fun

The bloggers over at Mind the Gap, a feminist blog from the UK, recently posted a piece called "fun is feminist." I think the piece was a call for submissions for a "blog for fun" day, but the basic idea behind it all is very compelling: that in the face of oppression, we are not allowed to have fun. Whether we don't allow ourselves to have fun or whether we are not allowed by others -- fun is forbidden. Fun is something so frivolous, so seemingly antithetical to whatever dire situation we find ourselves in, people who are having fun seem disrespectful, even blasphemous. In the context of feminism, the ban on fun is a second crushing of women's spirit. Fighting the patriarchy is serious business and we impose an absence of humor on ourselves because, by god, if we don't take ourselves seriously, the patriarchy never will. We fight too hard against the notion that women are silly. Where, in the queer community, fun has always been a part of the struggle for queer liberation from the first, campy revolution at the Stonewall Inn, led by a bunch of drag queens and fairies. The existence of camp allowed queers oppressed by the dominant hetero-paradigm to fight back with a sense of humor, bolstered by the humanity that humor embraces and nourishes. Whichever population is oppressed, in whichever region, class, country, whomever is fighting against oppression: all are fighting for more than just the bare right to breathe and eat and exist. All are fighting for a full existence -- alongside the right to breathe and eat and exist is the right to love and the right to laugh and the right to spend a few moments here and there being frivolous and having fun and there's nothing disrespectful about it. In fact, it is only disrespectful to suggest otherwise.