Gender and Sexuality Criticism: Eugene Lee Yang's Coming Out Video

 Gender and Sexuality Criticism

Gender and Sexuality Criticism: Eugene Lee Yang's Coming Out Video

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpipLfMiaYU

1. Background Information

• Eugene is a member of the Try Guys, who is a group of four (recently changed to three) content creators who originally worked together to produce a variety of content for BuzzFeed but now work independently.
• This video was Eugene's way of coming out to the world as gay. The video was released on June 15th, 2019 and has accumulated 20.6 million views, 1.7 million likes, and more than 150,000 comments.
• The Try Guys YouTube account opened a donation page anytime someone clicked on the video for The Trevor Project, which is a crisis intervention and suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ+ young people. The video has raised over $150,000. 

3. Challenging Gender/Sexuality Stereotypes

• There are many moments in the video where gender stereotypes are challenged, mainly in the part of Eugene's performance in the video.
• The beginning of the video is likely the portrayal of his childhood, as it shows him and others sitting on a couch. All of the others are wearing grey formal outfits, whereas Eugene is wearing a unique red dress-like outfit. Later in this section of the video, he is about to put on lipstick but the people behind him hit him to prevent him. This demonstrates the negative responses, violence, and harm that can come from people challenging gender roles. In this case, it was a man daring to put on make up. 
• The next scene in the video is him in an orange outfit, which is similarly a different fitting and style in comparison to the grey background. This foreshadows the pattern in the video, as he will continue to appear in each scene with the next consecutive color of the rainbow. This may be a reference to the common representation LGBTQ+ Pride Flag, which is depicted with a rainbow. In this scene, he is seen dancing as others march with praying hands. He vogues at one point in this dance, which is a style of dance formed in Ballroom Culture in the LGBTQ+ community, and has become an important part of LGBTQ+ culture. Yet, someone stands behind him and forces him to stop dancing and conform to the others in grey clothes who are marching with prayer hands. This scene demonstrates the discomfort and rejection that can come from being LGBTQ+ in a religious environment, in particular a Christian or Catholic environment. 
• In the next scene is surrounded by floral trees and is wearing a yellow outfit with a cut off top and yellow pants. He begins dancing with a woman, and once he sees a man, he leaves the woman and begins dancing with the man. The woman attempts to go back to him but he continues dancing with the man. He pauses dancing and shares an embrace with the woman and she leaves as he continues to dance with a man. There are a variety of interpretations that can come from this scene, such as him having a relationship with the woman and then deciding to be with the man. Yet, what is most evident is his decision to be with the man at the end of the scene.
• He then appears in a glamorous green dress with jewelry and makeup and he happily meets many different people on a dance floor. Several are wearing rainbow-colored outfits, which means that this likely represents an LGBTQ+ club of some sort. The scene then shifts to a man coming in as if he is holding a gun, and people push Eugene to the ground. This is likely a reference to the Pulse Nightclub Shooting in Orlando where someone killed 49 people at a gay nightclub. 
• The scene then transitions to him shirtless with jeans and a bloodied face being beaten and kicked by people. This is a reference to how LGBTQ+ people or people who challenge gender norms face violence from being who they are. After this happens, the same people who were in the family scene at the beginning of the video are shown as some try to embrace him to help him and others stand back. This tension results in all of them walking away, leaving him alone on the ground and coughing up blood. This demonstrates the family division and family rejection that can occur for LGBTQ+ people or people who challenge gender norms. 
• The concluding scene is him in a blue dress with jewelry and makeup staring at the camera as people are fighting behind him, and the credits scene is him in similarly watching the camera in a green dress with jewelry and makeup as others join him.
• The entirety of the video demonstrates a challenge to gender norms. For example, his way of dancing (what some may often consider feminine), his jewelry, makeup, and colorful outfits are all ways of challenging gender stereotypes. Men are expected often to not wear jewelry or makeup and wear more neutral clothing. This performance video exposes the challenges that he personally, and other LGBTQ+ people, faced and continues to face, and also honors LGBTQ+ culture.  
• This video is interesting because the ways in which gender and sexuality norms are challenged is unique, as gender and sexuality expression and identity intersect in this video. This demonstrates how they can intersect and interact in society and in a person's identity.

2. My Perspective of Gender and Sexuality Criticism

• I think that Gender and Sexuality Criticism is an important form of rhetorical criticism because it emphasizes and unveils the ways in which gender and sexuality interact, impact, and are expressed in rhetoric.
• There are also so many different ways in which a critic can do Gender and Sexuality Criticism, which demonstrates that there are pluralities in this form of criticism and that there is not one way in doing it.
• I think one limitation in this form of rhetorical criticism is that it is often used on things that are outwardly expressing some form of gender or sexuality expression, so the amount of rhetoric that can be analyzed might be limited. For example, this form of rhetoric was easier to analyze, but if analyzing a political speech that makes no mention of gender or sexuality, it may be more difficult to unveil the ways in which gender or sexuality are expressed.