a note on ferrie
Ferrie is arguably the closest thing that Libra has to a true villain, with no redeeming qualities. A pedophile with a bizarre appearance, Ferrie is a manipulator on a level above the rest. A key part of this characterization is Ferrie’s sexuality; the book’s lone queer character, DeLillo plays up Ferrie’s sexuality throughout Libra in order to denote him as a villain. While it’s true that Ferrie was a pedophile, I personally feel that DeLillo’s portrayal of him and his sexuality relies on a number of homophobic stereotypes.
Preliminarily, when discussing Ferrie as a gay character, we need to take the surrounding context of the era in which Libra was written into consideration. The novel was published in 1988, at the height of the AIDs crisis. The stereotypes we see proliferated throughout culture at this time are echoed in Libra, most notably the idea of the predatory and pedophilic gay man. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that DeLillo, being a (presumably) straight men living in an extremely homophobic culture, picked up on a number of homophobic ideas and incorporated them into the narrative.
Don’t get me wrong- I’m not saying that Ferrie raping Lee was at all excusable. But it’s not in the historical record, and I think that we as readers have the freedom to question why the author chose to include certain elements. In my opinion, while the rape may have added to the narrative in terms of re-emphasizing Ferrie’s status as a manipulator, it also served to reinforce homophobic stereotypes. Ferrie is clearly a villain and I’m not asking anyone to feel sympathy for him or his actions, but I think it’s worth noting that a significant portion of how he’s villainized is by playing up his sexuality. Plenty of other characters do things are pretty reprehensible -- Lee beats Marina, for one thing, and the entire group schemes to assassinate the president for their own gain. And yet Ferrie is the one character who’s inexcusable and unjustifiable; to me, that fact is clearly linked to his sexuality.
Additionally, Ferrie fails to conform to masculine ideals throughout the novel, and this is also used to denote villany. Women are seen as merely background characters who exist only for the further development of their husbands. Marina’s pain is discounted throughout the novel, and virtually no female character plays a significant role other than as someone’s wife, mother, or daughter; their relevance is based solely on their relationships to men. Because women are seen as necessary for the coming-of-age process among men -- Lee’s marriage proposals, for example, can be seen as not genuine expressions of love but rather a desire to fit a masculine ideal -- any man who willingly disregards this process is to be distrusted. Essentially, being gay is seen as an unforgivable deviation from the norm.
Again, I’m not trying to justify Ferrie’s actions or downplay them. But I do think that DeLillo’s choice to center his villainy around his sexuality is questionable at best, and in any case quite damaging, especially in the greater societal context in which Libra was published.
I agree with this blog post. I read a little more about Ferrie and found out that Lee and Ferrie did not even have a very close relationship, much less a physical one. Apparently there's a lot of evidence that doesn't even link Ferrie and Lee together.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a majority of your points, but I also think Ferrie's character is deeper than just his sexuality. DeLillo also uses him to incorporate the element of astrology into the book, and to introduce the idea that some things are just coincidences and cannot be explained. While I agree that some parts of his character play into stereotypes, but to me that seems to be more of a coincidence as they tend to be historical, and his rape of Lee, though inexcusable, seems to be separate from other aspects of his character and very related to the plot and manipulation. I also think the marginalization of women in this novel is more a product of the history than DeLillo's story telling. There wouldn't have been women as agents or analysts in the CIA and it is in the historical record that Lee beat his wife, and the novel was centered on him not Mariana because he was the one who killed JFK. So, though it is problematic, I don't think is a fault of DeLillo, but more a reflection of the situation at the time of the assassination.
ReplyDeleteNice post. I think you're right and I'm glad you explored these ideas in a post because we haven't had a chance to talk about them in class and it honestly slipped under my radar for the most part. Not only can Libra tell us about the lack of an inherently true narrative of the JFK assassination, it can tell us about narratives of sexuality and gender in the 80s. It's unfortunate that DeLillo did not realize his own biases while writing a book that essentially asserts that all narratives are equal, but it just goes to show that we sometimes cannot escape our own preconceived narratives and perceptions even when we recognize the merits of postmodernism.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I saw some of this but most of it went under my radar. I really didn't understand what either of the sexual scenes involving Ferrie and Oswald were in the book for, but this idea makes a lot of sense. I personally didn't see Ferrie as much worse character than Oswald. That could just be me personally, but I felt like while both rape and marital abuse are incredibly horrible, there isn't a way to compare them. Because of this, the fact that we see Oswald attempt cold-blooded murder, for no real reason, makes me dislike him more. I think this difference between them has only increased by reading this article, because Ferrie is in many ways made to fit a stereotype, while all of Oswald's negatives are on record. Thanks for a really informative and thought provoking read.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with Brian that a lot of that stuff went under my radar so thanks for bring that up. What you said about Ferrie being demonized because of his sexuality, or vice versa - his sexuality being used as a tool to demonize him -makes a lot of sense. I also think it makes a lot of sense given the historical context in which DeLillo was writing Libra in, and I agree with your point about DeLillo unknowingly using stereotypical, homophobic framework for the character of Ferrie.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time (and I'll just throw this into the mix, not to dispute in any way your sharp observations about how DeLillo uses Ferrie in stereotypically demonized ways), Ferrie is the only one among any of the conspirators who seems to care at all about Lee as a person, who resists the plot to kill him immediately after the assassination, and who goes out on a limb himself to ensure that Lee will be flown safe to Cuba via Galveston and Yucatan. There's that moment where he muses, sadly, that for all he knows they'll *both* be killed by the conspirators afterward. He does seem to try to "save" Lee, and is the only one among the whole Mackey/Banister/Everett nexus that has anything close to a heart. He manipulates Lee, but he also seems to believe his own BS.
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