Skip to content
1981
  1. Home
  2. A-Z Publications
  3. Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture
  4. Volume 8, Issue 3
  5. Article
Representing Queerness: Modes, Manners and Methods
  • ISSN: 2055-5695
  • E-ISSN: 2055-5709

Abstract

is a feature-length film, mostly shot in Quechua language, centred on an Indigenous family who lives in the Peruvian Andes and makes a living as artisans of the eponymous folk art. The main storyline is about Segundo, a 14-year-old only-child and apprentice, whose close relationship with his father and master, Noé, is drastically altered when it is revealed that the latter has sexual relationships with other men. Drawing from decolonial queer theory (Gomes-Pereira, Miskolci, Pelúcio), in this article I rehearse an analysis of as a case study to reconsider the notion of queer cinema and the representation of queer experiences on the continent. First, I review the use of ‘queer’ in Latin American film scholarship and argue for an understanding of the category not focused on issues such as identity, homophobia and machismo, but on the cinematic formal strategies used to portray local queer practices. Following this line of thought, I engage with Schoonover and Galt’s argument that film is a ‘queerly inflected medium’ to probe how ’s attempt to incite a queer spectatorship using an Indigenous aesthetic grammar illustrates the intertwining between global queer cinema and local elaborations of sexual difference. Lastly, I use the category of ‘silence’ (Sifuentes-Jaúregui) to study ’s alternative representation of queer sexuality. I suggest that the film’s depiction of queer desires resorting to unnaming and concealing is an example of an alternative figuration of queer subjectivity in Latin American cinema, one distanced from the Anglo-American narratives of ‘coming out’.

© 2023 Intellect Ltd
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/qsmpc_00109_1
2023-12-13
2024-09-16
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Ahmed, Sara (2006), Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Butler, Judith (1991), Gender Trouble, 2nd ed., London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Butler, Judith (1993), Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’, New York and London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Churata, Gabriel (1957), El pez de oro, Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Corrales, Javier and Pecheny, Mario (eds) (2010), The Politics of Sexuality in Latin America: A Reader on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. De la Mora, Sergio (2006), Cinemachismo: Masculinities and Sexuality in Mexican Film, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. De Lauretis, Teresa (1991), Queer Theory: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Delgado-Aparicio, Álvaro (2017), Retablo, Peru: Siri Producciones, Catch of the Day Films and DHF.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Di Benedetto, Matías (2017), ‘El retablo como dispositivo de lectura en El pez de oro de Gamaliel Churata’, Orbis Tertius, 22:26, pp. 1–13.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Dyer, Richard (2002), The Matter of Images: Essays on Representations, 2nd ed., London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Epps, Brad (2009), ‘Retos, riesgos, pautas y promesas de la teoría queer’, Revista Iberoamericana, 74:225, pp. 897–920.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Falconí Trávez, Diego, Castellanos, Santiago and Viteri, María Amelia (eds) (2014), Resentir lo ‘queer’ en América Latina: diálogos desde-con el sur, Barcelona: Egales Editorial.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Foster, David William (2003), Queer Issues in Contemporary Latin American Cinema, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Galt, Rosalind (2013), ‘Default cinema: Queering economic crisis in Argentina and beyond’, Screen, 54:1, pp. 62–81.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Gomes-Pereira, Pedro Paulo (2014), ‘When theories travel: Queer theory and processes of translation’, in E. S. Lewis, R. Borba, B. F. Fabrício and D. de S. Pinto (eds), Queering Paradigms IV: South-North Dialogues on Queer Epistemologies, Embodiments and Activisms, Bern: Peter Lang AG, pp. 53–65.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Gomes-Pereira, Pedro Paulo (2019a), Queer in the Tropics: Gender and Sexuality in the Global South, Cham: Springer.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Gomes-Pereira, Pedro Paulo (2019b), ‘Reflecting on decolonial queer’, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 25:3, pp. 403–29.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Grosfoguel, Ramón. (2007), ‘The epistemic decolonial turn: Beyond political-economy paradigms’, Cultural Studies, 21:2–3, pp. 211–23.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Hames-Garcia, Michael and Martínez, Ernesto (eds) (2011), Gay Latino Studies: A Critical Reader, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Hart, Stephen (2005), ‘Slick grit: Auteurship versus mimicry in three films by Francisco Lombardi’, New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, 3:3, pp. 159–67.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Hart, Stephen (2015), Latin American Cinema, London: Reaktion Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Haywood, Chris, Johansson, Thomas, Hammarén, Nils, Herz, Marcus and Ottemo, Andreas (2017), The Conundrum of Masculinity: Hegemony, Homosociality, Homophobia and Heteronormativity, New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Jagose, Annamarie (1998), Queer Theory: An Introduction, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. King, John, López, Ana M. and Alvarado, Manuel (eds) (1993), Mediating Two Worlds: Cinematic Encounters in the Americas, London: BFI.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Lema-Hincapié, Andrés and Castillo, Debra A. (2015), Despite All Adversities: Spanish-American Queer Cinema, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Leung, Helen Hok-Sze 2004), ‘New queer cinema and third cinema’, in M. Aaron (ed.), New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 155–67.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. López, Ana M. (2000), ‘Early cinema and modernity in Latin America’, Cinema Journal, 40:1, pp. 48–78.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Macon, Cecilia, Solana, Mariela and Vacarezza, Nayla (eds) (2021), Affect, Gender and Sexuality in Latin America, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Marks, Laura (2000), The Skin of the Film Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Marks, Laura (2002), Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media, Minneapolis, MN and London: University of Minnesota Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Massad, Joseph (2002), ‘Re-orienting desire: The gay international and the Arab world’, Public Culture, 14:2, pp. 361–86.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Mignolo, Walter (2012), Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking, Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Miskolci, Richard (2014), ‘Queering the geopolitics of knowledge’, in E. S. Lewis, R. Borba, B. F. Fabrício and D. de S. Pinto (eds), Queering Paradigms IV: South-North Dialogues on Queer Epistemologies, Embodiments and Activisms, Bern: Peter Lang AG, pp. 13–30.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Pelúcio, Larissa (2014), ‘Possible appropriations and necessary Provocations for a Teoria Cu’, in E. S. Lewis, R. Borba, B. F. Fabrício, and D. de Souza Pinto (eds), Queering Paradigms IV: South-North Dialogues on Queer Epistemologies, Embodiments and Activisms, Bern: Peter Lang AG, pp. 31–51.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Podalsky, Laura (2011), The Politics of Affect and Emotion in Contemporary Latin American Cinema: Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, and Mexico, New York: Springer.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Quijano, Aníbal (2000), ‘Coloniality of power and Eurocentrism in Latin America’, International Sociology, 15:2, pp. 215–32.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Quijano, Aníbal (2007), ‘Coloniality and modernity/rationality’, Cultural Studies, 21:2–3, pp. 168–78.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Quijano, Aníbal (2014), ‘Colonialidad del poder, eurocentrismo y América Latina’, in D. Clímaco (ed.), Cuestiones y horizontes: de la dependencia histórico-estructural a la colonialidad/descolonialidad del poder, Buenos Aires: CLACSO, pp. 777–832.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Quiroga, José (2000), Tropics of Desire: Interventions from Queer Latino America, New York and London: New York University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Ruffinelli, Jorge (2010), ‘Dime tu sexo y te diré quién eres: La diversidad sexual en el cine latinoamericano’, Cinémas d’Amérique Latine, 18, pp. 59–60.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Santos, Boaventura de Sousa (2014), Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide, London and New York: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Schoonover, Karl and Galt, Rosalind (2016), Queer Cinema in the World, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Schroeder Rodríguez, Paul (2016), Latin American Cinema: A Comparative History, Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky (1985), Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire, New York: Columbia University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky (1990), Epistemology of the Closet, London: Penguin.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Sifuentes-Jáuregui, Ben (2014), The Avowal of Difference: Queer Latino American Narratives, New York: State University of New York Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Subero, Gustavo (2014), Queer Masculinities in Latin American Cinema: Male Bodies and Narrative Representations, London: IB Tauris.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Tello, Ana Lucía (2018), ‘The Takanakuy: Performing justice and reconciliation in Cuzco, Peru’, Brújula, 12, pp. 55–79.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. Ulfe, María Eugenia (2009), ‘Representaciones del (y lo) indígena en los retablos peruanos’, Bulletin de l’Institut français d’études andines, 38:2, pp. 307–26.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Ulfe, María Eugenia (2011), Cajones de la memoria: La historia reciente del Perú a través de los retablos andinos, Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Venkatesh, Vinodh (2016), New Maricón Cinema: Outing Latin American Film, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. Warhol, Andy (1964), Blow Job, USA: Andy Warhol.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/qsmpc_00109_1
Loading
Screening through silence: The representation of queerness in Retablo (2017)
Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture 8, 331 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1386/qsmpc_00109_1
/content/journals/10.1386/qsmpc_00109_1
/content/journals/10.1386/qsmpc_00109_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): decolonial thinking; Indigenous cultures; Latin American cinema; Peruvian film; queer representation; silence

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error