WEBVTT

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(Music: "La Vie en Rose")

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Cecily: Ah, well,
I feel rather frightened.

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I'm so afraid he will look
just like everyone else.

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(Algernon sniffs)

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C: He does.

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Algernon: You are my little
cousin Cecily, I'm sure.

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C: You are under some grave mistake.

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I'm not little.

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In fact, I do believe I'm actually
more than usually tall for my age.

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But I am your cousin Cecily,

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and you, I see, are also here
helping Jo Michael Rezes

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with their TEDx talk.

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And you are my cousin Ernest,
my wicked cousin Ernest.

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A: Oh! Well, I'm not really
wicked at all, cousin Cecily.

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You mustn't think that I am wicked.

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C: Well, I hope you haven't
been leading a double life,

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pretending to be good
and being really wicked all the time.

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That would be hypocrisy.

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A: Well, of course,
I have been rather reckless.

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C: I am glad to hear it.

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A: But the world is good enough
for me, cousin Cecily.

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C: Yes, but are you good enough for it?

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A: I'm afraid I am not that.

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That's why I want you to reform me.

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C: Well, I'm afraid
I have no time this afternoon.

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The TED talk and all.

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(Laughter)

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A: Well, would you mind
my reforming myself this afternoon?

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C: Oh, that's rather quixotic of you,

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but I think you should try.

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A: Good. I feel better already.

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C: You're looking a little worse.

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A: Well, might I have that pink rose?

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C: Why?

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A: Because you are
like a pink rose, cousin Cecily.

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C: Well, I don't think
it could be right for you

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to talk to me like that.

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A: You are the prettiest girl I ever saw.

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C: But -- well, I -- I --

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A: And, and ahem --

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C: All good looks are a snare and --

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A: Well, it's a snare
that every sensible man

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would like to be caught in, and ...

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Jo Michael Rezes: (Sighs)

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I'm so sorry, I um --

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I didn't finish rehearsing.

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Um, well it's not because
I can't walk in heels,

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I'm actually really good at that,

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and I can prove it to you, too,
but I really am sorry.

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Hold on.

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Uh, um.

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No matter.

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No matter.

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Right.

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Right, introductions.

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It's a TEDx talk. Right.

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Hi, there! (Laughs) Um.

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My name is Jo Michael Rezes,

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and I'm a PhD student here
in theater and performance studies.

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And I specialize in the study
of queer identities

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as they maneuver and affect
the perceptions of time

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in the performance of camp.

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You know camp?

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Sincerity in irony's clothing?

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Making the kitsch feel like home?

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No?

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The Met Gala theme from 2019

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that was thoroughly misunderstood
by over 95 percent of its attendees?

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(Laughter)

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No? OK, anyway.

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I'm also an actor-director
and theater educator at large

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in the greater Boston area.

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Oh, and where are my manners?

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The friends I brought with me today
are Algernon and Cecily

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from Oscar Wilde's famously
well-known play,

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"The Importance of Being Earnest."

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And they'll be back, don't worry.

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I've only scared them off a bit.

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And let's be honest,

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it wouldn't be a TEDx talk

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without things wrapping up nicely
at the end, would it?

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(Laughter)

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You know, I hope
that wasn't too awful, though.

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It was awkward, I know, to watch me fail.

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To fail at what, exactly, though?

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To play a man and a woman
at the same time?

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I mean, to play a man and a woman
when I'm actually neither?

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Why does it feel so awkward
when we see someone fail at gender,

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and why do we care?

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I mean, obviously, me screwing this up
was done on purpose.

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Obviously, I had this all
perfectly memorized

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and rehearsed for today, right?

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Right?

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(Laughter)

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Well, I'm here today to talk about
gender performativity

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and the ways in which I've used
my acting classroom

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as a space to disrupt the finality
of gender performance,

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to open up a looser space
for thinking about gender identity

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through supportive failure,

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generous mistakes
and honest communication.

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We all, actors or otherwise,

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can play with gender
in our everyday lives.

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And I call this "gender rehearsativity."

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Now, before all of the queer theorists
and women's studies degree holders

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and Judith Butler fanatics in the audience

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start to tear the half-and-half,
hyperbinary costume off of my body,

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let me first explain where popular culture

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has already begun to misunderstand
gender performativity,

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before I move into
the rehearsativity I hold so dear.

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Now, as an educator

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and as a youngish
20-something-year-old trans person,

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I'm constantly hearing from my
20-something-year-old students,

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friends and colleagues

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that gender is "over" --

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that gender is so fluid and carefree

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and that society, film and television
are so inclusive of transgender people,

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that it's basically over.

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Now, I don't ascribe to the binary,
as a nonbinary person myself.

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But gender definitely isn't over.

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Or, at least I don't think it is.

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And maybe, just maybe,
gender is always beginning.

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This last semester,

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at roughly 10:23am,

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two of my acting students,

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while embodying delicious caricatures
of fraternity brothers --

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forgive me, I don't remember
his or his name --

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well, they rounded up the class,

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and these two women in snapbacks
and baggy clothing

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slacked their mouths to reveal lax jaws
and lax bro mentalities.

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And, astounding as it was to watch,

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these women fluctuated
between irony and satire,

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the uncanny and the ruthlessly so,
pain and joy, until ultimately

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they failed to be the men
they were choosing to embody.

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They simply stopped talking.

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Silence.

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A lull hit the class,

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and time seemed to be
sucked clean out of the room.

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And in this moment of loud stillness,

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one of the women,

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still using her frat bro voice
though fully out of character,

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said, nearly in a whisper,

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(In frat bro voice)
"Gender is a social construct."

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(Laughter)

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I'll admit: I laughed along
with my students that morning,

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partially at the comedic timing
that my student had in her delivery

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but also at the fact that society
has turned gender performativity

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into gender as social construct.

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Now, listen to this:

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I think that this idea has come
from renowned queer studies scholar

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Judith Butler,

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whose seminal work
in the performativity of gender

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has gone on to be a staple

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in undergraduate classrooms
at liberal arts institutions.

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Now, this SparkNotes version
of Butler's work

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is found in the idea that gender exists
in repeated words and actions.

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And these performatives create
and are created

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by the bodies of real human beings.

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Now, listen to this:

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"Moreover, in a 1988 essay,

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Butler claims that gender is an act
which has been rehearsed.

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In this way,

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gender through repetition
becomes a recognizable script

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which requires actors to reproduce it."

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Huh.

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Much like my attempt
at "The Importance of Being Earnest."

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Ooh, I mean -- look at my costume.

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(In a deep voice) Why does this half
make me feel manly, masculine, suave,

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(In a high voice) and this half makes me
feel girly, fabulous and feminine?

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I mean, some of us even forget
that gender is there,

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because it is so well-rehearsed
into our bodies.

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But there's always an ideal of gender
that we can never quite achieve.

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But it's up to us to play with it.

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Now, I've played with gender
throughout my own career as an actor,

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and in one semester
as an undergraduate student,

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I was cast in two roles simultaneously:

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Brad Majors in "The Rocky Horror Show,"

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and Charlotte Ivanovna
in "The Cherry Orchard."

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One man, one woman and one me.

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I would go from one rehearsal,

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playing the manly, aggressive Brad,

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only to be pulled,
moments later, into a wig

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and delicately blended eyeliner
as Charlotte, a German governess.

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The constant push and pull
of these identities

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was not only invaluable
to my work as an actor,

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attempting to span the spectrum
of gender and my work,

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but it also revealed to me

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that my own queer identities

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are deeply indebted to embodying
the extremes of gender.

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These characters held important
facets of my identities,

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of my body,

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my daily pain,

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of my social interactions, of my memories,

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and rehearsing these characters
allowed me to explore those identities,

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which has opened up my need
as an acting teacher

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to show the importance
of playing with gender in rehearsal.

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So when I present to you all

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(In a high voice) Cecily

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and (In a deep voice) Algernon,

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there are these parts
of these two characters that I respect,

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understand implicitly,

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oppressions I can relate to,
fears I can embody,

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aggressive tendencies
that I try to forget.

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But there are also
plenty of characteristics

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with which I have no personal experience,

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nothing I can draw from.

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And sometimes in a flurry of rehearsal,

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of reading a script,

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of creating a character,

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well ... we make a mistake.

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Algernon's aggressive
flirtation towards Cecily

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doesn't sit well in my body,

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or Cecily's calm demeanor
as written by Oscar Wilde,

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just doesn't sit right,

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and I literally trip up.

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Now, this TEDx talk is a performance

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in front of so many people.

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And it differs quite drastically
from my classrooms in that regard.

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But there is such a recognizable
pressure in our daily lives

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to perform our gender,

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our selves,

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on a stage like this.

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Quite frankly,

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failure to pass as a man
or a woman effectively

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is still dangerous for transgender
and gender nonconforming people.

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And listen to this:

NOTE Paragraph

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according to the 2015
US Transgender Survey,

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nearly half of respondents voiced

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that they had been verbally
harassed in the past year

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because of their gender
identity or expression.

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And that number is shown
only to increase in communities of color.

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Many of us now claim to view gender
on a spectrum -- and that's great --

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including 60 percent
of Generation Z individuals

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who reported to the Pew
Research Center in 2019

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that they believe forms with boxes
for "male" or "female"

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should include more gender options.

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But in spite of this,

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there is still latent fear
of making gender mistakes

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in offices, in classrooms,

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in the eyes of the government,

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in romantic situations,

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and for some of us,

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even in the mirror
when we wake up in the morning.

NOTE Paragraph

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But our gender mistakes
have the potential for something good.

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Even in the binary,

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approaching life on the stage
as a man or a woman,

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we can support each other
in experimentation,

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trips and stumbles,

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two-hour-long meditations [unclear]

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or five-second costume
changes with gender.

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And failure is a key part

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of Judith Butler's theory
of performativity.

NOTE Paragraph

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But I do believe that for most people,

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like you all out there,

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you might hear "performativity"
and hear "perform."

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That's to say, performance-ready

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or if not performance-ready,

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perhaps performance in general
gives you anxiety.

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Or the stage fright that I have
to this very day.

NOTE Paragraph

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What we need to understand
is that failing at gender

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can and should be a positive,
generative process.

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The mistakes we make with gender
can only help us grow

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and better understand the multitudes
of gender around us.

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But we need to make space
for these mistakes.

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We need to hold space for failure.

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And that's where rehearsativity
comes into play.

NOTE Paragraph

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Now, one of the main points
I like to make with my acting students

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when they're last-minute panicking
about a monologue or a scene,

00:12:55.149 --> 00:12:58.331
is that no one is ever actually ready.

00:12:59.268 --> 00:13:02.369
I mean, we're never actually
done rehearsing,

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we're just put in front of an audience.

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When I taught a workshop
on gender-bending this last summer

00:13:08.742 --> 00:13:10.662
at Somerville Arts for Youth,

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I made it quite clear
to a group of middle school-aged students

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that you cannot be a bully
and a good actor at the same time.

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It's impossible.

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There is something
about the act of embodiment

00:13:22.026 --> 00:13:25.083
that requires empathy to survive.

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Bullying prohibits the creative process.

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As these middle schoolers
moved about the room,

00:13:32.852 --> 00:13:36.859
trying on the extremes
of binary gender presentation,

00:13:38.049 --> 00:13:40.783
this dissolved into galumphing,

00:13:41.775 --> 00:13:43.117
laughter,

00:13:43.141 --> 00:13:47.795
parodying of stereotypes
they see in movies and on television,

00:13:47.819 --> 00:13:51.297
joy in the failure to understand gender.

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Even my college students,
in "Introduction to Acting,"

00:13:56.105 --> 00:13:59.210
jumped on the opportunity
to play with gender

00:13:59.234 --> 00:14:01.172
when I restricted their time to think.

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On Halloween last year,

00:14:02.395 --> 00:14:04.625
I asked my students
to come to class in costume

00:14:04.649 --> 00:14:09.450
and to, well, to throw their hats
into the middle of a circle,

00:14:09.474 --> 00:14:11.323
metaphorically and literally,

00:14:11.347 --> 00:14:12.992
and the only rule of the game

00:14:13.016 --> 00:14:15.743
was that they had to go
into the center of the circle,

00:14:15.767 --> 00:14:17.585
take on a hat, pick a character,

00:14:17.609 --> 00:14:19.125
and then switch.

00:14:19.149 --> 00:14:21.093
No time to think.

00:14:21.962 --> 00:14:24.150
And it wasn't until two men in the class

00:14:24.174 --> 00:14:26.626
noticed no one running
to the center of the circle

00:14:26.650 --> 00:14:28.396
that they jumped into the center,

00:14:28.420 --> 00:14:29.925
and one became

00:14:29.949 --> 00:14:31.831
(In a deep voice) a British chauvinist,

00:14:31.855 --> 00:14:35.479
(In a high voice) and the other,
a high-pitched, coy British lady.

00:14:38.284 --> 00:14:40.704
Time stood still.

00:14:41.478 --> 00:14:43.010
Laughter,

00:14:43.034 --> 00:14:44.319
mimicry,

00:14:44.343 --> 00:14:46.081
joy, again,

00:14:46.105 --> 00:14:48.787
in the failure to understand gender.

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That's the potential
of gender rehearsativity.

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And I challenge you all

00:14:57.089 --> 00:14:59.822
to think of your days as mini-rehearsals.

00:15:00.255 --> 00:15:05.317
Cultivate spaces in your life
to explore gender.

00:15:05.778 --> 00:15:09.190
And allow other people
to explore their gender.

00:15:09.214 --> 00:15:11.007
Fail at gender.

00:15:11.532 --> 00:15:15.182
I wish I could give you more tangible ways
to go out and do this.

00:15:16.273 --> 00:15:18.765
But gender is funny like that.

00:15:20.742 --> 00:15:25.091
Gender is an act which had been rehearsed.

00:15:26.004 --> 00:15:29.628
Some acts more rehearsed
than others. (Laughs)

00:15:31.680 --> 00:15:34.146
But gender is far from being perfect.

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00:15:35.259 --> 00:15:36.444
And sometimes,

00:15:37.371 --> 00:15:38.833
just like in rehearsal,

00:15:39.855 --> 00:15:43.664
when we support each other
in times of play,

00:15:43.688 --> 00:15:46.365
in times of joy and times of pain,

00:15:47.736 --> 00:15:53.003
we wind up succeeding more
than if we hadn't tried or failed at all.

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A: Well, I think
that has been a great success.

00:15:58.238 --> 00:16:01.095
I'm in love with Cecily,
and that is everything.

00:16:01.119 --> 00:16:03.722
But I must see her before I go.

00:16:04.879 --> 00:16:08.284
Oh, there she is.

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00:16:08.308 --> 00:16:11.109
C: Oh, I merely came back
to water the roses.

00:16:11.133 --> 00:16:14.228
I thought we were at a TEDx talk with Jo.

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00:16:14.252 --> 00:16:15.442
A: Oh.

00:16:15.466 --> 00:16:18.222
Well, they've gone to order
the dogcart for me.

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00:16:18.615 --> 00:16:19.910
C: Oh.

00:16:19.934 --> 00:16:22.093
Are they going to take you
for a nice drive?

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00:16:22.117 --> 00:16:24.466
A: They're going to send me away.

NOTE Paragraph

00:16:24.490 --> 00:16:25.704
C: Oh.

00:16:25.728 --> 00:16:27.482
So we have to part.

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00:16:27.506 --> 00:16:29.299
A: I'm afraid so.

00:16:29.323 --> 00:16:31.426
It's a very painful parting.

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00:16:32.482 --> 00:16:37.107
C: Well, the absence of old friends
one can endure with equanimity.

00:16:38.498 --> 00:16:40.524
But even a momentary separation

00:16:40.548 --> 00:16:44.317
from anyone whom they've just met

00:16:45.675 --> 00:16:47.941
is almost unbearable.

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00:16:51.548 --> 00:16:52.748
JMR: Thank you.

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00:16:55.499 --> 00:16:59.499
(Applause)