Nobody Puts Cohn in a Corner

In Act 2 Scene 9, Roy Cohn makes an interesting observation about the power of labels. When his doctor tries to get him to openly admit to being homosexual he refuses adamantly and responds, “Like all labels they tell you one thing and one thing only: where does an individual so identified fit in the food chain, in the pecking order? Not ideology, or sexual taste. But something much simpler: clout” (Kushner 51).

He believes that the term homosexual does not describe him adequately, because as a social construct (esp. talking about the mid to late 20th century) the word came with a lot of stereotypes and stigmas. He sees more of his identity as lining up with the law, with politics, circles that homosexuals didn’t (openly) occupy. He says that homosexual directly implies being near the bottom of social hierarchy and as he clearly has power and influence with important individuals he is not a homosexual. Roy Cohn is demonstrative of one interesting kind of internal conflict going on in the play: the “Republican/homosexual” identity, which is made out to be a kind of painful juxtaposition of two polar opposites. Roy Cohn is not a happy man; his life advice for Joe was basically that life is best spent alone, in pursuit of power. But his pointing out of his position in society is important, because it brings to light an interesting population that was trying to navigate social conformity: homosexual men that reigned in high positions of power, contrary to the position of their homosexual peers. They were homosexuals that existed in a world where they were not insulted, or considered blemishes on God’s Earth. They became attached to their created, but undisturbed lives, even as it made them hard and lonely from dissatisfaction. It makes sense to me that Roy Cohn saw the world as cruel, and the only meaningful goals as selfish. He never fit in anywhere, in part by his own design. But when AIDS became a crisis first in the US gay community, it began to be associated with gay sexual relations. This stigmatization of AIDS, and its spread, created a dilemma for Roy Cohn’s segment of the population – they were getting the same rare infections as the publicly gay population. They had to reconcile their constructed identities with the humbling reality of their situation, which also meant opening up to (or continuing to lie to) the people close to them.

Roy Cohen was a real person, who targeted government officials for having alleged Communist sympathies, but also for alleged homosexuality. He seemed to be some one that decided to side with political power, for what seemed like an easier life than the struggle of being an openly homosexual man. However he didn’t set up a life removed from societal pressures, instead he jumped into the crux of pressure, the political scene. His job put him in a position to seek out and quash perceived homosexuality in others, and he did.  It’s like “killing your family” so to speak, something that pops up in stories as a device to prove great strength. It shows you can distance yourself from things that fall into an emotional category, in order to exist more fully in a realm concerned only with obtaining power. It also proves loyalty to the identity you chose for yourself, not the one you were born with- a dichotomy echoed by conflicted characters in the novel like Joe, who at first sees his homosexuality as a birth defect, and chooses religion as the governing principle in his life. But killing your “family” always confers great and terrible strength gained because it requires denying part of yourself, and runs the risk of lonely life. Cohn was diagnosed with AIDS in the ‘80s, but insisted it was liver cancer to his deathbed.

Tags: AIDS, Angels in America, Identity, Roy Cohn

This entry was posted on Monday, April 22nd, 2013 at 11:34 am and is filed under April 23, Rachel Kisty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.