I Know You Are, but What Am I? by Cait Mckinney

I Know You Are, but What Am I? by Cait Mckinney

How Pee-wee and his playhouse help us reimagine our relationships to technology I Know You Are, but What Am I? explores the cultural legacy of Pee-wee Herman, the cult television star of Pee-wee’s Playhouse. This children’s show-that was also for adults-ran on network TV from 1986 to 1990 and starred comedian Paul Reubens as Herman, a queer man-boy whose playhouse, the set for the show, was tricked out with a profusion of animate computational toys and technologies. Cait McKinney shows how three defining scenes from the show inform, and even foretell and challenge, our present moment: the playhouse as an alternative precursor to networked smart homes that foregrounds caring and ethical relationships between humans and technologies; a reparative retelling of Reubens’s career-wrecking 1991 arrest for indecent exposure inside a Florida adult film theater as part of an AIDS-phobic, antigay sting operation; and worn-out, Talking Pee-wee dolls and their broken afterlives on eBay and YouTube. McKinney looks at how queer people who were children in the 1980s remember and relate to Pee-wee now, showing that the moral panic about sexuality, gender, and children from the past can help us refute anti-trans and anti-queer political movements organized today.

"McKinney is a true Pee-wee fan, and they write with the queerdo’s avenging righteousnessTheir book is as much an elegy as a media history, a requiem for long-gone weekends that are 'equal parts joy and wound.'"-Artforum

 

"The book celebrates that such a singular, queer, and transgressive character ever existed, and the author’s sadness at Reubens’ passing is palpable. It’s a fitting tribute, one that Reubens richly deserves."-Gay & Lesbian Review

 

Cait McKinney is assistant professor of communication at Simon Fraser University. They are author of Information Activism: A Queer History of Lesbian Media Technologies and coeditor of Inside Killjoy's Kastle: Dykey Ghosts, Feminist Monsters, and other Lesbian Hauntings.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781517918286
ISBN 10	1517918286
Title	I Know You Are, but What Am I?
Author	Cait Mckinney
Series	Forerunners: Ideas First
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	University of Minnesota Press
Year published	2024-07-02
Number of pages	92
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.