Growing up as a teenager is a
whirlpool of expectations: where you go to school, how you dress, your level of
popularity, even who you love. Everybody expects you to be somebody. And that somebody isn’t always who you are, its just who
people are confortable with you being. These societal pressures are crushing
and can lead to the elimination of your uniqueness. In his short story, Am I
Blue?, author Bruce Coville asserts that conformity limits ones self and
forces people to fit into boxes and stereotypes formed by others. Coville does
this by showing the reader how people have to conform to the stereotypes of
their jobs and societal positions and how many gay people change themselves to
conform to stereotypes and, also, that society even has stereotypes for gay
people.
Sometimes who you are can
be more terrifying than any other outside threat. Some people spend hundreds of
dollars on therapists trying to fix something about the person they are versus
the person they want to be. Many gay people in the short story, Am I Blue?
by Bruce Coville are scared by who they are and how that might make them
different from what society expects from them. This leads them to change
themselves in order to fit into the boxes people put them in based on their
station in life. One example is found when Vince, the main character, has been
given the gift of being able to see if someone is gay (as they appear blue if
they are). Vince says “Mr. Alwain, the
fat guy who ran the grocery store, looked like a giant blueberry—which
surprised me, because he was married and had three kids.” Vince is surprised because the man seems to be
straight with a family and a typical job, but he actually isn’t. While being
straight (a more typical existence in most areas) might be easier, Alwain
decided to cover up an integral part of who he is because of what society might
expect him to be. Another example found
in Am I Blue? is when Vince is watching the news. He says he “the shade of a spring sky—pale blue, but
very definite. So was the congressman he interviewed, who happened to be a
notorious Republican homophobe.” The
congressman spoke derogatively towards homosexuals, though he was one himself.
This man probably felt pressures to conform to his party’s and his conservative
surrounding society (Republicans are traditionally against the idea of
homosexuality)’s viewpoint and changed himself to appear heterosexual. The
congressman felt he had to be different than who he was because of his societal
status. A third example of changing yourself to fit expectations in Am I
Blue? is also found when Vince is watching the news. Vince says he “did get a kick out of the three blue guys I
spotted in the sports feature on the team favored to win the Superbowl.” People
do not expect football players to be gay, as football is thought of as an
extremely masculine sport. The football players who appeared blue have not identified
themselves as gay, probably because of what society expected people in their
proffession to be. They buried their homosexuality to appear “normal.”
On Facebook, if someone
posts a picture of a male wearing jewelry, pink or extremely fashion forward
clothes, there’s almost always a comment saying “that’s so gay.” Some people
who post things like that aren’t homophobic (they’re just joking), some are,
but it goes to show that while society holds stereotypes for people to not be
gay, there are also stereotypes for what gay people should look like. So even
if you openly acknowledge that you’re gay, you are still not free of
stereotypes and expectations. In Bruce Coville’s short story, this is
evident. When Vince and his fairy godfather
Melvin are in a café, Melvin shows Vince how many people are gay in the restaurant
that is filled mostly with theater club members. Almost 1/3 of them are and
Melvin explains that, “Groups like
that tend to have a higher percentage of gay people, because we’re so naturally
artistic.” And “Of course, some bozos
take a fact like that and decide that everyone doing theater is gay. Remember,
two thirds of the people you’re seeing aren’t blue.” As Melvin explained, many people think that
all people in theater are gay just because it is artistic, which gays “naturally”
are. People, therefore, stereotype people in arts as “gay” even though a lot of
them aren’t. Society also stereotype gay people as to how they move, not just
what groups they are in. When Vince
first meets Melvin he asks, “Do you
have to walk like that?” He states that he is afraid that “walking around with a guy who moved the way
Melvin did wasn’t going to do anything to improve the situation{he was in}.”
In other words, Vince thinks that people will identify Melvin as gay just by
how he walks. Society stereotypes people as “gay” in terms of how they move and
what groups they associate with.
In Bruce Coville’s fascinating and
poignant short story, Am I Blue?, Coville focuses on the idea of
conformity, the injustice of the stereotypical expectations and pressures
society puts on both gay people and non-gay people alike. Coville demonstrates
that many gay people change or hide who they are in order to fit in with who
society thinks they should; be based upon their job or societal position.
Coville also asserts that people have stereotypes for what a gay person should
be as well. These issues lead to nothing but hiding and trying to fit inside
other people’s boxes. The world is not a filing cabinet, people don’t exactly
match a certain container and you can’t just put them away. So after seeing the
damage that can be done, I challenge you re-examine your own thinking, ask
yourself, do I accept the stereotypes that society has put in place for me and
my peers? Or do I choose to challenge what people say people “are” and
“aren’t,” making my own judgments instead of blindly putting everybody into
boxes. It’s your decision.
