Reframing Identities in Argentine Documentary Cinema: The Emergence of LGBT People as Political Subjects in Rosa Patria (Loza, 2008–2009) and Putos peronistas (Cesatti, 2011)

Guillermo Olivera

doi:10.1177/0094582x20907117

Abstract

Using film semiotics, queer studies, and discourse theory as developed by Laclau, Mouffe, and Žižek, an enunciative and rhetorical analysis of Rosa Patria (Pink Motherland) (Santiago Loza, 2008–2009) and Putos peronistas, cumbia del sentimiento (Peronist Faggots, Cumbia Feeling) (Rodolfo Cesatti, 2011) points to the changes in the political and cinematic frames that have enabled the transformation of LGBT people into political subjects in the context of the Argentine documentary of the twenty-first century. The metaenunciative and metadiegetic marks made evident by reframing processes in audiovisual texts can be read as a discursive transition from “element” to “moment” and as cinematic-reflexive symbolization of the traumatic event posed by the dislocation or antagonism that institutes these identities in situated local contexts, contexts contemporary with the struggles for diverse sexual citizenship that led to the promulgation of Argentina’s Equal Marriage (2010) and Gender Identity (2012) Laws. Utilizando herramientas de la semiótica del cine, la teoría queer y la teoría del discurso de Laclau, Mouffe y Žižek, un análisis enunciativo y retórico de Rosa Patria (Santiago Loza, 2008 -2009) y Putos peronistas, cumbia del sentimiento (Rodolfo Cesatti, 2011) se concentra en cambios de marcos políticos y cinematográficos que hacen posible la transformación de las personas LGBT en sujetos políticos en el documental argentino del siglo XXI. Esas marcas metaenunciativas y metadiegéticas que los procesos de re-enmarque dejan en los textos audiovisuales pueden leerse como pasaje discursivo de “elemento” a “momento” y como simbolización cinematográfico-reflexiva del acontecimiento traumático de la dislocación o antagonismo que instituye a dichas identidades en contextos locales situados, contextos contemporáneos a las luchas por una ciudadanía sexual diversa conducentes a la promulgación de la Ley de Matrimonio Igualitario (2010) y la Ley de Identidad de Género (2012).

Highlights

Queer studies, and discourse theory as developed by Laclau, Mouffe, and Žižek, an enunciative and rhetorical analysis of Rosa Patria (Pink Motherland) (Santiago Loza, 2008–2009) and Putos peronistas, cumbia del sentimiento (Peronist Faggots, Cumbia Feeling) (Rodolfo Cesatti, 2011) points to the changes in the political and cinematic frames that have enabled the transformation of LGBT people into political subjects in the context of the Argentine documentary of the twenty-first century
The metaenunciative and metadiegetic marks made evident by reframing processes in audiovisual texts can be read as a discursive transition from “element” to “moment” and as cinematic-reflexive symbolization of the traumatic event posed by the dislocation or antagonism that institutes these identities in situated local contexts, contexts contemporary with the struggles for diverse sexual citizenship that led to the promulgation of Argentina’s Equal Marriage (2010) and Gender Identity (2012) Laws
I analyze two documentaries (Rosa Patria [Santiago Loza, 2008–2009] and Putos peronistas, cumbia del sentimiento [Rodolfo Cesatti, 2011]) and their use of cinematographic framing and reframing of the subjects’ “right to the city” (Lefebvre, 1975 [1967]; Molano Camargo, 2016) and citizenship in both a spatial-urban and doubly political sense—in the political sense, first, because these processes are analyzed in relation to their processes of transformation into subjects of the public sphere, relevant to politics, and, secondly, because what is analyzed is the critical predicaments proposed by these documentaries leading to demands for full citizenship in a context of deep economic and institutional crisis, demands that eventually resulted in the reactivation of sexual citizenship through the promulgation of the Equal Marriage (2010) and Gender Identity (2012) Laws

Summary

Reframing Identities in Argentine Documentary Cinema

The Emergence of LGBT People as Political Subjects in Rosa Patria (Loza, 2008–2009) and Putos peronistas (Cesatti, 2011). I analyze two documentaries (Rosa Patria [Santiago Loza, 2008–2009] and Putos peronistas, cumbia del sentimiento [Rodolfo Cesatti, 2011]) and their use of cinematographic framing and reframing of the subjects’ “right to the city” (Lefebvre, 1975 [1967]; Molano Camargo, 2016) and citizenship in both a spatial-urban and doubly political sense—in the political sense, first, because these processes are analyzed in relation to their processes of transformation into subjects of the public sphere, relevant to politics, and, secondly, because what is analyzed is the critical predicaments proposed by these documentaries leading to demands for full citizenship in a context of deep economic and institutional crisis, demands that eventually resulted in the reactivation of sexual citizenship through the promulgation of the Equal Marriage (2010) and Gender Identity (2012) Laws. In the final analysis, indicate nothing but historicity and, more precisely, historicity as rupture, caesura, and discontinuity

Rosa Patria

Visual Frame

Narrative Frame

Putos Peronistas

Frame and Framing

Conclusions