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

Abstract

The transvestite, as a fi gure that contests both heteronormativity and machismo, has remained in the cinema of Latin America, unlike its literature, a rather unexplored theme. Although some fi lms have attempted to deal with such a fi gure, they have devoted very little diegetic time either to the process of physi- cal and psychological transformation from man to woman or to showing trans- vestism 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 Rip- stein's El lugar sin limites (1978), Miguel Barreda's Simon, el gran varon (2002), and Karim Ainouz's Madame Sata (2002) is caused by a kind of het- eronormative fi lmic fear to depict the fl uidity of sexuality beyond the biologi- cally oriented binary man-woman. I suggest that Latin American audiences do not respond positively to transvestitic images (i.e., the cinematic acknowledg- ment of transvestism) because they transgress the fi xity of gender roles within heteronormativity. In Latin American popular culture (especially its literature), the trans- vestite has become a fi gure that functions to destabilize the heteropatri- archal system. He crosses the boundaries that divide the hegemonic con- structs of femininity and masculinity; yet for him the act of crossdressing not only permits the transgression of heterosexual normativity but also allows for the intersection of other social and cultural discourses such as those of race, class, and politics. As Ben Sifuentes-Jauregui (2002, 10) rightly points out in his analysis of transvestism in Latin American lit- erature, the fi guration of the Latin American national subject involves the selection of desirable fragments to compose 'identity.' Likewise, transvestism might involve picking and choosing desirable objects to create a gender effect. He observes that for the Latin American male subject, to make sense of his own persona, he must choose those aspects of the given culture that best fi t his idea of the self in much the same way that transvestites articulate their own feminine persona through a collection of feminine elements that will re-create a sense of wom- anliness. The articulation of the transvestite character's feminine per- sona allows for questioning of the fi xity of the sexual parameters with