definition as there's nothing queer about anyone. There's no stereotypical normal and because that doesn't exist, therefore, she can very represent queerness or not represent it all. The point is that it doesn't matter at all. It's not important. She could've easily been (as has been the case for many actors) found on the street and had someone decide that she should immediately be deemed iconic, but she happened to be on ANTM instead.
ReplyDeleteShe's a transsexual and her representation of queer was going to be whatever whomever decided it to be. Whether it was the faint "male wanting to be a supreme female" or the the jacked version of "a really large man trying to portray super effeminate qualities", it still would be classified as queer. I am starting to see these points and situations as no longer measurements of queer in so much as societal perspective. Regardless of classification or purpose in society, they're still people and that's what's important.
I agree with Tichina. Who identifies queer to being gay?Queer as defined is meant to be strange or odd. Who decides what is queer? Society. I remember when the French came to American and took the mixed French, who were mixed with Black. The society saw that as strange and called them Creole. I am Creole according to the category they place different people in. Would I be considered queer because acknowledging that queer means stange or odd doesn't give us the complete answer of the word. I believe that media will only put queerness in the mainstream to the people who they think identify as one. Whether it's this TV station or the next one.
ReplyDeleteI try not to be overly cynical, but ANTM is guilty of what virtually every other contest-reality show is guilty of: very consciously choosing characters based on what will create a more interesting narrative. Most reality shows regularly feature gay contestants, and I'm inclined to think that the ANTM producers wanted to branch out a little bit more. Isis, while independent and probably fully capable of being an interesting contestant without this qualifier, happened to fit the bill. This is another case where we have to ask who exactly is doing the representing. I still think that authenticity cannot be determined definitively, but I'm pretty sure that any cast member on a show as carefully orchestrated as ANTM is more representative of what the producers anticipate will boost ratings.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading through this blog entry the first thing that came to my mind about why would they put Isis on ANTM and i have to say that I completely agree with Olivia here that she represents a group of people that is not usually seen, and because of that and the addition of Isis on the show will ultimately boost ratings. I really do think that Isis' queerness is being commodified in popular media because look at how she became talked about on ANTM. And look at how she became this person whose story had to be followed completely. Even her economic and cultural background are being commodified. I thin its interesting how the media uses her story of a under privilege black male who was living off food stamps to now achieving her dream of going through with a gender reassignment surgery. I do believe that Isis is an authentic representation and voice of queerness.
ReplyDeleteprecious--you know im gonna back you up on all things, like when you want to skip some of profesor molina's planned lectures in class...but i gotta disagree with you today.
ReplyDeletesidestepping the rather volumionous issue that "authenticity" seems to be a mirage, a fantasy, created in part by the fantastical world of neoliberals to better characterize histories into convenient categories to support the cultural leadership, and to remove legitimacies from threatening histories also (so I agree, precious, that isis isn't authentic)...but that's cause authenticity isn't anything, much less a person, or a background, or a PR campaign or america's next top model. Or waffles. Or shoes.
Authenticity is a politic--not a truth. It's just a convenience, we all want to be authentic....but hey, none of us are.
i like what tichina said; theres nothing queer about anyone. that makes me feel nice!
but also, i like to think that there's so much queer in us all...which makes me feel special/unique/fated for greatness and mildly exciting (all these things are undoubtedly true).
so maybe, in the end we're all authentic too. not only are well all not authentic, but we are ALL totally authentic!
am i confusing myself or is authenticity just sort of confusing.....
neither and both, probably.
BUT BACK TO ISIS. call me a non-academic....but i LIKE isis. she seems appropriately startled by all this attention that I don't feel like I need to dig a little deeper to see her not-authenticity. Yeah, Olivia, I think she boosted ratings, but that isn't enough to say that her queerness isn't something authentically-Isis.....it's like saying your liking hop hop music is inauthentic because MTV created another channel to show more hop hop videos.....who cares! you still like it now, no matter how constructed it is.
ANTM....though constructed....doesn't have to be constructing its contestants in this way.
(continued in next comment....)
But all of that aside, there are still a few token analyses that the transgender community says about itself, or the rest of the world uses to allot transgender people the "authenticity card".....and I don't like it one bit. It's the "fate" card, the "mixup" card. The "i shoulda been born a female/male" card. its the "god's will" card; the "its the real me" card. the "its not a choice" card.
ReplyDeletethe gay communitiy uses it too.
so the only way that being gay, or lez, or trans, or gender queer can be accepted is if it had nothing to do with you--it was your genetics, or god's decree or your upbringing.
what if i got political and thought that being gay or straight was based in sexual instruction that i received as a member of community, and that in order not to deny whatever was my "authentic" sexuality deep within myself--deep deep within myself--that i'd just be this new term in contemporary queer studies--pan-sexual? (look it up!)
isis says:
"I was born physically male, but mentally, everything else, i was born female"
i'd like to ask isis....what is this everything else? what is it like to be mentally female? id like to know. i dont look like isis, i dont have the same slim body type, i dont have that long, lovely hair...i dont know if my vagina sent all the right thought-inscriptions to my brain to be mentally female.....
tyra says:
"in just a few hours, isis will emerge from her deep sleep to find that her journey is complete"
it's nice, tyra, to know that a journey of identity formation is complete someday.
maybe i could have surgery to0...i could have a surgeon bedazzle my gendered anatomy just to reestablish to myself that my journey is complete also--identity formation, don't fear. there IS an end in sight.
In the Avila-Saavedra article, they talk about Will of Will and Grace as the queer community's representative to America.
i fear that there shouldn't be a representative at all. its too dangerous to use their vocabulary and rhethoric and their background as an emblem for everyone else's "journey" to claim their identities, sexual, mental, etc.
but that's not to say that everyone's story isn't a PART of a large queer community's story! isis' story is different from mine--she thought of her gender as a manifestation of her sense of fashion, makeup, anatomy, maybe marriage, maybe a lot of things, yet it's the same too--we're both dtruggling to rectify what we think of ourselves and what other people think about us!
i fear today im dealing only in the contradictory.....
I agree with everyone that Isis Is a great representation of what queer is. She is different and odd to most people. I also believe her sexuality has been commodified ANTM to make a profit. Who wouldn’t be interested in watching the transgender man who is competing to America’s Next Top Model? They used this situation gain ratings. As you can see this show has been targeted towards “quote on quote” real woman so why are they letting a man compete all of sudden?
ReplyDeleteI think Isis serves as an authentic voice for the LGBTQA community through her exposure with ANTM and mainstream media. Just as ANTM featured a plus-size model, it also "diversified" by including a transgender individual; both can be considered progress under "safe" conditions to market and profit. The term "queer" is still largely undefined, so in that sense Isis does and does not represent the "queer community." Therefore, I do not think Isis' voice is an inclusive representation of queerness because the boundaries of queerness (authenticity) are not "common sense" and obviously not accepted. Isis and her transgender status definitely were commodified in her being featured on ANTM. She was chosen and her transexuality was showcased for a reason. I think Isis serves as a positive role model of the LGTBQA community in that it takes courage to "come out" in one's personal life, let alone through the mainstream media. I think Isis provides a particularly interesting case given that she competed in ANTM, a show which measures "beauty" and disciplining of the body. Notions of beauty, gender, sexuality, race, etc are challenged through such "iconic" characters as Isis. post-blog Kelly Necastro
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ReplyDeleteI think that Isis King definitely is an iconic figure for the transgender community. She is proof that in American society you can truly become anything you want. Avila-Saaverda believes that human gender is an essentialist debate, and I agree. The essentialists would argue that somebody who is physically born a man is always a man and nothing can change that. But the non-essentialists believe that a person makes themself along the way and the way you were born does not necessarily determine your identity. I probably agree with the non-essentialists more on this topic. Also, I think that there is some commodification going on in this situation, most obviously in the way that they brought out the plastic surgeon on a big time talk show, and basically advertised her as being one of the best. The whole process seemed like somebody was being given a trip to Hawaii by the guy who played Al on Tool Time who hosts Family Feud, when in reality it had to be a very big and emotionally heavy moment for Isis.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to agree with Olivia Walker on this one and say that Tyra Banks is known for purposedy choosing people who are going to make the show interesting and get ratings. I always though Isis was pretty and had the spirit to match it, but clealry the other girls were not mad at her because she was a "man" in a female modeling contest, but they were threatened by her, for she was performing their gender better than they were. I do think her queerness is authentic, not only authentic but also inspiring. Too bad Tyra Banks made money off of her and her identity.
ReplyDeleteI hate to say it but again I have said his before about ANTM i alwasy feel like anything that is done in the media is done foe some persona;l gain. I truly feel like ISIS is a great representation of Queer and otherness and that fact that her story is out there and accepted and view is amazing because in other times it would not have been but I still think it was a profit based stunt done to attracted a certain audience that good came out of it was just a plus.
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