II. INTRODUCTION
“What is gay about Pirates of the Caribbean?”—Friend A
“Which part of it shows homosexuality?”—Friend B
The questions above are the question that my friends asked, when I told them that I
was writing my thesis about queer theory in “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”. In the first place, I would not be surprised to see some of my friends questioning my idea for my thesis since not everyone knows what queer theory is. However, what is more interesting is the implied message behind the questions above—that queer theory is only contextualized in the homosexual context.
The fact that we have been growing a definition of “queer” as homosexual-related
issues is intriguing. It is true that queer talks about homosexuality. However, queer theory does not only focus on homosexuality. It is also concerned about challenging ideas of gender and sexual orientation binaries within the society. Recalling the questions in the beginning of
this thesis and my interest in gender, I am determined to bring up queer theory’s fascinating
idea of the blurred gray area. Further uncovering this blurred gray area is important as an attempt to show that queer theory is not only about homosexuality, but that it also focuses on gender. Though queer theory has been mostly put in the discourse of sexuality, this thesis will
only focus on queer’s idea about limitless gender.
I decided to analyze “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” because of its close relationship towards patriarchal norms through its settings and story. The
from which the story empowers queerness to be accepted in the society. Shown mainly by Elizabeth and Jack, those blurred gender images are represented to us in this motion picture.
III. THEORETICAL DISCUSSION
Queer by definition means abnormal and deviant (Oxford Dictionaries) which includes homosexuals, lesbians, bisexual, transgender, transvestite, and/or the people (questioning and non-labelling) rejecting to be grouped as straight or gay (LGBT Terms and Definition). Under mainstream, traditional heterosexist1 view and culture, queer are subordinated and oppressed (Bertens). Thus queer theory emerges to empower queers.
Queer theory originated from the feminist movement, specifically, lesbian feminism, to oppose the idea of gender as existing only under the umbrella of heterosexuality (Bertens 219). The definition of queer itself still has not been settled on; multiple scholars have their own definition with different focuses.
For instance, Michael Faucault, in History of Sexuality, promotes the idea that queer along with heterosexuality are playing important roles in the practice of power in the society (Bertens), shown by the dominance and oppressive relation between the two. While Judith Butler, along with her other ideas within queer discourse, proposes the idea of performativity and gender fluidity in supporting queer’s gender concern2. “Gender reality is performative
which means, quite simply, that it is real only to the extent that it is performed” (Butler,
Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory). Emphasizing the temporal reality of gender, Butler argues that the genders that we
1Heterosexist, heterosexism: “
Discrimination or prejudice against homosexuals on the assumption that heterosexuality is the normal sexual orientation.” (Oxford Dictionaries)
2
perform3 are only real and valid to be described at one particular time. Moreover, gender is not a way to express what is inside a person, but to perform certain functions (Butler,
“Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist
Theory”).
Nonetheless, the idea of gender as existing only under the umbrella of heterosexuality has been causing oppression of people who are categorized as queer. Further developing
Faucault’s idea about the practice of power, Sinfield, as cited in Bertens, proposes queer as
the challenge towards the hegemonic power of heterosexuality; he “questions traditional
constructions of sexuality and … sees non-heterosexual forms of sexuality as sites where hegemonic power can be undermined” (Literary Theory The Basics 225). With his idea, Sinfield tries to make visible the capability of queerness (non-heterosexual forms) to
challenge the stereotyped heterosexual view of gender. Adding Sinfield’s point of view about
queer, Butler suggests “that homosexual identities create a necessary condition for the
oppression of homosexual people, that is, the existence of a class of heterosexuals anxious to
confirm their immunity from the designation “homosexual” (Halley). Butler believes that the
existence of queerness, triggers the oppression of the hegemonic heterosexuality. The two theorists show us how oppression happens to queer. Sinfield sees the external source of oppression coming from the hegemonic heterosexual society, while Butler sees the internal source coming from queer itself that triggers the oppression.
However, keeping Sinfield’s idea that queer can undermine the oppression coming
from heterosexual hegemony, I believe that the existence of queer can revoke the idealism of
3
To perform means to act, fulfilling expectations coming from outside.
“the 'act' or performance that one's body is, but also in the tacit conventions that structure the way the body is culturally perceived.” (Beauvoir quoted in Butler, Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory 522)
the traditional heterosexual view towards gender, as what Selden, Widdowson, and Brooker stated:
“Queer studies ‘queries’ orthodoxies and promotes or provokes such uncertainties,
moving beyond lesbian and gay sexualities to include a range of other sexualities that disrupt such fixed or settled categorization altogether.” (Selden, Widdowson and Brooker 253).
Queer is no longer talking about sexuality, e.g.: sexual activity or orientation, but something more complex, like gender, that challenges the traditional concept of gender based on the heterosexual point of view.
Hegemony
Hegemony itself is the state of unconscious obedience of the people towards certain conditions, rules, ideology, or power, usually of the majority with dominance (Lears).
Contradicting Althusser’s solid inescapable ideology of hegemony (Bertens), Gramsci argued
a less rigid concept of hegemony – “the domination of a set of ruling beliefs and values
through ‘consent’ rather than through ‘coercive power’” (Bertens 88). Queer theory and
movements, within Gramsci’s hegemony then, are the counterhegemony (Bertens) that deconstruct the hegemony of sexuality. It is important to note these counter-arguing concepts of heterosexual hegemony and queer theory as later in this thesis we will see evidences of those concepts from our text, “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”.
The fact that heterosexual culture has been long practiced through the churches’ and
states’ powers (Selden, Widdowson and Brooker 244) shows that heterosexuality is practiced
and kept since our ancestors’ time before the uprising of the feminist movement. This
hegemonic view, queer is considered a violation towards the nature of men and women. Heterosexual hegemony sees that “homosexuality was represented as an identity repressed by heterosexist power structures which privilege gender-asymmetry, sexual reproduction and the
patriarchal nuclear family” (Jagose 36). Form of oppression towards queer, for example, are
the families who refuse to accept queer family members, political status of banning and illegalizing queers and queerness, or even disturbing facts of social marginalization in forms of bullying and harassments. The condition gets better, though, with the existence of queer theory and movements as counterhegemony, giving possibilities to overcome the oppression (Jagose 36).
Queerness has in some cases become a challenge or enemy to the heterosexual norms and hegemony, which has been taught in generations. Judith Butler argued that,
“The efforts to denaturalize sexuality and gender have taken as their main enemy those normative frameworks of compulsory heterosexuality that operate through the
naturalization and reification of heterosexist norms.” (Butler, Bodies That Matter - On the Discursive Limits of "Sex").
Within hegemony, without considering every individual as an individual, traditional heterosexual society often mistakes male and female roles and performances with one fixed standard on both sides. Heterosexual society criticizes queers and considers them as violating norms through the upheld idea of the men-women gender binary—which leads to oppression of queers. The traditional heterosexual view and the binary of gender believes that men are men; macho, without make up, walking straight and tall, maintaining firm, solid, posture, while women are the beautiful, calm, and so-called feminine (Wood 36; Campbell 20).
Moreover, the rise of queer theory tries to critique the binaries of sex, gender, and the
diminishment of individuals who are ‘categorized as deviants’. The binary, Levi-Strauss
world (Bertens 62). Life was then more comprehensible by understanding the world in binaries, e.g.: that night exists because of the day, or the saying that says “men are from Mars
and women are from Venus”, implying the absolute contradictory of traits and characters
between the two gender, which of course, is not supported by queer ideas. We will see how queer ideas do not support such divided binary of the men – women characters and traits in the next sub-topic.
Binary
The practice of using binaries has been growing to actually support the hegemony of heterosexuality. Binaries impose that what is true is what is in one side and not in the other; that realities in life or concepts in life should be broken down into opposites or contrasts, such as black or white, men or women, masculine or feminine, not something in the middle of the two sides. In understanding themselves, humans are also defining their identities, unconsciously, based on the binaries. Humans tend to feel more comfortable to stand in one side as defined by the binary, instead of being in between. It is easier to understand one thing as right or wrong, ethical or non-ethical. Thus, by relating binary and heterosexuality together, it requires considerable understanding to think of the position between the sides, the gray area, the liminal space between men and women—the area that queer claims.
Further talking about queer’s idea of liminal space is the blurred boundary zone
actions inclined to women and men gender defined by the binary, and with the clearly mixed or the uncategorized gender based on the two genders.
The idea of liminal space is that the world is not only defined as two or more opposites as what the binary suggests. There are cases, related to gender, that can invite us to rethink and question the concept of binaries. In gender, there are actions that cannot only be limited by the sexes. As Judith Butler argued, all gender identity is performed or enacted (Performative Acts and Gender Constitution) and not defined by someone’s sex. We can
further see examples of gender liminality in the next subtopic “Gender”.
Gender
Since we were born, our identity had been defined within the frame of boys and girls.
Our ‘given’ identity, of being men or women, then develops as we interact in the society to
acquire our roles as defined in religion and education (Stets and Burke). As we grow up, there are more restrictions and expectations of actions and roles in the society that we have to fulfill based on our sex, which are also known as gender roles. That was the traditional view of gender, that we perform a gender based on our sex. However, Butler argues that gender is not a reflection of what is inside an individual but rather actions that comes from cultural constructions (Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in
Phenomenology and Feminist Theory”).
In real life settings, for examples, there are men who spend more time taking care of their appearance compared to some women. Stereotypically thinking, maintaining appearance is attributed to femininity (Yon). On the other hand, there are also women who even find
MEN GENDER WOMEN GENDER
having a baby is not a priority. Those people who are against the “mainstream idea of their
traditional gender” can be seen as “not men” and “not women” because of what they are
doing in that particular moment. However, even if we are still looking at those cases with the stereotypical glasses, it does not mean that they cannot perform as men or women. Some of those men might have had wives too, while those women might have had their husbands too; both of them are performing as defined by the traditional heterosexual constitution of being men and women. Those examples show what it means by the action-based gender—the gender roles that does not stick to the narrow heterosexual idea of masculinity and femininity gender stereotypes.
Masculinity, stereotypically, indoctrinate men to be aggressive, competitive and instrumentally oriented; while femininity enforce the stereotype that women should be passive, cooperative and expressive (Stets and Burke). However, the reliability of this stereotype can no longer be guaranteed with the current understanding of sex, sexuality, and
gender as suggested by queer theory. “…gender is in no way a stable identity or locus of
agency from which various acts proceeded; rather, it is an identity tenuously constituted in time-an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” (Butler, “Performative Acts
and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory”). Keeping
queer’s idea of liminal space and Butler’s performative gender, those traits that traditionally
belong to men are then not only defined for men. Women are also capable of performing
those traditional masculine traits, et vice versa. “’Performative' itself carries the double
-meaning of 'dramatic' and 'non-referential.'” (Butler, Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory) Those performed traits then,
in the view of queer, can no longer be used to define someone’s identity. Queer theory invites
Referring to Butler’s point of view of gender from Performative Acts and Gender Constitution, bodily gestures, movements, and other actions constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self (Performative Acts and Gender Constitution 907). In reality, we do not find ALL men to be aggressive nor competitive. We do not find ALL women to be passive, cooperative, and expressive too. There are men who are expressive; they can express their happiness, sadness, and all other emotions or thoughts freely. There are also women who are competitive and aggressive. We cannot always define someone based on their sexual organs. If we do so, it will bring up a mismatch within our mind between the traditional concept of gender and of what other people do, where some people can no longer be fitted in the traditional concept of gender. This mismatch, added with our stereotypical and traditional heterosexual point of view of gender and sexuality, is projected in forms of to rejections or
oppressions towards queerness. Referring to Butler’s idea about oppression, the mismatch of
concept between heterosexuality and homosexuality is the condition that created the oppression towards queers and queerness. By studying queer theory it will help us to further understand and revise the concept of how we look at people as gendered beings, thus reducing oppression.
Queer theory opposes the heterosexual concept of static gender role as defined by the
binary. Supporting Butler’s idea of performative identity Jagose, emphasizes the concept of a never-settling identity (Jagose, 1996). Identity, then, is an effect of identification with and against others: being ongoing, and always incomplete; is a process rather than a property (Jagose 79). The fixed price of the men-women limitation in the heterosexual-centred (Bertens 221) gender then is not suitable to define individuals’ action and roles, thus
individuals’ genders. In heterosexual-centred culture, men are appropriately, naturally, the
Noting queer as a challenge towards heterosexual hegemony, this thesis will not talk about the sexuality (same sex sexual interactions) within the discussion, but rather to gender, the more visible, day-to-day part (Bertens 220) of sexuality in inviting us to rethink about gender, heterosexuality, and queer. Queer theory envisions individuals about the liminal space where people can adapt themselves flexibly—in the gray area, out of the colour black and white, with some unknown stopping point.
Summary of “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”
“Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” is the first part of the
now-going sequels of Pirates of the Caribbean movies. After its release on July 9th, 2003 by Disney (Disney), the series of Pirates of Caribbean have been waited every year for different challenges of a life fantasy into the screens.
Jack Sparrow, working with Will Turner, tried to get his beloved ship, the Black
Pearl, back from Barbossa’s hands. Barbossa turned out to also have Elizabeth Swann
fugitive that Will, Commodore Norrington, and Governor Weatherby Swann also ran after him. Barbossa himself was trying to free his body off the golden coins curse that made them undead zombies.
Their voyage and chase resulted in a battle between Barbossa’s crew against
Commodore Norrington’s men, Will and Elizabeth against another Barbossa’s party, and
Barbossa against Jack. Jack defeated Barbossa but Commodore Norrington captured him afterwards. Jack was then sentenced with hanging. The execution then was hijacked by Will
and Jack’s crew with the help of Elizabeth‘s fake fainting. The hijacking was a success and it
IV. DISCUSSION
1. Jack
Jack, the main character of this movie, is the living (or imaginative) figure of queerness. He is a man who does not only perform a traditional gender of men, but also more-liminal gender as he also performs with the traditional women gender. There are two gendered characteristics of Jack showing his queerness; his eyeliner and his posture and
movements. Moreover, by using symbolism and psychoanalysis approach, we can see Jack’s
queerness through his compass that does not point north.
a. Eyeliner
Thinking blatantly, to give dark, excessive eyeliner to a character in a story will give an impression that the character is bad. E.g.: Joker and Poison Ivy in Batman (black eyeliner), Lucifer in Constantine (red eyeliner). However, remembering the nature of eyeliner as cosmetics, which is closely attributed to women, there is a message of queerness that we can infer. He is acting differently from the stereotyped image of a man; based on the masculine stereotype, men are not supposed to put on makeup as men have to be men (Campbell).
In terms of eyeliner, we can look at Adam Lambert. Adam Lambert is a homosexual pop-singer who is identified with his special appearance by putting on visible, thick eyeliner. Being a public figure, he strengthens the close relationship between homosexuals and eyeliner. Moreover, regardless of the difference in time setting, both the movie and Adam Lambert are seen by the audience nowadays, which impose the same queer message about the usage of eyeliners.
homosexuality. I found a scene from the on-screen version of Burlesque, where Ali thought Jack was homosexual because he puts on eyeliner.
“Ali: You’re straight?Jack: You thought I was gay? Ali: Yeah.
Jack: Wait, why?
Ali: I don’t know, the day bed, the eyeliner...” (Antin)
From the two external references above, the usage of eyeliners is attributed to one of the gay cultures. Thus, the audience might unconsciously or consciously address eyeliners as an attribute of gayness or a less masculine feature of a man. However, Jack is showing qualities of a functioning pirate. He can still lead his crew, he can fight, and he can trick people just as cunning as a pirate can be; whereas in this story he is actually the good guy, the main character, and the protagonist. With those qualities, traditional-gender-minded audiences are actually being offered an image of queer, further, being taught to accept and/or to idolise a man like Jack. Jack’s image then suggests that a man with queer actions can actually still function appropriately to his role (here, as a man who is a pirate).
b. Posture and movements
As a man, Jack’s posture is not considered as someone big and tall, far from
the attributes of masculinity. While his clumsy way of walking reminds us of Dr.
Jeckyl’s alter ego, Mr. Hyde. Some people might defend this statement by saying that
“he is drunk, he is a pirate, he drinks rum.” It might perhaps safeguard Jack’s image
Jack still is not walking or fighting with a strong solid figure of what we traditionally call a man.
Image IV-1
Image IV-2
The above images are taken from the early part of the film, where he was in the pier, talking to the two guards. His posture and movements when he was talking are not of a stereotypical man—which is bold and strong. He folds and swings his hands, and plays with his fingers. He spoke not as tough as a stereotyped-man with his daft speaking style and his expressive facial expressions.
c. Compass that does not point north
Jack’s trinket, the compass that does not point north, might just be a broken
compass to the normal eye as it does not point north, like the name suggests. Normally, a compass would point north—the orientation of a compass is north; however, this compass that Jack has would not point at a static place for a long time. The compass might point southwest, west, or any direction, while actually it is told in the text that the compass point to something that the holder wants. Remembering that
the compass is a part of Jack’s identity while carrying the idea of gender fluidity in
mind, this compass then makes Jack’s queer image more vivid. The compass
symbolizes Judith Butler’s idea of gender fluidity. Based on her view, queer suggests
that a person does not stick to a static orientation and role. She argued that our gender role is impermanent, where we can decide how we act and what we want for one particular moment; we can act like a man or a woman for one moment and change and perform as a different gender at a different time.
2. Commodore Norrington
The figure of the stereotypical man, the antithesis and counter-figure for Jack is commodore Norrington. Commodore Norrington is shown as a figure of a straight, tall standing man with power in the government, and an agentic figure (Brannon) with his toughness and dominance. His role in the government also shows how patriarchy ruled the society that time. We can also learn that Commodore Norrington is depicted as the perfect man, a match for any woman by what Elizabeth said in one of the scene.
Even so, in the matter of verbal capabilities, Commodore Norrington is depicted to have a hard time to express his feelings and emotions towards Elizabeth. This incapability of expressing feelings and emotions can be attributed to the stereotype and the machismo idea that men cannot be expressive and speak about their feelings.
Moreover, remembering Althusser’s idea of hegemony, Commodore Norrington is the
embodiment of hegemony and oppression towards the deviant nature of pirates, of queer. In the text, he declared his intentions to banish piracy in Port Royale. This declaration can be taken as an analogy of the oppressive relationship from heterosexual hegemony towards queer. In real life setting, heterosexist view queers as a group of marginalized people that should be fought against. Further strengthening that oppressive message, Commodore Norrington, together with the obedient soldiers, is depicted to cast pirates aside. Taking this action to the gender and queer discourse of this thesis, the action is similar to what is happening to the anti-queer heterosexual society who criticizes that queer activity should be banned.
The pirates, on the other hand, are the counterhegemonic power who were oppressed, but then succeeded to break through the power of Commodore Norrington. The breakout is
shown by how the pirates, at the end, can actually sabotage Jack’s hanging. The pirates’ way
By the end of the hanging scene, the movie tries to strengthen the support towards queer empowerment by showing Commodore Norrington let lose the pirates.
“Governor Swann: Perhaps on the rare occasion pursuing the right course demands
an act of piracy, piracy itself can be the right course?
…
Sailor: Commodore! What about Sparrow?
Commodore Norrington: Well, I think we can afford to give him one day’s head start.” (Verbinski)
This ending scene then finalises the pro-queer message of this movie, that sooner or later the traditional heterosexual culture and view should admit the existence of queers. Further, just like what Governor Swann stated in the quotation above, queer could even be the right way, in this thesis, to see and do our gender roles not based on our sexes or the rules given to us, but to a more fluid and flexible one in order not to create oppressions or marginalizations against one another.
3. Elizabeth
As the daughter of the Governor, she is expected to behave like a “lady“. During that setting, a lady is feminine, statured, and elegant. She is indeed appearing elegant in front of the public; however, behind her image she is actually struggling to fulfil the demands of the culture of that time. Her struggle to meet public expectations signifies an image of a woman being uncomfortable with the stereotypes of women. Besides that, Elizabeth shows that she is not fitted to be categorized as feminine but instead as queer. In showing her queerness towards feminine culture Elizabeth shows her discomfort in wearing a corset; she does the
a. Knowledge and skills
As a young lady, she is resourceful, shown by how she knows the code of Parley. Parley, explained in the movie, is a code known exclusively by pirates that can be taken by someone to face the captain of the ship.
“Elizabeth: Parley. I invoke the code of Parley. According to the code of the Brethren set down by the pirate Morgan and Bartholomew, you have to take me to your captain.
Pirate crew 1: I know the code.
Elizabeth: If an adversary demands parley, you can do them no harm until the parley is complete.
Pirate crew 2: To blazes with the code!
Pirate crew 1: She wants to be taken to the captain! And she’ll go without a
fuss. We must honour the code.” (Verbinski)
Elizabeth’s queerness against the feminine culture is further strengthened later
in the movie as she happens to lead a crew of pirates to escape the Black Pearl.
“Elizabeth: What’s happening
Anamaria: The Blackpearl she’s gaining on us
Elizabeth: This is the fastest ship in the Caribbean Anamaria: You can tell them that after they caught us.
Elizabeth: We’re shallow on the draft, right?
Anamaria: Aye.
Elizabeth: Well then, can’t we lose them amongst those shoals:? Mr. Gibbs: We don’t have to outrun them long, just long enough.
Anamaria: Lighten the ship, stem to stern!
Mr. Gibbs: Anything that we can afford to lose, see that it’s lost.
…
Anamaria (to Elizabeth): It was a good plan. Up till now.
…” (Verbinski)
The crew was temporarily saved as they believe in Elizabeth’s command,
though the crew previously believes that a woman in the ship brings bad luck. This behaviour is an example of how hegemonic powers of heterosexuality and
feminine-masculine stereotypes oppress and limit women. Butler’s theory of queer argues that
Later in the story, she even shows good fighting skills. Interestingly, during the final fight, she actually comes in as a heroine to save Will then fights together
with Will to defeat Barbosa’s crews. Looking at this scene, stereotypically and
traditionally, it is men who will save others, especially women. However, in this scene Elizabeth is depicted as the heroine who saves Will from getting beaten by three
of Barbossa’s crew members. She saved Will from getting hit and they worked to
defeat the crew. Elizabeth does not show that she is weaker than Will during the fight. This way of showing a woman character then suggests to the viewers that women are not weak. This scene also carries the queer message of gender fluidity; that a woman is not only bound to be feminine. Weakness is linked as feminine by traditional heterosexual society because in their view, women are subordinate to men (Wood). During this battle scene Elizabeth also shows a ferocious side of her, total opposite from her being a lady.
Image IV-4
Image IV-5
The images above show us how she is different from her early ladylike image. From the picture we see Elizabeth as a woman with her hair falling to her face. However with her being care less about how she looks, we can see that she shows good fighting skills and capabilities to save Will and herself from Barbossa’s crew. Their cooperation in the scene also suggests the counterhegemonic power of queerness. Traditionally, men would not be pictured to need the help of women. However, this movie breaks those traditional concepts of gender, resulting in a message of equality and elimination of oppression and limitations of what people can do. Neither men nor women are bound to their sexes; they are free to express
themselves just like queer’s idea of performative gender and gender fluidity. This
strengthening the performative gender, gender fluidity, and counter hegemonic queer message of the movie.
b. Body gestures
Elizabeth’s body gestures are, at first, suiting her status of “lady”, as the
daughter of the Governor. However, it does not last long. Her body gestures later show a counter-feminine image as she suffers from wearing the corset and eats without proper Ladylike manners.
“Governor Swann: Elizabeth, how’s it coming? Elizabeth: It’s difficult to say.
Governor Swann: I’m told it’s the latest fashion in London.
Elizabeth: Well, women in London must have learnt not to breathe.” (Verbinski)
From the dialogue above we learn that corset was the trending fashion item during the time. Without questioning the health impact of wearing the corset, the Governor unintentionally made his daughter a victim. In the movie we see how wearing corset nearly drown Elizabeth as she fell to the sea, suffocation, when she was talking to Commodore Norrington by the cliff top. Her suffocation from wearing the corset suggests that the stereotype of beauty and femininity can actually endanger and can even kill women. This message is worth concerning, with the quickly developing media in real-life setting.
Later in the movie we can see Elizabeth changed her attire from a gown with
beautiful skirt to a sailor’s uniform—with trousers and shirt. This transformation of
clothing implies Butler’s idea of the impermanence of gender, that anyone can be
whoever they are for a particular moment. Moreover, changing from a gown into
trousers also suggests women’s freedom and women’s empowerment resulting in
benefits like equality and safety, both in the movie and in real life. Formerly, the feminized image of women taught women to be calm, passive and weak, and that they always need men. However, Elizabeth breaks free from that definition of being a woman by putting on trousers. We can witness that she could breathe normally and move freely to an extent where she can victoriously fight against Barbossa’s crew. Imagine her fighting wearing a gown and corset. We would not see her as a heroine as she would stumble, trapped in her gown, and suffocate from the corset. She would be only screaming asking for help—which is the feminized, subordinated image of women compared to men (R. W. Connell). Elizabeth clearly breaks that definition and
goes out to the battlefield fighting for her and Will’s safety.
Another gesture that empowers the queer image of the movie is how Elizabeth
eats her diner in Barbosa’s ship. In the middle of the movie, when Elizabeth was kept
in Barbosa’s ship, she was served a hearty diner. At first, Elizabeth eats her dinner
Image IV-6
V. CONCLUSION
This undergraduate thesis has been written in the interest and concern of gender studies, especially queer studies. The general understanding of queer as only referring to homosexuality and sexual discourse has made the definition of become narrowed. There is a wider definition of queer that society needs to know; some are Judith Butler’s argument of performative and fluid gender (Butler, Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory; Performative Acts and Gender Constitution; Bodies That Matter - On the Discursive Limits of "Sex"), Sinfield’s hegemonic discourse of queer (Bertens), and the liminal space to better define identity not only as binaries (Stets and Burke; R. W. Connell).
By analysing Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl using gender and stereotype studies I found out that queer indeed not only includes sexuality but also gender. Gender is performative (Butler, Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory), meaning that gender cannot be defined as
gender is not static and always flexible depending on one’s actions. Gender includes actions,
gestures, manners of verbal expression, ways of clothing, and maintaining appearance as discussed in the text analysing Jack, Commodore Norrington, and Elizabeth. Then relating to the talks of gender, identity cannot be defined only by the gender action that an individual performs at one particular moment.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First and foremost I have to thank my supervisor, Danielle Donelson-Sims. Without her support, guidance, and all of the time and effort that she gave I would not have been able to finish this undergraduate thesis. Her being a literature lecturer in most of the courses that I took during my four-year study was also something that I am grateful for. Her lectures inspired me and bestowed me the knowledge to finish this undergraduate thesis.
I would like to also thank Ibu Purwanti Kusumaningtyas as my literature lecturer and examiner. As a lecturer she inspired to critically think of anything that we can see; that there are long stories before everything is served in front of us me, which is an important framework in the process of analysing literature works, especially this thesis. Not to forget
her “pass” as an examiner that she gave so I can write about queer and gender that I have in
this undergraduate thesis. Not forgetting Ibu Lany Kristono my literature lecturer and advisor. I appreciate her patience and guide during my study.
Special appreciation to my new-found family, Imaniara, Khairani, Renanda, Rongre, Simangunsong, Succliftom, Utami, Yosua, Yuwita who gave their support and entertainment during the writing process of this undergraduate thesis. Without them the process would perhaps be harder to pass.
Big gratitude to the friends who accompanied my struggle during my study: Windarti, Syahrial, Nugroho, Wirawan, Branatha, my favourite buddies who coloured my struggle in finishing this undergraduate thesis and Astari who helped me with the formatting of this paper.
Most importantly I thank God for his blessings that this undergraduate thesis is done, closing my satisfying four years study in the Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana Christian University.
Special gratitude I give for my family who gave their support during my study. My
mother’s, father’s, sister’s, and brothers’ question of when my graduation will be always
VII. References
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