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Isabella Hays-Velasco

Professor Batty

English 102

24 October 2019

What Defines Us?: An Argument of Heteronormative Subversion

Growing up with parents who worked in a nightclub in West Hollywood, I was immersed

in the LGBT community from practically birth. Many of my “aunts” and “uncles” identified as

lesbian or gay, and I was acquantied with drag queens, transgender people, and several other

members of the community. Because of my upbringing, I always looked at the LGBTQ

community as a normal part of life; being gay or bi was just as common as being straight. I did

not even realize that my experience was not common until I went to school and saw how many

of my classmates had a negative mindset or just simply did not understand the concept of being

anything but straight. With the knowledge that others have a skewed outlook towards people in

the community, writtens pieces of work that relay the LGBTQ experience and subvert societal

norms are all the more important. Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: Millennium Approaches

addresses the challenges queer people faced in the 1980s, and still face, like sexual identity and

AIDS, and, while people may argue that the play witholds traditional binaries by its deliverance

of the LGBTQ message through predominately homosexual male figures, it invites us to question

heteronormative binaries, exemplyfying gender and sexual fluidity through characters who do

not wholly fall into traditional gender or sexual roles.

LGBTQ is a major theme throughout the play as there are several queer characters who

all face their own struggles, specifically sexual identity and the reprecussions of AIDS. Joe Pitt, a

chief clerk who is married to Harper, struggles to come to terms with the fact that he is sexually
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attracted to men. He has a wife and is a devout Mormon, and, in his mind, both those things

directly conflict with his sexual identity. “Fighting, with everything [he has], to kill [his

urgings]”(Kushner 28), Joe does not know how to be his true self, and he tries to suppress

everything that makes him appear in anyway feminine. Roy Cohen, a lawyer who “is a

heterosexual man [...] who fucks around with guys” (31), does not identify as gay, and whether it

be because he is prejudice towards gay people because “homosexuals [...] have zero clout” (31),

is afraid of the social implications, truly does not identify as gay because he is on the queer

spectrum, or some combination of these ideas, he is very much stricken with a diagnosis that in

the 1980’s led to several lives lost in the LGBTQ+ community: AIDS.

The play is set in New York in 1985, during the height of the AIDS epidemic, and the

mass hysteria and hypocrisy towards individuals with the disease, like the characters in the play,

are its peak. In Amy Schindler’s article “Angels and the AIDS Epidemic: The Resurgent

Popularity of Angel Imagery in the United States of America,” she discusses the implication of

AIDS, specifically noting that “AIDS [has been] associated in the United with already

stigmatized minority groups, and positive HIV status is freighted with notions of blame and

moral responsibility for “deviant” acts such as homosexual behavior and intravenous drug use”

(Schindler 58). The characters who have the disease are affected by this stigma, and those around

them are affected by the fatality of the disease. As previously stated, Roy has AIDS, and instead

of being truthful about his diagnosis, he tells his doctor that “AIDS is what homosexuals have [;

he has] liver cancer” (Kushner 47). But, it is understandable why he would not want that to be

public knowledge as he is a public figure who lives to control, and, during this time period, just

the knowledge of him being gay could put several strikes against him. Roy is forcefully pushing

Joe into moving to DC as “[Roy is] sick [and the Justice Department smells that he is] weak[;]
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they want blood this time [so he] must have eyes in Justice [, and in] Justice [Joe] will protect

[him]” (71). Due to his disease, Roy puts further strain on Joe, who is struggling with his

identity, and on Joe’s relationship with Harper as she does not want to move. Roy is extremely

persistent as he is facing disbarment and wants to remain a lawyer until he dies, and he will

selfishly put his interests above others to achieve his goal. In an almost role reversal besides the

commonality of AIDS, Prior Walter, a gay man who is in a relationship with Louis, is the first

character who the audience discovers has AIDS, and his story is the one the audience can easily

emphatize with. Kushner fully details the tolls that Prior’s body and mind is undergoing as he

has several lessons, is hospitalized, and is excreting bloody feces. Moreover, his boyfriend

abandons him in the hospital in the midst of fighting the disease. But, Prior never truly pities

himself or allows others to feel sorry for him. When he is being discharged from the hospital, he

notes that his “ankles sore and swollen but the legs better[,] BM’s pure liquid but not bloody

anymore[, and] [his] glands are like walnuts [but his] weight’s holding steady for week two [;] so

[he] guess[es] [he’s] doing OK” (102). He looks at the disease in a realistic manner,

acknowledging that the symptoms are terrible and the odds are not completely in his favor but

realizing that at least he is still alive.

Before introducing how the play subverts binaries, it is necessary to acknowledge the

counterargument that the work actually upholds them. Kushner features mostly white

homosexual male characters, and one could argue that he reinforces the binaries of gay/straight

and man/woman by placing emphasis on the “gay” and “man” in his play. In David Savran’s

article “Ambivalence, utopia, and a queer sort of materialism: how 'Angels in America'

reconstructs the nation,” he discusses how the play features five gay protagonists who represent

the gay influence in the United States. He notes the prevalence of homosexuality in the
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representation of queer people in the media and how women are often placed in the background

to propel the gay narrative:

It appears that the representation of (usually male) homosexual desire has become the

privileged emblem of that endangered species, the serious Broadway drama. But I

wonder finally how subversive this queering of Broadway is when women, in this play at

least, remain firmly in the background. What is one to make of the remarkable ease with

which Angels in America has been accommodated to that lineage of American drama

(and literature) that focuses on masculine experience and agency and produces women as

the premise for history, as the ground on which it is constructed? Are not women

sacrificed - yet again - to the male citizenry of a (queer) nation? (Savran).

Kushner’s focus on the gay experience, and, therefore, male experience, propels their stories

forward and, as a result, pushes the female characters to the background. Women like Harper,

Joe’s wife, and Hannah, Joe’s mother, have their own revelations, but their characters are used

mainly to propel the progression or regression of the male characters. It can be argued that this

further exemplifies the distinction between the two binaries rather than the intersection as the

women in the play are subject to societal norms of being less important than men. However,

Kushner’s characters do not totally fit into traditional sexual or gender roles, and in that vein, the

defiance from the norms blurs the lines between the binaries and skews the labels society has

assigned.

Angels in America subverts the heteronormative binaries of gay/straight and male/female,

featuring characters who display sexual and gender fluidity. Roy Cohn is a character whose

sexual identity is hard to define as, which was previously discussed, he is a straight man who

fucks men; he states that he is not defined by “who [he] fucks or who fucks [him], but who will
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pick up the phone when [he calls], who owes [him] favors” (Kushner 46). While one can say that

he is claiming to not be gay because of the negative conotation surrounding homosexuality and

his own homophobic ideas, it can be argued that Roy does not want a label to define his

sexuality. You can be a man who sleeps with men and not be gay; you do not have to adhere to

society’s definition of what your sexuality should be. In regards to gender roles throughout the

play, several male characters exhibit traits that are not stereotypically male and subvert the

male/female binary. Prior and Belize, a nurse and Prior’s ex, are both former drag queens who

display stereotypically feminine qualities when they talk, and even when they physically express

themselves. In a conversation when Prior is hospitalized, Belize even notes that “all this girl-talk

shit is politically incorrect [; they] should have dropped it back when [they] gave up drag” (64).

Belize acknowledges the privilege they have to be able to switch gender expressions and remain

the societal dominant gender, but it would not be necessary to be “politically correct” if society

did not strictly define gender. In addition, Prior even does his hair and dramatically applies his

makeup to make himself feel better during a dream sequence which exemplifies that traditionally

female habits are applicable no matter what gender you are. Their linguistic and physical

expressions highlight that people do not have to exhibit only male or female traits based on their

gender; we are allowed to be fluid and express what defines us.

Angels in America: Millennium Approaches is a play that allows us to realize the gay

experience, specifically in 1980s New York, and makes us question heteronormative binaries

that society has assigned to us. Being able to view someone else’s experience, whether it be in-

person, through readings, or orally, allows us to understand people who we may have a

misconceived perception of based on stereotypes and hearsay. Also, learning from others’ stories

encourages us to question the boxes society has put us into. When we learn to empathize with
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others who we may find different and express ourselves outside of societal norms, we go further

away from the division that has plagued both the country and our world and grow closer in unity.
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Works Cited

Kushner, Tony, et al. Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes : Revised and

Complete Edition. Vol. Revised edition, Theatre Communications Group, 2013.

EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=797400&site=eds-live.

Savran, David. "Ambivalence, utopia, and a queer sort of materialism: how 'Angels in America'

reconstructs the nation." Theatre Journal, vol. 47, no. 2, 1995, p. 207+. Literature

Resource Center,

https://library.lavc.edu:2480/apps/doc/A17181486/LitRC?u=lavc_main&sid=LitRC&xid

=f8d917f7.

Schindler, Amy. “Angels and the AIDS Epidemic: The Resurgent Popularity of Angel Imagery

in the United States of America.” Journal of American Culture (01911813), vol. 22, no. 3,

Fall 1999, p. 49. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1542-734x.1999.2203_49.x.