Mapped across America are geographical lines, confining and elaborating the details of our great Nation. These lines set the boundaries between states and help tease out the surface of our terrain as rivers, lakes and mountains help coax their borders. Up close these borders are definite and bold clearly marking the difference between here and there. From far away, the lines begin to blur; their definite strokes become indistinguishable. With enough distance there are no lines, the borders between states grow fuzzy, and the nation combines to simply become the United of States of America. In iO Tillett Wrights Tedx Women Talk, “Fifty Shades of Gay”, she applies this idea of geographical borders to her experiences and observations within the LGBTQ community in the United State. Instead of lessening in strength, and finding that fuzzy unison as the lens zooms out, the border between gay and straight grows harder.

Wright personally grew up in downtown Manhattan in a hub of propelled creativity describing her upbringing as, “if you weren’t a drag queen or a radical thinker or a performance artist of some kind, you were the weirdo” (Fifty). Her childhood was void of some of the natural decisions that mark a young women’s life. Wrights mother and father never required her to define herself against or with any term. With this Wright, at a very young age, decided she was a boy, inevitably choosing to grow up suppressing many womanly habits. She was able to live eight years of her childhood completely fooling those around her that she was a male. Her parent’s malleable perspective and unquestioning support allowed Wright to shift as she pleased into and under conditions that many young children would never experience. Her parents either knowingly, or unknowingly, gifted their child with the ability to view boundaries or boxes less clearly. At the age of fourteen Wright felt compelled to explore herself as a woman again and just as easily as she settled on the idea of being a boy she resettled on being a women and began to re-familiarize herself with her feminine body.

With this upbringing Wright found herself in the center of an identity crisis as she first fell in love with a woman and then fell in love with a man years later. All while determining herself, where she fell between male and female. Wright sifted through the range of girly-girl to tomboy and lesbian to straight many times before finally coming to a comfortable niche as, “…a tomboyish girl who liked both boys and girls depending on the person” (Fifty). This is what led Wright to her inevitable civil rights campaign.

Struck by Prop 8, the marriage equality act, Wright was overcome with the realization that she was a minority in the United States. Even more so, Wright was shocked at the borders and boxes being drawn between straight and gay individuals across America and between one another. Wright began to formulate a concept; a project began to come together entitled, Self Evident Truths. With Wrights natural upbringing she was already inclined to be attuned to the struggle that accompanies determining where individuals stand gender and sexuality wise. In the wake of Prop 8 the view of “gay” had been boiled down simply to the opposite of straight, mistakenly clumping together an array of humans that should personally decide just how much they consider themselves gay. This project would seek to make obvious the spectrum that lies within the LGBTQ community in the United States discouraging what Prop 8 spurred and its binary way of thinking.

Self Evident Truths is a nationwide, traveling Polaroid camera documenting the spectrum that honestly exists within the LGBTQ community. Wright works as the face and photographer of the movement. Her goal is to travel across America documenting the differences in the gay community in 25 American Cities and to shoot about 10,000 faces. So far Wright and her crew have traveled to 20 different cities in America and shot 2,000 faces, since the enactment in 2010. Every person they shoot does not consider themselves one hundred percent straight, the focus is on anything but. Wright hopes that through revealing these faces that America will be forced to see what they are oppressing and will be overcome by the humanity of the individuals. Wright professes, “Visibility really is key. Familiarity really is the gateway drug to empathy” (Fifty). Through her photographs Wright is breaking the fourth wall between oppressor and oppressed, forcing the oppressor to recognize the oppressed and challenging them to redefine their definition of gay. Consequently Wrights speech demands the audience to look into the face of each individual and try to deny their humanity; their rights to marry equally and not have their sexuality held against them.

The theory Edwin Black proposes in, “The Second Persona” relates to the flourish of iO Tillett Wrights speech. Blacks description of first persona warning that,

we have learned to keep continuously before us the possibility, and in some cases the probability, that the author implied by the discourse is an artificial creation: a persona, but necessarily a person (111)

fits comfortably into Wrights build up of her speech; which cushions her personality and background enough to settle the audience into her second persona. Black describes the second persona as, “the implied auditor” (111). This hints at the set up of the speech and peels back who the speech was designed for and what it wanted to compel the audience to do.

As a first persona Wright presents herself physically as effortlessly cool. She dresses herself as a professional artist. She wears a jean jacket, white shirt and trousers with boots. Wrights nose glistens with a delicate nose ring, bull style. Her hair is short and seems to spring of her head vibrantly. Wright is intriguing in an approachable way. She is the perfect image of a ripe artist, one that is gaining voice and weight in the communities surrounding her. Her appearance invites other artists to inquire about her point of view. Wright details her childhood honestly, painting herself as having almost no choice but to be artistic. As an audience we are left with the view of her as swaddled with art as a baby eventually producing this fine image we see before us on stage.

Under second persona Wright designs her speech for the general open minded individual. The immediate audience consists of all women. Wright gave her speech in a Tedx Women Talk; in this organization individuals gather to create a Talk and invite numerous inspiring speakers to come and share their words to an audience. The event is optional to who is interested. I assume that the women present in the audience were aware of the subject of Wrights talk and therefore decided to attend. In this way the women of the audience present themselves as open minded and willing to listen to Wright and her message. It is also important to note that the speech was recorded; this opens up the audience vastly. It spreads Wrights message to the web and generates curiosity to online users who are navigating the Ted Talks online.

Wright, at some point, takes time to explain her findings through her project Self Evident Truths. She explains the solution she found to the boundaries and boxes being continually drawn between and fitted over gay individuals. Her solution is the realization of a grey area. This grey area specifies or rather helps unspecify and elongate the gay spectrum. I believe that Wright also tailors her speech to these “grey” individuals. Wright considers herself part of this grey spectrum at some point even stating,

If you ask me to quantify myself on the same spectrum I would say that I am probably 75, 25 to 85, 15 on any given day. I am more prone to falling in love with women but I am attracted to men all the time. Am I going to end up in a committed relationship with a woman? Yes. But could I sleep with a man, absoloutely (TEDx).

She is the perfect model for who her speech is designed to reach. In Wrights portraits she portrays those who consider themselves anywhere along the gay spectrum. This has always been a fascination for her; Wright admits that before this project she was already taking photographs of girls who fall between the lines. Photos of girls who, “skateboarded but did it in lacy underwear, girls who had boys' haircuts but wore girly nail polish…girls who liked girls and boys who all liked boys and girls who all hated being boxed in to anything” (Fifty). Wrights speech aims at the girls and boys who confidently straddle two conflicting ideas at the same time and who feel threatened to conform to one.

Wrights speech fails to apply to higher authority. She does not call on individuals with more power to demand her voice be heard and her message be applied. This is largely in part to the environment of the speech; a ted talk is designed to inspire not to challenge. Although Wrights speech is inspirational it doesn’t call to action her audience. She does not demand of even her general audience to take initiation.

In her speech Wright makes obvious the urgency of challenging the binary way of thinking related to gay and straight. She displays photos and forces the audience to, “…look into the faces of these people and tell them that they deserve any less than any other human being” (Fifty). Through this the humanity of each individual is, hopefully, made obvious. I think that this is a very raw and effective way of reaching your oppressors. I could feel it myself as I faced each portrait. Keeping that in mind, I don’t believe Wright challenged her audience strongly enough. Her speech needed to inject more fire into the audience so to ensure that the messages in her speech spread.

Although, There is no denial of the effect of Wrights speech. As I listened to her speech in my kitchen, each of my roommates stopped what they were doing and slowly, like molasses, gathered around me. She absolutely draws in her listeners, the first and second persona coming together to ensure that. Her physical appearance and detailed past are a work of art that instill curiosity. Wrights speech is designed for those seeking for that kind of message. She introduces a concept that feels as if it needed to be said and so the audience thoroughly ingests her message and applies it. It is an effective message but it lacks a push. With this push Wright would create much more of a stir. I think that her project will keep pulling in eyes and her speech will morph many minds.

Resources

Tedblogguest. "TED Blog." TED Blog Gallery IO Tillett Wright Examines the 50 Shades Of Gay Comments. N.p., 30 Jan. 2013. Web. 07 Mar. 2013.

Frank, Priscilla. "'Self Evident Truths': IO Tillet Wright's LGBTQ Portraits At The Hole (PHOTOS)." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 22 May 2012. Web. 07 Mar. 2013.

"IO Tillett Wright." IO Tillett Wright. N.p., 2012. Web. 07 Mar. 2013.

Knoxnews. "Interview with IO Tillett Wright." YouTube. YouTube, 11 Mar. 2012. Web. 07 Mar. 2013.

Self Evident Truths. Self Evident Truths, 2012. Web. 07 Mar. 2013.

Wright, IO T. "IO Tillett Wright: Fifty Shades of Gay." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. N.p., Dec. 2012. Web. 07 Mar. 2013.

Wright, IO T. "TEDxWomen." TEDxWomen. TEDx, 2 Dec. 2012. Web. 07 Mar. 2013.