Give Them Face, Give Them Body: An Argument for Party Culture being Abject
The internet has decided that anything cool and worthy of praise is “for the girls, gays and theys” and honestly, it should be. The girls, gays, and theys, particularly those of colour, are the pioneers of culture. Whether it be music, fashion, or hair, style is swiped from the trendsetters themselves: first ridiculed, then appropriated, and finally carried into the mainstream. But, I want to posit something else worth attributing to these trailblazers, specifically in the realm of party culture. For women and the queer community, the ritualistic event of getting dressed up, going out, drinking, and dancing the night away is magical, but I also believe this act is inherently abject.
Abjection was seminally explored by philosopher Julia Kristeva in her 1980 text Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. In this essay, Kristeva molds the concept of abjection as a state of recoil, a visceral reaction to the disturbing. This can be shallowly identified in responses to images of the corporeal, including the emission of internal fluids like vomit, feces, blood, or corpses and rotting flesh. But Kristeva takes the concept of the abject further, defining it as “what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite”. Arguably, this means abjection can be found in a social context, too, through crime, vulgarity, and essentially anything that disrupts the boundaries of our individual identity and social fabric. While abjection is not flattering, when placed in the hands of women and queer people, it can lead to a subversive power and agency others - read: conservative white cis men - fear.
A common introduction to abjection can be found through film studies that link the female body to abject horror, in which women in horror films inhabit abject spaces in their journey through ‘feminine’ issues. The film Jennifer’s Body is widely cited as an example for multiple reasons, mainly its subversive use of 2000s ‘sex symbol’ Megan Fox, who plays a grotesque, man-eating demon after a sacrifice extremely reminiscent of rape. Male audience members who flocked to gawk at Fox’s body left the theater uncomfortable, revolted by and disappointed in the lack of sexualisation in her character. The film completely flopped at the box office because of poor marketing, further solidifying its existence as abject – viewed with contempt and disgust – though it’s worth noting that now, the film is heralded as a feminist cult classic.
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This newfound respect for Jennifer’s Body can be explained by Yuxin (Vivian) Wen, who identified that objectified female bodies can be “leveraged upon by women artists to dismantle the borders of gender roles and destabilize traditional gender identities”. When abjection is in the hands of women creators, their uncomfortable yet honest art can challenge patriarchal attitudes toward identity.
“The act of rejoicing and indulging in our joy in a crowd of our own, with music made by us and for us, will forever be abject in the eyes of those who despise, misunderstand, and fear us.”
Shifting to another group relevant to the study of abjection, the queer community has a textured past with this concept. In “AIDS and New Queer Cinema,” Monica B. Pearl describes the AIDs crisis and the illness’ effect on the body in a strikingly abject way: “The boundaries of the body in the realm of illness are no longer clearly demarcated as they have been in the past… It [the virus] makes the body unable to differentiate between itself and what is external or foreign to itself”. The illness would cause lesions to form on the body, reminding victims of the internal battle being waged and signifying to others they were ‘unclean.’ If, in order for something to be truly abject, it must be cast off by society, then the AIDS crisis, which was widely ignored by the U.S. government until 1985 – by January of ‘86, 51% of adults who contracted the illness would be dead – can be classified as an abject illness and social event. Though AIDS ravished the queer community, reclamation was once again found in art through music and dance in the largely Black and Latino NYC Ballroom scene. Filled with beauty and poise, these queers folks, often trans women and gay men, graced the walkway, striving to find joy and build community amidst a tragedy. This artistic freedom was how queer people kept themselves alive and heard, claiming agency over their bodies.
So what does party culture have to do with any of this? Party culture firstly interacts with the most obvious form of the abject– there’s always that one toilet at the club filled with too much shit to flush – but in a more wholesome view, you’ll find drunk girls holding each other’s hair back as they vomit; handing each other extra tampons after a long night of sweating and dancing. If we take a broader look at the ritual of going out, abjection is sprinkled throughout.
Video essayist Maia (Broey Deschanel) discusses how the film genres considered most abject are horror, porn, and ‘weepies’ (chick-flicks that make you cry). It’s interesting that the basis of these genres are intricately tied to women and queer people going out: the sexuality of our outfits and sensual dance moves, the tears we shed after one too many drinks, caught up in how much we love our friends or how much we hate the rude bitch across the bar, and most prominently the fear of attack.
Horror has certainly developed into part of the party scene: The 2016 shooting at gay nightclub Pulse in Florida rocked the queer community and remains the second worst mass shooting in U.S. history and women partygoers are more than familiar with the narrative of watching your drinks, and ‘but what was she wearing?’ following instances of sexual assault while out leave all women feeling threatened. Consider classic instances of bacchanalian (named after Bacchus, the God of wine and pleasure) transgression: the Stonewall Riots occurring outside a prominent and established gay bar following a night of joy and dance that disrupted heteronormative structures, thus sparking a revolution. More casually, the infamous ‘Bimbo Summit’ in which It-Girls Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears were criticized for partying together night after night, opening the floodgates to further misogyny from the media and the public.
The act of rejoicing and indulging in our joy in a crowd of our own, with music made by us and for us, will forever be abject in the eyes of those who despise, misunderstand, and fear us. But, it is the pride we find in visibility and celebration which weakens them that in turn strengthens us and our own sense of community. In breaking the boundaries of identity for others, existing as abject forces of nature, we can ironically foster solidarity amongst our own.
Words: Ariana Martinez
