Proposal

In order to become more acquainted with the South, and specifically gay culture in the South, I propose to travel eastward from Austin to a final destination of Birmingham, Alabama. My interest stems from Howard Cruse’s graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby, where the central location of the book is in a fictionalized Birmingham. Toland, the main character of the book, struggles with his sexual identity during a time of turmoil in the 60’s while participating on the fringes of the civil rights movement that seems to be enveloping him and his friends.

For my trip, I want to explore the ways that communities are created in the South. The ability, and perhaps necessity, of different groups of people to assimilate into their own makeshift communities has been central in our readings. In Carson McCuller’s The Ballad of the Sad Café we see the flourishing of a constructed community that briefly thrives in its collective at the corner store/café. In Lewis Nordan’s Wolf Whistle we see a temporary suspension of racial divides on the porch of the corner store. We can of course see it in Cruse’s book: the gay, transsexual, transgendered, civil rights, gay rights activists who congregate at the Alleysax gay bar to feel at home and to enjoy their lifestyles.

In order to fully submerge myself in this community, I will attempt to stop at different gay bars along the way to Birmingham. Although Cruse is not from Birmingham (he’s actually from Springville), I feel as though his creation of the community in which Toland is able to come to his personal realization within speaks less about one specific city and more about the collective term “the South.” He focuses on the individual, the character, in order to speak about the conception of a collective. For Cruse, the individual is as important to the creation of a community, and perhaps changing community’s ideals, as the entire community itself. For this reason, I want to visit different gay bars along the way, and not only in a specific area of the South.

It is important to consider the implications of the label "gay bar," especially in the context of the South and southern history. Although a large population of the community that congregates at these locations is gay, although the term is not all encompassing for the community itself. Similar to the Alleysax in Cruse's novel, the community that comprises these locations is complex. There are transsexuals, transgendered, gays, queers, bisexuals, straights, blacks, whites, etc. The term "gay bar" is one that is used to describe the entire community.

Along the way to Alabama, I also plan to take a slight detour to Lee County, Mississippi, in order to visit the local gay bar called “Rumors” that was part of the subject of a film titled Small Town Gay Bar that I wrote a bit about in my previous paper. The film shows different attitudes toward the bar and its ability to make the people who regularly visit the bar feel at home and feel a part of something. I also will see if the bar "Different Seasons" is still up and running, another bar highlighted in the film.

In addition to the southern bar-crawl, I also hope to be able to visit different historical points of interest that I find to be compelling in relation to the civil rights movement or the gay rights movement in order to fill out my experience with a more holistic description of the South.