Edited and with text by Susana Vargas. Foreword by Cuauhtémoc Medina.
The results of detailed research from Susana Vargas and art critic Cuauhtémoc Medina, Mujercitos gathers photographs of men dressed as women featured in the periodical Alarma!, known as a nota roja or "red page" newspaper for its bloody content, from the 1960s to the 1980s. This volume collects a selection of key Mexican newsprint tearsheets, with the original layout and typography, each of which represents a mujercito, or "effeminate man," in a highly sexualized, objectified way. Vargas' contextualizing research explores the ways in which these photographs, printed in sensationalistic "true-crime" newspapers, participate in the larger national imaginary of non-normative sexualities in Mexico. In studying these representations of mujercitos, Vargas further traces Anglo-North American theories of gender/sex performativity onto Mexican society, only to discover the multitude of ways in which the relation between gender, sex, sexual orientation and desire is permeated with concerns of race and class in Mexican culture.
Featured image is reproduced from Mujercitos, Susana Vargas and Cuauhtémoc Medina's fascinating collection of photographs of "effeminate men" documented in the pages of Alarma! the Mexican anota roja or "red page" crime blotter tabloid, from the 1960s to the 1980s. Vargas writes, "Through their participation in these photographs mujercitos provide themselves with the feminine subjectivity that the accompanying text and Mexican homophobic society denies them. Through these images, mujercitos portray only female subjectivity, giving it a space of recognition, validation and appreciation. The photographs are showcases for their glamor. Most importantly, the photographs allow the mujercitos the consolidation of their desires, working as a site of subversion and resistance to many forms of violence in Mexico. Historically peripheral sexualities in Mexico have re-appropriated denigrating terms to empower themselves linguistically: my use of the term mujercitos is intended to extend and recognize the resistance enacted by mujercitos through these photographs." continue to blog
FORMAT: Pbk, 9.5 x 13 in. / 128 pgs / 80 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $45.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $63 GBP £35.55 ISBN: 9788415118824 PUBLISHER: RM AVAILABLE: 3/24/2015 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA UK incl IE
Published by RM. Edited and with text by Susana Vargas. Foreword by Cuauhtémoc Medina.
The results of detailed research from Susana Vargas and art critic Cuauhtémoc Medina, Mujercitos gathers photographs of men dressed as women featured in the periodical Alarma!, known as a nota roja or "red page" newspaper for its bloody content, from the 1960s to the 1980s. This volume collects a selection of key Mexican newsprint tearsheets, with the original layout and typography, each of which represents a mujercito, or "effeminate man," in a highly sexualized, objectified way. Vargas' contextualizing research explores the ways in which these photographs, printed in sensationalistic "true-crime" newspapers, participate in the larger national imaginary of non-normative sexualities in Mexico. In studying these representations of mujercitos, Vargas further traces Anglo-North American theories of gender/sex performativity onto Mexican society, only to discover the multitude of ways in which the relation between gender, sex, sexual orientation and desire is permeated with concerns of race and class in Mexican culture.
