AJ and the Queen: exploring ideas of gender

Warning: AJ and the Queen spoilers

GLAAD publish a report every year which forecasts the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer (LGBTQ) characters that are expected to be scripted on primetime programming in the television season. In 2019/20, 90 out of 879 (10.2%) series are expected to involve regular characters who identify as LGBTQ. GLAAD state that this is the highest percentage of LGBTQ regular characters they have counted since they started forecasting 24 years ago. Similarly, this is an increase from last years 8.8%. In fact, GLAAD called upon networks to ensure that 10% of characters in primetime series were LGBTQ by 2020 which shows that networks have achieved and slightly exceeded this. 

AJ and the Queen, a Netflix original, is one of these series in which the two protagonists AJ and Robert both demonstrate that they identify as LGBTQ. Robert, stage name Ruby Red, is a drag queen who states on the programme that he is a gay man but adopts she/her pronouns when in drag. Robert/Ruby’s genders are straightforward and binary. However, AJ seems to not fit into the binary view of gender. We begin the programme believing that AJ is a “little boy” who wears a hat, a white vest and hustles people for money to live. Later, AJ’s hat is knocked off and Robert is surprised by AJ’s long curly hair which leads him to exclaim that she is, in fact, a girl. AJ adamantly tells Robert that she is not a girl and does not want to be a girl. As a result, Robert assumes that AJ wants to identify as a boy. However, AJ later refutes this and claims that she never said she wanted to be a boy, but rather she just didn’t want to be a girl. Although Robert is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, this could have been used by the show’s writers to juxtapose the conflicting generational views of gender between Robert’s and AJ’s age group.  his binary ideas of gender display a juxtaposition between Robert’s generation and AJ’s age group.

Moving away from the main characters, the relationship between gender and body is explored within other side characters. For example, in one episode AJ and Robert meet a lady owns a garage with her husband: she keeps the books and the husband fixes the vehicles. We find out that when she was younger, she entered wet t-shirt contests and won every single one due to her “beautiful boobs”. However, she then reveals that she had a double mastectomy and no longer has these “beautiful boobs”. Later, AJ gives the lady Robert’s fake 'boobs' which he uses to win a wet t-shirt contest whilst in drag as Ruby and appears to be ‘passing’ [a term used to describe an individual looking fully like the gender they are dressed up as] as a woman. The lady rejects these boobs and says that she feels just as beautiful, as womanly and like herself without them. They are given to the lady’s husband as he appears to miss them more than she does.

Since finishing AJ and the Queen, and sadly having recently heard the news that they are not renewing the programme for a second series, I have started watching more programmes with LGBTQ main characters. I’m currently on episode 1 of Pose, set in the late 1980s, which already seems to centre around the repression of the LGBTQ community in New York, the ball culture, and the impact of HIV. Perhaps this will make for another blog post exploring gender, health and even cities.

Storms, snow and rescue cats: the sociological experience of losing power

I started writing this when I was at my parents last year and we suffered from a loss of power due to a storm. However, following storm Ciara, Dennis and Jorge, I returned to this piece of writing to reflect on how sociology can explain my experiences with the weather (and my parents’ cat).

It is cold. You cannot see the outside world because the rain is coming down so heavily. It is all a blur. “Oh no, there’s no satellite signal again!” my dad shouts in rage. Although it has now been determined that the culprit is our newly rescued cat who is pulling the cable out of the sky box. But it feels like one of those rare days of power loss or heavy snow fall: when you cannot watch television, use the internet and/or are essentially stuck in your house due to the weather. Although there is that classic panic, which has generated multiple memes, of have we got enough milk and bread?! I do find the feelings very satisfying.

One of the very first theorists you learn about in Sociology is Durkheim. One of his concepts which has always stuck with me is that of anomie and the resulting normlessness. As you may be aware, anomie is a feeling an individual, social group or society experiences when their normal behaviour, values and/or standards breakdown. For example, during the stormy weather, I cannot access the internet and watch/stream programmes or films. Due to my lack of hobbies, this is predominantly what I do in my free time when I am at home and, as such, I experience anomie.

Sociologists such as Durkheim and Merton frame anomie as a negative experience within their writing. However, I feel that it is more complex than this and includes a whole spectrum of positive, negative, and mixed emotions.

The negative emotions

Of course, storms, snow, newly rescued cats etc. can make you anxious, a known negative emotion: will our fence get blown over? Will a trampoline blow into my car and cause damage like I’ve seen happen on social media? Will my newly rescued cat get into my ham sandwich again and leave me without lunch for work? Will I be able to get to work tomorrow in my normal time or will my route be flooded and cause traffic? This weather [and cat] produces fear of the unknown and could be seen as a fear of future anomie.

The mixed emotions

Loss of power can feel both liberating and frustrating. For example, during a power outage I decided I would bake because it is a hobby I really enjoy but do not do often. However, I soon remembered that I could not Google the ratio of flour to butter nor could I even put my baking in the oven because, of course, the power was out.

The positive emotions

Before I discuss the positive emotions, I experience, I want to recognise that I am speaking from a position of privilege. Although the weather we endure in the UK can cause travel delays, destruction of homes and businesses, I am fortunate that my home has not been flooded, my belongings have not been destroyed and my car has not been hit by flying objects. Geographically speaking, I am also extremely lucky that the UK does not suffer from monsoons, hurricanes, tornados and other life-threatening weather. The positive emotions I feel during our storms are those of comfort due to the fact I have not faced life altering events due to the weather.

The positive emotions I feel during a storm are nostalgic for a time in which I have never even lived within. During a power outage, my mum would often say “this is what it was like in the olden days” whilst she lit candles and would tell me about how, before she was even born, one man was responsible for lighting oil lights in the streets. Many sociologists have discussed the sociology of nostalgia. Indeed, Davis’s 1979 book Yearning for Yesterday discusses how anxiety driven situations can invoke a desire for the past, the simpler times. However, what is interesting about a power outage is that the “old times of candles for light” is my current reality. What makes this emotion a positive one is that I know this power outage will pass at some point.

Since these storms, I’ve been thinking about power relations and nostalgia, something I want to write about in the future.