Alligator Earrings and the Fishhook in the Face

Bibliographic Data

ID8070554
AuthorsNicole Seymour (0000-0003-2581-6404, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume2
Issue2
Pages261-279
Publication date2015-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueTSQ Transgender Studies Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2328-9252 • E-ISSN: 2328-9260
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/23289252-2867561
OpenAlexW2302354263
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited22

This article considers the performances of “animal drag” that appear across the affiliated US media projects of Jackass (the television program and film franchise) and Wildboyz (the television program). Drawing on transgender studies scholarship, as well as recent work in affect theory, animal studies, and environmental studies, Nicole Seymour argues that these performances—which include, for example, a human inserting a fishhook in his face before being thrown into shark-infested waters—constitute an extension of this media corpus's general investment in affective interconnectivity. As Seymour shows, such performances ask us to feel along with the performers, which includes feeling along with them as animals. Paying attention to the comic as well as the tragic resonances of animal drag, the article outlines the ethical role that nonserious affective modes can play in probing the trans-, or intersectional and interdependent, nature of human and nonhuman life

Aesthetics · Art · Face (sociological concept · Media studies · Political science · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Transgender · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism

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