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Queer Theory Reading Group
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.
The setup
Watch on YouTube
Watch onYouTube
The premise
Here’s the bit.
Deirdre tries to keep up with a dense discussion of gender and language while her new partner Rachel offers refreshments. Rachel’s affectionate interruptions and clumsy attempts to address the group expose the distance between its scholarly vocabulary and ordinary social life. Soon Deirdre’s own relationship becomes the subject of analysis, leaving her to defend both her intellectual credentials and her choice of partner.
The funny people
Meet the cast. 6
Say it with us
Highly quotable.
It's not really a book club.
That's your right eye.
Behind the scenes
The people who made it.
Carolyn Taylor
Writer
Moynan King
Writer
A little extra
Notes from the archive.
Carolyn Taylor and Moynan King co-wrote the sketch, drawing on King’s real queer theory reading group, according to Taylor’s 2019 DAME interview.
Script
Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.
- 00:00
Deirdre ?
Yeah, but we're not talking about Levin and Goebert here. What we're getting at is Butler, right, and her sense of, um, the sort of performativity of gender. But she's not talking about performing ourselves, per se. It's more about iterations.
- 00:16
Yeah. Like, within a construct of the gender binary. Perpetuated by the patriarchal capitalist machine.
- 00:22
Deirdre ?
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
- 00:24
Rachel ?
Hi!
- 00:24
Deirdre ?
Hey, lover!
- 00:25
Hi! Oh, hi!
- 00:26
Rachel ?
Hi, how's the gay book club going?
- 00:29
Deirdre ?
Oh, it's, well, it's not really a book club. It's a queer theory reading group.
- 00:33
Rachel ?
Oh, yes, that's, yeah, I know, yep. Do you girls want a drink?
- 00:42
It's not really girls. No. It's not girls.
- 00:45
Rachel ?
Women, would you women like?
- 00:47
It's not really girls.
- 00:48
Rachel ?
You guys? You guys want?
- 00:50
Not guys.
- 00:50
Rachel ?
No? You folks want a bite to eat some food? I'm gonna go. Nico, for all of you. Here I go.
- 00:59
Deirdre ?
Yeah, it's a new relationship. She can't shake her essentialist view of gender.
- 01:04
Well, who can?
- 01:09
Rachel ?
What's so funny? What's so funny?
- 01:13
Deirdre ?
Oh, just the notion that we don't write culture, we're written by it.
- 01:17
Rachel ?
Oh, that's hilarious.
- 01:22
So funny.
- 01:25
Rachel ?
Do you want a sandwich?
- 01:27
Deirdre ?
Oh, yeah, totally, yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, babe. Thanks, baby.
- 01:32
Did Deirdre just, um... Infantilize her partner? Did she? Did she?
- 01:40
Deirdre ?
Did I? Or did I just unconsciously get caught in the ideological crush of the linguistic grid?
- 01:49
Ooh, drop the mic.
- 01:50
Deirdre ?
Thank you.
- 01:51
But Althusser might suggest that it was actually Rachel who answered the interpolating call of baby.
- 01:57
Rachel ?
And Lisa Left Eye Lopez may suggest that the system got you victim to your own mind. Boom.
- 02:08
That's your right eye.
- 02:10
Rachel ?
Gonna let you get back to your gay book club.
- 02:12
It's Queer Theory Reading Group.
- 02:17
Rachel ?
Yes. Okay.
- 02:21
Deirdre ?
We both bring different things to the relationship.
- 02:23
Rachel ?
We do. We do. We do. And I bring a little bit of... Junk in the trunk, huh? Junk in the trunk, I'm bringing it.
- 02:34
Deirdre ?
Uh, you know what, I'm going to give her a hand in the kitchen.
- 02:39
Okay, but not a literal hand, right?
- 02:41
Deirdre ?
Hey, it's, um, it's a very fulfilling relationship. It's very fulfilling.
The rabbit hole continues
One more couldn’t hurt.
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