Queering the canon
June 25, 2023 - Open and Affirming Sunday
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| Different versions of Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse. Signed by Suarez '15. Source: https://wallpapercave.com/w/wp2324482 |
Most story arcs or collection of works have what is called 'canon': a standard of judgment regarding the characters, storyline, and events of that story arc or collection. For example, in the Nancy Drew series, in all of the books, Nancy solves mysteries, often with two friends, Bess and George, along with her boyfriend, Ned; she lives at home with her widowed father, a lawyer, along with their housekeeper and cook, Hannah Gruen. Those details are considered canon in the Nancy Drew mystery series, that is, they do not change. They are treated as facts.
Some story arcs or collection of works give rise to what is called 'fan fiction'. For example, the Star Wars universe, amongst many others, has inspired many an author to write books based on their own alternative storylines, introducing new characters and imagining entirely different outcomes. These stories operate outside the accepted canon, what is known as apocryphal or outside the realm of what is considered representative. The canon cannot evolve or change, otherwise it loses its authority.
Most current fan fiction is written by anyone who wants to engage with a story and characters that are meaningful to them. I can imagine that a great deal of fan fiction is written by people who want to see themselves and people like them represented in a beloved story. Because that story is significant to them, seeing themselves in the story can become a source of liberation and power.
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| Poster with a rainbow colored frame and pale pink background. Quote by Bernice King: "if you don't think representation matters, you're probably well represented." "representation" is circled in mustard yellow, "matters" is underlined in lavender. @thehappyhuesco |
However, since the discovery of quantum physics and the theory of multiple universes existing simultaneously, one character can now have an infinite number of story arcs and representations. In the recent movie, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, we meet spider people of varying ages, genders, colors, species, even a 14 year old girl genetically linked to robot armor and that radioactive spider that brings them together. But even in the Spider-Verse there is a canon to uphold. In every spider person's story there are certain events that always take place called canon events. These cannot be interfered with, otherwise chaos ensues.
At least, that's what we're told. That's what we've always been told. Do not interfere with what has been declared canon. By people, usually men, who do not need liberation, so they think, because they're the ones making the decisions for everyone else. Everyone else who does not have the decision-making power, who desperately need liberation.
The New Testament or Christian scriptures were not completely canonized until the 4th century and the Eastern and Western churches did not agree until the 5th century. In my non-scholarly point of view, what had been forgotten is that from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is anti-empire. It is about the liberation of captives and enslaved people and the downfall of powers and principalities. And yet here was the Church hand-in-hand with empire deciding what writings would be canon and which would not.
If what is canon is to continue to have any authority, it must be read through the eyes, the experience of the oppressed. What I call 'queering the canon'. The experience of those who suffer because of the dominant culture. The experience of those who are not straight, not cisgender, not White, who are not able-bodied, who are not neurotypical, who are not housed, you get the idea. In which the present dominant culture is written in as the oppressor.
Sarah's attitude toward Hagar should disturb us. Not knowing which son Abraham feels distressed about should disturb us. God calling Hagar not by her name but referring to her as 'slave woman' should disturb us. Hagar and Ishmael are every family with a trans kid trying to figure out where is the safest place for them to live. They are every family of color that has had to move out of a gentrified neighborhood or who can't get a loan because of redlining. They are Native peoples who have been denied water rights on their own reservation. They are 1,000 migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea. They are every homeless and unhoused person who has been forced out of their camp and their belongings tossed.
Queering the canon means that these stories are intended to be disruptive to the status quo, to the dominant culture. Queering the canon means bending the moral arc of the universe and us bending with it. Queering the canon means acknowledging and being in relationship with God who is queer: God who is beyond gender and sexuality, God who is in the entire world and the entire world is in God, God who is becoming as we are becoming.
Remember that Pride began as both a protest and a party, resistance and rejoicing, disruption and deep, deep joy. Queerness liberates all of us from our tombs, from "the way it's supposed to be" to acceptance, affirmation, and a profound 'alleluia'.
Happy Pride, Church! Amen.
Benediction - enfleshed.com
You belong to the siblinghood of interdependence.
You belong to the ecosystem of care.
You are belong just as you are.
You are beloved just as you are.
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