field notes on queer nightlife
Clubs!! ---> Mirabar (“the twink underwear party place plus straight girls”) ... Club Hell (Zetes go on fetish night... “watch out it’s lots of leather”)...Dark Lady (“lesbians”)...Eagle (daddiez, hair hair hair, won’t let me in)
-My time at Mirabar last year involved a 4 hour adventure with two straight friends, both of them women of color who are Brown students...they were hit on each by at least three different men who wanted to take them home...presence of straight women with their guard down-->attracts nongay boys
-Most young-ish gay men were not Brown students I think...I think i’d know them if they were
-racially mixed...about 50% of men appeared to be men of color and 50% white....women much more homogenously white demographic
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-ZONING PATTERNS WITHIN CLUB---->twinx in corner, daddies by the bar, more daddies upstairs
-Mirabar is a vertical club, you can look down from the balcony and watch dancers
-Who gets employed by clubs? Bartenders, Busboyz, Ticket salespeople...largely white and super skinny..
-THIS IS A MUSIC YOUTH CULTURES CLASS...what is the music associated with queer nightlife?
-Oliver:: fetish night at Hell conflates kink with goth soundtrack
-Mirabar=club mixes of popular music, lots of Britney & Rihanna
-video bar---->i don’t get this concept...
Adam Green (jstor)...-->there’s a pecking order based on whiteness and economic status to access of ownership in queer neighborhood life...but is this remotely relevant in clubland?...clubs as capable to level these things’
connections with readings::
-Goth as a site of sexual freedom, boundaries as fluid applies to capability of transcending sexual limits
-Maira->describes caste system based on notions of desirability as it relates to race...is this skin-tone-based pecking order a gendered thing as it is among men/women in Desi scene?
-Is queer nightlife implicitly a subculture and separate from mainstream?...THORNTON...mainstream’s boundaries are fluid, but don’t queer venues exist in opposition to a homophobic or generally an antiqueer mainstrem?
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ReplyDeleteFrom your field notes, it looks like there are so much that you can focus on for this project. I am especially interested in an aspect of queer nightlife that you've touched upon.
ReplyDeleteQueer nightclubs tend to be spaces where different personal and sexual expressions are encouraged. However, they, like you mentioned, tends to privilege or cater to certain queer images over others. If possible, I think it will be interesting to see how music is used in the production of the different queer images of these clubs. Possible questions to answer could be: What is queer music? Is there any single common factor that brands certain music to be queer-able? How are they perceived and received by the queer crowd that attend these clubs?
I believe your project have the potential, if you decide to, to be informative towards understanding what is the role of queer nightclubs within Providence, not just queer Providence, as they surely do not have exclusively queer crowds, as you have pointed out at Mirabar.
Good first set of notes with close attention to the social scene. You are already asking some very productive questions and making links with the scholarship we've looked at in class. My advice is to not get caught up in trying to hone in on a thesis too soon. Fieldnotes are meant to be about your own immediate observations, visceral experiences, and your conversations with people in the scene, so stay open to what comes your way. What was the music like? Did you speak to anyone in the club? How were people dressed? It would be good to hear more of your own voice and experience as well.
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