self-defense

"It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors." -from the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray

When I read Oscar Wilde’s self-defense on trial, charged with sodomy, I thought about the preface to his slim novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.  One of the lines that has always stood out to me was this: “It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” Its placement in the preface to Dorian Gray is important.  However this line is interpreted, its function is to contextualize the novel, to assist in producing an interpretive framework for Wilde’s most influential work of art.

But what does he mean, and what is the connection to his trial?  Oscar Wilde was interested in aesthetics, “art for art’s sake,” but its a fool who doesn’t pick up on a vicious and brilliantly observed kind of subversive politics coursing through his works.  When you read one of his stories, Wilde felt, and strongly, that the wise reader would see themselves, the people, and the world around them--not the author, or even the characters.  The story to the you, like the preface to the story, offers distance, and a chance to reframe.

The trial, judgement, and popular condemnation of queer people throughout history has been little else but a vanity mirror for a heterosexist society.  The force with which vast and complex ruling bodies have come down unanimously on queer people throughout history like Oscar Wilde, Sylvia Rivera, and Cece McDonald has been absolute. It is disappointing that Wilde’s wandering appeal--to historical predecessors, to the universal aspect of love, to the equalizing intent of the law--sounds a lot like a keynote you’d hear at a big ticket HRC event today.  It’s degrading to have legally defend your love, because it is absolutely ludicrous and revolting to be put on trial for it.  Oscar Wilde’s speech is an ingenious rhetorical manipulation of his anti-gay social/political/legal landscape, but continues to exist as an artifact of the durability of regressive, conservative, anti-gay ideology.