Queer Keanu: Race, Sexuality and the Politics of - Whoa is (Not) Me

sexuality. Yet, this vision of Reeves as masterfully in control of his subjectivity is at odds
with one of the main characteristics of Reeves persona, his passivity. In order to
understand this discrepancy, one must step back from Reeves as an individual actor, to
see him within a cultural context that materially limits the subject positions and identities
available to him. Jonathan Dollimore writes that Europeans such as T.S. Lawrence
searched for sexual freedom in the Middle East in order to disidentify with Western
culture. He says, “In other words, precisely because of the coercive and normative
alignments between subjectivity and sexuality in our culture, deviant sexuality becomes a
refusal of certain kinds of subjectivity, as well of certain kinds of normative desire” (26).
It is important that Dollimore does not suggest a new subjectivity, but, rather, the
rejection or “refusal” of “certain kinds of subjectivity.” Indeed, Reeves’ subject position
in terms of his sexuality and his race relies on his refusal to embrace a specific
subjectivity. While his subjectivity may be fragmented, we do not have the language to
account for this fragmentation. As Reeves, himself, says, “to deny it [homosexuality] is
to make a judgement.” As a result he has no place from which to speak. Instead, he can
only fail to speak or refuse to speak since telling would position him in one camp or the
other.
Reeves ambiguous sexuality also filters through dominant, juridical discourse.
The infamous “Don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) military policy supposedly protects
soldiers against retaliation, prosecution, and expulsion only if they remain “in the