The Goan Aunty

(Image courtesy Angela Ferrao)

Many of us are likely familiar with the videos and audio recordings that circulate from time to time of some “Goan Aunty” regaling her audience with rantings of the mundane in an exaggerated accent. Indeed, the Goan Aunty trope is so common that most of us probably have a giggle without paying much attention to the message under the surface of these silly portrayals. After all, who doesn’t enjoy hearing that characteristic “Wot, men” that signals the voice of the Goan Catholic? But recently, some videos have been making the rounds on WhatsApp that made me pay closer attention. The character, simply referring to herself on YouTube as “Goan Aunty”*, almost defies description. She is inarticulate and obnoxious. Nothing in these videos is either funny or reminiscent of the Goan women I’ve met in my life. I’m all for self-deprecating humour, and I appreciate one’s ability to laugh at oneself, but this mockery purporting to be comedy is simply insulting. Discussions of the Catholic stereotype are not new (see, e.g., Paromita Vohra’s short film Where’s Sandra), but perhaps the larger subject of the Goan Catholic woman deserves more attention.

My ire was actually ignited several months ago, when I was looking for articles about Braz and Yvonne Gonsalves. Braz is a well-respected musical legend, so one can easily find news content devoted to him. His wife Yvonne is also a brilliant performer, who continues to sing with various ensembles in Goa. I heard her live for the first time a couple of years ago in Saligao and was enchanted by the tone of her voice. But you won’t find a single article about her. Instead, what you will find are brief mentions of her as the doting wife in the articles about her husband. It was, in fact, a Goa Streets article from 2015 that incensed me. In the paragraph devoted to acknowledging the musical talents of the Gonsalves family, Yvonne is not mentioned at all. When her name does come up, it is to emphasize her support for her husband:

Braz’s wife Yvonne keeps a neat file of magazine and newspaper clippings documenting her husband’s life work. She speaks approvingly of the “hotels and night clubs (in India) that supported jazz music.”

A more recent search retrieved more of the same from an article published in The Times of India in 2011. Braz Gonsalves’ performance at Kala Academy in Panjim is described with the following passing mention of Yvonne:

Gonsalves’ wife Yvonne didn’t let a fracture [an audience member heckling Louiz Banks] dampen the spirit. She walked with support and belted out a jazz gospel hit, before the musicians took over with ‘Culture Shock’, ‘Sweet Shakti’ and ‘Enchantment’. (Emphasis mine)

These descriptions of Yvonne Gonsalves as the devoted wife, disregarding her status as an accomplished musician, exemplify what Fátima da Silva Gracias wrote in the Introduction to her book, The Many Faces of Sundorem (2007): “Generally, whenever women are mentioned in the Indo-Portuguese Historical literature it is usually in the traditional and subordinate role of a daughter, wife, mother, mistress or dancer.” She was referring to the past, but what has changed in recent times? 

(Lorna performing in Bombay in 2013: Photo mine)

How many times have you heard a Goan man talk about the legendary Lorna Cordeiro and say, “She would have been nothing without Chris Perry”?

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve heard this, and it has come from both diehard Lorna fans and guys who aren’t that into Konkani music. So, even some who hold the Goan Nightingale in high esteem can’t find it within themselves to simply acknowledge her talent. They must give Perry—a man—not just credit for discovering her and helping her find her musical niche but all the credit for who she became.

But interestingly, I hear very few people reflect on Lorna in her younger days.

The one exception that comes to mind is in Jason Keith Fernandes’ review of the film Nachom ia Kumpasar (2015), where he describes Lorna as follows:

Lorna is an icon of Goan culture not merely for the songs she gave, and continues to give, life to, but for the kind of sexuality that she embodies. Her voice does not contain the sickly saccharine and shrill sweetness that marks so much of Hindi film music and embodies virginal, self-effacing purity. Her voice is an earthy one that can roar if there be need for it. The woman that her voice gives life to is conscious of her sexuality and vocal about her desires.

By contrast, the discussions to which I am accustomed to hearing about Lorna the woman tend to focus on her alleged drinking and her appearance today. As for the former, for the sake of argument, if one wishes to credit Chris Perry for everything else related to Lorna, why not also for breaking her heart? After all, substance use (and abuse) is often used as a means for coping with pain. As for the comments one hears regarding her physical appearance, it is as if she deserves to be punished for aging.

  (No matter her age, Lorna’s still got it! Photo mine)

This ridicule of the aging Goan woman brings us back to the image of the Goan Aunty. You know her: She’s the one with the enormous boobs and bum, who nags and talks any rubbish in her quaint, provincial accent, often uttered in a shrill voice.

YouTube sensation Aunty Maggy offers an example of this, complete with padding to amplify her breasts, stomach, hips, and rear, and a somewhat discordant voice.

Significantly, when I decided to write this piece, I typed “Goan Aunty” into Google’s search field, and was shocked to see that most of what the search engine retrieved were links to what appeared to be pornography. A similar search on YouTube generated the same results. From this, I can only assume that when the Goan Aunty isn’t being derided, she’s being fetishized.

On that note, why is it that Mario Miranda’s cartoons have mostly escaped criticism for their depiction of women?

While I’m a fan of his work, some of it makes me uncomfortable. He undeniably started a trend among Goan artists of exaggerating the assets of the Goan woman to sexualize the young and poke fun at the old. One piece that I find particularly disturbing is Cool Jazz, where the bass player is groping the singer with his right hand, instead of plucking the strings of his bass, and the saxophone player is blowing up her skirt.

In addition to depicting this woman’s sexual assault, it reinforces the aforementioned examples of the woman being placed in a subordinate position to the man. Mario Miranda certainly devoted space to both men and women in his art. But similar to a surface-level viewing of the Goan Aunty parodies, when one probes a little deeper into Cool Jazz specifically, the question arises as to what exactly is going on. A band is a collective of artists who play, and sometimes also write, music together. They’re colleagues and collaborators. So, to see the singer—the individual fronting the band—objectified by her own band-mates is shocking. What is a musical group without a good singer? So, one expects the musicians to have some respect for their singer. This image, however, shows utter disrespect for the only woman in the illustration.

I see a similar lack of respect for women in the trope of the Goan Aunty. When I think of a Goan aunty, I picture a proud, well-turned out lady in her dress at church. I picture an assertive woman who confidently shares her opinions in mixed-gender conversations. I picture a woman who likes to sing and dance and enjoy life.

(Still from Nachom-ia Kumpasar)

(Image courtesy Angela Ferrao)

I picture the woman who taught me to cook dishes like pulao and pork vindalho, passing on the tradition of delighting the family’s senses with lovingly prepared food.

The Goan woman is more than a caricature. It’s time she got her due.

________
* The "Goan Aunty" on YouTube now goes by the name Succorine Bai.

(Revised versions of this piece have appeared in The Goan Review, vol. 28, no. 1 [Jan–Mar 2017] and The Joao Roque Literary Journal, vol. 1, no. 2 [https://selma-carvalho.squarespace.com/the-goan-aunty-by-christine-russon])

Masculinity revisited

Some of you may recall my previous piece asking who gets to define masculinity, in which I argued that men who do not necessarily live up to Western standards of macho-ness are just as “manly” and physically attractive as their more conventionally masculine counterparts. As someone who opposes patriarchy, I find the rigid standards it imposes on all of us abhorrent, but for now, I want to discuss a particular way in which this system harms cisgender men. It is because of patriarchy that men are taught that they shouldn’t express emotion, that they should be hypersexual beings who objectify others, that they should dominate others, that they should assert their physical strength rather than their strength of character… and the list can go on forever.

But the horrific definition of manliness that patriarchy imposes goes much deeper. It seems to me that patriarchy upholds white masculinity as an ideal. That is one reason why, for example, Black and Latino men are fetishized, and Asian men are regarded as androgynous or asexual.

Consider the character of Raj Koothrappali on The Big Bang Theory.

Kunal Nayyar is, in my opinion, the best looking actor on the show—I’d go so far as to argue that he is the only attractive actor on the show—but his character has consistently been stereotyped and desexualized. For several seasons, he was incapable of speaking if a woman was even in the room, unless he consumed alcohol. 

In addition, there have been homophobic jokes throughout the series about his close friendship with Howard Wolowitz and his comfort with his female friends.

After Raj finally got a girlfriend, Emily, I have very few recollections of them being shown together in an affectionate or sexual manner. What I do remember are the following two instances of Raj being shown in a post-coital scenario: (a) when he wakes up next to an obese woman after a drunken night and (b) when he wakes up next to Penny, again after a night of heavy drinking, and he admits that they didn’t have sex because he ejaculated prematurely.

Anyone who has watched the show over the years might recall that many female characters have said that they find Raj physically attractive, including Howard’s wife Bernadette; yet the message from the writers contradicts this. Basically, more than making Raj an asexual character, the writers seem to have gone out of their way to mock any insinuation that Raj might be a virile heterosexual man. Meanwhile, Leonard and Howard have consistently been shown in the opposite light—often being depicted as oversexed. As the writers of the show are overwhelmingly male, one cannot argue that it is women imposing such ideas about masculinity on men; it is a patriarchal mindset that first and foremost influences how men view masculinity.

Sticking with the sitcom theme, consider the short-lived series Selfie.

This show was entertaining, and it was an important series because it featured an Asian actor as the romantic lead—something that remains unfamiliar on American TV. John Cho, known primarily for his roles in the Harold and Kumar movies and the contemporary Star Trek films, played a charismatic, successful marketing executive.

While the show seemed to have a following on social media, ABC chose to cancel it after 13 episodes. The show was very modern, as the title suggests, the writing was good, the acting was good; so what was the problem? There was even a petition to rescue the show. Sadly, Selfie’s fans had to let go before Henry and Eliza could officially get together.

So, once again, I question what this culture values in men. In my previous post, I had said that I’d never questioned Prince’s masculinity. He was certainly a pretty man, his mannerisms were perhaps not what one usually expects of a straight, cisgender male, and his art definitely suggested that he was sensitive.

Nevertheless, his testosterone and sexual attraction to women were palpable, no matter how he looked or what he was doing. It is common to hear that he “transcended gender”. He himself professed something similar to this in the song “I Would Die 4 U”: I’m not a woman; I’m not a man; I’m something that you’ll never understand. But what does it really mean to transcend gender? In my mind, this would imply truly embodying both femininity and masculinity, to the point where people don’t want to label you male or female but accept that you are something else that encompasses both or that so defies what we think about gender norms that it seems like neither. Where Prince was concerned, there was absolute consensus that he was a man. Reinforcing his identity as a heterosexual male, his desire for women was central to his music and stage performances. Here, his sensitivity was also apparent, as even when he sang about sex, he did not objectify women. 

The song “Gett Off” immediately comes to mind. In addition to highlighting consent and body positivity, it focuses on mutual pleasure. Indeed, Prince does not merely express a desire to get off but to get someone else off as well. The song is, thus, both literally and figuratively music to a woman’s ears. This message is diametrically opposed to the patriarchal idea of focusing on catering solely to the penis.

In my opinion, his gender bending was part of his identity performance. There was something far more political going on: Prince was challenging what we think a man is supposed to be—and, importantly, he was doing it as a Black man. This is something that seems to get overlooked in much of the discussion surrounding Prince’s persona, despite the fact that his activism is well-documented. Thus, to focus solely on his defiance of gender norms would do him, and us, a great disservice. When he adopted the unpronounceable “love symbol” as his name in the 1990s, it was an act of protest against his record label.

Warner Bros owned his name, so he changed it in a defiant assertion of his autonomy in an industry that loves to make money off of art created by Black people without actually valuing their blackness (and many of the consumers of said art feel much the same way). 

He would even appear on stage with the word “slave” written on his face to reinforce the constraints imposed on him and lack of respect from his record label.

Therefore, it would be wrong to focus solely on the gender neutrality of this symbol, which he abandoned as soon as his contract was up in 2000, and overlook all that he stood for—this proudly Black, unapologetically sexual, political, and beautiful man. 

Although we must always be careful not to idolize our stars too much, for what they choose to show us is marketed for us so we keep their career afloat, Prince was different from most of the capitalists working in his field because he challenged several dominant, oppressive systems.

Every achievement of anyone who doesn’t fit into the so-called mainstream is a revolutionary act. As part of the fight against patriarchy, let us be aware of, and denounce, insidious Eurocentric notions of beauty and gender that tell racialized people they are inferior.

City for Sale

After this land was taken from its Indigenous inhabitants, it would eventually become home to labourers in the steel industry, who went on to have families and buy homes. This expanded the population and created opportunities for a growing public sector. Hamilton, Ontario has also long been home to large numbers of immigrants and refugees, with about one quarter of the population being foreign born. This is a diverse city whose inhabitants come from many different socioeconomic, ethnic, linguistic, and religious backgrounds. But it looks like the architects of the future of Hamilton have another far more homogeneous image in mind.

(Source: The Spectator)

New Canadians (Source: CBC)

Everywhere you turn in the Hamilton core, you see either the construction of a condominium complex in progress or signs marking the sites of future condominiums. And this city, once looked at with a hint of disdain as Ontario’s Steeltown, has over the last few years become known for its trendy restaurants and cafés. Yep, we’ve been rebranded! Hamiltonians have been forced to move aside to make way for the hipster and monied Ontarians to reclaim this territory.

Gentrification is a term associated with the renewal and reconstruction of deteriorating areas, accompanied by a replacement of people of a low socioeconomic status with more affluent people. Except, what if the area being “gentrified” isn’t actually deteriorating? Wouldn’t this process just be an example of colonization?

Plan for The Connolly at the site of the former James Baptist Church, with the church façade retained

For many years, it was well-known that Hamilton offered much lower rents and property rates as compared to the Greater Toronto Area. The catch of relocating, however, was that you were unlikely to get a job in this city. But that was okay, because the commute to downtown Toronto is only an hour long. Despite the influx of well-off home buyers, however, Hamilton’s labour force is still dominated by blue collar workers. I’ll sum up our economy in four words: steel, health, construction, food.

If you’re an entrepreneur with a unique business idea, you might have a chance, unless your shop is located in a trendy area and the owner of the building decides it’s time to make way for yet another hipster bar or bistro. This has been the modus operandi on Hamilton’s famed Locke Street for years now. 

Locke Street South (Source: Urban Toronto)

We have seen many businesses open and close on this street over the years, and I personally know two successful business owners who were given the heave-ho by their landlords. Locke Street today is lined with expensive cars and an overwhelmingly white clientele. Interestingly, while some of the shops that had been there for decades, like the Locke Street Bakery (now relocated), have been replaced, other properties remain vacant with “For Lease” or “For Sale” signs in their windows. 

Before (Source: HomesinHamiltonOntario.com)

After (Source: Jackie Guanzon)

One sees customers walking up and down Locke holding takeaway coffee cups—usually from Starbucks, even though there are several other independent cafés to choose from—but the stores are usually not teeming with shoppers. As I was walking down Locke recently, I simultaneously passed a vacant shop and a group of blonde-haired women, expensive beverages in hand, discussing their lovely weekend at the cottage. It seemed like an apt representation of what’s happening: A certain class of people dominate the area, but they seem more interested in buying the image Locke Street is selling than any goods the shopkeepers might have to offer. This once thriving neighbourhood looks to me like it might implode.

As a renter in Hamilton, I have seen myself become rapidly priced out of the market in the city. In 2011, two-bedroom apartments were renting between $745 and $850 per month; today, these same units are between $910 and $1,200 per month. Moving is not an option. And my building is now on its third owner since I moved in, because there is lots of money to be made in the Hamilton real estate market. Meanwhile, the tenants are left with no real property management and landlords who try to encourage you to leave, since they can charge a new tenant anything they want, while they can only legally increase your rent by a small percentage annually.

I read an infuriating Toronto Star article the other day, written by a so-called real estate reporter—or a marketer for the real estate industry masquerading as a columnist? The article, titled “Hamilton is having its moment: But the days of a cheap, two-storey Victorian may be gone”, is a blatant call to Toronto buyers to scoop up what they can while there are still some spoils to be had. And while this campaign is not new, something about it doesn’t sit well. This article reminded me a lot of the Tata Housing ads in Goa that I, and others, have complained about before.

Once again, I see a connection between Canada and Goa, this time in my hometown. In the case of Hamilton, however, the message is not that the affluent investor deserves a piece of Paradise, as no one would realistically discuss this city in such terms. While the message remains one of entitlement, it is entitlement to something basic that Torontonians have been taught they don’t deserve—an affordable home of more than a couple hundred square feet with outdoor space.

 Downtown Toronto: Condos, condos, and more condos!

Hamilton, where you can still find affordable detached homes and green space

But, similar to the situation in Goa, the message to the people who already live here is that we are on a hot commodity that we don’t deserve. Also similar to the situation in Goa is that this in-migration does not appear to be ushering in an abundance of job creation. Perhaps our respective politicians remain hung up on the fiction of trickle-down economics—cater strictly to the wealthy and they’ll create vast employment. There are likely requirements for more domestic labour and child care services as a result of the real estate boom in Hamilton, as people spend more time commuting and less time at home, but there are few medium and large private sector businesses setting up shop.

In Goa, at least, the infrastructure is still missing, whereas it is present here—so, what is Hamilton’s excuse?

What exactly do we mean when we throw around words like “growth” and “development”? Buildings are constructed, highways are expanded, new restaurants, coffee shops, and bars open up… Okay, so, investors put in money to make more money, and one would hope the labour force used to create and maintain this “development” is also compensated… What’s in it for the vast majority of us? We inhabit a world of mass consumption and minimal production. For a few years, it looked like all Canadians were doing was passing their time shopping, but even that has changed, as evinced by all the retailers who’ve closed their doors. Our Prime Minister keeps referring to the “middle class and those working hard to join it”. How many private sector workers are in this group, and how many who are struggling will actually achieve this status? And what is the message, really? That those who are not at least middle class are unworthy of the same facilities as those with money?

As I always say, it is the people who make a place. Colonizers whose role is to consume resources and add only money do not make a place warm and beautiful. Just as I argue that newcomers to Goa must appreciate that they are in a wonderful place inhabited by real, fascinating, gracious people who are worth knowing and deserving of respect, I now argue that newcomers to Hamilton must recognize that this is not some vacant land waiting for them to come and revitalize it. Parts of the city had been neglected, but the city was not falling into disrepair before the real estate boom started. Efforts that were being made to make the city more vibrant were initiated by people whose hearts were invested in this city. Now some of those same people are being gentrified out, and for what?

The view of the city from Sam Lawrence Park on the escarpment, also known as the Hamilton Mountain (Source: mapio.net)

Hamilton harbour (Photo mine)

Revellers on James Street North (Little Portugal) celebrating Portugal's Euro 2016 win

Erasure

During the Republican National Convention in the U.S., Donald Trump set my social media feeds ablaze with comments from well-meaning liberals pointing out the irony of his choice of music. They argued that Trump had committed a faux pas by using the Queen song “We Are the Champions”, not because he had yet again used music without permission but because Queen’s frontman, the late Freddie Mercury, was gay. But here’s the problem: Freddie Mercury never professed to be gay. As far as anyone knows, Freddie Mercury never identified as gay. Indeed, he had relationships with both men and women, and the song “Love of My Life” was written about Mary Austin, a woman.

For some people, this matter might be insignificant: “Gay, queer, bi… whatever; you know what I meant.” But, for me, this highlights the bigger issues of bisexual invisibility and erasure—when bisexuality is ignored or dismissed because it is not seen as a real or valid sexual identity.

Freddie Mercury was a flamboyant performer [tick]; he was known to have had affairs with men [tick]; and he died of AIDS-related complications [tick]. This information is enough for some people to feel entitled to define him and assign him to the “gay” box. But if Mercury himself never said that he was gay, what right do we have to do it on his behalf? Now, I realize that he never came out as bisexual either, but the semantics relating to sexuality are still evolving, and the closest term we have to describing a person who has loved and had sex with people of multiple genders is “bisexual”. It is important to note that Freddie Mercury was not very political and he was not interested in discussing how he defined his sexual orientation with the press. That was his right, as it is everyone’s right to decide how to self-define and whether to share this in the public domain.

As Shiri Eisner points out in the book Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution (2013), the most popular belief about bisexuality may be that it simply doesn’t exist. This “creates the impression that bisexuality doesn’t appear in popular culture (or indeed anywhere) because it really doesn’t exist. This also causes people to ignore (erase) bisexuality where it does appear for that very same reason. (What you know is what you see.)” (p. 37; emphasis mine). In other words, everyone else gets to define a person’s sexuality on the basis of what they feel they know about them.

Not everyone who is bisexual or otherwise nonbinary comes out, or possibly can, in the same way that people who are gay or lesbian do. Ask anyone who has tried it and you will hear stories about being told some of the following:

“You’re just going through a phase.”

“Pick a side!”

“You’re greedy!”

“If you haven’t slept with a guy and a girl (or sometimes, if you haven’t had relationships with both guys and girls), how can you know?”

So, coming out can be met with doubt. And usually, once a bisexual does have relationships out in the open, their sexual orientation will be defined according to whom they’re with (again, as Eisner states, “What you know is what you see”). This revolves around the patriarchal notion that the penis rules all. That is, one’s sexuality is defined according to one’s proximity to the phallus. Think for a second about the term “gold-star lesbian”—that is, a woman who identifies as lesbian and has never slept with a man, as if that somehow makes her “purer” than a woman who has slept with a man, or multiple men. Accordingly, if a bisexual woman is dating a man, she will be defined as heterosexual, and maybe as someone who occasionally has sex with women, but probably as a performance she puts on to arouse heterosexual men, whereas if a bisexual man is dating a man, he will be defined as gay, and any attraction that he has to women will be overlooked.

Often, what comes after doubt or denial is suspicion. Many people feel threatened by bisexuals because they equate bisexuality with promiscuity and assume that a bisexual could potentially want anybody and, therefore, could never commit to a monogamous relationship. While it is important to acknowledge that everyone has a right to sleep with as many or as few people as they want to, and embrace or reject the idea of monogamy, it is insulting to decide that someone who is attracted to multiple genders is going to sleep with every single person they encounter and cannot be trusted to remain faithful in a relationship.

Given these responses to bisexuality/nonbinary sexuality, is it any wonder that there are people who choose not to disclose their orientation?

Monosexism assigns everyone to one of two permissible categories—straight or gay—depending on how we project our sexuality. Thus, monosexism and patriarchy are closely connected; the latter restricts behaviours, roles, and attractions, so the former can identify how to categorize them. These two identities are easy to define, recognize, and police. This has become blatantly obvious in the contemporary “acceptance” of homosexuality in many countries, mostly in the West. By “acceptance”, I do not mean to imply that homosexuality is encouraged or even acknowledged as valid in the way that heterosexuality is. Rather, because it can be identified and because much of the struggle of the privileged homosexuals has been about proving that they are “normal” and deserving of operating within the heteronormative world, it is now allowed under certain conditions.

This is where homonormativity plays a crucial role. I have written about the concept of homonormativity before. Homonormativity mirrors its cousin, heteronormativity, adopting the dominant model that upholds the same values of patriarchy, hypermasculinity, monogamy, family, capitalism, and whiteness that constitute the foundation of heteronormativity, and imposing them on queer people. I can’t accurately use the acronym LGBTQ here, as the existence of bi, pan, trans, etc. people continues to challenge this model—and I hope this continues to be the case. Homonormativity is used to police queer people’s behaviour and choices, to admonish them for not living acceptably—for not being more like upper- and middle class, white, cisgender, conservative, straight people. In this context, the concept of “straightness” extends beyond sexual orientation and can be attributed to the way some fine, upstanding, “normal” homosexuals live their conventional lives. Think of the idiom the straight and narrow. This separates homosexuality from queerness, and unlike homosexuality, queerness is not permissible, as it continues to pose a threat to the oppressive social order that some privileged gays and lesbians have fought to maintain.

This is why it is so critical that we not allow one dominant group to speak on behalf of LGBTQ+ people. We don’t all come from the same background and we don’t all face the same issues. But we do all have a responsibility to listen to each other and challenge our own issues with internalized homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, etc. I walk a fine line between wanting to advocate abandoning labels and wanting to claim sexuality as an important part of one’s political identity, which can require naming it. But I also believe that everyone should have the right to define who they are for themselves and should be able to choose whether or not to share that information. This is very easy for those who identify as heterosexual. The model is set before they enter the world, and their family and society will naturally assume that they will fit into this model. For others, the family and society will make the same assumption, but the outcome won’t be so easy. Even still, some who struggle with being “different” will find their path because, as I said, homosexuality is increasingly gaining recognition as an actual thing, so if one can comfortably identify with gayness, it will make self-definition more straightforward, not just for the gay or lesbian individual but also for everyone else who wants to understand what that person is.

And everyone wants to understand what people are. The problem is that our understanding of what people can be is so incredibly limited.