A Study Of The Gender Performativity In Angels In America

Among contemporary American playwrights, Tony Kushner is regarded as the most embraced one by the audience and critics alike in the1990s. His masterpiece Angels in America:A Gay Fantasia on National Themes has been placed in the "position of having to rescue American theatre" ever since its debut by critics and pundits. The epic play criticizes a variety of crises in American society, but as the subtitle discloses, the queer playwright is in the hope of making the whole society understand homosexuals and eliminate misunderstandings and discrimination for them so as to get them the equal rights and living space among heterosexual world.The thesis attempts to take gender identity as the entry point and applies Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity to analyze the formation and fluidity of the main characters’gender identity in Angels. The author of the thesis argues that gender is not innate but the product of the performance of social norms and culture, which means homosexuals are not inborn freaks but the product of heterosexual hegemony. This provides foundation and possibility for them to fight for equal rights and survival.First of all, the author analyzes the masculine performatives in Angels in America. Joe and Roy are homosexuals in the closet, as can be imagined that their sex preference is not accepted by the heterosexual society, which makes them have to construct their gender identity through conforming to gender norms set by heterosexual hegemony. Thus they perform masculinity at the aspects of manhood, heterosexual marriage, power chasing and repressing and denying homosexuality until they are true men in the eyes of heterosexuals. Furthermore, the author expounds the feminine performatives in Angels. Belize and Prior, both homosexuals out of the closet, also construct their gender identity through gender performativity. However, the failure in the process of performing gender norms gets them to show femininity in the respects of drag, speaking style, emotion etc, and finally obtain feminine gender that is different from their biological sex. Finally, the author probes into the gender fluidity in Angels. Joe and Louis who are gays perform masculinity first and femininity later in the play, which fully demonstrates the instability and fluidity of gender. The homosexuals can acquire different genders and show gender fluidity by performing gender norms, which deconstructs gender norms and masculine/feminine dichotomy and provides possibility of living for gender others.