Deterritorialization

William Zanzinger killed poor Hattie Carroll
With a cane that he twirled around his diamond ring finger
At a Baltimore hotel society gathrin’
And the cops were called in and his weapon took from him
And they rode him in custody down to the station
And booked William Zaninger for first degree murder
But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears,
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain’t the time for your tears

William Zanzinger, who at twenty-four years
Owns a tobacco farm of six hundred acres
With rich wealthy parents who provide and protect him
And high office relations in the politics of Maryland,
Reacted to his deed with a shrug of his shoulders
And swear words and sneering, and his tongue it was snarling,
In a matter of minutes on bail was out walking
But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears,
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain’t the time for your tears.

Hattie Carroll was a maid of the kitchen
She was fifty-one years old and gave birth to ten children
Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage
And never sat once at the head of the table
And didn’t even talk to the people at the table
Who just cleaned up all the food from the table
And emptied the ashtrays on a whole other level
Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane
That sailed through the air and came down through the room,
Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle
And she never done nothing to William Zanzinger
But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears,
Take the rag away from your face
Now ain’t the time for your tears.

In the courtroom of honor, the judge pounded his gavel
To show that all’s equal and that the courts are on the level
And that the strings in the books ain’t pulled and persuaded
And that even the nobles get properly handled
Once that the cops have chased after and caught ’em
And that the ladder of law has no top and no bottom,
Stared at the person who killed for no reason
Who just happened to be feelin’ that way without warnin’
And he spoke through his cloak, most deep and distinguished,
And handed out strongly, for penalty and repentance,
William Zanzinger with a six-month sentence
Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears,
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now’s the time for your tears.

The beast has eyes before him

Segregation-machines

It has always been known that the first order of the world was a male order, that men dictated over women and the normal dictated over the queer. But I often don’t find that the case any more – apart from the occasional dickwit who says ‘No way could a bird ever be prime minister’ I think that largely the view of people and the world has become a lot more liberal.

But looking at cultural texts I think, is our world still run by a misogynistic hetero-machine? Largely, yes. As Guattari writes in Becoming-Woman, the opposition of things reduces them to an either-or, always contains an ulterior motive of one-over-the-other (1996:43). This reduction enforces the operation of power. The opposition of adult and adolescent creates an even more powerful divide between people than that of adult and child, and it is when adolescents are put into this ‘other’ category by institutions that the anxiety of entering “normal adulthood”, that Guattari mentions, is onset (1996:67). To go from a space of being an adolescent to approaching adulthood is pretty daunting, as we see when Chris is put in the situation of taking the ‘adult’ responsibility of looking after his mother’s house in Skins. Instead of becoming responsible he reacts toward what people expect of him, his microworld opposing the approaching adult macrocosm. His lack of care for his (impressive) tropical fish tank is a little bit of opposition to the sophisticated world of responsibility. Guattari writes,

I think that adolescence, as far as i can recognize it, constitutes a real micro-revolution, involving multiple components, some of which threaten the world of adults. (1996:64)

Chris reacts against the adult-machine by playing to, and at the same time, subverting their expectations. In Secretary (Stephen Shainberg, 2002) Lee does a similar thing – becoming a secretary to re-place herself into society as a regular, dull office worker. But to her that act is just the means by which she gets into the machine of the everyday worker, it doesn’t provide any real life sensation. Her subjectivity exists outside of this assemblage of the normal, and she serves this by choosing a (mutual) relationship of sexual subjection. Her participation in these acts of bdsm marks the remaking of her ‘existential territories with dopings’ (Guattari 1996:104) – she participates in the ‘process’ but uses it as an outlet for her own subjective desires.