The Dysfunctiion of Q and U

I attended a wedding this week. Weddings always make me uncomfortable. While bride and groom commit themselves until death do they part, I typically sit back among the spectators making bets on how long it will be before the divorce. While bride and groom sign on to the thousands of legal rights and benefits that marriage bestows, I remind myself that marriage is a patriarchal institution that makes women property. Then I start to worry about the reception, hope there’ll be an open bar, and wonder how many eyes will stare if my partner and I decide to dance. Yes, weddings always make me uncomfortable — but this one was particularly disturbing.

This wedding ceremony took place at a local public elementary school. The kindergarten through sixth grade sat in the auditorium for the nuptials of “Q” and “U.” The second grade staged the wedding as part of their phonics curriculum. Each second grader played a role – most were other letters, but a select few were invited wedding guests. There were “queens” on one side of the aisle and “quarterbacks” on the other. In the middle, the beautiful bride – the letter Q – stood beside her groom – the letter U – and the principal – dubbed a minister – married the two. 

Cute? Certainly. Creative? Definitely. Even so, I couldn’t get past the sexism, the stereotypical gender roles and the compulsive heterosexuality. Of course it was the bride who couldn’t function without the groom: “U doesn’t need Q, but Q always needs U.” U was the groom who was often needed elsewhere – like in the word underwear. But Q (who stays home watching over the other letters) cannot go anywhere without U.    

I don’t know about you, but the thought that I am useless without my partner is nothing short of disgusting. Why are we celebrating these dysfunctional nuptials? Shouldn’t this play be called The Dysfunction of Q and U?  

Suddenly, I am rewriting the play in my head. First, a rewritten heterosexual ceremony where U is a controlling husband, not allowing Q out of his site. Q sucks it up, thinking it’s her role to be an extension of him. Even when U has extra-marital affairs with almost every letter of the alphabet, Q never quarrels with him. But then, suddenly, Q has had enough. She runs off to Qatar to be alone, knowing that Arabic doesn’t have such restrictive expectations of her.    

Then I’m directing another play: The Commitment Ceremony of Q and U where U loads up the U-Haul after the second date and all the QU words move in together. At their ceremony there are queens and quarterbacks too, but some of the queens are fabulous gay boys and a few of the quarterbacks are sporty dykes. At first, the queer couple is happy, but pretty soon Q starts getting annoyed by her lack of independence. Q is in a quagmire. She loves U but can’t stand being with her ALL THE TIME. Q decides to get a job with NASDAQ where she invests in Compaq and Q-Tip stock. Happiness returns. Happiness based on independence and self-sufficiency. She has just enough time without U that she doesn’t mind her company the rest of the time.   

Neither of my plays would have made it on stage. They are, of course, “too political.” But I challenge us all to see The Marriage of Q and U as equally political – maybe even more so. More political because very few people even see how oppressive it is. Nobody thought to send home a parental permission slip for my child to see such narrow and biased material. I only coincidentally attended the assembly because my son was to receive a student of the month award after the play.   

What messages does this play send? When Q and U married, boy married girl. When the minister read the vows, Christian marriage was held up as the ideal. A decision was made to cast Q as the girl and U as the boy. Of course, it is Q (the girl) who is useless without her U. No wonder so many young girls have self-esteem issues. Queens and quarterbacks only enforce the gender code – girls are not supposed to want to play sports, and heaven help the boy who wants to dress up as a queen. The fact that Q is supposed to just be happy with U running all over town without her – well, that’s just disturbing on so many levels. I call a relationship where one person (“letter”) can’t go anywhere without the other codependent and possibly even abusive.  

No wonder oppression is so ingrained in us. Not only are we getting these messages through the media, in our homes and our places of worship but even our elementary schools are telling students the status quo is the only way to be. Sexism, Christian hegemony, stereotypical gender roles and homophobia are political, too. It is time to start seeing them that way.