Quotessence
Home / Topics / Killjoy Quotes

Killjoy Quotes

Browse 12 quotes about Killjoy.

Killjoy Quotes

“Iris Marion Young discusses how some girls learn to “throw like girls”; they learn not to get themselves behind an action, exhibiting what she calls “inhibited intentionality.” She describes how girls often “lack confidence in their capacity to do what needs to be done.” She notes, “We decide beforehand—usually mistakenly—that the task is beyond us and thus give it less than our full effort.”Decisions we make about our capacities are not always our own. We receive messages all the time that tell us who can do what (and who cannot). If you are told you can’t do it, that girls can’t do it, you might doubt whether you can do it; you might not put all of yourself into it. And then when you don’t manage it, you don’t pull it off, the judgment that you are not capable is confirmed. Gender norms sometimes work through a reversal of sequence: we assume we do it because we can, or don’t because we can’t, but often we can do it because we do it, or we can’t because we don’t. Over time, girls learn to inhabit their bodies with less confidence, assuming what they cannot do as a restriction of a horizon of possibility.”

FeministGender NormsKilljoy
Book:The Feminist Killjoy Handbook: The Radical Potential of Getting in the Way
Create image

“I'm always disappointed when I see the word 'Puritan' tossed around as shorthand for a bunch of generic, boring, stupid, judgmental killjoys. Because to me, they are very specific, fascinating, sometimes brilliant, judgmental killjoys who rarely agreed on anything except that Catholics are going to Hell.”

SometimesHellStupidCatholicBoringBrilliantBunchFascinatingDisappointedJudgmentalPuritanGenericShorthandKilljoy
Book:The Wordy Shipmates
Create image

“Let’s take this figure of the feminist killjoy seriously. Does the feminist kill other people’s joy by pointing out moments of sexism? Or does she expose the bad feelings that get hidden, displaced, or negated under public signs of joy? Does bad feeling enter the room when somebody expresses anger about things, or could anger be the moment when the bad feelings that circulate through objects get brought to the surface in a certain way?”

PeopleWayDoeMomentsFeelingsJoyCertainRoomsFiguresObjectsFeministSurfaceSexismPointingExpressing AngerKilljoy
Book:The Promise of Happiness
Create image

“America was founded by puritans and like it or not the anti-pleasure dogma of those buckled-shoed killjoys still pervades our collective unconscious like an I-max shot of Dennis Franz's naked hairy cop ass. Hence, anything enjoyable is automatically forbidden and bad and in our panic to avoid it at all cost we become obsessed with it... like dressing up in a pink teddy and a pair of ugboots and repeatedly screaming the word 'VERBOTEN!' into a conk shell balanced on the back on a miniature pony... Oh, I see.. That would just be me.”

StillsAmericaPoliticalPleasureCostShotsNakedAssObsessedUnconsciousCollectivesPairsPanicBalancedCopDogmaShellsForbiddenDressingsEnjoyableMaxPuritanTeddyDressing UpMiniaturesPoniesCollective UnconsciousKilljoy
Author:Dennis Miller
Create image