These people: a look at demonic otherness and homosexuality in Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Kushner's Angels in America Say No to Plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The arts and humanities have served not only as social and political barometers of their representative ages but also as forward-looking voices of warning. Both Tennessee Williams and Tony Kushner incorporated the voices of the marginalized into their dramaturgy. In Cat on a Hot Tin Tin Roof, Williams enlivens a Southern family's fractured relationships and their dealings with the truth, artfully alluding to the foundations of homosexual relationships and ruminating on their place in the South; Kushner examines this same marginalized group in Angels in America, but places homosexuality at the cultural forefront. Each playwright addresses the submitting group from a unique perspective: Kushner, directly; Williams, indirectly. Although Williams and Kushner use different techniques to present homosexuality and its relationships in contemporary social stratification, both Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Angels in America comment on the representation of the homosexual as an “other” – a creature to be feared and persecuted. How is this “other” initially constructed? Principles of both egocentric and ethnocentric thinking lead to the dismantling of culture and the subjugation of others outside of the dominant social image. As Ann Dobie notes, the process of othering—by which individuals perceive and interpret those who are in some way different from the social norm—is essential to the stratification of culture (Dobie 189). It is this stratification that justifies hierarchies and the distribution of wealth and power within a class system. Sometimes the dominant class or culture views another group as evil because of their traditions or practices. This process, according to Dobie, is known as demonic otherness (189). Neither Williams nor Kushner practice otherness in the representation of their respective gay characters; instead, they allow their characters to directly reflect American society, so that the process of othering is presented in a new light. However, they also cleverly complicate the issue of homosexuality in America by allowing their characters to hide their orientations. Dobie calls this related process mimicry, or an attempt by the marginalized group to disguise itself to become a more equal and functional part of the norm (190). For example, Williams gives Brick Pollitt alcoholism to mask his sexual ambiguities. This then allows other characters to trade one perceived illness for another. Similarly, Kushner has Roy Cohn, one of his homosexual characters, denounce his sexuality and his infection with AIDS: “AIDS is what homosexuals have. I have liver cancer. (Kushner 913) With this statement, Kushner succinctly summarizes the nature of mimicry and attributes this behavior to homosexual stereotypes and the American social climate. Both authors recognize that exhibiting sexual deviance can be a mistake of unforgivable proportions. Both agree that their characters are better suited to disguise themselves behind alcohol, semantics, and outright lies rather than risk being devalued by family, society, and even America as a whole. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof does not directly assert a homosexual connection. Williams approaches the subject indirectly, byreferencing Brick's relationship with his best friend, Skipper, and their "unnatural" friendship. The audience is introduced to Brick as an alcoholic. Brick's wife and the rest of the Pollitt family surround him under these pretenses throughout Act I. However, as the play evolves, Brick's relationship with Skipper is thrust into the spotlight. Maggie stabs her husband, evading a homosexual relationship in Act I when she brings up Skipper and accuses: "Oh, excuse me, forgive me, but the laws of silence don't work!" (Williams 32). This reference to silence is linked to Williams' use of indirect inferences about Brick's ambiguous sexuality: none of the characters want to talk about it. Yet it is Skipper's death that Williams uses as a subtle interface between homosexuality and American society. As Marie Napierkowski notes, a writer often “kills off a character whose actions or presence contradict or threaten society's most cherished morals” and therefore does not threaten the status quo with a measure of morality (Napierkowski 198). Instead, Brick must consider his own value – including homosexuality – in the world around him. He chooses to hide behind alcohol abuse not only to reconcile his own feelings of inadequacy, but also to fit into the normalcy prescribed by his family and, on a larger scale, by America. asserts his perceptions regarding the social strata of gay men when he speaks of the original owners of the plantation and states, “Straw? A few fucking sissies?…” (Williams 120) interjects, making another reference. to the “unnatural” relationship in question. Through these jokes and machinations, Williams delivers a strong statement about American culture and the demonization of homosexuals without ever directly attaching the nickname to Brick. The underlying inferences in the dialogue alternated with silence allow the audience to get a sense of the truth, while keeping the moral dilemma on the back burner. On the other hand, Kushner opens Angels in America with the pomp of a “Gay Fantasia on National Themes”. Such an introduction leaves little to the imagination, apart from the light in which the characters are to be represented. Kushner makes no apologies for his production's mannerisms; its sets are minimalist, its actors are employed in multiple roles and the dialogue takes place outside the confines of space and time. Kushner's methods allow him to get the most out of his characters' interactions while the simultaneous dialogue creates a strong sense of urgency for the moment. It is this urgency that increases the otherness among the homosexual characters. For example, in Act I, scene 8, several dialogues occur simultaneously: Joe and Harper are at home, while Louis and Prior are talking in bed. Harper rhetorically states that she fears that her husband is gay, attributing some of his dysfunction to his latent sexual desires. At the same time, Prior tells Louis about the terrible symptoms associated with AIDS, an illness closely linked to the play's gay community. Kushner does not poeticize the disease and, in fact, commenting on homophobia, likens the new epidemic to a scourge for “queers.” He's not one to mince words; his piece hits you like a bag of bricks, direct, frank and textually obvious (although subtextually elusive). Aside from the otherness associated with AIDS and fear and persecution in general, Kushner uses his characters as foils to perpetuate separatism. As Ross Posnock notes, Kushner's illustrations of the Roy Cohn character create a "pathologically conflicted and hateful" individual who is representative of so many homosexuals, 2004.