It was Oktoberfest in Munich. For those of you who were up until now lucky enough and didn't have the slightest idea of what that means, let me tell you that your days of bliss have come to an end.
Oktoberfest, like most of the public festivities in Germany (and probably any other country), is mainly a good excuse for people to get unreasonably drunk at any time of the day and for as long as they want without having to feel like an alcoholic.
Like carnival, Oktoberfest has one pecularity: people not only get drunk, they dress up as well. What they do is they wear traditional folklore dress, called "Dirndl" (for the girls) and "Lederhosen" (for the boys).
So this is what happens during Oktoberfest: The city gets invaded by masses of drunk people wearing strange outfits. It lasts three weeks unfortunately.
Allright, you might say, so what's the big deal? Haven't you ever been in Argentina during a world soccer championship, or in Cologne during the Carnival, or whatever other silly public event people celebrate?
Well, the point is this: I had a discussion about the difference between Carnival and "dressing up" for the Oktoberfest; also, I had a discussion about the fact that some women were "cross dressing", i.e. they were wearing "Lederhosen", thus the traditional male costume (so basically pants instead of a dress). Is that subversive, I ask you? My point was mainly that wearing this kind of traditional outfit, no matter how you wear it, just isn't subversive, because it just sucks and it's conservative etc. etc.
Let me tell you another little anectode of my not so distant past:
I cut my hair short recently, and one night I was out with friends, and I was wearing a brownish (I would acutally say ochre, but I won't be fuzzy about the color question) shirt, a black tie, deep blue jeans, and black shoes. I was trying to do a kind of butchy style with a little dandy on top (green socks, man, green socks).
What happened, though, was that an older guy in a bar approached me and asked me whether I was a fascist. Needless to say, I was shocked. I mean, the whole situation was totally okay, because I had a good laugh, and the guy was in no way aggressive, though still trying to lecture me about bladibla, one shouldn't wear stuff like that, you know, because of "the paaaaast" etc. I was trying to tell him that if I really was a fascist, I wouldn't be wearing this kind of outfit, or at least I wouldn't be wearing it in this kind of bar, or in any case, I wouldn't wear an outfit that made me look like a boy from the Hitler Youth, but rather wear my hair in braids and maybe wear a Dirndl.
So, you know, that incident made me think. It made me think about whether if I had been to a queer place anybody would have been offended in the way that guy was or have the same assumptions. I was also thinking: Hm, would it be subversive if I really was trying to look like a boy from the Hitler Youth as a queer woman?
I guess in some sense, it is a question about contexts, and how you are read differently in different contexts. It is also a question about the possibility of subversive appropriation, and whether and where and why such appropriation has its limits, and who says so. And it is again, I realize, about the intentionality and thus souvernity of a subject. Does it really matter what my intention was in wearing that outfit? And does it really matter what those girls think or intend when they are wearing "Lederhosen" to get drunk?
Interestingly - though not surprisingly -, it is only the girls wearing "Lederhosen". I didn't see any guy dress up in a "Dirndl".
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