TOW #8 – IRB: Eating Fire, My Life as a Lesbian Avenger by Kelly Cogswell (Part II)

In the second half of Eating Fire, My Life as a Lesbian Avenger the lesbian activist group has officially started to disband. The rumors of the group being racist and exclusive have ruined the reputation of the organization. All of the original leaders have distanced themselves from the organization in order to protect their own person reputations, Kelly Cogswell and her girlfriend Ana were some of those leaders. Upon leaving the group Kelly and her girlfriend decide to live in Paris for a few years. They feel that a brief hiatus from America will help them find who they are again.

            Kelly’s primary audience is minorities and people who are unsure of who they are. After finishing the book, I no longer believe that Kelly’s purpose is to speak the truth of the Lesbian Avengers. Instead I believe her purpose is to teach her audience that it’s important to find your identity.

The end of the book is less about the activist group and more about Kelly herself. Due to the group disbanding because of rumors of white supremacy and exclusion Kelly felt like she lost who she was at the beginning of the group. This is why the whole second half is more about her than the group. 

Kelly achieves her purpose through her use of personal anecdotes. Kelly retells her struggle of trying to remember who she was before she helped created the Lesbian Avengers. With the help of her girlfriend Ana she travels through Europe and rediscovers her identity as a lesbian and an activist.

TOW #7 – Visual Text: ‘One Bad Night’ directed and written by Hayley Kiyoko

Hayley Kiyoko is an indie pop singer-songwriter. Recently she directed and released a music video for her song ‘One Bad night’ from her third solo EP, ‘Citrine’. The video follows two young adults both having terrible nights, however the female lead’s night is significantly worse.

The video follows trans activist Erin Armstrong as she walks down the street to face constant harassment from the men she passed, eventually she is pinched down by two men and repeatedly punched in the face. Luckily the video’s male lead ends up fighting off her attackers and saving her. The video ends with the two of them at a diner having a meal together and turning the terrible night into a good one.

Erin Armstrong was the first transgender person to document her transition on YouTube (today her channel is still focused on trans issues). Hayley purposely used a trans actress as her lead. She wanted to bring awareness to the violence that trans people have to deal with every day. Since a majority of her fan base is a part of the LGBTQ community most of her songs and music videos related to LGBTQ themes.

 Shortly after the video was released she was asked what she wanted people to get out of the video, she tweeted, ‘human compassion. To look out for one another. And to find hope in humanity’. Hayley believes that anyone can become a hero and that their heroic act doesn’t have to be as drastic as what the male lead did, it could be something as simple as smiling at someone.

TOW #6 – Article: The First Time I Fell in Love by Mark Duplass

Mark Duplass is the writer and producer of the movie Blue Jay. His movie is about high school sweethearts who accidentally reconnect 20 years later. In the article Duplass tells the story of his first ever love. He goes through when they met to how they fell in love and worked as a couple then finally to how they broke up. At the end of the article Duplass mentions how he used to wish he could go back and talk to his teenage self so he could teach him how to love correctly and maintain a healthy relationship. However, in the paragraph after he recants that statement and says that he wouldn’t change that experience for the world because it helped shape who he is.

            Duplass’s purpose is to convince people to live with no regrets. He wants his audience to realize that every little thing that they’ll ever experience in their lifetime helps creates who they are. It doesn’t matter if it was a good experience or a bad one it affects them either way. Duplass uses an anecdote of his first love to help him get this across to his audience. The anecdote describes a bittersweet experience that Duplass uses to portray the good and bad events. In the beginning of his relationship he learned what it was like to fall in love and how great of an adventure it is. Then by the end of the relationship Duplass was forced to see how complex relationships actually are and how people can change over time. He acknowledges how he carried what he learned for the rest of his life and even implemented them in other relationships he was in.

            His primary audience for the article is people who just got out of a relationship. This is shown through the context of the article which is the ending of a longer term and serious relationship. However, his secondary audience is anyone because his purpose can be applied to all aspects of life not just romantic relationships.