The Ticket that Exploded: Blog 2

The final chapter of The Ticket That Exploded did help tie a few things together, but for the most part left me just as angry as the rest of the novel. It seems as though this novel was not too different than the others and proved just how easy it is to manipulate an audience. One line that caught my attention was “after analyzing recorded conversations you will learn to steer a conversation where you want it to go.” This made me wonder where the author wanted this novel to go. In a response to my last blog, Prichard wrote “It is odd that as readers we assume this voice is a proxy of the author. What if like many writers of satires he approaches the writing from the view of the culture itself. Doesn't culture view homosexuality and homosexuals in ways that are not too far off from this book…” Perhaps that is the answer to the question. Perhaps by appalling the audience, Burroughs was also hoping to manipulate the audience into seeing what we are blind to. As we discussed in class, people go to movies to be manipulated. A romantic comedy will meet our desires of what we consider true love. Manipulating someone into believing a fantasy is easy, yet in order to be manipulated into realizing the truth, we need something a little more shocking. I agree with Prichard that culture views homosexuality in a way that is not too far off from this book. Although we are improving generation by generation, many are still caught off guard by homosexuality. Even someone who claims to be completely open about it might get uncomfortable when a sexual gesture is actually acted upon.
Both of my best friends are homosexual, yet I was raised to believe that it was unnatural and abnormal. Both of my parents hold strong beliefs that homosexuality is a mental problem. I am forced to battle between supporting my best friends and respecting the beliefs of my elders. Homosexuality has become an unspoken issue in my household, because agreeing to disagree is easier than debating my parent’s unchangeable views. However, I also know many other homosexuals and can admit that the gay community is much different than the heterosexual. The idea of, “what does sex look like outside of love and emotion,” was brought up in class. In the case of every homosexual I know, sex exists first outside of love and emotion. At the same time, I was still offended by this novel even though I do accept that many people hold different morals. There needs to be a line, where homosexuals respect the beliefs of the elders, and the elderly are more accepting of a more open generation. It’s not that homosexuality just originated, yet it is just not beginning to be accepted.
On Plurk, the idea was raised that this novel would have had an entirely different response if it was about all women instead of men. Personally, homosexuality used to be an issue that I was very uncomfortable with it because it was something that I was sheltered from. Even though I am accepting of it now, I still find lesbians more unnatural than gay men. Attraction to your same gender is not the issue that I have trouble finding natural, it is the issue of homosexual sex. If lesbians have to bring in inanimate objects in order to have sex, this seems much more unnatural than the processes of gay men. That said, for me this novel would be just as, if not more, offensive if it was purely about women. Yet for some reason, society does not think into natural and unnatural, they are turned on by the idea of two women. With that said, even if I would be disgusted by the other version of this book, I would have loved to see the author’s take on it.
The novel ended with the line, “the more you run the tapes through and cut them the less power they will have.” This made me think about how the more you read the book the more normal and less offensive the material comes. The more immune you become to the disgust you once had. I know that in time this is exactly what is going to happen with homosexuality and the more normal it will become.