Appropriate Behavior by Maria San Filippo

Author:Maria San Filippo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Published: 2022-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Act III “An Iranian Bisexual Teacher”

I see a real parallel between being bisexual and being the child of immigrants. I don’t feel American, and I don’t feel Iranian. And yet, I feel very much both and neither at the same time … You live in the gray area. You’re somewhere in between. It’s a very uncomfortable place to be. But it’s home, so I’ll take it.

Desiree Akhavan on Fresh Air

“Living in the Gray Area”

Prompted by Akhavan’s reflection above, this third and final act ponders the parallel Akhavan draws between her sexuality and her ethnicity. Having previously applied the term in-betweener to Akhavan’s sexual, cultural, and professional positioning, I take my cue from her description of these “parallel” aspects of her experience and selfhood as I explore how they have shaped her creative work and its significance for her audience. These parallel lines, which serve as the chief source of the protagonists’ narrative conflict in Appropriate Behavior and The Bisexual, are tricky, often impossible, to separate.1 In both works, the inevitable entanglement of these two deep-seated facets of Akhavan’s identity makes for profound creative material to mine. At the same time, these are hardly the sole defining aspects of Akhavan’s selfhood. For all the centrality of bisexuality in her body of work, Akhavan is quick to note, “So much of my life has nothing to do with being bisexual” (Kachka 2015). Nonetheless, her bisexuality was omnipresent in the press coverage around Appropriate Behavior, so much so that it inspired her 2018 television series, discussed in the finale that follows. In a similar spirit, Akhavan reports having had a decidedly “normal” American upbringing: “I was raised on the same bullshit television as everyone else, I grew up on ‘The Brady Bunch,’ being bisexual or Iranian didn’t change that” (Ehrlich 2014).

As with the other press-favoured moniker as “the next Lena Dunham,” here again Akhavan beat them to the punch, having playfully noted of her peer, in her “Who Wrote It Better?” piece, “Thank god she’s not Iranian or bisexual.” So too does Shirin introduce herself as “an Iranian bisexual teacher” to the LGBTQ+ reading group, just before brazenly asking out its discussion facilitator, alluring law professor Sasha, in a bid to make Maxine jealous. As with Anh Duong in the role of Shirin’s mother, this comprises another instance of inspired casting for having Aimee Mullins – she of the Paralympics, Alexander McQueen runway, TED Talks, Cremaster films (1996–2005), and Stranger Things (2016–)2 – be the consummate catch, and so making Shirin look irresistible, if only to herself, when Sasha concedes to the date. “I couldn’t have refused even if I wanted to. All those people,” she’ll later chide Shirin, who responds mortifyingly, “I will invite them all to our wedding.” Intending to show up Maxine (who leaves in a huff) while also proving her social-justice-mindedness, Shirin’s half-forthright, half-fatuous self-identification in this moment displays her taking to heart Ken’s advice to “fake it ’til you make it.” One of Shirin’s brash shows of overconfidence

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