Andre’s Reviews > Undercurrents: Queer Culture and Postcolonial Hong Kong > Status Update

Only a few more pages to go and I am thinking about quitting, because the current chapter is pretty dull and how much could she improve in only 6 pages?

I am convinced now: For the author "queer" basically means "vague" and her concept of "queerness" sometimes seems to be so vague that is almost meaningless.

I find it ironic when she writes that Cheung coming out as gay instead of bi would never had triggered the debates regarding the "absolute distinction" between gay and straight when she herself only cares about the effect of the statement, has the passages about bisexuality not even be three pages and then drops the term and goes back to "queer" which I still things basically means "vague" here.

Now she suddenly mentions bisexuality again, with a full chapter title, was about fucking time.

I wonder whether she would interpret the popularity of Bowie, Mercury and Boy George in the "West" as equally a sign of a "long-held cultural fascination with cross-gender performances" as she does in Hong Kong.

What is it with this author and the exclusion of bisexuality as an option? She hasn't mentioned it for chapters by now, even though what she portrays of the character of Thirteen in Portland Street Blues could as well be subsumed under bisexuality instead of just claiming that she doesn't fit the hetero- and homosexual dichotomy.

The whole topic of degeneration and becoming female as shown in the novel that later became the movie Swordsman 2 reminds me about those chinese evolutionary theories that claim that women are basically less evolved males. And in such a mindset a degenerating man (here a castrated on) would "naturally" become a woman.

Curious. The current passage speaks about self-identified straight women and their queer teenage experiences and even lets someone state that this is common. However, I noticed something: The words gay and lesbian are pretty much everywhere in this book, but bisexuality occurred so far not even 20 times. Very odd.

I am pretty sure that by the time this book came out it was no longer true to claim that "sexual minorities suffer from virtual invisibility", of course, considered that the only study she names is one of Hollywood films than this assessment is not surprising. In fact, like with the dumb crazy rich asians movie, this concentration on Hollywood is detrimental to a severe degree.

I hope that Cvetkovich woman wasn't shocked when people were appauled by her suggestion that abuse can cause homosexuality. Even with her apparent suggestion that in that cause homosexuality is somehow the cure for the abuse, that seems like a really bad explanation and might not fit into the collected knowledge on trauma.