“Taking the Remote Control from the Commander”: A Queer Reading of Subjectivation and the Collapse of Repressive Power

In this article, we will investigate the meanings of a television remote control. Some people avoid thinking deeply about objects or events. In fact, when we start a conversation about the meanings of those moments, behaviors, or objects, our sentences may seem exaggerated to them. However, there are deep meanings behind almost everything that seems unimportant. If we are aware of these, we can be more respectful and conscious people and be a means for the positive transformation of our surroundings with our existence. As most of us have stated, many people today unfortunately lead extremely superficial lives. This situation is not the fault of the individuals but rather related to the systemic societal structures they were born into. Nevertheless, it is possible to dissolve this system from the inside, starting from ourselves. Therefore, throughout this text, we will analyze oppressive systems through objects and identities and discover the right paths of action.

When we look at the etymology of the word commander, we come across the meanings of command and order. Metaphor, on the other hand, means representing an object or concept with another concept or object. Accordingly, the control metaphor includes the representation of control and leadership. One day, a crisis that begins with a small movement in the house, even the change of place of the remote control, can actually be the final knot of an identity and structural conflict that has accumulated for years. In this way, a timely rupture can occur. For example, a person who is very much caught up in the identity of a parent may be trying to control the adult in the role of the child with brute force or various manipulations. However, this attempt, which is made automatically, no longer works when the child becomes aware of the drama. From another perspective, this is the moment of the collapse of the power-centered structure, the parent who is paired with the bully becomes only a symbol here. When the child becomes aware of the game as an independent person, the victim also disappears.

Neither Matriarchy Nor Patriarchy, A Queer Psychology

While the word queer was used in a derogatory sense in history, it began to be preferred in academic contexts over time. This concept, which means unusual, broken, strange, is re-read as a field of thinking and practice today. Queer psychology, conversely, is an epistemology (science of knowledge) that approaches psychology itself with a critical attitude. Queer psychology does not construct the subject with a fixed, universal template. In other words, the “individual” is a historical, relational, fluid production shaped by social norms and power relations. To be more precise, identities such as motherhood, fatherhood, masculinity, femininity, and childhood do not have a final or natural existence. For this reason, holding on to any of these concepts and being fixed on them contradicts the fluidity of life. In contrast, since a queer awareness can distance itself from all these performance areas, it does not internalize the power games that come with these identities.

One day, a parent displays an aggressive attitude towards their child taking the TV remote control away from them. This time, the adult child can choose not to be involved in their parent’s drama and game and determines his own subjectivity that is tried to be unrecognized. As poststructuralist philosopher Judith Butler emphasizes in their expression “gender performance,” gender identities are not fixed and are produced through repetitive practices. Father and mother figures also have to reproduce being an “authority” in this sense every day. However, this fictional production no longer works. In fact, we know that today, “wagging the finger” and trying to control others through physical or psychological pressure are operating in the background of extremely unhealthy family dynamics. When we expand our attention from the small scale to the large, we can see that the cycle of emotional or physical violence produced within the family is the same as the large scale. After all, individuals are the representation of society. As these representations realize the shallow roles assigned to them, they become free and can open up space for others to become free as well.

Breaking Out of the Commander’s Remote Control

People who assume various identities during the day take on attitudes according to the changes in their surroundings. For example, a parent who exhibits constructive attitudes towards their child when their partner is not around may use their child to show off to their partner and attract their attention. A family member may try to provoke another to fight for no apparent reason. The reason for this is the desire to protect the identity position to which they feel they belong. Although the family member tries to maintain parental power with a show, this effort actually arises from the fragility of power. In a queer approach that does not take normative perceptions seriously enough to challenge them, not the highest-income person in the house, but everyone who contributes to that space — whether materially or through care, maintenance, or relational labor — is worthy of mutual recognition. In the queer understanding, the right to decide is not based solely on economic power, gender, age, or social role labels. The right to speak is based on the equality of invisible labor and mutual recognition.

Classical psychoanalysis (Freud, Lacan) approaches sexuality and identity through binary frameworks. However, queer theorists like Judith Butler, Diana Fuss, and Tim Dean question this approach (binary). For example, they investigate the emergence of a queer subject beyond traditional family structures. Therefore, dynamics such as parenting or partnership can go beyond normative patterns. With the collapse of this narrative, individuals and groups that are attempted to be controlled manage to distance themselves from the representatives of the mechanisms of power. Thus, a new subject emerges. In Butler’s definition, it is a moment of “disidentification.” In other words, an authentic existence that breaks away from the existing identity category and overflows from that category emerges. Real ruptures do not occur through dramatic staging, but by abandoning resistance and withdrawing from the game. It would not be right to call this a rebellion; it is a moment of resignation. Resignation from identity, role, and burden. And neither the place of the remote control nor the amount of the bill is important in the house anymore. Because this house is no longer the house of power; it is a place where freedom is bid farewell. Letting go of belongings, formed before we were even born, is not a rupture, but a state of re-formation.

References

Fuss, D. (1995). Identification Papers: Readings on Psychoanalysis, Sexuality, and Culture. Routledge.

Butler, J. (1997). The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. Stanford University Press.