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Part of The Androgyne Who Fell to Earth / Polska Sztuka Ludowa - Konteksty 2014 Special Issue
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I
n 1998, more than a quarter of century after the brief
rise and fall of glam rock, Todd Haynes made a filmhomage about glam pop-culture and its icon, entitled:
Velvet Goldmine (in Poland it was shown under the not
very apt title: Idol).1 Haynes’ film was not, however, an
ordinary "biography” of a given epoch or sub-culture - it
was, as I have mentioned, an homage but also an attempt
at an analysis of a phenomenon, a discovery of all its con
stitutive elements and, finally, a colourful synthesis that
was not supposed to describe glam rock but to become
one of its products.
Glam was attractive and extravagant, and thus ap
peared to be superficial. Until recently, it was regarded
as merely a brief, kitschy and trivial moment in the his
tory of popular music, and efforts to introduce it into a
wider social or cultural context were rare. True, glam
works of the most important artists of this trend - David
Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Brian Eno or Brian Ferry were examined with appreciation (although also some
times with a pinch of salt), but deeper reflection on the
phenomenon as such did not, for all practical purposes,
exist. Only recent years brought publications whose au
thors decided to treat the phenomenon in question as
just as essential for studies on subculture (and thus popculture) groups as a sociological analysis of mods, hippies
or punks. The extraordinary diversity of the meanings
of this trend, its complexity, inter-textual qualities and,
predominantly, subversive potential were noticed. The
revolutionary character of glam rock revealed itself in
an immensely bold (much more so, as it became appar
ent, than in the case of the hippie ideology) approach to
manners and morals, sexuality and identity in general. It
proposed experiments with sexual and gender identity
by going on the assumption that identity is something
that we can create ourselves and that it is a fluid and
open category succumbing to manipulation. In this fash
ion it tried to blur the boundaries and differences be
tween the feminine and the masculine, the hetero- and
the homosexual; glam negated social norms up to then
extremely closely guarded and inviolable (even by such
supposedly revolutionary ideas of freedom as those pro
claimed by hippies). Glam started to be treated as a text,
an extremely self-aware construct, each of whose ele
ments was part of a well-devised strategy. An exagger
ated and over-stylised aesthetic of glam, considered up
to then to be an empty form with no ambition to express
anything but itself and a product cynically intended for
consumer-oriented young people, proved to be a code
and content by no means trivial but full of melancholic
irony combining enormous, brilliant subversity, unlim
ited eroticism free of all norms and a longing for the un
attainable. Such contents were found in the superficial
and the formal, in artificiality, exaggeration, and theatri
cal qualities so characteristic for glam. Those categories
comprised a message liquidating the traditional division
into form and content.
391
KAROLINA KOSIŃSKA
The Androgyne
Who Fell to Earth
Glam
Glam rock (in America also known also as glitter
rock) emerged in Great Britain during the early 1970s.
Naturally, it had its precursors and phenomena that from
the point of view of ideology, customs and, in particular,
aesthetics strongly inspired it. In the UK they included
undoubtedly the mods subculture and in the U SA - the
milieu of Andy Warhol’s Factory. From the mods (whose
name is an abbreviation of "modernist”) glam borrowed a
certain approach towards style and aesthetics envisaged
as a supreme value decisive for identity and individuality.
From the habitués of the "Factory” and pop-art it took the
obliteration of boundaries between art and pop-culture,
a demonstrative game played with one’s creation and
image, and, predominantly, sexual freedom expressed in
that which was glam’s raison d’etre, i.e. gender-bending and
the negation of the binary nature of boundaries.
The discovery of the concrete moment in which
glam emerged as fully mature remains controversial; the
same holds true for resolving the question: who was its
“original” and “true” initiator? For some critics and fans
this was the appearance of the T. Rex band in the once
highly trendy and extremely influential British TV mu
sic programme: "Top of the Pops” on which Marc Bolan, the band’s frontman, appeared in full make-up and
with eyelids dripping with glitter. For others, the alpha
and omega of glam and its unquestioned king is its most
popular star - David Bowie. In this case, the borderline
moment could be either Bowie’s album: The Man Who
Sold the World (mainly due to the controversial cover on
which the longhaired singer lounges on a highly decora
tive sofa posing in one of his famous “man dresses”). The
most spectacular occurrence, when glam was first noticed
as a fully formed (musical) genre and trend (fashion and
pop culture) and which ultimately affected its form, was
Ziggy Stardust - a mysterious androgynous arrival from
the stars, who came to Earth in order to save it from an
nihilation. With his irascible although cold allure (of a
strangely sexual nature) he captures the planet and hyp
notises crowds. Ultimately, however, Ziggy succumbs to
the worshipping throng and his narcissism takes over: he
abandons his noble mission and fantasizes about falling
Karolina Kosińska • THE ANDROGYNE WHO FELL TO EARTH
in love with his ego. In order to rescue the Earth and
himself Ziggy must slay his ego and depart.
The Ziggy character proved to be exceptionally em
blematic and ultimately prophetic for glam. First, he was
the realisation of a postulate of greatest importance for
the entire trend - the creation of a persona, a totally arti
ficial identity that, albeit extremely evocative, would not
conceal its invented nature. Ziggy was a construct stem
ming from fantasy, a combination of futuristic imagina
tion and longing for the past and innocence. He origi
nated from fantasy and thus was not part of the human,
earthly order. As a construct he was to be directed to a
great extent against complete “naturalness” - the ethos
of the culture of the ‘60s, cultivated by hippie artists,
who in a programme-like manner were expected to be
authentic, genuine, and natural. Through such created
constructs as Ziggy glam was supposed to say that “natu
ralness” is full of hypocrisy and, moreover, that as such
it simply cannot exist. Identity and image are always but
creations - there is no primal substance. The only choice
we have is to allow to be fashioned by social norms and
demands (regardless whether belonging to conservative
societies or the ostensibly progressive, such as hippies)
usurping the right to naturalness, correctness, and truth
or to take over control over self-creation. By negating
the conceit of naturalness glam opened a path towards
unfettered creativity, whose substance was to be one’s
body, way of life, and identity. The question about pri
mary nature and “truth” no longer had any sense - that
what was essential was incessant creationism, the fluidity
of categories and their constant metamorphoses instead
of petrification in hermetic and untouchable definitions.
Ziggy (and thus Bowie) urged his fans to experiment with
their image and identity, to create themselves no longer
in an opposition to, or upon the basis of any sort of norms
but as part of the latter’s total rejection. The slogan: ”Be
as you are” must be changed into: ”Be as you want to be”
(a similar formula: don’t dream it - be it, can be found in
the Rocky Horror Picture Show directed by Jim Sharman
in 1974. Although Sharman’s film cannot be directly as
sociated with glam it had numerous common features
and from the ideological and aesthetic viewpoint it was
maintained very much in its spirit). Such an approach
to one’s identity (in particular sexual) became the glam
programme and part of its strategy and ideology.
Ziggy was an embodiment of these postulates. By
observing the principle of resigning from the binariness
of gender, sex, and sexuality Bowie created Ziggy as an
ideal bisexual androgyne, not so much a combination of
both genders as their negation. He was supposed to ex
ist beyond them without depriving himself of combined
sexual potential. In this manner Ziggy became a deter
minant of the glam style, a fashion he devised and which
transcended the conventions of the masculine and the
feminine and combined an enormous number of stylistic
tracks and references. This sui generis hybrid was com
392
posed of elements originating from assorted cultural con
texts, albeit always oscillating around an ambivalent and
never ultimately defined ideal of androgyny. Ziggy was
envisaged as a mysterious creature from the stars, a com
bination of a sexless, remote, and ideal body, demonic,
dehumanised, and minimalistic futurism, and nostalgia
for the opulent cabaret from the turn of the nineteenth
century and the 1920s. The extremely slender Ziggy/
Bowie was usually dressed in a shiny latex costume con
cealing all symptoms of sex and colourful high platform
boots. His outfit was supplemented by vivid make-up
and startlingly orange hair. Although Ziggy is, as a rule,
perceived in categories of bisexuality it would be more
apt to use the term “pansexuality”. His purpose was not
so much to desire as to be desired regardless of gender
or sexual orientation. Bisexuality, even if only due to its
name, refers to binariness - and Ziggy transcended and
thus eliminated binariness itself and its principle. He was
primarily an object of desire whose entire essence flirted
with his fans. More, from the very onset to the end Ziggy
functioned as a fantasy, a conglomerate of the dreams
and desires of his fans - at no moment in his existence
did he claim the right to be “genuine”: he was supposed
to be an idea and a substance, and to live in a world of
fiction and not facts. His presence could never be pal
pable, nor his identity - recognised, diagnosed, and en
closed in a definition.
With the exception of Bowie none of the glam art
ists created a character of this sort. The others2 - Marc
Bolan from T. Rex, Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry from
Roxy Music, Iggy Pop of The Stooges, Lou Reed from
the Velvet Underground or the New York Dolls - op
erated rather with their image, always remaining within
the domain of gender-bending and referring to the camp
stylistic. Marc Bolan resembled a fairy-tale elf straight
out of a J.R.R. Tolkien story combined with a drag queen
in strong make-up. Brian Eno in his cosmic and gloomy
costumes could have successfully appeared in a horror
story with elements of science fiction. On the other
hand, the style represented by Brian Ferry contained the
elegance of gangsters from the 1930s, American kitsch
of the 1950s, and the nonchalance of the mods - all
with an addition of distinct sexual ambivalence. Lou
Reed, however, came from the integral milieu of Andy
Warhol’s Factory. Reed, a member of the precursory (in
all respects) Velvet Underground was to transfer the
Factory into new aesthetics, an embodiment of a danger
ous and colourful life unfettered by any sort of norms,
and of total openness as regards sex and gender. Reed
also represented a climate of drug-induced self-inflicted
destruction and decadence, so characteristic for the mu
sic of the Velvet Underground and the ambiance of the
Factory, and ultimately essential also for glam. An ex
treme example of such self-destructive creation was Iggy
Pop, today described more often as a precursor of punk
rock than one of the authors of glam. Pop represented
Karolina Kosińska • THE ANDROGYNE WHO FELL TO EARTH
the animal element, sexuality conceived not as created
on the surface of the body but as pure albeit transgressed
nature. While Lou Reed was to be a male version of a
femme fatale in dark make-up and with black nail polish,
Pop on stage became the embodiment of unpredictable
and hysterically wild sexuality - he harmed and exposed
himself while sprinkling glitter. The theatrical nature of
his performances consisted of ostentatious “naturalness”
closer, however, to untamed instinct rather than to the
”authenticity” which the hippies wished to personify in
the 1960s. Although none of these artists (with the ex
ception of Bowie, who has to be viewed as separate from
Iggy) decided to publicly announce homo-- or bisexuality
or to openly overcome hereteronormative coercion, they
all transcended it in a more creative way - their trans
gression consisted rather of creating (sexually) undefined
images while always leaving room for uncertainty and as
sumptions. It is ambivalence and not declaration that
was to become one of the key principles of glam. Sexual
ity was to be deprived of all definitions, to be left to its
own potential unlimited by all norms or social conven
tions. In addition, sexuality was outfitted with a costume
and made-up so as to mark just how conventional and
artificial was its image and enclosure within binding binariness. Since the deconstruction of sexuality is always
accompanied by a costume, the latter can be arbitrarily
changed or created anew and experiments can be carried
out while violating the conventionalised.
Camp
From the viewpoint of its essence and significance
glam was a phenomenon strongly enrooted in camp sensi
tivity - not only regarding aesthetics but also that, which
could be called its “policy”. To an extremely large degree
the camp aspect of glam corresponds to an attempt at
its description (not definition - since the definition of
camp is by the very nature of things an impossible feat;
its recognition is a question of intuition) presented in Su
san Sontag’s famous Notes on “Camp” (1964).3 True, the
essence of camp would be fondness for the unnatural, a
predilection for extravagance based, on the one hand, on
excess and, on the other hand, on passion, the ambition
of creating something very serious that, however, fails
but simultaneously does not lose any of its intensity as
well as genuine pleasure and involvement (which often
may produce pathos that ceases to annoy and starts to
entertain). Camp taste has an inclination for the purely
decorative and visual, which accentuates the texture of
things and their sensual surface. A camp thing or charac
ter wishes to be unusual and that feature is, as a rule, to
manifest itself in exaggeration and splendour, in glamour.
Camp tries to be aristocratic but often this quality turns
out to be false and pretended and resembles costume
jewellery that although not “genuine” can still make an
impression. First and foremost, camp has a predilection
for the theatrical and the artificial, aesthetics or rather
over-aesthetisation, in which the distinction between
the aesthetically “good” and “bad” is no longer binding.
The camp dandy will not shy from vulgarity and is capa
ble of elevating the low to a high rank.
Although this description matches glam perfectly,
camp in its glam version often negates the theses pro
posed by Sontag, who claimed that camp emphasis on
style assumes neglect of the content concealed beneath
the surface of style. The “ideology” of glam tries to prove
that content can be actually the surface itself and that it
does not lose any of its value or gravity. It is simply the
division into style and content, form and content that is
liquidated.
Sontag, however, negated the political nature of
camp even though camp as such and its glam “variant”
are predominantly subversive and thus political and nev
er remain neutral. Camp provokes, and hence is involved
in non-normative culture relegated to the margin and of
ten socially branded (even if this involvement assumes a
frivolous and not overly serious form). In this sense, glam
matches better those attempts at describing the nature of
camp that are proposed by theoreticians trying to expand
and modify Sontag’s canonical text and to reconcile all
writings that criticise it. David Bergman wrote: First, eve
ryone agrees that camp is a style (whether of objects or of the
way objects are perceived is debated) that favours “exaggera
tion", “artifice" and “extremity". Second, camp exists in ten
sion with popular culture, commercial culture, or consumerist
culture. Third, the person who can recognize camp, who sees
things as campy, or who can camp is a person outside the cul
tural mainstream. Fourth, camp is affiliated with homosexual
culture, or at least with a self-conscious eroticism that throws
into question the naturalisation of desire.4 In turn, accord
ing to Jack Babuscio camp is defined and established by
four key features: irony, aestheticism, theatricality, and
humour.5 Irony is supposed to refer to the contrast be
tween a given individual (or object) and his/its context.6
In this way, irony combines opposites: male/female, high/
low, fictitious/true. For irony to be effective it is neces
sary to endow it with some sort of a concrete spectacular
shape - the art of camp therefore relies largely upon arrange
ment, timing and tone1 - hence the overblown aestheticism
and even over-aesthetisation. Hence also the enormous
pressure on the superficial, the external texture of things.
Babuscio remarked that style is the medium for self-pro
jection, the carrier of meaning, and the expression of
emotions; it is never “neutral” but is always constructed
and exists rather as a form of awareness.8 It is also always
subversive and accentuates the non-continual by con
trasting things that are ostensibly contradictory; in this
way it undermines the very principle of constructing such
standards - the binding principle of banality. Although
camp is often associated with kitsch (and sometimes is
even called conscious kitsch), the two phenomena are
separated by an essential difference: camp assumes ear
nest involvement - the ability to strongly identify oneself
393
Karolina Kosińska • THE ANDROGYNE WHO FELL TO EARTH
with that, which is regarded as camp. On the other hand,
kitsch is artistically shallow and vulgar and focuses on
sensation; kitsch is sentimental and superficial.9 The es
sence of camp is not its flamboyant aesthetics but rather
the code concealed within it and its evocative character
(kitsch is not intentionally subversive). Camp does not
stop at depiction as such - it constantly stresses that we
are dealing with presentation and convention.
Discussions (more or less theoretical) about glam em
phasize its visual, aesthetic aspect while ignoring mean
ings contained in visuality; those satisfied with the de
scription alone did not see any need to analyse the causes
of constructing such aesthetics. The point of departure
is the name itself - glam (glamour) - assuming that the
most prominent component was exaggerated and lavish
form (usually featuring the artificial opulence of costume
jewellery). The essence of the phenomenon, however,
appears to be something else. As Brian Eno, one of
the representatives of glam, declared: I have to say that
the “Glam” part was the wrong idea to focus on. For me it
wasn’t so much about glamour so much as the idea of chang
ing identity or thinking up your own identity. Whether it was
glamorous or not was actually accidental.10 In other words,
form as such, although ostensibly designating only itself,
indicated the contents concealed within. In a truly camp
paradox the content was not separate from the form but
was contained in it.
Now for a moment back to Sontag’s text. By con
stantly stressing camp’s predilection for artificiality she
assumed that the likeness typical for camp is that of the
Androgyne. Sontag maintained: (...) The most refined
form of sexual attractiveness (as well as the most refined form
of sexual pleasure) consists in going against the grain of one’s
sex. What is most beautiful in virile men is something femi
nine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something
masculine (...) 11 and stressed: Camp is the triumph of the
epicene style. (The convertibility of “man” and “woman,”
“person” and “thing.").12 In other words, all style, that is,
artifice, is, ultimately, epicene.13 Glam understood this de
pendence perfectly. Style and artificiality were based on
diametrically comprehended creativity independent of
what we call “Nature”. In this mode, the identity that
each one of us creates for himself should be not only the
“reversal” of that “Nature” (to act against one’s sex) but
fully independent. Consequently, in glam that, which is
genderless is more popular than that, which is bisexual
and combines the masculine and the feminine.
Longing and desire
Velvet Goldmine was intended as homage to a past ep
och, its music and ideology. It was not supposed to be a
monographic study of glam. Haynes wanted to avoid any
sort of documentariness. He was more interested in the
film being glam in itself, so that its construction and stylis
tic were governed by the same laws as glam creativity and
narrations by glam rockers. Velvet Goldmine is thus more
394
of a dream, a recollection brimming with the nostalgia of
someone for whom glam became a borderline moment
in defining his identity. This is the reason why the whole
story is seen through the eyes of a fan - Arthur, who as a
journalist is to resolve ten years later the mystery of the
feigned murder of a former glam-rock star, Brian Slade.
Arthur, now grown up and disillusioned with reality, is
compelled not only to find out about the fate of the ob
ject of his youthful fascination but also to go on an in
ner journey and settle accounts with his rejected wishes
and longings. Although Haynes applied a construction
strategy familiar from Citizen Kane by Orson Welles - a
single story seen by numerous witnesses - the narration,
deprived of all traits of realism, compels us to think that
Arthur’s experience and recollections are of key impor
tance. We watch a combination of recollections, imagi
nation, and dreams, for which facts are but an inspiration
and which can be never verified. This is an extremely
well conceived operation - the story we watch is only a
construction composed of many others, interlinked and
overlapping. None can possess a status more authentic or
credible than others. The same strategy is present in each
symptom of glam rock creativity and appears in queer
theories. That, which we recognise as a fact - someone’s
history, identity - is a construction, while access to socalled truth is impossible. The essence of things as such
does not exist; there is only its depiction. There is no
such thing as primal nature - all is the work of culture.
This is why in Velvet Goldmine nothing claims to be the
sole truth and fact. This is not to say, however, that we
are dealing with pure fiction - the director tried to treat
the two categories as equal, to obliterate the boundary
between them, and to render their status identical. Once
we name them, facts become fiction and the latter can
always become facts for someone who wishes to recog
nise it as such.
In order to create a complete albeit auteur synthesis
of glam rock Haynes followed all the paths that could
have led to and from glam, those that could have be
come his inspiration, and those that he inspired himself.
More, the director defined glam rock as the most quot
able moment in rock and roll, a great collage of sources14
This is also why the film is made of scores of short texts,
quotations, and references. First and foremost, while
tracing the precursors of glam rock it resorts directly to
Oscar Wilde, who in Velvet Goldmine appears as a magic
child dispatched from the stars, the owner of an emeraldamulet. Glam rock was also inspired by the American
“glamour” of the 1920s (hence a portrait of Jean Harlow
in the office of Slade’s manager), eighteenth-century sa
lons, and the decadent fin de siècle cabaret. The intersex
ual network is woven very finely - the director made use
not only of his own trails but also references contained in
the works of glam rockers; hence citations from Genet
and the inter-war Berlin cabaret. The very core of the
narration - the story of Brian Slade and Curt Wild - is
Karolina Kosińska • THE ANDROGYNE WHO FELL TO EARTH
composed of facts taken from the lives of Bowie, Pop,
Reed, Eno, Ferry and Bolan. Haynes extracted the most
constitutive and essential components and used them
to create the history of glam rock embodied in the love
story of Slade and Wilde.
All references in Velvet Goldmine indicate culture
texts dealing with non-normative sexuality as well as the
construction of identity by applying the external, the aes
thetic, and the visual. Haynes was interested primarily in
glam rock’s ostentatious artificiality conceived as a me
dium, style as a means of expression, creation that builds
identity, and the overcoming of binariness in the do
mains of sexuality and gender. In this fashion, the film’s
prime theme is the glam androgyne envisaged as a sub
versive person opening up new possibilities, something
that remains outside the polarised gender order, and thus
an object of desire that fascinates because it comes “not
from this world”.
This is not, however, the Platonic version of the
androgyne belonging to the primeval order of things, a
symbol of completeness, purity, pre-sexuality, and uni
versality. The glam androgyne is sexual, or rather out
right pansexual. As Stella Bruzzi claimed: The androgyne
(...) has been conceptualised as a pre-sexual Platonic ideal
(...). Such flights into intangible, symbolic fantasy capture
only half of the power of an image.15 The second half was
to be composed of irresistible, overwhelming corporeal
ity and sexuality. According to Bruzzi the androgynous
figure stands on the borderline between two spheres - the
imagined and the real. Eternal unfulfilled longing for the
ideal would be, therefore, combined with desire. Longing
creates a fantasy whose force is its eroticism.
This is not to say that the aesthetics of the andro
gyne must be a combination of the features of the femi
nine and the masculine. It does not necessarily have to
be a blend of both sexes and can be their negation or
rather that of binary division as such. While not being
either a woman or a man, the androgyne can still possess
overwhelming erotic force, even if only because by exist
ing outside the boundaries of that, which is known and
understood, he personifies mystery, unpredictability and
that, which is not subjected to norms and categorisation.
In other words, he also carries danger and risk by stir
ring a wish to cross the reality that we know, with which
we can became familiar, and which we can name and
experience.
Surprisingly, such an image of the androgyne appears
in the visual arts extremely rarely. If authors actually de
cide to construct a character that is to blur or transcend
boundaries between genders they usually restrict them
selves to conventionalised phenomena of transvestism,
transsexuals or cross-dressing.16 Meanwhile, none of
these categories realises the conception of the androgyne
because they all retain the binary division of the sexes
even if they link their elements. Stella Bruzzi declared:
Whereas cross-dressing is a collision between genders, which
395
are nevertheless identifiable, androgyny is a fusion that can
encompass these shifts and permutations. Despite signalling
danger and transgression, the cross-dressed or “dragged-up”
body still utilises the differences between the sexes for effect
(■ ■ ■ ).17 In this manner, solid banality remains the founda
tion. The blurring of differences that characterises the andro
gyne is, conversely, more dangerous and destabilising because
it incorporates eroticism.18This sort of eroticism is based on
endless uncertainty and doubts, on a simultaneous rec
ognition, and its lack, of the ambivalence of the androgy
nous image. The spectator perceives the discontinuity
of the identity of such a creature and does not harbour
an illusion that he is seeing a woman (or a man dressed
as one) or a man (or a woman dressed as one). It is ex
actly ambivalence that seduces, and by doing so forces
us to forget about discontinuity while telling us to fall in
love with ambivalence as such. It cannot be classified or
categorised since there is no clear-cut definable category
beyond femininity and masculinity. The androgyne is
neither feminine masculinity nor masculine femininity,
nor is he an improvement of one of the genders because
he negates the principle of the existence of gender in
general. He is something quite distinct - ideal eroticism
independent of the division into genders, sexes, and sex
uality; more, since androgyny assumes the obliteration
of boundaries between the sexes it also presupposes the
blurring of the delineated limits of sexuality.19 This is not
to say that it instantly implies bisexualism, because that
category, together with the significant prefix: “bi-“, is also
negated. Homo--, hetero--, or bi-sexuality are replaced
by pansexuality, which encompasses all combinations
and reaches the very essence of sexuality; it exists outside
all categorisation.
Naturally, from the very beginning the most impor
tant were longing and desire - the structure of Velvet
Goldmine and its aesthetics are subjected to these two
categories. All tension between the characters and thus
also the manner of showing them (always from the per
spective of one of them) is tinged with longing and de
sire. The most important in the construction of the film
is the category of memory: narration is based on the mu
tual permeation of recollections and dreams, while their
depiction is deprived of realistic features and over-aestheticized so as to show desire, on the one hand, and to
arouse it, on the other hand. By using the same structural
principles as those in Citizen Kane, Haynes offered sever
al sources of reminiscences - we hear stories successively
recounted by persons who had been close to Brian Slade;
these stories had been changed into a myth by those who
in some way had been betrayed by him. Nonetheless,
visualisation is not based merely on their voices - it is the
fantasy of Arthur, a fan and a collector of those reminis
cences that creates imagery. The stories told by Cecil,
Mandy and Curt are filtered through Arthur’s suddenly
awakened memory, suffused with rejected longing and
desire. In this manner, all that we are watching is a trans
Karolina Kosińska • THE ANDROGYNE WHO FELL TO EARTH
position of reality, fiction founded on the latter. Impor
tantly, this fiction possesses the status of the only truly
existing space. Facts are created or rather recreated, and
even reconstruction is mere fiction. In Velvet Goldmine
the supreme principle is construction conceived as nega
tion of the natural, the in-born, the real and that, which
exists in it. Here, everything is a product - events, rec
ollections, and even the characters themselves. Among
the latter the most sophisticated and best representatives
of the ideal of the androgyne are Brian Slade, Curt Wild
and Jack Fairy.
First and foremost, all the characters are a conglom
erate of concrete features, of “authentic” people - David
Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry.
The parenthesis is particularly important since it indi
cates the fact that the public identity of those artists, just
like their pseudonyms, was a creation, fiction; that they
invented artificial persons for the sake of their work and
the audience (although only Bowie decided to devise
the characters of Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and Thin
White Duke - who were to be clearly distinctly uncon
nected with him as David Bowie). The successive level of
the construction is determined by the performance of the
film protagonists - Brian Slade becomes Maxwell Demon
(modelled on Bowie-Stardust); Curt - a star brought up
by wolves, the embodiment of uncivilised atavism; Jack
Fairy, in his gown and jewels, functions as a sophisticated
drag queen (rather than as a transvestite) endowed with
irresistible but upsetting charm. Each changes into some
one else, constructs a persona that, in turn, becomes a
manifesto, a programme, a provocation, and, more im
portantly, a performance. The next level could contain
the likenesses of particular characters existing in the
memory of other protagonists, very much mythologised
and filtered through ever-alive emotions. For Mandy,
Brian remains a sweet boy although unyielding and ruth
less in his battle for fame, for whom she had sacrificed
her youth. For Cecil, he is the embodiment of an ideal
and the greatest disappointment (elegance walking hand
in hand with a lie). Finally, Curt conceived Brian as a
quintessence of his fantasy and, at the same time, a sup
plement of himself. The portrait of Slade in the memory
of persons close to him is a construction born of desire,
longing, and suffering, since the ideal not only never
changed reality but became conquered and trivialised by
it. There remains only Arthur and his return to teenage
fascinations. Although we hear Mandy, Cecil and Curt
telling stories, we see them through the eyes of Arthur
who performs the function of the visual narrator. His vi
sion is pure fantasy - based on trivial and already consid
erably falsified (as a rule, mythologised) knowledge about
the idol possessed by each fan. The image of Brian, which
he retained, is a mixture of facts obtained from news
papers, posters and photographs, song lyrics, emotions
experienced while listening to records, and youthful fan
tasies that were supposed to supplement the image of the
396
star. Arthur’s Brian and Curt are fantasies, the products
of his imagination, fiction closer to the wishes cherished
by him than to reality.
The most important for our reflections appears to be
the last category of constructing the person and person
ality, contained in the fan-idol relationship, as well as the
protagonists’ transference into fiction, into the personas
that they had created for themselves. Those two types
of the construction of identity (or personality) in Velvet
Goldmine are very strongly connected with the category
of an obliteration of boundaries between the genders, a
devaluation of the binarity upon which they had been
based up to then. The same holds true for desire - sexu
ality in Haynes’ film ceases it be hetero-- or homosexu
ality just as gender is no longer male or female. Brian
Maxwell, Curt, Jack or Arthur - all realise the ideal of
androgyny, although each in his own, personal, and dis
tinct way.
From the very onset, the plot of Velvet Goldmine
takes place in fairy-tale sets. In 1854 a falling star soaring
across the sky above Dublin explodes in lavender sparks.
It leaves behind on Earth, in the household of Mr. and
Mrs. Wilde, a child - the future Oscar, wrapped in fab
ric clasped with an emerald pin. The latter proves to be
a talisman, an emblem, and a carrier of certain inner
force and charisma enjoyed by each successive owner
of the jewel. A hundred years later, the seven-year old
Jack, beaten and persecuted by his peers, finds in the
school playground the emerald wedged between pave
ment flagstones. He returns home along a path leading
across an excessively adorable, over-aestheticized, and
ostentatiously artificial and fairy-tale landscape - a sym
bol of a mythical happy childhood that the boy cannot
enjoy. Already as an owner of the gem he stands in front
of a mirror and takes a close look at his cut lip, slowly
smearing the blood as if it were lipstick; suddenly, he
becomes pleased with his reflection. He has created
a new version of himself, certain of his value, and aware
that his place in the world lies beyond the rigid and bru
tal norms of the schoolyard, in a land of fantasy full of
strange flowers and subtle perfumes, a land of which it is joy
of all joys to dream, a land where all things are perfect and
poisonous. 20 This opening sequence combined with an
off-screen text tells us that little Jack is the heir not only
of the aesthetics of Oscar Wilde but also of the latter’s
way of thinking (e.g. in The Portrait of Dorian Gray). It
also shifts the focal point of the film from the conflict
between the accepted norm (approved identities) and
that, which is situated beyond, the existence of a world
devoid of norms. Haynes wished primarily to enter the
world (even if artificial) of characters negating norms.
By making use of stylistics and a structure resembling
a dream he presented reality devoid of polarised identi
ties, values, and categories, leaving his protagonists and
reality unidentified and open, and prohibiting their clas
sification.
Karolina Kosińska • THE ANDROGYNE WHO FELL TO EARTH
The grown-up Jack becomes an androgynous creature
"guided” by the inherited jewel.21 His androgynousness,
however, is realised in categories belonging to the dis
course of binarity and understandable for the surround
ing (which recognises norms). He is treated according
to the common understanding of a transvestite - a man,
probably homosexual, who dresses as a woman. He does
not provoke laughter or becomes a caricature of any of
the genders - although this was the way in which the
(popular) cinema usually showed all sorts of trans-gender
protagonists. Wherever he appears, Jack is admired and
respected. To apply a distinction proposed by the theore
ticians of camp - Jack Fairy belongs to high camp, to its
aristocracy, and all criteria defining low camp are absent.
Haynes stressed upon numerous occasions that Jack is
the source, the first ‘"genuine” example of his genre, and
that his magnetism benefitted all others.
And yet he does not comprise the centre of fascina
tion for all protagonists. It is Brian Slade-Maxwell De
mon who arouses the greatest desire. Interestingly, Slade
is shown as a usurper who seduces Jack and steals the
jewelled pin, thus seizing its power. Nonetheless, Brian’s
creation, i.e. Maxwell Demon, is someone totally new,
”prepared” and moulded by Slade’s numerous experienc
es and inspirations but never merely their commonplace
conglomerate. As Cecil recounts, Brian’s tender introduc
tion to the theatrical underworld would leave a dramatic
impression. He thus became acquainted with the revue
theatre demi-monde (outstandingly low camp), full of
aging transvestites and homosexuals. Inspired by what he
saw on stage and backstage, little Brian gave his parents
performances during which he became Little Richard
- yet another icon inspiring glam rock artists. Then, in
the spirit of numerous boys from the suburbs, he joined
the mods, the first true dandies of pop —and known to just
about any indiscretion when a good suit was involved. Their
philosophy was to become the philosophy of glam - the
most important is creation, pose, and a radically stylised
image. Identity and personality can be constructed on
the body without succumbing to social pressure. Just as
in the case of each subculture, the mods were recruited
from among young people whose basic principle of exist
ence was rebellion. This time, they revolted against the
greyness and boredom of the surrounding world, the pu
ritan mentality of the middle class, and the working class
ethos. Ostentatious consumerism expressed disdain for
everything that is common, and the cult Vespa scooter
became a symbol of independence while a well-cut suit
was to be an attribute of perfectly designed individuality.
Within this context it was obvious that in the working
and middle class environment, as a rule rather conserva
tive, mods could function as “effeminate” (in contrast to
the rockers in their leather jacket and with heavy motor
bikes). Haynes undoubtedly made use of this stereotype
- his Brian-mod exploits his pedantic image of a dandy,
i.a. to seduce other boys with a girlish appearance.
397
Brian endlessly observes and spies upon that, which
is decisive for the magnetic force of others. This is the
force that he perceives first in Jack and then in Curt, who
becomes his one true passion and, at the same time, the
embodiment of the ideal lover for Maxwell. His relation
ships are, as a rule, based on desire - not so much for
corporeality as for the image of successive fascinations.
Brian wishes to stir the same type of unrest and the same
ambivalent and undefined emotions. He wishes to be
come that, which he desires, and just like Ziggy Stardust
he desires his ego. This is not to say that Haynes sees the
source of Maxwell’s power in pure usurpation, although
he distinctly makes it clear that among all the protago
nists Brian is the only who betrayed and lost the battle
waged against imposed, hostile reality. The charisma of
Brian-Maxwell was simply granted to him by those who
believed in his image, who waited for him, and for whom
he expressed that, which they wanted to see. Although
Brian created Maxwell, the latter functioned only in the
imagination of his fans as a fantasy devised by them, each
time different and matching their most intimate and in
dividual longings. A feedback effect - Brian offers others
his image and they fill it with meaning and give it back.
Hence - if we accept Arthur’s perspective as central in
the narration of Velvet Goldmine - the strongly mytholo
gised characters and space, the obligatory structure of
a dream, the conspicuous over-aesthetisation, and the
obliteration of the difference between fiction and fact,
dream and reality.
The indubitably overwhelming power of Brian/Maxwell comes from his androgyny. As has been mentioned,
it not so much links both genders or becomes a “third”
one as negates the existence of any sort of gender. Max
well is supposed to be an arrival from the stars and thus
does not have to be a human being. His “alien” nature,
although dehumanised, is, however, suffused with eroti
cism affecting everyone regardless of gender and declared
sexual orientation. His eroticism does not arise from an
increased potential, the supposed attribute of a combina
tion of man and woman, but rather from the fact that it
remains a secret. Since no one knows who Maxwell is, no
one is capable of describing the character of his sexuality.
It is the unknown and not enhancement that is decisive
for his power. Interestingly, Maxwell’s persona, urging his
fans to join in constant fun and experimenting with their
identity, proposed the rejection not only of the binary
nature of gender and unambiguous hetero-- and homo
sexuality but also of the existence of any sort of defined
gender or orientation. The construction of identity was
to take place outside these categories and to be totally
independent of them. Since, however, we are unable to
move beyond them and the culture that founds them,
such creation is outright impossible. There remains the
process of juggling with the attributes of femininity and
masculinity, keeping a distance towards them, and com
prehending their conventional character. At the same
Karolina Kosińska • THE ANDROGYNE WHO FELL TO EARTH
time, such experiments can produce extremely creative
effects - we can imagine only two genders as stable; even
if they were to be represented in countless variants they
will be always enclosed in two "camps”. Each representa
tion that would exist somewhere between them would be
only temporary and could not become stabilised because
there does not exist a defined category that would render
it immobile. This is the reason why each androgynous
character shall possess a unique character - he can never
become petrified and turn into a matrix, to be later re
peated.
Queer and the performative character of identity
Velvet Goldmine is a queer film and its author is one
of the foremost creators of a current described by the
critics as the New Queer Cinema.22 The recounted sto
ry of glam rock, its “biography”, was "rendered queer”,
passed through the filter of queer theories - even super
ficial acquaintance with them can prove to be very im
portant for deciphering the film. Naturally, it would be
difficult to assume that the authors of glam rock during
its peak period were conscious of the subversive char
acter of this trend; the director, however, was undoubt
edly aware of it when he introduced the phenomenon
of glam rock into a widely understood history of queer
culture (formulated, necessarily, backward), since he
discovered in it twin-like similarity to the queer view
of reality, sexuality, and identity - the fluidity of cat
egories, the rejection of hermetic definitions, the over
coming of the binary. Haynes noted upon numerous
occasions that the early 1970s (and glam rock above
all) constituted the last truly diverse, productive, and
398
progressive period open to new ideas and the toppling
of taboos, especially within the sphere of sexuality. The
sexual revolution was not brought about by the 1960s
but by the 1970s. The earlier decade assumed free love,
but actually it was still limited by obligatory heterosexu
ality and the binary nature of cultural gender. In this
sense, it paradoxically remained conservative. On the
other hand, the 1970s, together with glam rock, were,
the director claims, a quintessence of truly liberated
sexuality. What was so interesting about the glam era was
that it was about bisexuality and breaking down the bounda
ries between masculinity and femininity with this androgyny
thing. It was about breaking down barriers (...).23 Hayes
perceived in glam not only a lens that gathered all these
elements but also an immensely important link in the
chain of queer culture.
In common use the term "queer” functions as a con
cept-umbrella encompassing all those sexual identities
and sexualities that remain outside the norm of the bina
ry division of gender and homosexuality. Contemporary
theories concerning the domain of queer increasingly
frequently tend to include within their range identities
whose nature is determined not only by non-normative
sexuality or sexual identity but also by social class or race.
In a word, the category of sexuality ceases to be the sole
category for queer - just as essential is every identity that
for one reason or another is excluded, relegated to the
margin, discriminated or branded by those guarding the
norms. In this manner, the theories of queer focus more
on identity in general than on sexuality; finally, the con
struction and perception of norms (and thus also that,
Karolina Kosińska • THE ANDROGYNE WHO FELL TO EARTH
which is regarded as normal) depend on the way in which
we see the creation or construction of identity.
The theories of queer oppose the same logic that of
fers dichotomies based on what we recognise as concur
rent, or not, with norms. They go on the assumption that
the foundation of oppression is binary division.24 This is
why "queerness” as such is to be based on the instabil
ity (or constant destabilisation) of identities regarded as
“hard”, invariable, and natural. It is to overcome divi
sions, blur boundaries, oppose their hermetic qualities
and ossification, and thus propose fluidity, the flexibility
of all categories thanks to which it will become feasible
to topple an order built on dichotomies and thus the
foundation of eventual oppression. Naturally, reasoning
of this sort is enrooted in a constructivist approach pre
supposing that all identities functioning in social order
(sexual, gender, racial or class) are merely a construc
tion produced by that order. Contrary to the essentialist
model, its constructionist counterpart negates all con
ceptions maintaining that identity is in-born and embed
ded in the psyche of each person from his birth, and that
it is “natural”. In this manner, it discloses the same order
that makes use of the essentialist approach envisaged as a
tool of social control serving the retention of binariness,
norms, and order itself. Stability denotes immobilisation,
and instability - creativity and development. Queer sup
ports the second option.
This manner of perceiving identity leads us in a
straight line towards theories represented by Judith But
ler, who in a number of her works described the concep
tion of performativeness, which pertains to identity. In:
Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity25
Butler intended to undermine universal reflections on
identity as essence, substance, something inherent that
precedes all sorts of discourses, relations or conditions.
In this manner, she criticised reasoning characteristic for
essentionalism, and thus also “the metaphysics of sub
stance” that, she stressed, still exists in philosophical and
sociological thought. Butler evoked those conceits by fol
lowing the example of Nietzsche or rather his commen
tator, Michel Haar, who claimed: (...) a number of philo
sophical ontologies have been trapped within certain illusions
of “Being” and “Substance” that are fostered by the belief that
the grammatical formulation of subject and predicate reflects
the prior ontological reality of substance and attribute. These
constructs, argues Haar, constitute the artificial philosophical
means by which simplicity, order, and identity are effectively
instituted.26 This “metaphysics of substance” permeates
also thinking about the categories of gender - the body
is conceived as a substance, a domain in which gender
is inscribed, closely stemming from that body (and its
biology). By the very nature of things, the body carries
gender, which in turn affects directly connected cultural
gender and desire (in the heteronormative order focused
in an obligatory manner on the other gender). For Butler
one of the most important undertakings intent on un
399
dermining such an approach is the division of the en
forced gender/sex/sexuality triad; this would mean that a
biological woman does not have to be a cultural woman
who due to her nature desires men ("cohesive” both bio
logically and culturally). Shattering this triad would also
signify resignation from gender binariness and thus open
a path towards all those identities that do not find fulfil
ment in such binariness.
Our reflections attach greater importance to the con
sequences of rejecting the "metaphysics of substance” - if
the latter collapses then all categories based on it and
resulting from its logic will lose their raison d’être. Since
substance and essence are mere illusions there is no origi
nal model on which cultural gender is to base itself nor
does there exist any “original” model of man and woman
realised in countless copies; the very concept of natural
ness loses its sense. We are dealing here with sui generis
reification - that, which appears to be natural, inborn,
primary, and pre-discursive is only an artificial product,
the outcome of neutralisation that while suggesting
naturalness and pre-discursiveness retains the stability of
the genders, their binary division, and the order based
upon it. The essentialist model becomes replaced by a
constructivist one - the “original” or the “ideal” are only
social constructs. The performative character of identity
is supposed to consist of a constant repetition of that
“original” or “ideal” and its bodily realisation by means
of gestures, behaviour, and the creation of outer appear
ance, with this process of repetition producing an illusion
of naturalness, the stability of the object and its identity.
There exists, therefore, only the copy, which, in a man
ner of speaking, creates the “original” that, furthermore,
exists exclusively in the symbolic sphere and is a fantasy copied
by subjects exposed to socialisation/culturalisation21 Butler
wrote: Gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no
original; in fact, it is a kind of imitation that produces the very
notion of the original as an effect and consequence of the imi
tation itself. In other words, the naturalistic effects of heterosexualised genders are produced through imitative strategies;
what they imitate is a fantastic ideal of heterosexual identity
one that is produced by the imitation as its effect. In this sense,
the “reality" of heterosexual identities is performatively consti
tuted through an imitation that sets itself up as the original and
the ground of all imitations28 She claimed, however, that
the “roles” that we assume, those ”ideals” constantly imi
tated and embodied by us, are imposed from above and
we have no field for manoeuver - as a subject, we cannot
select our “role”. We receive it under coercion and have
no impact upon it; nor can we reject it or accept another
one since we are incapable of acting outside the “matrix
of intelligibility", a set of standards and norms that define
the way in which we are to look like and behave and
who we are to be so that society could accept us and rec
ognise us as “normal” individuals. Those who transcend
this matrix, beings that are not enclosed in definitions or
norms of identity ’’cohesion”, are usually delegated to the
Karolina Kosińska • THE ANDROGYNE WHO FELL TO EARTH
margin, branded, excluded or ignored. In this situation, a
purposeful realisation of a non-continuum (i. e. to shat
ter the sex/gender/sexuality triad) by, e.g. applying the
drag queen practice, is a strategy of submersion intent on
breaking the compulsory identity continuum in order to
reveal its artificiality, and thus the artificial character of
its stability. Although we are capable of trusting the feminin
ity of a woman, the anxiety, fear or animosity of many people
are caused by the femininity of a man. Such panic is associ
ated quite possibly with the unspoken suspicion that femininity
could be accessible also to men. This would denote that it does
not originate from some sort of feminine specificity, its biology
or essence, regardless of its comprehension, but that the source
exists elsewhere —beyond the subject!29
By referring those conceptions to characters created
first by the authors of glam rock (less consciously) and
then by Todd Haynes (more consciously) one can notice
that the fascination they produce has the same founda
tion as the above-mentioned fear and anxiety. It is suf
ficiently reinforced so that the characters not so much
undermine the stability and cohesion of the identity triad
as totally ignore it. The androgynous creatures of glam
do not exceed the matrix of intelligibility but bypass it,
just as they ignore all standards pertaining to the neutral
ised "original” or "ideal”. The androgyne of glam is not
a drag queen combining the feminine and the masculine
in some sort of a phenomenal melange - in that case we
would be able to still recognise which of its elements cul
turally belongs to which gender. The androgyne noncha
lantly resigns from the attributes of either gender. Natu
rally, there remains the strategy of subversion because
glam and its androgyne constantly mark their artificiality
and demonstratively admit that they are only a copy of
a non-existent original. This copy, however, makes no
claims to being a substance, an essence that is the begin
ning of everything. Glam seems to be saying after But
ler: there is no gender identity apart from its expression;
identity is performatively constituted by “expressions”
alone, which are perceived as its effect.
In daily life, Butler stressed, we imperceptibly try to
neutralise this theatralisation (this is the source of its
success), but glam and Haynes’ protagonists consciously
emphasize theatralisation; in this way they simultane
ously celebrate it and shatter and deconstruct it. It starts
being noticed, which is not to say that it is condemned
or rejected. It simply changes its appearance - Bowie,
Bolan, Pop, Reed, Eno or Ferry followed by Jack Fairy,
Brian Slade, and Curt Wild no longer theatralise their
cultural gender, which is supposed to follow their biologi
cal gender and decide about sexuality, but they theatralise their androgynous identities, their cultural genders
that, paradoxically, do not exist since there is no “recipe”
for a true androgyne, no stable matrix. In this manner,
such activity emphasizes that the idea or primary sub
stance has no raison d’être - the androgynous personas
of the mentioned artists are only temporary realisations
400
of some fleeting fantasy that makes no claims to being
the source and basis of any sort of identity. True, these
are fantasies, but they do not belong to any norm based
on the illusion of "firm” identity, substance or compul
sory binary sex/gender/sexuality order. Fantasies are to
oppose such a system; more, they are supposed to be
constantly aware of the fact that they are no more than
mere fantasies. It was the idea of Curt more than anything,
this —image. Which, of course, no one could ever possibly
live up to, Mandy says to Arthur at a certain moment. As
long as there exists the awareness of “being fiction” there
exist preserved creativeness, liveliness, and ensuing sub
versiveness. Once that awareness vanishes loss becomes
inevitable as does joining the binding, heteronormative
system. Perhaps herein lies an explanation of the fall of
Ziggy and the transformation of Brian and his betrayal.
The latter can possess yet another essential mean
ing for understanding Velvet Goldmine - once again
the study by Judith Butler proves helpful by referring
to psychoanalytical theories on identification and desire.30 Butler wrote: Any intense emotional attachment
thus divides into either wanting to have someone or wanting
to be that someone, but never both at once. It is important
to consider that identification and desire can coexist, and
that their formulation in terms of mutually exclusive op
position serves a heterosexual matrix.31 In the case of the
protagonists of Velvet Goldmine this mutual exclusion is
overcome. Arthur desires Brian and Curt because, i.a.
he wants to be like them. The same process occurs not
only in all fan-star relations but also in relations involv
ing the stars, e.g. Brian-Jack, or Brian-Curt. Certainly,
great importance is attached here to the violation of
the principles of the obligatory order of the sex/gender/sexuality triad; true, almost all the lead characters
in these relations are men (Mandy has been bypassed
and other subversive women are simply missing, a fea
ture that is actually characteristic for glam as a whole).
More, these men not only reject heterosexuality but
also the binding ”realisation” of biological gender by
cultural gender - none of them ”represents” a man
or plays his role. On the other hand, all build on their
bodies an identity that does not belong to the order of
any cultural gender. They ”are“ not men but they also
“are” not women (only Jack Fairy could produce certain
doubt) - nor “are” they even a combination that could
be understandable within the paradigm of the binary
order of genders. Their performance is situated totally
outside categories.
In such a configuration identification and desire
could merge into one, since there is no binariness that
would be capable of dividing them. To be like someone
else does not denote copying - emulation could be un
derstood only in the categories of a function. Brian does
not want to look like Jack nor does he want to copy his
creation - he wants to possess the same force as Jack.
Since he understands that this force stems from the un
Karolina Kosińska • THE ANDROGYNE WHO FELL TO EARTH
defined nature of identity and its instability this is on
what he focuses the desire of imitation.
The androgyne cannot exist without an image. After
all, he does not possess substance and does not exist as
a palpable, real being because he is situated outside that,
which is imaginable and can be categorised. To exist in
the physical reality of daily life means to apply the rules of
that reality and thus the categories and norms suggested
by culture. The set of those categories is strictly defined
and regulated even if it succumbs to constant transfor
mations. The trans-gender character can transgress or
negate such categories and norms; he can rebel against
them but will be always dependent on their existence. He
is embroiled in the definiteness of the “feminine” and the
“masculine” and can only juggle them but will never free
himself from them. The androgyne, however, possesses
such liberty but can exist only as an idea or an image that
cannot be examined to the end. The transference of this
idea and image onto a screen is a task just as subtle as
it is extremely difficult. Ignoring that, which is known,
and entering, even if only by means of a visual presenta
tion, the domain of the unknown and even the unrec
ognisable appears to be an absurd undertaking and one
doomed to failure - how could we show something that
is actually non-existent? A mere product of fantasy? The
cinema, however, can offer us fantasy, and the means of
film expression are capable of not so much presenting it
as proposing a feeling (or premonition) of its presence. If
the androgyne can exist somewhere film can offer him
space as long as the latter resembles a dream and never
touches the Earth.
Endnotes
1 Velvet Goldmine is the title of one of David Bowie's most
outrageous songs.
2 I omit such secondary characters as Gary Glitter and
Suzi Quattro and the bands Slade and Sweet.
3 S. Sontag, Notes on „Camp", full text accessible from:
http://www.math.utah.edu/~lars/Sontag::Notes%20
on%20camp.pdf (accessed 19.12.2013)
4 D. Bergman, in: Camp Grounds. Style and Homosexuality,
ed. D. Bergman, Massachusetts 1993, pp. 4-5.
5 J. Babuscio, Camp and the Gay Sensibility, in: Camp
Grounds... , op. cit., p. 20.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid., p. 21.
8 Ibid., p. 22.
9 Ibid., p. 23.
10 B. Hoskyns, Glam! Bowie, Bolan and the Glitter Rock
Revolution, Faber Paperbacks, 1998.
11 S. Sontag, op. cit.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 http://www.theasc.com/magazine/nov98/velvet/index.
htm interview for "American Cinematographer”.
15 S. Bruzzi, Undressing Cinema. Clothing and Identity in the
Movies, London/New York 1997, p. 176.
16 The term: cross-dressing means "changing” into a costu
me culturally ascribed to another gender. This pheno
401
menon should not be identified with transvestism, in
which it has a rather erotic sub-text; cross-dressing is
usually a wider concept and exceeds the sphere of perso
nal experience. As a social act it could become an
instrument of subversion. On the other hand, it is worth
keeping in mind that there is no single binding defini
tion and that existing ones are subjected to constant
transformations and, as is usual in such cases, give rise
to numerous polemics.
17 Bruzzi, op. cit., p. 176.
18 Ibid., p. XX.
19 Ibid., p. 175.
20 Quotation from the film.
21 Jack is very loosely inspired by Brian Eno and Bryan
Ferry, members of the Roxy Music band, regarded as one
of the artistically superior within glam rock. From them
Jack borrows his surname and a disturbing, innate cha
risma, often attributed to Eno who rather distinctly
realised the merge of two genders while strongly accen
tuating features belonging to the stereotype of feminini
ty.
22 See: K. Kosińska, Drzwi już otwarte. New Queer Cinema,
www.celuloid.pl, no. 1. 1.10.2003. (http://celuloid.pl/
artykuly_cale.html?artykul = 71efcd0813a93cd&numer=1).
23 www.avclub.com/articles/todd Haynes 13566.
24 See: J. Gamson, Must Identity Movements, in: Queer
Theory/Sociology, ed. S. Seidman, Cambridge, 1996, p.
396.
25 J. Butler, Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of
Identity, Routledge, New York-London 1990.
26 Ibidem, p. 28.
27 D. K. Balejko, Teatr ról płciowych. Teorie o performatywnym charakterze tożsamości płciowej w oparciu o film Jennie
Livingston Paris Is Burning oraz teksty teoretyczne Judith
Butler, in: Gender w humanistyce, ed. Małgorzata
Radkiewicz, Kraków 2001, p. 136.
28 J. Butler, Imitation and Gender Insubordination, in: The
Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, eds. H. Abelove, M. A.
Barale, D. M. Halperin, Routledge, New York-London
1993, p. 313.
29 D. K. Balejko, op. cit., p. 137.
30 Further on Butler mentioned the equally interesting
problem of the nature of the existence of identity and its
constitution. First, she recalled Freud and his theory of
incorporation, which she then compared to the concept
of mimetic identification expounded by Mikael BorchJacobsen and Ruth Leys; to a certain extent she accep
ted both. These conceits suggest that the psychic sub
ject, identity, is never primeval or stems from itself,
neither is it cohesive and self-identical. It is always con
stituted by the Others. Finally, Butler combined both
theories into a single one. Although they may exert a
considerable impact on an interpretation of the relations
between the protagonists and comprise a base for further
reflections within the context of Haynes' film, due to
insufficient space I shall concentrate only on identifica
tion and desire. Ibidem, pp. 316-318.
31 Ibidem, p. 316.