Feminist Psychoanalysis & Queer Theory: Butler's "Gender Trouble" and Cixous' "The Laugh of the Medusa"

Gender Trouble and The Laugh of the Medusa

During the last decades, there is a certain distinction between the concepts of sex and gender. The concept of sex is considered to be a biological category, while gender is social sex - the expectations we have about this or that person in relation to his or her biological sex. However, in the queer theory studies, this relationship has also been questioned. Very often, the word "queer" is used as a synonym for representatives of the LGBT community. These concepts always go together. Each representative of the gay, lesbian, queer, feminist of other communities tries to express him or herself to the public and be treated equally to the heterosexual community. All these groups express their concerns in the literature of various magazines or newspapers posts. It is crucial for them to be heard and understood. Thus, the feminist psychoanalysis argues about the existing of women literature, which is completely different from those written by men, and queer theory states on the possibility for the person to determine his or her gender according to the social environment not taking into account the biological sex.

All the representatives of queer communities and feminism representatives demand the equality in the society, which must not be determined by sexual belonging. Sometimes they argue about their superiority as it was done by Hélène Cixous in her famous work “The Laugh of the Medusa” (1976). The main thesis of this work is the existence of the women writing which is completely different from men. The author is the representative of French feminism which is mainly psychoanalytic and is focused on curbing. All the feminists throughout the world are trying to find terminology that would save femininity from its stereotyped links with inferiority (Butler 9). In her work, the methods of female subjectivity expressions are combined with corporeality. The philosopher believes that a woman thinks through the body because of the peculiarities of her physiology.Such a peculiarity is needed to be used for the woman’s creativity. According to Cixous, Freud's and Nietzsche's masculinist doctrines made her believe in her inferiority (Cixous 877-79). The author identifies the writing with a breakthrough and a revelation of her own sexuality because when returning to the original female nature, a woman can become free. She calls all women for writing to find harmony and faith in themselves. From a philosophical point of view “The Laugh of the Medusa”  is a feminist manifesto for the liberation of women. The author argues that the future must not be determined by the past (Cixous 881). In the past, women did not have enough rights. That is why they have to live according to the current perspectives and create their future themselves.

The feminist movements were the starting point of the sexual minorities movements. The Queer Theory claims that the surroundings and person’s will and feelings determine his or her gender. Tyson (2006) and Parker (2015) have paid much attention in their works to the queer criticisms and theory development. They wrote about the manifestations of gay, lesbian, and queer ideas in the society. According to Judith Butler (1990), from the very beginning, there is a built-in hierarchy in the society which is divided into two separate genders. Thus, the equality of two genders cannot be achieved, because they are artificially constructed in a system that does not provide equality (Butler 4-6). However, even if the destruction of the framework of gender may sound like a utopia, the Queer theory has already managed to "shake" the framework of this construct. In particular, this concerns ideas about the romantic and sexual drives towards other people, as well as gender identity and gender expression (Parker). However, queer theory is much more complex than gut or lesbian criticism. The category of sexuality is much broader here than the simple opposition of homosexual/heterosexual. It is a kind of mixture, a fluid, fragmented, dynamic collectivity of possible sexualities (Tyson 336). The appearance of such a phenomenon became possible due to the processes of socialization and globalization in the society.

In such a way, every person wants to be equal to the majority in the society. The historical conditions of women treatment caused the appearance of feminist movement and feminist literature. The literature became one of the means of expression where they spoke about their identity. Following this movement, the representatives of LGBT communities began to show themselves and search for their rights and equality. Thus, the feminism and queer criticism became the inherent part of the life in the society where there are a lot of the supporters and opponents of these movements.

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Rout‑ ledge, 1990.

Cixous, Hélène, et al. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Signs, vol. 1, no. 4, 1976, pp. 875–893. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3173239.

Parker, Robert Dale. How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies. Oxford University Press, 2015.

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: a User-Friendly Guide. Vol. 2, Routledge, 2006.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Has Viewers Reacting Like What!?!

Warning: Spoilers for the film “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” are below.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi holds close to the biggest controversial ratings from Star Wars fans of the film series, but for what reason? Why have there been so many different emotional reactions to this film in particular? Reader-Response Theory helps out a lot with the answer for this question, which can simply be stated as everyone is going to react differently based on their past experiences or what they hold value to. In a deeper thought process, we’re thinking something more along the lines of a focus on the independent and personal experience of that audience member in the moment of reading the text or viewing the film.

    To open up the discussion of what I might primarily be talking about, fans are divided on whether they liked this addition to the Star Wars saga with some saying it brought them to tears and others reporting that it left them feeling desolate, or not having any strong emotional response at all. For example, fans who grew up watching Carrie Fisher on the big screen may have been emotionally moved and on the edge of their seats because of Fisher’s late passing prior to the release of the movie. This made each scene that Fisher appeared in even more emotionally intense to the viewer as opposed to someone who felt no attachment whatsoever to the death of Fisher and may not have had any knowledge of it in the first place. (SPOILER ALERT) A scene of specific mention would be the scene (30 minutes from the start of the movie) in which Leia Organa/Carrie Fisher is seen thrown from the window of the resistance ship after an explosion and left floating in space. The dramatic music alone made this scene eye watering for those who felt attached not only to the character from the past movies, but for the deceased Carrie Fisher. It was this personal connection between the viewers and the film that made everyone in the theatre begin clapping once the eyes of our long-time heroine opened and she began moving towards safety in the ship with the use of her force powers.

    Moving on, there is also the notion of how one’s age may affect their response to the characters during the movie. Older generation Star Wars fans may not feel so attuned to these multiple new characters. They may see Poe and the gang as trying to replace Luke and others they themselves grew up. A younger audience may be perfectly fine with the switch up of the main cast and emergence of new faces. This pattern exists throughout the movie, each viewer reacting to the film in a different way from the person next to them. Based on their own individual interests or personal views, each viewer unconsciously makes the decision of whether or not they liked the movie/novel why. In relation, comments of what they valued from the movie and how they felt at different scenes also arise. The films writer-director, Rian Johnson, brought to the table something each audience member could individually experience, and that’s what movies and literature are all about.

   

Postcolonial theory in Dune

The 1984 movie version of the 1965 novel Dune by Frank Herbert is one of the most ridiculous and entertaining films I have seen, in some weird way. The movie is filled to the brim with just generally weird stuff but one of the central conflicts in the story does definitely has some postcolonial aspects to it. The story is set in the future and revolves around a battle for the planet Arrakis, due to it being the only place in the universe that “the spice” can be mined From. The spice is shrouded in somewhat of an air of mystery but it allows users to gain some form of psychic ability as well as being used to ‘fold space in on itself’ which is used for space travel. The spice is being warred over by two great houses: Atreides and Harkonen. The native population of Arrakis are called the Fremen and are lost in this conflict. Many Fremen are caught up in the service of either house. The Fremen are also referred to as “backwards savages” and their culture is generally seen as ‘inferior’ by most other groups in the story. There are also examples of Fremen being forced to work on the mining rigs that collect the spice. These are incredibly dangerous working conditions as colossal worms are attracted to the noise they create and can destroy them easily. The Fremen’s land is being taken and abused so that the houses may have the resource they want so badly. Although not 100% analogous this situation reminds me of what Tyson writes about colonial exploitation on page 413 “Unfortunately, it is often the case that local peoples are denied access to their ancestral forests, jungles, and pasturelands to make way for paying tourists”. The Fremen culture has been severely disrupted simply due to greed and exposure to global(universal?) society. Tyson also notes that “there is big money to be made in this game, and the major players are too powerful to be bound by any rules of fair play” (412). The houses Atreides and Harkonen are too large and apathetic to the Fremen to care about them, no matter how they would say it would benefit their ‘inferior culture’. These houses can be read as analogous to real-world corporations who enter a country with the facade of “‘developing’ poor regions by modernizing them”(Tyson 412) all while basically just doing anything they can to the land and through the people to gain a profit. This all changes when Paul Atreides(the son of the head of house Atreides) becomes involved. Basically Paul is your standard “chosen one” however not of his own culture. Paul is part of a Fremen prophecy. This is shown in the infamous scene in which a Fremen loudly thinks “He shall know your ways, as if born to them. I see this as almost a kind of reverse or anti mimicry, Paul conforms to Fremen culture by choice, and in doing so allows some of the oppressed Fremen to end aspects their own mimicry to the dominating cultures. The Fremen and Atreides culture’s end up intertwining, and the Fremen’s society becomes forever marked by the events that happen on Arrakis.

Double Consciousness and Wittman Ah Sing

In Maxine Hong Kingston's novel, Tripmaster Monkey, the protagonist, Wittman Ah Sing, serves as a striking example of what postcolonial theorists would call an interpellated subject as well as one who experiences what African-American theorists refer to as double-consciousness. Ambivalence brews in Wittman throughout the beginning of the novel as he navigates what he has internalized to be idiosyncrasies within himself. For instance, his own Chinese heritage perplexes him deeply as he gravitates toward while also distancing himself from this conflicted ancestry. On the one hand he graduated from UC Berkeley and lives in a gentrified part of San Francisco, a prime location for Asian and Pacific immigrants whom he looks down upon, referring to them as "FOB's" as he passes them on the streets, however on the other hand he experiences frequent and sudden outbursts of anger toward perpetrators of racism against Chinese immigrants, often railing against literary figures whom he clearly admires, like when he comes to the realization that Jack Kerouac would only have seen him for his ethnicity, a token foreign presence, like his, "little Chinese buddy Arthur Ma," from Big Sur, even going so far as to say, "If King Kerouac, King of the Beats, were walking here tonight, he'd see Wittman and think, "Twinkling little Chinese." Refute "little." Gainsay "twinkling.""

It's realizations like these in conjunction with certain characteristics that allow Wittman to pass racially as white, like for example his height at 6 feet tall and his bohemian attire which was common for mostly white hippies but not Asian-Americans, all of which engender an instability in Wittman's ontology by creating a significant cognitive dissonance; that fundamental tear in Wittman between a part of him representing his namesake and its mutual constitution with another part of him paralleling the Monkey King from the Chinese novel Journey to the West. From a psychological perspective this may illuminate his surreal solopsistic hallucinatory play-within-a-play trip towards the end of the novel, a vision catalyzed by his attending a Beatnik party where he feels out of place among all of the white, literary faces.

No other form of interpellation is more pervasive than when an individual participates, and is in fact dependent upon, the discourse of an ideology for deriving their sense of self. As such many postcolonial novelists are faced with the burden of choosing whether or not to write their works in English, for example Chinua Achebe's having to justify such a decision. Wittman's hyper awareness of language as a mediating presence in experience, and his desire to break away from the discourse which controls him, yet his inability to do so is instanced in his contemplation of the numerous different words describing varying hues of blond hair, but conversely how few words the english language has for black haired individuals, and he exclaims, "Hey, wait just a minute. Hold everything. Are there all those kinds of blondes or are there lots of words?" What the readers begins to realize as the novel progresses, despite Wittman's many apprehensions, as he continues to embrace the many sides of himself, foreshowed in moments when he declares his love for all races and peoples and his inclusionary visions for society, Wittman achieves a democracy-of-self in Western terms, and transcends his confines as postcolonial subject by living the high life of the mind. Here Wittman represents everything the Beat movement could have been, Beatific at its best, both in terms of Kingston's prose (definitely better than Kerouac's), but more importantly, as a much more subjective, sympathetic individual, which Kerouac and Ginsberg and company were too white to have accomplished.

Postcolonial theory in Avatar

James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) is a science fiction movie set in the year 2154 where the human race has depleted earth's resources and they now look to colonise the moon, Pandora. Pandora is densely forested and inhabited by a species called N’avi; ten feet tall blue skinned human like beings. The humans supposed main purpose for this colonising expedition is to mine the mineral “unobtanium,” which according to Parker (the man in charge of the expedition and the mining company), who says “this is why we're here. Unobtanium. Because this little gray rock sells for twenty million a kilo.”

Jake Sully is a paraplegic marine who is promised the restoration of his legs if he can gather intelligence on the native population. Jake agrees, and uses the the technology of the avatar suit to blend in with the community. Yet over time joins the side of the N’avi, through his love of Neytiri, who also initiates him into their tribe. He later helps them defeat the invading humans (along with active help from mother nature) whom become greedy and try to destroy the native population and then gather the resources.

Throughout the film we see strong themes of postcolonial theory. Firstly the humans mission itself is very colonial. This can be seen when Tyson describes when Europeans first landed in the ‘New World,’ they believed that ““land that wasn't occupied by Christians was considered “empty land” and, therefore, theirs for the taking” (Tyson, 401) Furthermore, they would then send “European missionaries...to Christianize them” (Tyson, 401), which can be reflected in the movie by Jake and Dr. Grace Augustine who assimilate through their avatars into the native population to gather information on them.

As a whole, you could argue that the humans held a “colonialist ideology” (Tyson, 400) when invading Pandora and starting a war as this ideology states that colonizers believe in their “superiority, which they contrasted with the alleged inferiority of the native (indigenous) peoples” (Tyson, 400). In addition to this, the colonists “ignored or swept aside the religions, customs, and codes of behavior of the peoples they subjugated” (Tyson, 400) this is also reflected in the movie as they refused to acknowledge the close relationship the N’avi people shared with nature and their worship of Goddess Eywa. This attitude, in turn, led to their ultimate defeat in their quest for colonisation as nature helped the N’avi people for victory.

Furthermore, because they believe their culture was “civilised, sophisticated...more highly advanced” (Tyson, 400), they defined the native peoples as “savage” meaning they were  “backward...underdeveloped...evil...as well as inferior” (Tyson, 400). We can see this in the movie as both Quartich (Army colonel, arguably the main evil character) and Parker both address the native N’avi as “savages” and then proceed to blindly and ignorantly attack the N’avi.

Tyson also talks of “Cultural imperialism” (Tyson, 410) which consists of the “takeover of one culture by another: the food, clothing, customs, recreation, and values of the economically  dominant culture increasingly replace those of the economically vulnerable culture.” (Tyson, 410) This is observed in the movie when they come to the decision to use violence on the natives rather than peaceful trade and negotiations, as seen below.

Arwen's Double Colonization in The Lord of the Rings

              In the Middle-Earth realm brought to life by The Lord of the Rings books and movies, Arwen and Aragorn are an intriguing couple: the first a lovely, ethereal Elf, the second a rugged, secretly royal human Ranger—both woodland masters. However, not everything about their relationship is perfect—Arwen, as it turns out, is actually a victim of double colonization.

              Double colonization, in referring to the dual oppression that postcolonial women suffer, might seem a surprising description of the plight that Arwen faces in this famous trilogy (Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, Third Edition, by Lois Tyson; page 405). But prevailing colonialist ideology devalues her because of her race and cultural ancestry, despite the fact that Elves are portrayed as graceful, agile, wise, immortal creatures (http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Elves). The admirable beauty that her people exhibit is irrelevant; mankind is driving them away from Middle-Earth—settling on Elven lands and seizing natural resources for themselves—and, consequently, the positive traits characterizing Elves counterintuitively represent symbols of oppression (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GS3tt0kIsg). Humans are, in essence, colonizing the Elves’ territories, so much so that nature itself objects to their intervention (http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Ents). Further worsening the situation, Arwen, as a result of being female in her world, is subjected to patriarchal ideology—mistreatment based on her sex (Tyson 405). Several scenes from the movies alone illustrate the double colonization that makes her experience rough.

Goals. Except for the colonization and sexism parts that we can just ignore.

              Arwen, not unlike Pocahontas, is romantically involved with one of her oppressors, a man who, although a compassionate and helpful member of his class, is nonetheless a member of the group that is acting discriminatorily toward hers. And yes, he is a human being, in spite of his ability to live for an unusually long time (https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/38738/how-do-arwens-mortality-and-her-and-aragorns-lifespans-work-out). Arwen’s father Elrond expresses his frustration with regard to Men’s negative interference in his family’s life when he claims, in response to the wizard Gandalf’s request for his aid in a quest to save the virtuous inhabitants of Middle-Earth, that humankind is, in addition to being unworthy of assistance, unworthy of trust from other races. Rightly, he observes that it is Men who have been responsible for keeping the evil Ring of Power on Middle-Earth whenever the Elves have been willing to destroy it (Elrond’s assertions: http://www.tk421.net/lotr/film/fotr/15.html). Still, the Elves remaining on Middle-Earth—the Elves whose environments have not been too extensively damaged, and whose life forces are resilient enough to withstand the growing malice in Middle-Earth due to the strengthening villainy at work thanks to the Ring’s perpetuation and its owner’s sinister maturation—opt to cooperate with Men in a rescue attempt anyway (http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Fellowship_of_the_Ring).

              Personally, Arwen finds that her immortality is not sufficiently durable to keep her healthy during the moral crisis that confronts Middle-Earth (https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/54460/did-arwen-actually-die). Yet she cannot drive herself to abandon Aragorn to his fate and travel to a safe place beyond the landmass that is free of Men and does not include him, so she stays and risks her life. The colonial rules restricting her liberty force her to decide between true love and, granted the well-intended mission Aragorn is contributing to fails and Middle-Earth descends into the chaos of tyranny, death.

              How annoying, then, that Aragorn displays arguably blatant sexism as soon as she is introduced to moviegoers. She encounters Aragorn and several of his defenseless friends in a forest in her debut and, seeing that a precious crime-fighting comrade valued by the enemy is mortally wounded, offers to take him with her on her horse on a rapid flight to her Elf kin nearby (Aragorn and Arwen’s conversation: http://www.tk421.net/lotr/film/fotr/13.html). Aragorn tells her, urgently, that the journey is too difficult. Out of affection, perhaps—and perhaps instead, or partly also, out of a belief that masculinity has a better chance than femininity of getting there faster. Luckily, Arwen is not having it. After informing him that she is, in fact, the superior equestrian, she proves her mettle by sweeping their buddy off to her relatives in record time, just barely faster than the pursuing villains. While colonization may wreak havoc on her quality of life, potentially sexist comments will not—not as long as she can help it. 

She looks so scared and incapable, don't you think? I'm sure that beneath the determined facial expression she is really only a timid pansy.

              It is fascinating that, even in the most touching stories, relationship imbalances can mar what would at first glance appear to be a flawless connection. Arwen and Aragorn, quite possibly the most moving pair in the Lord of the Rings, are unevenly matched: Aragorn is, likely unwittingly, or maybe unwillingly, playing a part in her political and sexual subjugation. Spoiler alert: she becomes a queen at his side once he defeats the bad guys, so ideally she assists him in promoting cultural tolerance and gender equality in the future. 

A Feminist Interpretation of The Silent Partner

Before even discussing The Silent Partner, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’ background sets up the novel for a feminist interpretation. Phelps was born in Boston in 1844. Her first exposure to women with strong roles and views was with her mother, also Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Her “mother wrote the Kitty Brown books under the pen name H. Trusta, an anagram of her name which she used frequently throughout her career” (MacLean). After her death in 1852, “her father married her mother's sister, Mary Stuart, who was also a writer” (MacLean). Phelps developed her writing from these influential women, as well as attending an all-girls school. She published books involving a tomboyish female main character, women’s lives after they lost loved one’s in the war, and a series of feminist themes “including social, political, legal and economic” rights of women (MacLean). She later married her friends son, Herbert Dickinson Ward. He was seventeen years younger than her, further showing her belief that women should do what they want, and be with who they want, whether her actions were considered appropriate to society- it didn’t matter.


The Silent Partner, published in 1871, follows Perley Kelso’s journey to becoming the “silent partner” of her father’s factory mill. Perley Kelso has been surrounded by luxury and wealth throughout her life because of her fahter’s ownership of a factory mill. She is characterized as extremely ignorant, but good-hearted. After her father’s death, Perley brings up the idea of her partnership to who she was supposed to marry, Maverick. Maverick thought this idea was amusing and “cute”. Perley meets Sip Garth; a young girl who works in the mills under terrible conditions. Perley is unaware of the dangers and poor conditions of the mill, once again showing her ignorance to lower-class life. At first, Perley has trouble understanding why anyone would want to work in the mills, but comes to find out (because of Sip) that lower-class people really did not have a choice.

The theme for The Silent Partner can be interpreted as a statement towards social reform for the working class, which, it is. But there is also an underlying feminist theme. Considering the profile of the author as well as the relationship and progress between Perley Kelso and Sip Garth, feminist interpreters can see Phelps’s goal was to show that women can be united because of their right to work, regardless of social class. Perley represents the higher class, while Sip represents the lower. The two form a bond and learn from each other with a common goal.


Works Cited:
MacLean, M aggie. “Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.” Civil War Women. 2011.
https://www.civilwarwomenblog.com/elizabeth-stuart-phelps/

Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart. The Silent Partner. First Feminist Press Box, 1983.

Transcending the Other: A postcolonial perspective of Avatar

In the box office breaking and award winning movie, Avatar, director James Cameron tells a science fiction story of colonization in the future. As stated by Lois Tyson (2006), “post-colonial criticism analyzes literature produced by cultures that developed in response to colonial domination.” Through the eyes of human protagonist, Jake Sully, the journey takes place on the planet of Pandora, which is colonized and exploited by human forces for economic interest. The planet is considered hostile, strange, and inhabited by a strange other; the Na’vi people.

As Jake begins the movie by obeying military order to find intel on the natives, he eventually transcends into their way of life. Jake ventures to Pandora, after his twin brother’s passing, to continue his work with the avatar program. Jake eventually earns the trust of the Na’vi people, through his avatar body, and turns against his own kind to defeat colonialization. Jake’s leadership allows the oppressed Na’vi people to fight against their colonizers, indicating an anti-colonial message. While Cameron conveys a message against colonial intentions, he ironically uses racist representations and stereotypes of the other to emulate the oppression of the other.

It is evident throughout the movie that the Na’vi people are characterized as the other. The Na’vi people have blue alien skin and differ from humans. The colonizer, the human forces, dehumanize the Na’va people by referring to them as animals and depicting them as savages. By emphasizing the physical features of the natives, the director creates a focus the racist representation of the natives, which place the Na’vi into the other category.

In order to demonstrate anti-colonial rule, Cameron transcends Jake’s character into the leader and force to attack the human military. Jake’s whiteness, or ability to be superior and normal, does not follow the typical main white characters. However, this transcendence is allowed due to his whiteness.

            Jake begins Avatar as a demoralized, crippled white man in a wheelchair. As a veteran, Jake upholds the obedience to following the white man in charge, but ultimately transforms into a native.

Jake initially follows the Na’vi to gather intel on their land and resources, but soon finds a liking to the life on Pandora. In order to bring balance and end the Na’vis colonization, a white character must transcend into the native to thrive. Cameron presents many conflicting aspects in Avatar, but this transcendence is key. While Cameron focuses the movie on Jake’s moral, physical, and emotional transformation to end the colonizing of Pandora, he still emphasizes the racial implications among the natives. To Cameron, it is only through the rise of the inferior white character, that the native people were able to fight against their colonizers.

To viewers this indicates that in order for there to be real order or justice, a white person must transcend into the native for trust and utilizing their knowledge to conquer the journey. Cameron makes great strides to present a colonized world and it’s later decolonization, however the racist representations and transcendence of a white man into leading the natives complicates that post-colonial perspective.

Sources
Cameron, James, director. Avatar.
Tyson, L. (2006). Critical Theory Today: A User-friendly Guide. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Thor Ragnarok: Revealing the Double Consciousness of the Chaos G-d

Let’s talk about Thor Ragnarok, objectively the best movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Thor trilogy and probably the closest we are ever going to get to a Planet Hulk movie.

Quick recap for anyone who hasn’t seen it:

We meet back up with Thor, who after escaping hell (literally) finds his brother masquerading as Odin, drinking and putting on plays to validate his own supposed heroics. He calls Loki out immediately ruining his fun and drags him away to find the real Odin. They return to Earth finding their father with a little help from Dr. Strange, only for Odin to tell that he’s dying and that when he does his evil daughter, that he never told the two of them about, will come to reclaim Asgard. He dies like a minute later, then Hela appears breaks Mjolnir and reveals Asgard’s imperialist past, before banishing her brothers. They end up on the Grandmaster’s planet and Thor gets captured for the gladiatorial rings there, while Loki consorts with the Grandmaster. Thor is forced to face off against Hulk, who has apparently been the jolly green giant for three years now. Long story short Thor, Loki, Hulk/Bruce, the other gladiators, and this really cool Valkyrie chick escape the Grandmaster's planet and then proceed to a boss battle with Hela in which they blow up Asgard (after getting all plot relevant characters off world) to prevent Hela from establishing a tyrannical govt.

What makes it worth discussing:

While the movie merits praise based on its comedic aspects alone, what really elevates the film is the subversive postcolonial critique it makes within the overall context of the Thor trilogy. Prior to the big reveal of Asgard's Imperialist past as shown by the shattered murals, the Asgardian peoples are indisputably the heroes of the narrative, justified in war by their superior moral status. They are quite literally depicted as the saviors of humanity in the first film, when they defeat the Jotun preventing an ice age on Midgard (aka Earth). The halo-esc discs drawn behind the head of Odin in the remade murals certainly attest to this idea.

History Rewritten in Art; the mural before misconceptions are quite literally shattered.

So when Hela reveals the reality of Asgardian rule and subjugation, the attempts of the Jotun to create a new Jontunheim on Midgard using the Casket of Ancient Winters (think Arc of the Covenant religious significance levels), takes on the aspect of a peoples searching for a way to ensure their own cultural identity continues on even if it means abandoning their ancestral home (an action mirrored by the Asgardians in the newest film). King Laufrey (King of the Jotun) isn't a monster in this context, but a revolutionary put down by a tyrannical ruler. 

A Totalitarian Reality of War and Enslavement

His struggle is silenced by the rewritten history of an empire and the very objective of his last ditch effort towards freedom is spat on as his son last of the royal bloodline is raised by the enemy who subjugated his people. 

Reading Loki as a Colonized Subject:

Colonialist ideology was instilled in Loki early, even as a baby he attempted to mimic the culture in which he was being raised, shifting his appearance magically to appear Asgardian. 

Baby Loki shape-shifting to match his oppressors

For all he knew he was Asgardian, his adopted family had allowed him to live under this misconception and had raised him as if he was such. Maybe he didn't fit all the respected personality traits associated with his culture, but this was his family. He was Asgardian, until of course he wasn't.  

Loki's True Parentage is Revealed

In the above scene from the first Thor movie, he accuses Odin of seeing him as just "another stolen relic", tears in his eyes as the entirety of his worldview is shattered just as thoroughly as the murals will later be. It is in this moment that Loki begins to embody the ideal of Double Consciousness. He is inextricably caught between two cultures, the one he grew up in and the one he was born into, yet he belongs to neither: too much the Asgardian to ever hold standing among the Jotun and too Jotun to ever sit on the throne of Asgard.

Unable to reconcile with this reality, Loki becomes 'unhomed'. He leaves Asgard and denounces his relationship to Odin and Frigga, finalizing his separation in the physical not just psychological realm.

His ensuing character arc follows the story of him rebelling and returning as he attempts to come to terms with the aspects of himself he never before had the luxury to explore and how they fit into the framework of who he once was. The way he goes about this isn't always for the best (referring of course to the disaster in New York), but it is the psychological alienation from the self which ultimately drives his at times incredibly violent and self indulgent actions. 

Conclusion:

Thor Ragnarok in revealing the Imperialist past of Asgard, allows one a unique glimpse into the characterization of Loki as not a villain, but a man inextricably caught between two cultures, whose at time erratic behavior can perhaps be attributed to an unstable sense of self. His title of Chaos G-d a referencing not only to the unrest he acts upon the world, but the unrest within.