Posthuman Superheroes (Part 2): Performing Gender

This is the second part of a four part essay dealing with posthuman superheroes and theorises Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs as a negative ideal of a posthuman subject and analyses Martian Manhunter performing gender in two issues of Justice League Task Force.

Part One provides an overview of posthuman theory which include evolution of the human through mutation; and the idea of embodiment which theorises that the mind, body, and environment are a continuous entity.  It then identifies a number of superheroes as having posthuman bodies and genders

Part three ‘Shapeshifters, Cyborgs, and Embodied Superheroes’ theorises the superhero characters, Mystique, Jean Grey, Apollo, Midnighter, The Engineer, Jack Hawksmoor, as posthuman subjects.

Part four ‘Coming Off The Page’ investigates the growing real world emergence of the posthuman. 

The character of Buffalo Bill in Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is another example of posthuman gender albeit a negative one. Halberstam notes that Buffalo Bill resembles ‘a heavy metal rocker as much as a drag queen’ (2000:60), and assumes a posthuman gender because he is: 

simply at odds with any identity whatsoever; no body, no gender will do… what he constructs is a posthuman gender; a gender beyond the body, beyond human, a carnage of identity (2000:58).

Halberstam notes Bill is ‘prey to the most virulent conditioning heterosexist culture has to offer. He believes that anatomy is destiny’ (2000:60). I would argue that the anatomic destiny to which Bill aspires is an illusion. Anatomy is more than the female skin which he violently covets. It is the illusion of femininity to which Bill is attracted as shown by the scene where he tucks his genitals between his legs, to give the viewer (and himself) the impression that his genital region, on the surface, looks like that of a woman. Combined with his awkward dancing it is clear that he is playing at being woman. Without male genitals, and of course also without those of a female, he theoretically becomes sexless. By clothing himself in the skin of a female he is clearly playing woman, yet becomes sexless. It is the appearance, the illusion of woman, which is attractive to Bill. The skin becomes a fetish – or even a kind of skin as condom. He can’t wear female skin in public (one presumes) so this pursuit is entirely of a solitary, and extremely private, nature. In a sense he is not really playing woman either. The skin he removes from his female victims can no longer be designated “woman.” Woman is the performance Bill wants to enact. The sexless female illusion he aspires to is similar to the way drag queens present a heightened version of femininity of which women provide no real counterpart. Drag queen make-up covers prominent male features or exaggerates them to something which is not recognised as male. Similarly Buffalo Bill simply uses the skins of women to cover up his maleness rather than to become a woman. Bill wants to wear the skin of women. He wants to be covered up. As noted by Lecter in the film, Buffalo Bill is not a transsexual but he thinks he is. Bill ‘hates his identity and thinks that makes him a transsexual’ (The Silence of the Lambs, 1991)[i]. Lecter is right. Bill has deluded himself. He is nothing more than an extreme cross-dresser, a drag queen who doesn’t want to dress like a woman, he wants to dress in woman. But the fact is that the skins that Bill collects to stitch together and wear will never look like him with his penis tucked between his legs, will never meet the illusion, the ideal of his aspirations. The skin becomes part of the performance. As Halberstam notes, to Bill skin is gender, all surface. This production of posthuman gender involves a process of violent transformation, one built through oppositions – Bill is completely opposed to everything. He is a gender in process, becoming something other:

he divorces once and for all sex and gender or nature and gender and remakes the human condition as a posthuman body suit. Buffalo Bill kills for his clothes and emblematises the ways in which gender is always posthuman, always a sewing job which stitches identity into a body bag (Halberstam, 2000:67).

Halberstam’s idea of the posthuman body suit is one that can be constructed and put on, taken off, and exchanged when necessary. Bill’s posthuman body suit takes dressing in drag to a violent nth degree. It is not enough for Bill to dress as a woman but he is not suitable for gender reassignment surgery, of which he has been rejected. Bill’s gender resides somewhere in-between. Though it is clear that Bill doesn’t think he, or at least his body, should suffer in his search for a clearer/individual identity/gender and it is at the cost of women that he seeks to achieve this posthuman gender agenda. Halberstam writes: ‘Buffalo Bill thinks he is not in the wrong body, but the wrong skin, an incorrect casing. He is not interested in what lies beneath the skin’ (2000:60-1). I take issue with Halberstam on this point because once Bill has his victims’ skin on, he lies beneath the skin, and he is certainly interested in himself. And if we are talking about posthumanism here then the skin cannot be separated from the body because the skin is the body. If it was simply Bill’s skin that he had the problem with, why not replace his own skin with a woman’s using skin grafts? He would then be incorporating rather than eviscerating the essence of woman which he desires. Thus it is not the wrong skin that is the problem, but the wrong appearance, and again it is not Bill who violently loses his skin to fix the problem. Of course, I realise a solution effectively cancels the premise of the film’s horror narrative but my point is made. While this incarnation of posthuman gender is achieved through violent transgression and opposition, it is not to say that it is the only way. Of course if such ideas like posthumanism are to be embraced we must accept that not all realisations/theorisations of the concept will be of a positive nature. There must be room for those which are achieved through the negative and dark. What gender is Buffalo Bill then? Some (see part one). To be clearer in this explanation I guess it is perhaps better to say that it is uncertain what gender he is, or more correctly, to which he aspires.

The idea of some and someness is frustrating. Some, is an uncertain path to an uncertain limit that can never be reached. And if we are to proscribe to Pepperell’s view (see part one), uncertainty is a frustrating yet essential staple part of the posthuman condition.

Another example, of a male playing woman which at first appears to embrace the idea of multiple posthuman gender, though ultimately radically fails, is exhibited by the DC Comics character the Martian Manhunter (aka J’onn J’onnz) in the connected stories ‘Valley of the Daals’ and ‘How Green Was My Daalie?’ in Justice League Task Force #7-8 (Dec. 1993 – Jan. 1994). J’onn shapeshifts into female form in order to lead an “all” female mission (which includes Wonder Woman) to a hidden domain populated only by women known as Daals. In the two issue story, female gender stereotypes are addressed and jokingly played around with while actually being reinforced. J’onn categorically states earlier in the story that he is male, and certainly there is no changing this [ii]. Obviously to J’onn he is donning the outward appearance of a woman. Just like Buffalo Bill, J’onn J’onnz is ‘a man imitating gender, exaggerating gender’ (Halberstam, 2000:60). When J’onn is to reveal himself in his female form to his fellow female team members, he doesn’t want to be laughed at, invoking issues of self-esteem and appearance stereotypically associated with women. When a male compliments J’onn on his appearance he is clearly flattered, again invoking that vanity is associated with women, and that women are judged, and seek approval, from men on their appearance (lower right). The comedy elements here stem from J’onn, while playing a woman, immediately assuming the stereotypical role of female by responding to comments on his appearance and worrying specifically how others will perceive him. In another stereotypical scene J’onn initially refuses to come out of his room in his female shape because he is embarrassed [iii]. J’onn is thus not playing woman, but the stereotype of woman. 

Martian Manhunter, J’onn J’onzz, steps out as Joan J’onzz 
(David, Velluto, and Albrecht & McClellan, 1993:12-3)

In the course of the mission, the leader of the Daals takes a fancy to J’onn (in his female guise, Joan) and arranges for them to be married, which J’onn plays along with in order to complete the team’s mission. Again he exhibits “female traits” – ‘this female masquerade is stressful. I’m irritable… tense… my head aches’ (David, Velluto, and Albrecht, 1994:2). Once married the leader of the Daals reveals herself to J’onn as half-male, half-female – in-between – solving the puzzle of how the Daals perpetuate their all woman society. Tellingly, the phallus still rules, signifying power, even in a women only society. If they are to consummate the marriage as the Daal leader intends, J’onn must, “go all the way” in his female performance, a step which he is not willing to take and he quickly changes back to his male form.

Seriously interrogating J’onn’s sexuality/gender is not an option even though, as team-mate, Gypsy, has stated earlier in the story: ‘We know you’re a shapeshifter. One shape should be like another to you.’ (David, Velluto, and Albrecht & McClellan, 1993:12). Indeed it should be, but it isn’t. Being serviced by the Daal leader would mark J’onn as a passive female, and with lesbian undertones. Throughout the story he has been playing the passive follower to the active Daal leader and to succumb to any other “feminised” role, especially sex, would further emasculate him. In simple and stark terms – the hero doesn’t get fucked, he fucks.

Startled and angered by J’onn’s deception, the Daal leader lashes out but is soon overpowered when J’onn grabs her hair and bends her arm up behind her back. Their mission accomplished, the heroes make their escape pursued closely by the Daals. The ensuing fight sees J’onn save the Daal leader, after which she forgives his deception. In these last scenes the lesbian connotations are deflected, J’onn only managing to kiss the Daal leader on the cheek. Indeed there is no questioning his heterosexuality at all, as evinced by the following passage:

J’onn: She told me I could come back if I ever changed my mind… But I think our physical relationship would be… strained.

Gypsy: That’s your call, wouldn’t you say, J’onn?

J’onn: Perhaps, but not a decision I choose to make.
(David, Velluto, and Albrecht, 1994:22, emphasis in original)

J’onn doesn’t want to be a woman, which isn’t surprising after all the negative connotations that have been associated with being female throughout the two issues. To cap it off, being the bride of a hermaphrodite is not the stuff of heroes, especially a male hero. J’onn becoming a woman “for real” or indeed questioning his heterosexuality in any context can only be done as an aberration to his male heroic role, and only when necessary to carry out a heroic mission. Recalling J’onn’s own fear that he would be laughed at, the narrative implies that even in a women-only population, female traits are stereotypical across age, race, and even species. It must be inherent, even if you’re a man who is only pretending to be a woman for a while. The narrative of dressing in drag, or playing opposing genders and sexualities, is one which is continually replayed in our culture. From Some Like it Hot (1959), Tootsie (1982), Mrs Doubtfire (1993), Strange Bedfellows (2004) to I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007) and any other number of movies and television series, straight men have performed female and gay roles, and mainly for laughs. The same can’t be said for lesbian or gay men playing it straight, which often ends in tragic circumstances. Boys Don’t Cry (1999) and to a lesser extent the western, The Ballad of Little Jo (1993) are just two examples, which unlike the aforementioned comedies, have their basis in reality.

Read Part One: Posthuman Bodies and Genders

Read Part three ‘Shapeshifters, Cyborgs, and Embodied Superheroes

Read Part Four: Coming Off the Page

Reference

David, P. (w), Velluto, S. (p), and Albrecht, J. (i) (1994) ‘How Green Was My Daalie?’ Justice League Task Force v1 #8 (Jan. 1994), New York: DC Comics.

David, P. (w), Velluto, S. (p), and Albrecht, J. & McClellan, A. (i) (1993) ‘Valley of the Daals’ Justice League Task Force v1 #7 (Dec. 1993), New York: DC Comics.

Halberstam, J. ‘Skinflick: Posthuman Gender in Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs’ in Badmington, N. (ed.) (2000) Posthumanism. Palgrave, pp. 56-68.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Orion Pictures, Demme, J. (dir.).

Footnotes
[i] Transsexual as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary is as follows: A. adj 1. Of or pertaining to transsexualism; having physical characteristics of one sex and psychological characteristics of the other 2. Of or pertaining to both sexes. B. n A transsexual person. Also, one whose sex has been changed by surgery (‘Transsexual’, n.a. 1989).

[ii] The Martian Manhunter has always been considered and represented as male. During his pre-Earth life on Mars he had a wife and son.

[iii] The idea of “coming out” is not lost on me here either.