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Fear Of the Trannies: On Filmic Phobia of Transvestism in the New Latin American Cinema

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Gustavo Subero
Gustavo Subero*
Affiliation:
Coventry University
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Abstract

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The transvestite, as a figure that contests both heteronormativity and machismo, has remained in the cinema of Latin America, unlike its literature, a rather unexplored theme. Although some films have attempted to deal with such a figure, they have devoted very little diegetic time either to the process of physical and psychological transformation from man to woman or to showing transvestism as the externalization of the character's self-perceived gender identity. This article aims to show that the lack of on-screen transvestism in Arturo Ripstein's El lugar sin límites (1978), Miguel Barreda's Simón, el gran varón (2002), and Karim Aïnouz's Madame Satã (2002) is caused by a kind of heteronormative filmic fear to depict the fluidity of sexuality beyond the biologically oriented binary man-woman. I suggest that Latin American audiences do not respond positively to transvestitic images (i.e., the cinematic acknowledgment of transvestism) because they transgress the fixity of gender roles within heteronormativity.

Resumo

Resumo

El travestí, como una figura que se opone a la normativa heterosexual y al machismo, ha permanecido en el cine de América Latina, en contraste con lo ocurrido en la literatura, como un tema poco explorado. Aunque algunas películas han tratado de lidiar con tal figura, las mismas han dedicado muy poco tiempo dentro de la diégesis al proceso de transformación física y psicológica de hombre a una mujer, o a mostrar el travestismo como la externalización de la identidad de género del personaje. Este artículo intenta demostrar que la falta de travestismo en la pantalla en El lugar sin límites de Arturo Ripstein (1978), Simón, el gran varón de Miguel Barreda (2002) y Madame Satã de Karim Aïnouz (2002) se debe a un tipo de miedo fílmico heteronormativo a mostrar la fluidez de la sexualidad mas allá del binarismo hombre-mujer originado por el género biológico. El artículo sugiere que el público latinoamericano no responde de manera positiva a imágenes travestidas (el reconocimiento cinematográfico del travestismo) ya que las mismas infringen la fijación de los roles de género dentro del marco heteronormativo.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , 2008 , pp. 159 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by the University of Texas Press

References

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