CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Paulauskas, Donatas |
|---|---|
| Title | How Vladimir Putin Became a Gay Icon: A Reparative Reading of Queer Political Iconography |
| Summary | My thesis focuses on recent forms of queer political iconography and its relation to the tradition of such iconography. I take to analyze “drag Putin” as a recent iconographical phenomenon which has been widely (re)produced in gay prides, public protests, media, and social networks by different LGBTQ/queer groups around the world that seek to confront the homophobic politics of Vladimir Putin. However, the ambiguous character of drag Putin has been raising conflicting emotions, opinions and evaluations within queer communities that follow from differently perceived strategies of the visual politics of this image. Hence, I set my research direction to examine, first, the iconographical strategies of drag Putin and its relation to the previous forms of queer political iconography (especially the iconography of ACT UP) and, second, the hermeneutical conflicts that shape different perceptions of drag Putin. I also determine my orientation to “reparative reading” (as theorized by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick) as the guiding mode of my interpretational work that can take into account all the complexities and ambiguities of queer political iconographies, and explain the functioning of those iconographies without falling into “paranoid” theories or interpretations. Reparative reading shows that the political load of drag Putin is based on the critical incorporation of Putin’s image into the iconography of queer movements and culture, which simultaneously is supported by critical intimacies, the pleasure of critique and the sexualization of Putin within gay culture. At the end of the thesis, I suggest the term “queer reparative picturing” that defines this and other visual reparative practices of queer communities, and opens up a field of possible research on visual politics in queer political organization. |
| Supervisor | Hölzl, Julia |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/paulauskas_donatas.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University