Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo

“Look Out New World, Here We Come”? Race, Racialization, and Sexuality in Four Children's Animated Films by Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks

In this essay, the authors argue that, as suggested by Giroux, animated films offer children intricate teachings about race and sexuality, guiding children through the complexities of highly racialized and sexualized scenarios. Moreover, the authors explain how animated films for children teach children how to maneuver within the general terrain of “race” and “sexuality,” and they highlight quite specific differences. Thus, in their role as agents of socialization and “portable professors,” these films provide children with the necessary tools to reinforce expectations about normalized racial and sexual dynamics.

Citizenship and the Browning of Terror

Since September 11, 2001, and the onset of the U.S.-led “War on Terror,” U.S. presidential rhetoric has consistently acted to demarcate the boundaries of the “American” and “un-American” by reinforcing the contours of multiple binary pairs. These binaries convey a story of citizenship, race relations, and nationality, which began in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 events when President Bush remarked, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” The invocation of an us/them binary did not simply convey to a preexisting American audience the president’s direction in a post–September 11 world; rather, the framing served to interrogate the very categories of “American” and “un-American,” acting to construct them anew. In the new constitution of the American subject, a conflation between citizenship and nationality was invoked. We agree with Engin Isin and Bryan Turner who point out that a fundamental weakness of modern notions of citizenship is that citizenship is synonymous with nationality. Within such a construction, a threat to one (citizenship) becomes a threat to the other (the nation), and vice versa.

475° FROM SEPTEMBER 11: Citizenship, immigration, same-sex marriage, and the browning of terror

Under US leadership, political structures in the post-9/11 world have developed and deployed rhetorical techniques aimed at identifying, excluding, and prosecuting specific bodies. In this paper, we analyze governmental and cultural rhetoric in the United States during 2006 on the issues of immigration (including immigration policies and proposed reform) and same-sex marriage (including bans to same-sex marriage via constitutional amendments), and we connect the rhetorical devices used to address these two concerns with constructions of US citizenship, notions of Americanness and the ongoing waging of war. Specifically, we highlight the conversion of ‘terrorists,’ immigrants, and same-sex couples into deviant bodies detached from US mainstream culture. That is to say, we concentrate on the social transformation of these bodies into ‘brown’ bodies – bodies perceived as threats and as requiring strict containment.

Sexual(ized) Terrorist Threats in an Age of Marriage Equality

Lugo-Lugo and Bloodsworth-Lugo consider the fact that the 9/11 era has witnessed two parallel happenings in relation to state and federal recognition of same-sex marriage. As a number of states passed amendments to their constitutions prohibiting the legal recognition of same-sex couples, Supreme Court decisions rendered them unconstitutional. Same-sex couples have been part of the public discourse on sexuality—a discourse that, at times, positioned these couples on a par with terrorist threats. The authors explain that different groups across the United States have construed same-sex marriage as a threat to American society. They examine public discourse around same-sex marriage, and develop a feminist analysis around same-sex couples within a society that has been trained to identify threats to the stability and security of the nation.

Race, Gender, Sexuality, and the Threat of “Anchor/Terror Babies”

Lugo-Lugo and Bloodsworth-Lugo analyze the discourse around immigration and its allusions to invasion and (in)security informed by the 9/11 construction of “terrorist attacks”—a discourse initiated by President George W. Bush in the wake of the September 11, 2001 events. Discussions surrounding “anchor babies,” seen as the offspring of “illegal aliens,” situate women’s bodies (and more specifically, Latina bodies) as a new threat to the security of the country via fertility rates and citizenship status (similar to discussions of the war on terror as “a new kind of war”). To illustrate, the authors use conservative discourse surrounding “anchor/terror babies,” as public figures began to formulate women’s bodies as carriers of terrorist fetuses/babies, thereby offering a different formulation of immigrants and babies in a 9/11 era.

Gender, Race/Ethnicity, Citizenship, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor

In this chapter Lugo-Lugo and Bloodsworth-Lugo use the figure of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to illustrate a clear connection between perceptions of Latinas, and (perceived) immigrant women of color as threats to the country. When Sotomayor was undergoing days of scrutiny by the U.S. Senate as a Supreme Court nominee, four events took place that shed light on how Latina/o bodies are construed as threatening within the U.S.: Congressional backlash over her “wise Latina” statement; she was racialized by some Senators; social commentators called her an immigrant; and she was accused of supporting “violent Puerto Rican terrorists.” Also, after her appointment, her ideas were met with contempt. The authors conclude that the rhetorical strategies deployed against Justice Sotomayor have conceived and presented her as a (Constitutional) threat/terror.

Women’s Bodies and Feminism “After” 9/11

In this chapter Lugo-Lugo and Bloodsworth-Lugo maintain that feminism “after” 9/11 should not proceed via the same language and frameworks utilized in a pre-9/11 setting, given the relentless project of the United States to secure itself against (terroristic) threats and the emergence of specific technologies in support of these ends. The authors see this emergence as promoting old and new ideologies informed by and through the 9/11 project, which includes: the creation of key governmental institutions and policies; three war efforts; the housing and management of terrorist and/or threatening bodies; renewed nativist efforts; a paradigm shift in air travel; and governmental rhetoric justifying these efforts. The project has created a contradiction around women’s bodies as both a site of radical danger and a reminder of unwanted (national) vulnerability.

(Trans)Gender Threats in a 9/11 Era

In this chapter Lugo-Lugo and Bloodsworth-Lugo examine contemporary articulations of sexuality and gender as entities that require vigilance. For this, they use the figure of Amanda Simpson, President Obama’s appointee to the position of senior technical advisor within the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, and a white, out transgender woman, as their starting point. The authors examine how Simpson became uniquely positioned between mainstream reactions to transgender women and a specific set of 9/11 American anxieties involving perceived threats to the safety and security of “America” and its citizenry. By becoming the first transgender appointee within the first black presidency, Simpson’s appointment became a double threat in an era where Americans have been trained to seek out and identify threats to the security of the nation.

The “War on Women” and the 9/11 Project

In this chapter Lugo-Lugo and Bloodsworth-Lugo conclude by highlighting the context informed by 9/11 as one that requires attention within feminist analyses and contemporary analyses of women and women’s bodies. They use the rhetoric about and conceptualizations of the “War on Women” to propose that a context-less or universal approach to feminism becomes stale, or worse, irrelevant in a 9/11 world. They urge thinkers and activists to re-imagine feminism and feminist methodologies and avoid taking existing ones for granted. Although intersectional analyses are helpful, the authors propose to empower them through 9/11 methods of inquiry. Since U.S. society is informed by and reconstructed via the 9/11 project, analytical tools must reflect this fact.

The Gendered and Racialized Threat of First Lady Michelle Obama

In this chapter Lugo-Lugo and Bloodsworth-Lugo analyze racialized constructions of First Lady Michelle Obama as part of their feminist inquiry. They examine ways in which popular discourse in the United States has constructed a threatening public image of Michelle Obama in which her race, mediated by her gender, has been a centerpiece. The authors show how traditional perceptions of black women’s bodies are inflected with new meaning in a 9/11 era, and use reactions to Michelle Obama’s body (that is, her tall stature and toned biceps), as a black female body occupying the White House, along with responses to her initiatives as First Lady, to discuss new interpretations of black women in particular, and race and gender more generally, as challenges to (White) normalcy.