Transcultural Encounters amongst Women : Redrawing Boundaries in Hispanic and Lusophone Art, Literature and Film [1 ed.] 9781443822398, 9781443820738

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Transcultural Encounters amongst Women: Redrawing Boundaries in Hispanic and Lusophone Art, Literature and Film

Transcultural Encounters amongst Women: Redrawing Boundaries in Hispanic and Lusophone Art, Literature and Film

Edited by

Patricia O’Byrne, Gabrielle Carty and Niamh Thornton

Transcultural Encounters amongst Women: Redrawing Boundaries in Hispanic and Lusophone Art, Literature and Film Edited by Patricia O’Byrne, Gabrielle Carty and Niamh Thornton This book first published 2010 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2010 by Patricia O’Byrne, Gabrielle Carty and Niamh Thornton and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-2073-3, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-2073-8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................ ix PART I: ART, DESIGN AND THE WEB Chapter One................................................................................................. 3 Colonising Kahlo: Frida Kahlo and the Transcultural Encounter Tina Kinsella Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 21 Regina Célia Pinto’s Museum of the Essential and Beyond That Margaret Anne Clarke Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 35 Consciousness-Raising for the Twenty-First Century: Feminist Websites and Postfeminism Online Carlota Larrea Chapter Four.............................................................................................. 51 The Dressing of Brazilian Blended Cultures Sheila Gies and Tracy Cassidy PART II: LITERARY REPRESENTATION OF TRANSCULTURAL ENCOUNTERS Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 69 Transcultural Conflicts in Mexico City: Comic and Contradictory Representations of Female Identity in Gustavo Sainz’s La Princesa del Palacio de Hierro Paul McAleer Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 83 The Inverted Room Ana García Bergua

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Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 93 Exile and the Mother-Daughter Relationship in Josefina Aldecoa’s Mujeres de negro and La fuerza del destino Nuala Kenny Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 107 Telling Their ‘War Story’: A Comparative Analysis of the Perception of British and Spanish Women Activists of Their Experiences of the Spanish Civil War Deirdre Finnerty Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 123 Voice from the Sidelines: The Crônicas of Inês Pedrosa and Maria Judite de Carvalho at the Intersection of Literary Canon and Journalism Suzan Williams Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 135 The Spanish Woman, her ‘Other’ and the Censors: Transcultural Encounters in the Post-Civil War Novel Jacqueline P. Mulhall Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 149 Women Writers and Their Animals: Virginia Woolf’s Flush and Maria Gabriela Llansol’s Jade, Two Dogs with a Voice of Their Own Raquel Ribeiro PART III: TRANSCULTURAL ENCOUNTERS IN FILM Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 167 Transcultural Encounters in Icíar Bollaín’s Flores de otro mundo (1999): From Racism towards Acceptance of the ‘Female Other’ Patricia O’Byrne Chapter Thirteen...................................................................................... 181 Perspective and Focalisation in the Representation of the Transcultural Encounter in Princesas (2005) Gabrielle Carty

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Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 195 The Legacy of Mexico 1968 on Film in ¿Y si platicamos de agosto? (1981) Directed by Mayrse Sistach and Francisca, ¿De qué lado estás? (2002) Directed by Eva López Sánchez Niamh Thornton Contributors............................................................................................. 209

INTRODUCTION

It is evident that civilisations and cultures have influenced each other since time immemorial, but the cultural exchanges generated by contemporary global migratory flows and the global circulation of cultural goods in a mediated and ever more interconnected world are unprecedented. The latter decades of the twentieth century have seen the erosion of many hitherto firmly established boundaries and enclosures ranging from political to social and gender, through to culture and the arts. The resulting reconfigurations have contributed to a more fluid sense of identity, space and values. They have also led to a revisiting of past experiences in order to analyse on a more personal level the impact of the erosion of boundaries on the individual. At the same time, we have experienced an evolving understanding of what culture means, with the rhetoric of globalisation consolidating the inevitable break down of distinct boundaries, and an emergence of a greater understanding of the openness of borders to outside influences. What is important to us in this present collection is the consideration and analysis of patterns of transcultural relationships and how these are reflected in cultural output, particularly in relation to the representation of women and to women’s cultural production. Creative production by and about women from Portugal, Spain and Latin America is often examined together because of obvious linguistic, cultural, economic, and historical commonalities and interconnections. However, each region has evolved its own complex and distinct identity and cultural products, which are worth examining in the light of their interrelationship, tracing the influences and relationships with other less obvious locales. Some of these connections can be seen in Gies’ and Cassidy’s examination of the fashion industry and its evolution in Brazil through the development of patterns, colours and styles influenced by local needs, consumer preferences, and traditions, on the one hand, and transnational textures, contours, and techniques, on the other. Clothing is subject to fashion, and so too is the art world. A figure from this world who has been the subject of considerable attention is Frida Kahlo. Kinsella examines Kahlo and her critical reception as a global artist and reconsiders the significance of her life story and her Mexican-ness. Thus, Kinsella

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reconsiders Kahlo’s local and specific story in the light of her transnational reception. Perhaps the most vital force of change across the globe since the last decade of the millennium has been the penetration of the internet. Exposure to new live and virtual experiences and encounters and the availability of what can best be described as unmanageable quantities of information inevitably poses challenges both exciting and daunting with which we must grapple. This volume contains two essays on aspects of cyberfeminism. Clarke in her consideration of the transcultural potential of cyperspace examines the online museum created by the Brazilian artist, Regina Célia Pinto, and her creation of a cyborg self through the use of a visual blog, supplemented by written and aural extracts by others. Clarke takes Donna Haraway’s significant exploration of the cyborg and the influences of transnational online artistic expressions on Pinto’s work to elucidate her argument. Larrea’s essay considers the internet as a space in which to communicate ideas, share opinions, develop activism and display creativity. The chapter looks at the different meanings of the term postfeminism in contemporary Anglo-American and Spanish culture, with particular reference to the online environment. Four different feminist websites are analysed to look for traces of what has been called a ‘postfeminist sensibility’. War and conflict frequently cross political and cultural boundaries. Two essays in the collection consider how ideologies can travel the globe and widen their sphere of influence beyond their immediate borders. In this vein, Finnerty focuses on the testimonies, letters and diaries of British and Spanish women activists in the Spanish Civil War. Applying Miriam Cooke’s notion of the ‘War Story’ as a theoretical framework, she analyses the extent to which British and Spanish women reiterate traditional master-narratives of war in their personal narratives thus bringing what was a local conflict beyond its original borders. Conflict of a different type is considered by Thornton. She examines the representation by two Mexican directors of the political agitation and conflict which swept the globe in 1968 as it affected Mexico. While Paris burned, and Prague, London, Berkeley and others revolted, students in Mexico City protested. The subsequent bloodshed was first silenced and only considerably later represented in feature films. For the first time, Thornton examines two of the films which, heretofore, had been ignored by critics. Still in the Mexico of the 1960s and 1970s, McAleer examines the effects of intense hybrid cultural environments on concepts of individual and social identity through an analysis of the representation of female

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identity in Gustavo Sainz’s comic novel, La princesa del palacio de hierro [The Princess of the Iron Palace]. He proposes that Sainz’s seemingly ‘traditional’ delineation of the comic female character is the product of its transcultural and transnational context in which social and individual identities are often conceived as liminal, multiple and contradictory. Away from the purely academic, we also invited the novelist Ana García Bergua to reflect on her own experience of the transcultural. As a writer from Mexico, whose parents were exiled from Spain after the Civil War, she details her own experiences of displacement. She considers how these specific circumstances led to her becoming a writer and resulted in the particular themes she has been drawn to in her most recent projects. Kenny’s chapter also focuses on the impact of the exilic process after the Spanish Civil War, through a consideration of the mother-daughter relationship in the novels Mujeres de negro [Women in Black] and La fuerza del destino [The Force of Destiny] by contemporary Spanish novelist, Josefina Aldecoa. In their case too, Mexico also becomes their adopted homeland, providing them with a plurality of perspectives and an appreciation of culture, freedom and the value of education. In contrast, the emigration from Latin America to Spain of young women in search of a better life is the subject of two of our essays on film. O’Byrne discusses Bollaín’s portrayal of the differentialist and inegalitarian racism encountered by women immigrants from Spain’s former colonies in Flores de otro mundo [Flowers from Another World]. The author traces the process of adaptation posited, from transcultural conflict to a stage of mutually beneficial conviviality, highlighting the director’s skill in communicating such important social issues in art form to the Spanish public. Carty too considers a film that portrays female immigration to Spain, something which has been a notable feature of recent migratory flows to the country. Through a structural analysis of Fernando León de Aranoa’s Princesas [Princesses], she investigates the different concerns of the film as they relate to immigration and how the film’s representation of the encounter of the central female characters (one Spanish, one Dominican) raises contemporary issues of xenophobia. Analysis of the role of the immigrant character also reveals the film’s critique of traditional masculine identity in Spain. The impenetrable boundaries of the once sacred literary canon have been seriously challenged for over two decades, a challenge in which women writers, critics and academics have been to the fore. Williams discusses how two established Portuguese novelists, Maria Judite de Carvalho and Inês Pedrosa, break from the confines of patriarchal canonical literature opting for the more popular crônica in order to

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communicate a feminine micro-economy that focuses on the private and unique aspects of individuality. Muhall revisits a period when belief in the power of censors to exclude external cultural influences was firm, yet her research reveals an interesting and unexpected transcultural encounter. Thus, the censorship process in Franco's Spain has been repeatedly criticised for a seeming lack of consistency, particularly in matters of morality. However, Mulhall posits that the treatment of foreign female characters and their behaviour within the pages of the novel was in fact consistent with prevailing discourse and that the treatment of this ‘Other’ had a particular didactic function in Spain in the 1950s. Ribeiro’s contribution is unique insofar as it also crosses a boundary of species, from the human to the animal character, supporting Haraway’s theory (2003) that dog writing could be considered a branch of feminist theory. This comparative essay presents a parallel reading of Virginia Woolf’s Flush (1933) and the Portuguese author Maria Gabriela Llansol’s Amar um Cão [To Love a Dog] (1990), two texts about two special dogs, Flush and Jade, in search of a voice of their own. The idea of transcultural encounters has therefore led to a richly layered and diverse collection of essays by authors from multiple disciplines who have examined creative works which have their origins in a wide range of locations, and others which have crossed boundaries. These studies have produced their own coincidences and commonalities as well as underlining the importance of looking outside of discrete fields or territories. These essays point the way to the potential of comparative approaches which consider encounters across national borders. The editors would like to thank the contributors for their prompt replies, readiness to accept changes and willing cooperation over the course of the many emails and telephone calls that it took to produce the final manuscript. The majority of the editors and contributors are members of WISPS (Women in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies), an organisation which supports research into women and their representations and we would like to acknowledge our gratitude to WISPS for their promotion and enthusiastic encouragement of research in the field. Finally, Niamh Thornton would like to thank the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Ulster for their support for her research and, on a personal level, Liz and Dario for their support and for keeping her going even when the butterflies made their mark.

PART I: ART, DESIGN AND THE WEB

CHAPTER ONE COLONISING KAHLO: FRIDA KAHLO AND THE TRANSCULTURAL ENCOUNTER TINA KINSELLA

The artist Frida Kahlo is a modern icon. In recent years the advent of ‘Fridamania’ has ensured her fame. However, in this chapter I do not seek to examine the phenomenon of the cult of the celebrity in contemporary culture. Rather, I specifically wish to draw attention to the means by which the discourses of critics, theorists and academics have contributed to the reification of Frida Kahlo’s life and image at the expense of a serious critique of her art. Invariably, theorists have scrutinised the most dramatic and tragic details of her existence as a means by which to understand and interpret her work and such an approach has resulted in an inappropriate conflation between Kahlo the woman and Kahlo the artist. Even distinguished scholars have contributed to the common perception of Kahlo as fetish—an effigy of female victimhood—and situated her as representative of certain stereotypes: alienated daughter, childless woman and mistreated wife, amongst others. Such speculative lenses have, I suggest, resulted in victimising Kahlo more effectively than her own artistic representations ever did, culminating in a failure of theory to consider her work within a more challenging discursive schema. In this chapter I aim to liberate Kahlo’s work from such speculative analyses. Contending that her artistic sensibility is infinitely more subversive and transgressive than such reductive discourses intimate, I will appraise Kahlo’s work as radical sites of resistance to hegemonic globalising rationales. Providing a context for the complexity of her work, the first section of this chapter outlines aspects of Kahlo’s life-story, locations (socio-political, historical, cultural and gendered) and artistic influences, and a brief summary of the advent of Fridamania—the cult of Kahlo. Through an exploration of the problematic relationship between

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critical discourse and the transcultural encounter, the second section attempts to understand why interpretations of Kahlo’s work have been hampered by a reductive hegemonic perspective. The third section reconsiders Kahlo’s work within a frame that expands upon previous limiting interpretative analyses. Viewing her subversive representations of the body and Mexican identity as radically dialectical, this section claims that her work is a critical epistemic intervention in the ontology and phenomenology of subject formation. In the concluding section I suggest that Kahlo’s work, if viewed as offering a transformative, dynamic and evolving dialogic space, can encourage new modalities of understanding and communication that can re-invigorate the aesthetical and ethical dynamics of the transcultural encounter.

Frida Kahlo: Her Life, Influences and Fridamania Disproportionate academic attention focused on the sensational aspects of Kahlo’s life has meant that other, perhaps more important, influences on her work have been largely ignored. A dilemma arises for the theorist wishing to creatively engage with Kahlo’s work: which influencing factors of an artist’s life and work should one pay attention to, account for, privilege? Kahlo’s life-story is undeniably colourful. She actively created her own personal mythology; her paintings are a fusion of myth and personal history, a weaving of fact and fiction. Yet, it is true that all socially engaged human beings create their own histories and mythologies. Memory, recall and truth-telling work in an extraordinarily subjective and contrary fashion but are vital to subject formation. Thus the stories that we tell about ourselves are as revealing as those we omit. It is with these caveats in mind that I offer a selective overview of the life of Kahlo and of some of the influences that prevailed upon her. Frida Kahlo was born into a middle-class family in Mexico in 1907. Her father, Guillermo Kahlo, a photographer, was of hybridised European ancestry, and her mother, Matilde Calderón y González, was of primarily indigenous blood. In 1925 Kahlo was involved in a tramcar accident in which she suffered severe injuries and, as a result, she was plagued by chronic health problems until her death at the age of forty-seven. Whilst recovering from her injuries she was forced to lie supine on her bed, encased in a full body cast, for many months and it was under these circumstances that she first began to paint. She married the famous muralist, Diego Rivera, twice—in 1929 and 1940. At the time of Kahlo’s birth, Mexico was struggling through a period of intense political upheaval. This period of political turbulence, characterised by an insurgence of

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diverse ideologies—socialist, liberal, anarchist and populist, led to a critical re-evaluation of what it meant to be Mexican, living in a postcolonial world amidst a cross-fertilisation of cultures. Kahlo was one of a ‘post-revolutionary intelligentsia’ who actively engaged with an ideological articulation of Mexican identity, known as mexicanidad (Zamudio-Taylor 2007, 14). According to Victor Zamudio-Taylor, the discourse of mexicanidad was founded on ‘a social imaginary’ that synthesised ‘Mexico as a modern nation based on a recognition of its rich history and its indigenous and mestizo cultures’ (ibid.). In keeping with the prevalent ideology of mexicanidad being articulated by her contemporaries, Kahlo’s paintings invoke the iconography of Mexican folk art and pagan Mexican mythology. However, in her work there are critical departures that disrupt the hegemony of the prevailing ideology of mexicanidad being promulgated by her male contemporaries. As Victor Zamudio-Taylor has observed, Kahlo’s work is: … characterised for the most part by personal themes and an intimate scale, standing in stark contrast to the ideological and epic treatment of politics and history in the works of the Mexican school, particularly in the public mural programs. (ibid.)

Kahlo’s paintings both synthesise and subvert the ideology of mexicanidad, offering a critique of this new formulation of Mexican identity, even whilst it is being created. The ideology of mexicanidad, though culturally specific to Mexico, resonated with the international zeitgeist of modernism which had initiated an interest in indigenous art forms. Artists such as Édouard Manet (1832-1883), Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1873), intrigued by the romance and the otherness of ethnic art forms, actively appropriated aspects of Asian, African and New World cultures within their Modernist aesthetic. In a departure from her Mexican contemporaries, Kahlo’s work encompassed the broader Modernist trend towards an expanded notion of primitivism that included art made by marginalised or excluded groups such as ‘children, the insane, and selftaught artists’ (Zamudio-Taylor 2007, 27). Whilst sharing much of the political and cultural ideology of her contemporaries, in her work she asserted the right to problematise the paradigmatic notions of gender, nationhood and artistic responsibility being advocated by the muralists (See Ades 1998). Viewed from this perspective, her paintings are profoundly political—operational sites of resistance to hegemonic normativity. It seems that even within the iconoclastic culture of postrevolutionary Mexico, Kahlo was a die-hard radical.

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Under the tutelage of her father, Kahlo was well versed in the history of occidental art. She was particularly interested in the Dutch, German and Italian Renaissance painters, and is known to have been inspired by a variety of Modernist contemporary artistic movements such as the Cubists, the Surrealists (especially René Magritte), the Italian Futurist and Dada painters and the Neue Sachlichkeit (or New Objectivity painters), such as Otto Dix. The artistic influence of the West is well documented in Kahlo’s oeuvre and this has helped to shape critical analyses of her art. Theorists have invariably propagated a US-Eurocentric bias when engaged in an exegesis of Kahlo’s paintings. Far too little attention is paid to the importance of the vernacular—pre-Hispanic indigenous art, Mexican folk art, nineteenth century Mexican painting and sculpture, Spanish colonial religious painting, the Estridentista artistic movement—in her work. Apart from the political and aesthetic factors which shaped Kahlo and her art, her work was further influenced by the close contact she had with the accoutrements of her father’s photographic studio. Allowing herself to be photographed many times throughout her life, Kahlo’s paintings evidence a fascination with photography. She repeatedly represented herself in the stance of a photographer’s subject and the structure of her works, Nadia Ugalde Gómez (2004, 23) suggests are: ... inspired by this type of image. She would take poses, postures and referential objects, such as curtains and backdrops, clocks and furniture, bases and columns, as well as toys, dolls and hobbyhorses, from the artificial atmosphere of the photographic studio, where people went in order to perpetuate their own image.

Unfortunately, the influence of her father’s work on Kahlo’s paintings is often overlooked. Instead, her multiplicitous self-portraits are usually interpreted as evidence of her inherent narcissism and self-obsession rather than, as I would suggest, a profound and enduring enquiry into the complex and paradoxical nature of the human condition. Whilst Kahlo was born into, and lived through, a period of intense political and ideological transition, unlike many of her contemporaries her works do not promote any singular ideology. Instead, they mediate between a cross-pollination of cultures, identities and ideologies and offer a personalised self-reflexive synthesis that interrogates post-revolutionary Mexican identity. I suggest that this reflexive stance with regard to the construction and formation of identity forms a unifying theme in her work and may help to account for the breadth of her popular appeal in recent years. The late 1960s heralded a re-emergence of interest in the life and work of Frida Kahlo when Mexican-American women artists and theorists (most

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notably the art critic Amalia Mesa-Bains), feminists from across the Americas, and Latinas from the United States began a critical re-evaluation of her oeuvre. Following two exhibitions of her paintings, organised in the USA in 1978 and in England in 1982, an awareness of her work has become more widespread within the public imaginary.1 By the 1990s the phenomenon of Fridamania—the cult of Kahlo—had begun to make an appearance proclaiming Kahlo’s heroic status to Mexican Americans, marginalised groups and/or counter-cultural groups such as gays, postcolonial immigrants and feminists. In recent years exhibitions, books and films about Kahlo are ubiquitous. Hayden Herrera has noted that ‘one of her self-portraits appeared on a 2001 United States postage stamp. In Texas she achieved sainthood–Santa Frida, the patron saint of unwed mothers and undocumented workers’ (Herrera 2007, 56). However, Herrera, who wrote a seminal biography on Kahlo, has herself contributed to the artist’s mythic and fetishistic status by claiming that her image is ‘like a primitive totem (it) has healing powers (...) Kahlo’s self-portraits are invocations’ (ibid). The result is that Kahlo is now a collectable commodity. Gerardo Mosquera, in The Marco Polo Syndrome: Some Problems Around Art and Eurocentism, has observed this remarkable phenomenon. He claims that although most Latin American artists do not normally fetch high prices at the major art auctions, artists who ‘satisfy the expectations of a more or less stereotyped Latin-Americanicity’ and artists who agree to ‘display their identity, to be fantastic, to look like no one else or to look like Frida’ (Mosquera 2005, 221-2) are the ones most sought after. The salacious interest in Kahlo’s remarkable personal experiences— her suffering body, her childlessness, her bi-sexuality—and her exotic appearance has ensured that the demand for Kahlo’s paintings is high. However, it is apparent that such interest has resulted in the creation of a fetishistic prototype for both Latin American identity and for female artists in general.

The Transcultural Encounter and the Problematics of Discourse Why has the art of Frida Kahlo consistently been interpreted through such a reductive theoretical, critical and academic lens? Traditionally, academic discourse has been largely predicated on a presumption of critical neutrality. However, I suggest that such a presumption of neutrality produces potentially globalising effects that fundamentally problematise the veracity of the academic transcultural encounter. Globalisation is a term ubiquitously applied within economic discursive schema but rarely

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applied to discourses emanating from the academic elite. In contemporary fiscal discourse heterochthonous economic forces are readily perceived as those which potentially oppress and marginalise autocthonous minority markets. I suggest that academic discourse which is perceived as authoritatively ‘neutral’ can create a similar totalising effect on autocthonous minority voices. The position that I have outlined is by no means an anarchic indictment directed at academia. Eminent critics, in wide ranging disciplines (postcolonial studies, poststructuralist theory, feminist theories, indeed most postmodern studies in general), have illuminated and deconstructed the subtle means by which discourses (academic or otherwise) produce potentially totalising effects on others; this is particularly true of oppressed and marginalised groups. Poststructuralist writers, such as Giles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, have admirably critiqued the pivotal role that discourse plays in the formation of subject identity, highlighting the complex dynamic that exists between discourse, power and agency. Disclaiming the positivist rationale of the sovereign subject, such theorists favour a ‘becoming’, mobile or in-process subject: one whose identity is constituted by the shifting discourses of power which speak ‘through’ it. Thus poststructuralists posit that the subject is de-centred and that identity is constructed extrinsically. Their insights highlight the limits of discourse and thereby raise the critical question: who can meaningfully speak on behalf of whom? Despite this innovative theoretical approach, the ghost of Enlightenment thinking continues to haunt even the most enlightened thinkers. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1993, 66-101) has observed that even poststructuralist theorists, such as Deleuze and Foucault, risk falling into an essentialist trap by speaking for or centring oppressed groups. She suggests that there is always a risk of ‘a clandestine restoration of subjective essentialism’ (Spivak 1993:74). In positioning themselves as an authoritative mediating ‘voice’ for the marginalised, the oppressed and those who cannot speak, intellectuals can fail to take account of the diversity of specific locational factors (historical, cultural, socio-political and gendered) which prevail upon situated subjects (both themselves and others). Postcolonial theorists have alerted us to the fact that all discourse is inherently culturally biased. Viewed from this perspective, the authority of ‘neutral’ academic discourse encounters its limitations when it aims to speak on behalf of others as the theorist can effectively, albeit unintentionally, veil the complex power dynamics, both macrocosmic and microcosmic, embedded in discourse. This is the Achilles heel that lies latent within the transcultural academic encounter: discourse can assume the existence of a

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global or transcultural subject when it is apparent that no such subject exists. For these reasons I suggest that the transcultural subject exists only as a discursive construct, not a phenomenological reality. The authenticity of the transcultural encounter is particularly precarious when attempting to evaluate an artist such as Frida Kahlo who occupies and articulates multiple marginal locations simultaneously. Analysis of her work has suffered from the construction and application of meanings and significations to her work which may not exist at all. Therefore, rigorous critical self-reflexivity (regarding congenital cultural specificities and privileges) is necessary to alert the theorist to the danger of constructing new myths whilst actively engaged in the deconstruction of old ones.

Critiquing Prevailing Discourses: An Analysis of Kahlo’s Radical Artistic Dialectic When discussing the specifics by which Kahlo’s work evidences a radical approach to the painting of subjectivity, it is important to remember that she was born in 1907 and died in 1954. These dates place her firmly within a Modernist timeframe and there are, undoubtedly, strong Modernist elements within her work (see Zamudio-Taylor 2007). With the advent of postmodernism in the latter half of the twentieth century, contemporary artists began to institute a critique of traditional and modernist representations of subjectivity, embodiment and identity. Specifically, many female artists re-visited the tradition of the prototypical ‘female nude’ and began to use the body (often their own) as a site of reclamation, a location on and through which they may re-define the signs and significations embedded in Modernist discursive constructs of identity and gendered corporeality. The work of these artists can be seen as regenerative in intent. Although Kahlo is primarily viewed as a Modernist painter, I suggest that through her complex representation of multiple identities—her radical representations of the body and of Mexican identity—anticipates the critique of subjectivity offered by postmodern artistic trends. Given the tradition of the female nude in occidental art, Kahlo’s deployment of the body is, I contend, anarchic. Critiquing artistic depictions of the naked female body, Lynda Nead (1992) has claimed that the traditional female nude marks the border between art and obscenity (See Nead 1992). According to Nead, no longer illicit—a visceral signifier for sex or sexual desire—the naked, real-life and unstructured female body is symbolically re-codified, regulated and contained within the pictorial frame. Being newly defined, delimited and re-structured as a ‘nude’ it becomes an

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object of beauty, an object suitable for art. Whitney Chadwick (1991, 2007) has directed our attention towards the power dynamics at play when the female body is painted. She claims that as the privilege of painting the naked female body traditionally belonged exclusively to male artists, this allowed those artists to claim an exclusive equation between masculine artistic creative energy and masculine sexual energy as their depictions frame the female body as a locus for male viewing pleasure. This subject is further explored by Rosemary Betterton, who writes (1987, 252): Male artists and critics have consistently justified their enjoyment of the nude by appealing to abstract conceptions of ideal form, beauty and aesthetic value. Such a view renders invisible the relationships of power and subordination involved when a male artist depicts the female body. It ignores or denies the difference between looking at the body of a woman and looking at a pile of fruit.

Betterton makes a highly politicised point. Claiming that the female body is not merely an inanimate ‘object’, and cannot be regarded as such, she highlights the discourse that neutralises the particularity of subjective experience and obfuscates the reality of power dynamics played out both in the production and in the consumption of an artwork. The nude, as defined by Nead, is a site of desire and therefore little attention was paid to an investigation into the specificity of female embodied knowledge and experience. The ideology of womanhood, as it has been broadly constructed within the lived worlds of patriarchy, has censored and delineated the acceptable parameters of articulation emanating from the feminine sphere. Given the various parameters that I have outlined concerning the articulation of female experience, Kahlo’s work authors a startling account of female subjectivity. Her bodies are never objects that invite the viewer into a scopophilic, spectatorial space of sexual possession; they specifically explore the problematic particularity of female subjectivity, embodiment, knowledge and experience. Often naked, her bodies are never nude.2 In contrast to the safe, contained, passive and idealised nude that Nead speaks of, Kahlo’s bodies are subversive, uncontained, dynamic and visceral: unregulated-broken, mutilated, bleeding and leaking—they overspill the traditional conceptual frame. She strips away the comfort of the feminine sphere, anarchically painting what had never been visible before—the abject, the secret, the previously unspeakable: the bloodied act of childbirth, an aborted foetus in a jar, a woman in the act of suicide, an adult-faced baby Frida being breastfed.3 Her self-portraits and paintings do not present woman as an object defined in relation to someone else, a

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Lacanian objet a—daughter, sister, mother, wife—for although she painted herself in all of these identities, they did not define her. Intervening in the canon of prototypical allegorical and mythological women, benign goddess, suffering saint, bountiful Mother Nature, inspirational muse, grieving mother of Christ–Kahlo articulates the hidden, immanent reality of female experience, the pain and the suffering. Her works interrogate the hegemonic socialised norms of ‘femininity’ which regulate the ‘sign’ of woman. 4 Primarily evidenced in the selfportraits in which Kahlo, as subject, occupies and performs multiple identities, these signs are re-worked, re-conceptualised and re-appropriated in a critical announcement of the realities of female embodiment. Theoretical analyses which situate Kahlo as an artist prone to confessional blood-letting, fail to take account of the radical reflexivity, the profound investigation into performativity that is taking place in her work.5 It is as though Kahlo consciously engaged in prototypical representations of femininity and intentionally subverted them. Re-positioning Kahlo’s work in this way allows her oeuvre to be radically re-assessed as highly political statements that evidence a critical resistance to the normative hegemonic performance of gendered identity. In the light of the prototypical representation of the female nude and the dominant ideology of womanhood, how can Kahlo’s radical representation of female identity be accounted for? There are representational modalities and iconographies of the pictorial body which exist outside of the Western frame, some of which may have influenced Kahlo’s conceptualisation and representation of embodiment and identity. Detailed readings of Kahlo’s paintings reveal the multifarious references she made to her indigenous inheritance—a point often overlooked or simply not visible to the eye that views her work from a globalalised perspective, a perspective largely authored from an occidental, US or Eurocentric viewpoint. Therefore, frequently the vital influence of Kahlo’s Mexican inheritance on her artistic sensibility is simply not afforded the attention it deserves. Pre-Hispanic pagan Mexican artifacts—of which Kahlo and Rivera were prodigious collectors–challenge much of the representative iconography within occidental artistic representations. Many of these artifacts (found, for example, at ritualistic and sacrificial sites) symbolically elaborate the subject as engaged in a cyclical, transformative relationship with creation and death. 6 Viewing Kahlo’s work through this expanded lens highlights the infinitely nuanced and synthesised nature of her artistic representations. Similarly, many of Kahlo’s paintings demonstrate the influence of Mexican ex-votos or retablos. Small devotional paintings, usually on tin, executed by ordinary men and women to plead for God’s

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mercy or to thank him for an answered prayer, these votive works, like many of Kahlo’s paintings, often represent the body in distress.7 Kahlo regularly depicts the body as a site of pain and sacrifice, and this is also true of Catholic Hispanic art in which the crucified Christ’s wounded body bleeds, the mourning Madonna weeps tears of blood, as both bodies suffer. 8 In an emblematic re-working of the various representational modalities that I have outlined, Kahlo uses the body as a means by and through which to explore and expand upon conceptualisations of female subjectivity, embodiment, experience and knowledge. Presenting the body, her body, as a site of pain, sacrifice and love, she demands that we address the feminine sphere from the particularity of subjective experience. In a further radical and reflexive approach to explorations of subjectivity, Kahlo’s work institutes a dialogue with hegemonic conceptualisations of Mexican identity, nationhood and gender. In the Labyrinth of Solitude (an extended meditation on the postcolonial Mexican psyche), Octavio Paz (1985) refers to a synthesis of allegorical women who have shaped Mexican notions of self and collective identity—La Malinche (the indigenous half-collaborator, half-victim, Indian interpreter and mistress of the Spanish conquistador, Hérnan Cortés) and La Chingada (the raped and beaten mother immortalised in popular slang) are two such figures. Paz claims that, as they stress the ambivalent relationship—of dependency and complicity—that exists between the colonised and the coloniser, these women highlight the collective mother/victim/nation image that postcolonial Mexico had inherited. Oriana Baddeley (1998) has proposed that Kahlo’s works critique the collective inheritance of La Malinche and La Chingada and thus subvert the identification of woman with victimised nation. I suggest that Kahlo’s paintings reference, synthesise and crucially re-signify pre-colonial and postcolonial Mexican myth, allegory, ideology and history (social, cultural, economic and political). Kahlo regularly dressed and painted herself in pre-colonial Tehuana costume. The Tehuana was a matriarchal culture that resisted the strictures of gender, social, cultural and economic normativity imposed by Spanish colonial rule. Invoking the Tehuana as a symbol allowed Kahlo to re-empower and re-codify the signs of La Malinche and La Chingada, which both signify woman as victim.9 She simultaneously referenced both pagan and Catholic iconographies in many of her works, thus situating her spiritual inheritance within a Christian and pagan matrix. 10 In a reflexive re-negotation with conceptualisations of gender and nationhood, she painted herself in the liminal space of ‘Gringolandia’ (the borderland between Mexico and the USA forming part of the territories that Mexico had lost to the USA in the USA-Mexico war

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of 1846-1848). 11 It is clear that Kahlo’s art forms a fluidic web. By incorporating a matrixial lexicon of symboligies in which dualisms collapse, Kahlo invokes and radicalises cognitions of both Mexican and occidental iconographies of identity, gender and nationhood. In so doing, she de-stabilises the binary of both autochthonous and heterochthonous perceptions and dialectically re-frames the symbolic syntax of signs and meanings. Representing multiple and contradictory identities that are unfixed, in-process and transformative provides Kahlo with a shapeshifting, shamanic modus through which to explore liminal states: shades, traces and shadows. Clearly, Kahlo mined her life experiences and used them as an intrinsic inspirational source for her art, but re-situating her work in this way problematises discourses that view her paintings as fetishistic, confessional and self-obsessive blood-lettings. I suggest that her oeuvre can be re-conceptualised as a public confession of private experience, a radical exomologesis that is a deeply reflexive interrogation into the instability of identity. The iconography that infuses Kahlo’s art is a composite of intrinsic experience and extrinsic symbology (pre-Hispanic, indigenous, pagan, Catholic, classical) that enables her work to effect transits from the personal to the collective experience, from the particular to the universal. Situated within this frame, Kahlo’s artworks problematise and radicalise the perceived binaries of intrinsic:extrinsic, personal:collective and particular:universal. Her paintings challenge canonic pictorial representations of the human condition which presuppose that the viewer and the represented experience are comprehensible within a universal paradigm. Such representations typically address individual experience through metaphor, myth or allegory, thus neutralising the particularity of subjective experience and presuming a collective experience of subjectivity. In other words, Kahlo challenges the canon which globalises experience with its presumption of a transcultural subject and a transcultural point of address. Discursive constructs of normativity mark the signs of ‘Woman’ or ‘being Mexican’ with hegemonic inscriptions which carry signifiers for the acceptable paradigmatic performance of identities: cultural, sociopolitical and gendered. Negotiating with established iconographies—recodifying them and deploying herself as critical subject—enabled Kahlo to articulate the particularity of her own embodied, lived experiences whilst simultaneously addressing, yet not assuming to speak on behalf of, the shared experiences of humankind. Thus her paintings are radically dialectical. As I have illustrated, in recent years postmodern and poststructuralist theorists have discussed the inherently contingent nature of identity

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formation. Seminally, Judith Butler (1999) has claimed that identity is extrinsically constructed through repetitive ‘performative’ acts which evidence that identity is not an innate or stable reality. She claims that it is impossible for the subject to arrive at a final destination point as the ‘performing’ body is no more than a complex of socially constituted states. Thus, the subject is in a persistent state of departure, a constant state of becoming. Perceived as multiple and complex performances, Kahlo’s work can be re-conceived as critically self-reflexive with regard to the contingency of subjectivity. Her paintings resist being viewed as a vindication or victimisation of identities—of womanhood, of being Mexican, of being a spurned wife, of being childless or of being bisexual—as they attest to the inherent problematics, and ultimate inability, to be, to evidence, to prove, what any of these identity tags might mean.

The Ethics and Aesthetics of Subjectivity: Re-visiting the Transcultural Encounter Occuping a third space in which the binary constructs of the Enlightenment–adult:child, man:woman, nature:nurture, human:animal, day:night, love:hate, pain:pleasure, conscious:unconscious, self:other—are collapsed, her subject inhabits a converse universe in which the adult and the child, pleasure and pain, the conscious and unconscious mind, are one and the same (see Zamudio-Taylor 2007, 17). This third space welcomes the contradictions of knowing and not knowing; it is a space where they are invited to co-exist. Discourses which concentrate on the ‘speculative’, the ‘fantastical’ and the ‘special’ in Kahlo’s art precipitate a potentially violent academic encounter as an inability to incorporate the paradox of her artistic sensibility results in a commodification or fetishisation of it. Such discourses ‘other’ Kahlo, by re-packaging her radical dialectic to situate her as exotic or merely different in an attempt to make her more understandable—but to whom? As I have illustrated, the academic tendency ‘to speak on behalf of others’ has been widely evaluated by postmodern and poststructuralist theorists. Challenging the epistemic limits of Modernist metanarratives regarding the ontology and phenomenology of subjectivity and identity, such theorists suggest that Modernist hermeneutics fail to take account of the specificity of locations—historic, cultural, geographic, socio-political, gendered—which prevail upon the situated subject, most especially the subaltern, marginalised or oppressed subject. Spivak (1996) claims that the subaltern does have a voice, that the subaltern can speak of his or her experience, but others do not know how to listen as others do not know how to enter

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into a discursive transaction between speaker and listener. Therefore, the silence of the subaltern is the result of a failure of interpretation, not of articulation. I suggest that considerations of Kahlo’s art have suffered from the syndrome outlined by Spivak. Her paintings ‘talk’ but observers may have a problem hearing or reading her complex text. The West is now entering a post-global economic phase. Hung by its own progressive petard, the fiscal metanarrative of modernity is foundering. New challenges are arising regarding how to appropriately respond economically, politically and ethically, to the current international situation. In a world still catching its breath after the vertiginous expiration of the global economic balloon, Stuart Sim (2009) has suggested that postmodern theory and artistic practice may have something to offer in the face of these new challenges. He writes: We can learn to a certain extent from postmodernism, particularly as it is applied in the arts, how to challenge Western modernity, but it will require a considerable leap of imagination to move past that state to a truly postWestern culture. Nevertheless, the opportunities for doing so are beginning to emerge, and they deserve exploration—by the artistic community as much as anyone.

Can the theoretical and artistic insights of postmodernism pave the way for a revitalised transcultural global encounter in a wider sense? Art, and the discourse applied to it, may not singlehandedly have the power to paradigmatically change the world, but it does have the power to influence it. If the transcultural encounter is to be perceived anew, as an opportunity for dialogic exchange, can the West enter into a discursive transaction between listener and speaker, between the privileged and the oppressed, that appreciates the cultural specificity of experience, that acknowledges difference and that is open to transformation and renewal? The third space occupied by Kahlo’s subject is a site of correlative transaction between the self and the other. This place of exchange, I suggest, is an ethical locus, a space in which ‘our willingness to become undone in relation to others constitutes our chance of becoming human’ (Butler 2005, 136). In this location the boundary of ethical and aesthetical categories can be explored, transgressed and articulated anew, we can ‘vacate the self-sufficient ‘I’ as a kind of possession’ (ibid.). This location—an evolutionary transubjective site in which mutual and reciprocal transaction can take place—invites a potentially positive and transformative transcultural encounter, where the binary of self and other can be suspended, disturbed and, ultimately, collapsed.

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I am not proposing that the artworks of Frida Kahlo, or any artist, necessitate a transformative experience in the viewer. In re-conceptualising the transcultural encounter, I merely wish to suggest that approaching the articulations of others–artistic or otherwise–as an opportunity for positive ethical transaction might just help to create the possibility for an improvement in interpersonal exchange on a wider scale. Seeing with open eyes, listening with open ears may, as Stuart Sim has observed, improve transcultural communication. In an embattled world struggling to cope with the ravages of imperial globalisation, innovative approaches to communication will be vitally important. If viewed as an interrogation into the ethics of subjectivity and as sites of resistance to the hegemonic demand to prove, evidence or authenticate identity, Kahlo’s paintings can offer a significant contribution to postmodern, feminist and postcolonial discourse within an expanded framework. Her work can be re-situated as a radical intervention in the practice and process of negotiating the critical subject and in the deconstruction and re-construction of our own histories.

Works Cited Ades, D. (1998) ‘Orbits of the Savage Moon: Surrealism and the Representation of the Female Subject in Post-War Paris’, in W. Chadwick (ed.), Mirror Images: Surrealism and Self-Representation, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: MIT Press, 106-127. Betterton, R. (1987) ‘How Do Women Look? The Female Nude in the Work of Suzanne Valadon’, in H. Robinson (ed.) Visibly Female: Feminism and Art Today, London, UK: Camden Press, 250-271. —. (1997) ‘The Translator’s Task, Walter Benjamin, (Translation)’ S. Rendall (trans.) in TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction, vol 10, no 2, 1997, 151-165 [online], available from http://www.erudit.org/iderudit/037302ar’ [Accessed 5 January 2010]. Butler, J. (1999) ‘Bodily Inscriptions: Performative Subversions’, in Janet Price and Margaret Shildrick (eds.) Feminist Theory: A Reader, Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 416-422. —. (2005) Giving an Account of Oneself, USA: Fordham University Press. Chadwick, W. (2007) Women, Art and Society, London, UK: Thames and Hudson. —. (1991) Women Artist’s and the Surrealist Movement, London, UK: Thames and Hudson. Gómez, N.U. (2004) ‘La metamorfosis de la imagen’, in Frida Kahlo, an exhibition catalogue, Mexico City: Instituto Nacional des Bellas Artes, 14-23.

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Grimberg, S. (1998) ‘Frida Kahlo: The Self as End’ in Whitney Chadwick (ed.), Mirror Images: Surrealism and Self-Representation, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: MIT Press, 82-105. —. (2008) Frida Kahlo: Song of Herself, London and New York: Merrill. Herrera, H. (2007) ‘Frida Kahlo’s Legacy: The Poetics of the Self’, in Frida Kahlo, an exhibition catalogue, Minneapolis, USA: Walker Arts Centre, 56-80. Mosquera G. (2005) ‘The Marco-Polo Syndrome: Some Problems Around Art and Eurocentrism’ in Z. Kocur and S. Leung (eds.), Theory in Contemporary Art Since 1945, Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 221-2. Nead L. (1992) The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality, Oxford, UK: Routledge. Paz, O. (1985) The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings, New York, USA: Grove. Rivera, J.R.C. (2004) ‘Frida Kahlo: La selva de sus vestidos, los judas de sus venas’ in Frida Kahlo, an exhibition catalogue, Mexico City: Instituto Nacional des Bellas Artes, 24-145. Simm, S. (2009) ‘After Modernity: Towards a Post-Western Culture’ in Printed Project Issue 11: Farewell to Postcolonialism - Querying the Guangzhou Triennial 2008, 119-123, [online], available from HYPERLINK http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx? doc_id=13291701 [Accessed 5 January 2010]. Spivak, G.C. (1993) ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ in L. Chrisman and P.Williams (eds.), Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory, Harlow, Essex, UK: Longman Pearson Education, 66-111. —. (1996) ‘Subaltern Talk’ in D.Landry and G. MacLean (eds.) The Spivak Reader, Oxford, UK: Routledge, 287-308. Zamudio-Taylor, V. (2007) ‘Frida Kahlo: Mexican Modernist’, in Frida Kahlo, an exhibition catalogue, Minneapolis, USA: Walker Arts Centre, 14-34.

Notes 1 Frida Kahlo, 1910-1954, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 1978 and Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti, Whitechapel Art Gallery London, 1982. 2 See Henry Ford Hospital o la cama volando [Henry Ford Hospital or The Flying Bed], 1932, oil on metal, 31 x 40.2cm: Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiña, Mexico City; Mi nacimiento [My Birth], 1932, oil on copper, 30.5 x 35cm: Private collection; Unos cuantos piquetitos [A Few Small Snips], 1935, oil on metal with painted frame, 68 x 78cm: Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiña, Mexico City; Mi nana y yo o Yo mamando [My Nurse and I or I suckle], 1937, oil on metal, 30.5 x 35cm: Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiña, Mexico City; Dos desnudos en un bosque o La

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tierra misma o Mi nana y yo [Two Nudes in a Forest or The Earth Itself or My Nurse and I], 1939, oil on metal, 25.1 x 30.2cm: Collection Jon A and Mary Shirley, Medina, Washington; La columna rota [The Broken Column], 1944, oil on masonite, 39.8 x 30.5cm: Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiña, Mexico City; Árbol de la esperanza, manténte firme [Tree of Hope, Keep Firm], 1946, oil on masonite, 55.9 x 40.6cm: Private collection. 3 See Mi nacimiento o Nacimiento [My Birth or Birth], 1932, oil on copper, 30.5 x 35 cm: Private collection; El aborto [The Abortion], 1932, lithograph, 22.5 x 14.5 cm: Private collection; El suicidio de Dorothy Hale [The Suicide of Dorothy Hale], 1939, oil on masonite with painted frame, 59.7 x 49.5 cm: Collection of Phoenix Art Museum; Mi nana y yo o Yo Mamando [My Nurse and I or I suckle], 1937, oil on metal, 30.5 x 35 cm: Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiña, Mexico City. 4 See Autoretrato con pelo cortado [Self Portrait with Cropped Hair], 1940, oil on canvas, 40 x 27.9 cm: The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Autoretrato: ‘muy feo’ [Self-Portrait: ‘very ugly’] 1933, fresco, 27.3 x 22.2 cm: Private collection. Most of Kahlo’s self-portraits show her with a visible growth of dark hair on her upper lip and between her eyebrows. 5 For analyses of Kahlo’s narcissism see Grimberg (1998, 2008). 6 See, for example, the painting entitled Mi nana y yo o Yo mamando [My Nurse and I or I suckle], 1937, oil on metal, 30.5 x 35cm: Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiña, Mexico City The nurse in the painting wears an indigenous mask and the branches in her right breast may be referencing the Ceiba Yaxche tree; the Mayan celestial tree of life, this tree provided milk for infants who died before their mothers had weaned them. 7 For example, the painting entitled ¡Unos cuantos piquetitos! [A Few Small Snips!], 1935, oil on metal with painted frame, 68 x 78cm Collection Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiña, Mexico City, illustrates the influence of the ex-voto or retablo on Kahlo’s work. 8 See, for example, La columna rota [The Broken Column], 1944, oil on masonite, 39.8 x 30.5cm: Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiña, Mexico City; El venado herido o El venadito o Soy un pobre venadito [The Wounded Deer or The Little Deer or I am a Poor Little Deer], 1946, oil on masonite, 22.4 x 30cm: Private collection and Árbol de la esperanza, manténte firme [Tree of Hope, Keep Firm], 1946, oil on masonite, 55.9 x 40.6cm: Private collection See Rivera (2004) for a detailed discussion of the influence of Catholic Baroque art in the work of Frida Kahlo. 9 See Las dos Fridas [The Two Fridas], 1939, oil on canvas, 173.5 x 173cm Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City Diego en mi pensamiento o Pensando en Diego o Autorretrato como Tehuana [Diego on My Mind or Thinking of Diego or SelfPortrait as Tehuana], 1943, oil on masonite, 76 x 61cm The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of Modern and Contemporary Mexican Art, The Vergel Foundation; Autorretrato con medallón [Self-Portrait with Medallion], 1948, oil on masonite, 50 x 40cm Private collection. 10 See Mi nacimiento o Nacimiento [My Birth or Birth1], 1932, oil on copper, 30.5 x 35cm: Private collection and Moisés o Núcleo Solar [Moses or Nucleus of Creation], 1945, oil on masonite, 50.8 x 94cm: Private collection, Texas.

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See Autorretrato en la frontera entre México y los Estados Unidos [Self-Portrait on the Border between Mexico and the United States], 1932, oil on metal, 31.8 x 34.9cm: Collection María Rodriguez de Reyero.

CHAPTER TWO REGINA CÉLIA PINTO’S MUSEUM OF THE ESSENTIAL AND BEYOND THAT MARGARET ANNE CLARKE

Cyborg imagery can help to express two crucial arguments … first, the production of universalising, totalising theory is a major mistake that misses most of reality. Probably always, but certainly now; and second, taking responsibility for the social relations of science and technology means refusing an anti-science metaphysics, a demonology of technology, and so means embracing the skilful task of reconstructing the boundaries of daily life, in partial connection with others, in communication with all of our parts. It is not just that science and technology are possible means of great human satisfaction, as well as a matrix of complex dominations. Cyborg imagery can suggest a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we have explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves. This is a dream not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia. It is the imagination of a feminist speaking in tongues to strike fear into the hearts of the supersavers of the new right. It means both building and destroying machines, identities, categories, relationships, space stories. Though both are bound in the spiral dance, I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess. (Haraway 1991, 181)

This chapter will introduce the work of Regina Célia Pinto, Brazilian artist and curator and one of the best-known exponents of ‘net art’ or ‘cyberart’, a genre of digital art specifically created and disseminated through the Internet. Pinto’s varied and prolific output is displayed in her virtual museum created in 1992, The Museum of the Essential and Beyond That (http://arteonline.arq.br/). The Museum also displays digital writing and art of many kinds by a community of both Brazilian and international artists whose works all take full advantage of the discursive and creative practices enabled by cyberspace in order to engage with themes which negotiate between multiple social and artistic domains. These are also connected with larger global realities brought about by virtual and

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electronic networks. Pinto’s own cyberart, also displayed in the Museum, is one illustration of the sophisticated engagement of Brazilian digital, installation and performance artists with such issues as biotechnology, human-machine interaction, and digital computing. The work of these artists represent engagement, mutual dialogue, but also strong critique of Western epistemological frameworks supporting developmentalist and positivistic discourses which emerged within a Cold War context of militaristic and technological ‘development’. However, this engagement also represents a continuation of the characteristic themes developed in previous decades by Brazilian artists, who, from at least the beginning of the twentieth century, strove for creative and intellectual renovation within a uniquely Brazilian form of modernity. This entailed the formation of critical metaphors of the neo-colonial dependency which had characterised cultural relations between Brazil and first world nations, but also the dialectical synthesis between elite and popular forms of knowledge, and the reconciliation of antagonisms between the modern and the ancient, the intuitive and the rational (Johnson 1987, 45). In Pinto’s case, this dialectical synthesis takes the form of countering, through her artworks, the homogenising influence of Western-dominated media and information services, which reflect the manipulation of colonised space by Western technocratic discourses and practices. The artist’s games, e-books and digital paintings, in all their diversity, are expressions of the engagement with the fundamental matrix of cyberspace, originally moulded by ‘technostrategic priorities, the structure of programming code, prescribed gender roles and other cultural dominants’ (Bills 2001, np). The Museum of the Essential and Beyond That takes full advantage of the deterritorialisation and exchange of practice enabled by cyberspace on a global level, while at the same time asserting the process of decolonisation, the assertion of ecological issues, and the reclaiming of multilayered local and indigenous territories and belief systems. The Museum is intended to embody and illustrate a principal tenet of its curator’s philosophy: that the role of virtual art is to recover the suppressed, but potentially positive possibilities inherent in ‘globalisation’. Pinto views globalisation in its current form as ‘an economically passive and politically ungovernable mechanism’ (Leonardo Electronic Almanac not dated) characterised by individualism, anomie, and the corrosive effects of mass corporate culture. Yet the phenomenon of globalisation also contains the potential for what Pinto, following Michel Maffesolli, terms ‘an affirmative potency that, in spite of everything, plays the game over, beginning with solidarity and reciprocity’ (Maffesolli 1996, quoted in Pinto, not dated). This ‘affirmative potency’ can potentially be

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accomplished by the establishment of virtual communities, which, within their structures, hold the potential for projects realised by only one individual in any part of the world, but which may be infinitely connected to collaborative works on an international scale: ‘although globalisation and exclusion are completely interlinked terms, I still believe that one of the good qualities of the former is the fact that it permits the exchange of artistic experiences in the national and international spheres’ (Leonardo Electronic Almanac not dated). This exchange of artistic experiences entails the reciprocal transmission of knowledge, and mutual respect between diverse communities. The principal aim of The Museum of the Essential and Beyond That, according to its curator, is to house and disseminate international artworks collected from ‘the different latitudes and longitudes of this geography without borders created by information technology’ (Leonardo Electronic Almanac not dated). But the Museum’s purpose is also to reconceptualise the concept of the museum in order to counteract ‘museumised facticity’, that is, the display of artefacts divorced from the living reality of their cultures, and first deployed, as Benedict Anderson has pointed out, by Western elites in order to defend colonial rule (Anderson 1991, xiv). A prerequisite for this is the reconfiguration of the structure of a museum as a ‘virtual architecture’ located in cyberspace. This aim is summed up in the opening statement of the homepage: ‘This Museum was conceived as an open structure in which information is spread out in a number of spaces, a machine that can travel infinitely in all directions.’ This ‘open structure’ is created through several processes enabled by networked and programmable media, and presented within the computer interface. The Museum takes the form of ‘an imaginary two-story pixelbuilding with a basement’ with two portals structuring the sections of the museum, which displays the artworks housed therein in many different types of configurations. According to Pinto: ‘The building’s architectural design can be changed at any time, whether by constructing another story or changing part of its shape’ (Pinto nd). This implies that the architectural design of the site is also enabled by the process of interaction and active participation on the part of the visitor who must traverse, search, choose and navigate through the museum and the artworks, libraries, e-books and texts within this ‘relational space’: ‘a cybermuseum’ is a spatial-temporal shape built up through movement: transportation and communication. During the process of creating a virtual museum we cannot overlook the paths people follow through information and this must be a place where information is shared intensively by all its visitors and participants. (Pinto nd)

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Thus, the visitor must navigate in a contingent way through the museum, within a space which is no longer coordinated by purely linear sequences between corridors and rooms, artworks which exist only in twodimensional space, or pictures as discrete entities separated only by spaces on a wall. Both the structure of the virtual museum and its multiple pathways enable its artworks to be experienced, not as a static collection of reified objects, but as ‘relational spaces’, whose interaction is in itself capable of generating new questions, ideas and concepts. This interaction takes place in relation to both the visitor and a global community of artists. The interactivity of the viewer-participant generates, creates and transforms the art works, and this must also necessarily approximate the relations between space and time within the interface, constantly realigned in the interplay between sound, image and text. The Museum, then, calls into question the nature of representation itself: ‘the constant iteration and negotiation’ of cultural norms, forms and boundaries, both on an individual level by Pinto herself, and collectively through her incorporation and integration of other international artists into her work. This is also linked to the idea that the process of creation within virtual communities is not only a process of constant interchange, but also of constant translation between different cultural realities. One illustration of this interchange and translation is Regina Célia Pinto’s artistic and symbolic representation of an early interest which has remained constant throughout the artist’s career: gender, and the relation of women to such contemporary phenomena as globalisation, science, nature, and the relation of these to the process of creation itself. This theme is treated in a variety of media and art forms within the Museum, but all are connected with Pinto’s own engagement with and interpretation of ‘cyberfeminism’ which, according to Jennifer Brayton: ‘takes feminism as its starting point, and turns its focus upon contemporary technologies, exploring the intersections between gender identity, the body, culture and technology’ (Brayton 1997, np). The works created by the artist are all collected in the artist’s own dedicated section in the Museum, The Library of Marvels and include Via Láctea, The Many Faces of Eve and The Great Mother Earth Cyborg. Yet Pinto’s commitment to specific issues of cyberfeminism which are expounded in these digital artworks cannot be disassociated from Pinto’s broad philosophy of virtual art within the changing paradigms brought about by ‘globalisation’. They are also constructed with constant reference to, and engagement with, Pinto’s national precursors and international peers, such as the Australian performance artist Stelarc, the Brazilian transgenic and interactive artist Eduardo Kac, the New Zealand-based

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theatre and digital artist Helen Varley Jamieson and theorist Donna Haraway. 1 These interrelated aims are realised most fully in Pinto’s multimedia digital artwork Great Earth Mother Cyborg. This piece reflects on the realignment of the cultural legacy of Western imperialism referred to above, and challenges the fundamental epistemological divide that is the ‘metaphysical bedrock’ of Western culture, that ‘science and technology allow minds to break away from society to reach objective nature, and to impose order on efficient matter’ (Latour 1999, 194). The structures of knowledge and power represented by ‘science and technology’ have been a crucial instrument of the geopolitical dominance of the West over its ‘Others’: over nature itself, and over indigenous cultures. These structures have also brought about the traditional denigration of art and aesthetics in favour of epistemologies of science associated with Cartesian thought, which precisely relies for its epistemological validity on the divorce from matter, which is the stuff of creation, and, by extension, the body (Meskimmon 2003, 22). This has led to two situations critiqued by Pinto in Great Earth Mother Cyborg: firstly, the systematic destruction of the environment—the Amazon is specifically cited and represented in the artwork—and secondly, the suppression of other modes of knowledge pertaining to the origins of human existence, life and nature which reside in indigenous ‘mythologies’, storytelling and ancestral wisdom. Pinto’s example in the artwork is the Maori of New Zealand, whose creation myths are also cited in the piece. Thus, the fundamental aim of Great Earth Mother Cyborg is to reconcile this essential rupture, by reintegrating insights gleaned from both Western science and those cultures defined as the West’s others. These insights, principally concerning the origins of life, nature and creation, have always existed, and are in fact revealed through art, narrative, song and indigenous knowledge, that predates contemporary science, and yet is still the same knowledge. This can be newly reintegrated in cyberspace and through the realignments of diverse communities enabled by virtual networks. But there must also be an attempt to confront these myths in the context of contemporary feminism, which must engage in its own dialogue with the inexorable domination of science and technology. Therefore, the blog also develops further Pinto’s reflections on her own practice, which is linked to the blog’s overarching theme of the nature of both creation and procreation. In particular, she reflects on the ways in which art created by women comes to articulate sexual difference in its material specificity, and at this particular historical locus of transition and change. This reflection is accomplished in relation to Pinto’s own Brazilian precursors, in particular

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Lygia Clark, and the international art community gathered together in The Museum of the Essential and Beyond That.2 Great Earth Mother Cyborg takes as its fundamental premise the concept of the ‘matrix’, defined here as the base matter from which art— and text—is engendered, but also gendered. If Cartesian dualism entails a schism between thought, word and matter, then ‘woman’ is also implicated in this schism. Woman’s body and her essential being are defined in one of two ways: as base matter, or as a ‘corporeal residue’ which forms the base from which the word differentiates itself to assume both transcendence and power over the flesh (Meskimmon 2003, 5). Pinto reverses the sequence between matrix, woman and creation, asserting the body is represented as a matrix of sensations (Kuspit nd) which informs and sustains representation. In this, she is inspired by the following reflection by Lygia Clark: When opening a basket I felt that the external form only exists in relation to emptiness—‘full emptiness’ embracing the existential sense—giving me an immediate sense of the consciousness of my femininity.’ The vaginal emptiness is expressive. It is internal in counterposition to its external form … for the first time I asked myself if the problem of Art and Life would not be the same. (Pinto 2006)

Pinto states: ‘With these images, I am modelling the perhaps ambivalent sex/matrix of the Great Mother Earth Cyborg and trying to show the way I work’ (Pinto 2006). Pinto’s working method is to order and reorder the creation and presentation of multimedia which includes digital painting, audio, video, narrative and textual discourse. All these media, in common with the female body, engender multiple representations, and remain psychically open to processes of infinite penetration and interpenetration. The Great Earth Mother Cyborg is constructed in the form of a blog, hosted by a free public facility, blogspot.com. Each entry in the blog features a digital painting by Pinto, with explicatory texts, excerpts of poetry, music and reflection by Brazilian artists and poets—Vinicus de Morães, Heitor Villa-Lobos and Lygia Clark. The blog also features many supplementary links to artists and philosophers who work in the fields related to the themes treated in the artwork—Donna Haraway, Helen Varley Jamieson, and Stelarc. The blog illustrates the establishment of ‘relations of proximity’ (Munster 2001, np) within the computer interface in several different ways. Firstly, the blog form is transformed from an online diary into a ‘space of poeisis’ (Glazier 2003, 3) or creation. The space enables the approximation of the sequential blog entries or sections with Pinto’s digital paintings, linked to related sound, film and text. The

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morphing of all these components, both instantaneously and progressively, by both Pinto’s and the viewer’s agency creates an ‘assemblage of material processes’ (Sutton and Sutton 2000, 102) within which the process of artistic creation is revealed and made explicit. At the level of representation, intersection is an informing principle of the blog’s construction. There are three different principles of intersection. Firstly, the union of the material practices of film, image and text highlight the intersection between the organic, the technological, and the body. These also enable the presentation and integration of different cultural and ethnic traditions concerning the fundamental issue of the origins of life and creation. Moreover, the blog form also enables complex and potentially infinite patterns of cross-referencing, creating the further intersection of cultures, bodies and geographies, all oriented towards the fundamental reconfiguration of historical and political perspectives. This reversal of the linear matrix of creation is also reflected in the particular way in which the blog is structured, which denies any sequential evolutionary narrative of technological development, or any sense of the evolution of nature or technology as a sequence of progressive steps. Any teleological sequence from base matter to advanced technological forms has been negated within the structure of the blog, and within cyberspace itself. As the title of the work suggests, the multiple ideas and reflections concerning the nature of art, science and creation are structured around the informing trope of the cyborg. The ‘classic’ definition of the cyborg is provided by Donna Haraway, one of its best-known exponents, and whom Pinto quotes extensively in the blog. The Cyborg Manifesto describes ‘a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction’ (Haraway 1991, 149). The cyborg is a readily apprehensible and easily assimilable means of conceptualising the central premise that technology, once seen as antithetical to the organism of the human body and nature as an ontological category, is now seen as co-extensive and intermingled with the human (Braidotti not dated). Thus the cyborg body also has the power to destabilise the boundaries between human agency, nature, art and science; and it may also, according to Diane Greco, provide the tools for interaction with others, open spaces for liberatory action, and construct alternative spaces of selfhood (Greco 1995, np). Although Pinto directly addresses the ‘classic’ concept of the cyborg, and engages with this in the artwork, she expands it still further, and uses the cyborg as both an organising theme and metaphor in order to posit alternative narratives of creation throughout. After the presentation of the fundamental ‘matrix’, Pinto assembles, in a progressive sequence, a series of attempts to create a

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cyborg being. In the preliminary blog posts, this takes the form of the genesis of a body emerging from the earth itself, which embodies in its nascent being intermingling and alternative prototypes of creation, juxtaposed against the self-reflective creation of an artwork by Pinto herself. This half-formed creation is created through a process of assemblage of working elements drawn from representations of the organic and the inanimate, the living and the machinic. The composite nature of Pinto’s sequence of digital paintings never quite explicitly make clear the nature of the being, which combines shapes recognisable as tropes from science and nature: spirals suggesting the structures of DNA, molecules, geometrical artefacts associated with the ‘man-made’. In one sequence, for example, a figure encoded with spirals recalling the art of indigenous cultures, emerging from a scene of primordial waters, is juxtaposed against a painting consisting of chemical formulae superimposed on a pixellated background. Pinto also makes it clear that the process of creation, its medium and composition is also determined by the agency of the collective audience: all of us are complicit in this process, rather than scientific or theocratic elites. She asks the viewer; ‘How do you prefer me to use these images above? As a simple image? As a movie? As an interactive interface?’ Nevertheless, Pinto is clearly critical of the unbridled optimism which has frequently surrounded the possibilities inherent in technology and cyberspace for these potentially liberating embodiments. Among her various representations of the creation of the cyborg figure, she also posits a comic image of the cyborg which parodies the ‘creature of science fiction novels, electronic engineering, and post modern theory’ (Hayles 1995, np). The image Protótipo [Prototype] features the cyborg as a process of assemblage, conceived as a combination of machines, humans and code in different configurations. It takes an incongruous form of possibly female but still largely indeterminate gender, awkwardly assembled from the various components presented in previous images. With this image, Pinto seems to imply that the cyborg conceived as a ‘humachine’, a process involving the insertion of technology into the organic, or as a combination of components still held to be inherently incompatible, represents a ‘cultural misshaping of the human’ (Poster 2002, 16). It is necessary to think more closely, or posit alternative ideas concerning the nature of techne, the organic and human creation. Thus the blog seems to dispute Haraway’s premise that ‘cyborg replication is uncoupled from organic reproduction’ (Haraway 1991, 150). It also renders more problematic the idea that ‘we are all chimeras, theorised and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism’ (Haraway 1991, 150).

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Rather, Pinto tends towards the theory, proposed by Heidegger (1977) and expounded by other Brazilian web artists and collectives such as Corpos Informáticos [Virtual Bodies] (Clarke 2007) that technology and nature are in fact only two aspects, or processes, of poiesis (that is, bringing forth or creation) that function according to the same mechanism, and are, in fact, composed of the same base materials. This premise is illustrated in the next blog posting, Portal da Floresta Amazônica [Amazon Rain Forest’s Portal] which restarts the cyborg’s construction once again through ‘the Amazon Rain Forest’s chips’. Activating the link to these ‘chips’, we find the Amazon depicted as a polyphony of nature, flora, fauna and sound in a collage of pictures. Pinto posits the idea that technology and nature have reconverged owing to the changing nature of technology itself and the matter of which it is constructed. The ‘chip’, existing as much in nature as in man-made artefacts, is made of silicon, which enables the integrated circuits of electronic communications to convert all information from whatever source, into symbols to be communicated, ‘The silicon chip is a surface for writing: it is etched in molecular scales disturbed only by atomic noise’ (Haraway 1991, 153). But silicon is also the base matter of living things and the ecological substructure which sustains all nature, and also DNA which contains genes that produce proteins through a code. The Amazon, and its ecological components, reveal the codes of autopoeisis, natural phenomena which engender and specify their own organisation, and which maintain diverse relations and circuits of alterity. These are ‘an indefinite number of substances of expression in parallel, in polyphony’. Thus Pinto is making explicit one of the most fundamental characteristics of digital art: that it is an art grounded in code. This also means that the status and significance of the image also changes: from an analogic representation of the world to a manifestation of the codes that construct that world, which become the primary vehicle of creation (Kuspit, nd). The material media that Pinto uses–whether image, sound, or discursive text–exists to clarify these codes and render them visible. The concluding section of the blog is entitled Proposta Para Uma Grande Mãe Terra Ciborg [Proposal for a Great Earth Mother Cyborg]. This section consists of a more extensive illustrated narrative depicting a collaborative effort between Western scientists and international artists to decipher the strange mutations of a femur, or thighbone, which was extracted from the body of another of Pinto’s collaborators, the Australian artist Helen Varley Jamieson, who used her extracted femur to create both an art object and a meditation on life and the human body (Jamieson 2007). The transformations of the femur, independently of Jamieson’s

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body, and documented in her own blog, illustrates nature as a selforganising system which emerges spontaneously, ‘a multiplicitous, bottom-up, piecemeal, self-organising which … could be seen to be emerging without any centralised control’ (Plant 1997, 49). In Great Earth Mother Cyborg, by contrast, the tale of the femur is used to parody the hubristic attempts of Western scientists and researchers to find a complete explanation of the origins of life and existence through empirical analysis and observation: For months on end, these specialists devoted themselves to the study of that femur stem without making any discoveries … Every day, the wildest claims appeared in the newspapers, but the scientists were stymied. The code (?) (sic) was unbroken. (Pinto 2006, np)

With this narrative, then, Pinto makes clear the Eurocentric limitations of the Cartesian metaphysical world-view, which, in asserting the fundamental domination of the human over nature, denies the agency of nature herself. This world-view also excludes, as we have seen, the aesthetic and human creativity as valid principles of epistemological discovery. One other principle pointed up by Pinto in this parable of the femur is that ‘new’ technologies in their inherent unruliness and capacity for exponential expansion within any other system at all, and in any direction possible, in fact reveal originary principles which have always existed since the advent of life on earth. Yet this is only made evident when artists such as Eduardo Kac and Stelarc are consulted and integrated into Pinto’s fictitious project. Both of these artists have constructed organisms as both autonomous life forms, existing outside the delimitations of the human body, and art forms consciously constructed through the agency of both human beings and of nature herself The originary principles informing the femur’s transformations are only finally revealed when these discoveries are also linked to non-Western indigenous mythology: Maori religion is closely related to nature and to the ancestors, and all things are conceived of as possessing a life force or Mauri, since all living things are connected by a common descent through whakapapa or genealogy. (Pinto 2006, np)

The principles of genealogy as revealed through storytelling and myth and the principles of ‘evolution’ as discovered by the Western tradition are, in fact, one and the same principle:

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The stories are narrated in prose form, with the notion of an evolutionary sequence conveyed by the storyteller linking the main characters together through the traditional method of genealogical recital. Inherent in the genealogy of earth and sky, the gods and their human descendants is the notion of evolution and progression. (Pinto 2006, np)

The final scene depicted in the blog is the collective creation of a cyborg in a new way that does not take the form of ordering or controlling nature, and which is accomplished, not only through scientifically or technologically mediated action, but through ‘chips that store all the respect for Nature of the less-complex cultures’ (Pinto 2006). The protagonists in this scene are scientists, artists, indigenous griots and storytellers, who evolve a new prototype of epistemological discovery centred around the creation of a cyborg capable of redefining a new and integrated world order. This cyborg is ‘a collaborative effort to create a Great Earth Mother Cyborg’ and is constructed around a primordial Maori matriarchal deity. This matriarchal principle has, also of course, survived in the West as a gendered concept of nature: Gaia, or Gê, an ancient Greek deity who also represented self-creation; she pulls her being from primal chaos by the force of her will, and separates the elements. This concluding scenario now reasserts the original ‘matrix of creation’ as being of ultimately matriarchal provenance, grounded in the earth itself, and also linked to ‘responsibility and ethics’. The recovery of this matrix is the ultimate component of the reintegration necessary for the fundamental realignment of the cultural and scientific legacy of Western imperialism with its ‘others’, proposed by Regina Célia Pinto’s Museum of the Essential and Beyond That.

Works Cited Balsamo, A. (1999) Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women, Durham: Duke University Press. Brayton, J. (1997) ‘Cyberfeminism as New Theory’, conference paper Available from: http://www.unb.ca/PAR-L/win/cyberfem.htm [Accessed 20 August 2009]. Buck-Morss, S. (2004) Visual Studies and the Global Imagination, quoted by Regina Célia Pinto in Leonardo Electronic Almanac: ‘Artist Statement: Be Alive Today’ by Regina Célia Pinto. Available from: http://leoalmanac.org/gallery/gxawards/pinto.htm [Accessed 20 August 2009]

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Clarke, M.A. (2007) ‘The Cyberart of Corpos Informáticos’, in C. Taylor and T. Pitman (eds.) Latin American Cyberliteratures and Cybercultures, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press: 70-84. Glazier, L.P. (1993) Digital Poetics: the making of e-poetries, Alabama: Alabama University Press. Greco, D. (1995) Cyborg: Engineering the Body Electric, Eastgate Systems, http://www.eastgate.com/We.html [Accessed 1 February 2010]. Haraway, D. (1991) ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’, in d. Haraway (ed.), Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, New York: Routledge, 149-181. Hayles, N.K. (1995) ‘Engineering Cyborg Ideology’, The Electronic Book Review, Available from: http://www.altx.com/ebr/hayles.htm [Accessed 20 October 2009. Jamieson Varley, H. (2007) ‘what did you expect (hi Plog)’ Available from: http://www.creative-catalyst.com/plog.html [Accessed 21 October 2009] Johnson, R (1987) ‘Tupy or not Tupy: Cannibalism and Nationalism in Contemporary Brazilian Literature and Culture’, in J. King (ed.), Modern Latin American Fiction: A Survey, London: Faber and Faber . Kuspit, D (nd) ‘The Matrix of Sensations’, artNet magazine Available from: http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/kuspit/kuspit8-505.asp# [Accessed 11 October 2009]. Latour, B (1999) Pandora's Hope Essays on the Reality of Science Studies, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Leonardo Electronic Almanac: ‘Artist Statement: Be Alive Today’ by Regina Célia Pinto. Available from: http://leoalmanac.org/gallery/gxawards/pinto.htm [Accessed 20 August 2009]. Heidegger, M. [1954] (1977) The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, London: Harper Torchbooks. Maffesolli, M. (1996) The Time of the Tribes, London: Sage. Meskimmon, M (2003) Women Making Art: History, Subjectivity, Aesthetics, London: Routledge. Munster, A (2001) ‘Digitality: Approximate Aesthetics’, CTheory Available from: www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=290 [Accessed 20 August 2009]. Museu do Essencial e Além Disso http://arteonline.arq.br/ Pinto, Regina Célia (nd) ‘Museum of the Essential and Beyond That: Architecture of Information or Creative Interface?’, Karenina Express, Available

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from: http://xoomer.virgilio.it/kareninazoon/Regina.htm [Accessed 20 August 2009]. Pinto, R.C. (2006) ‘Great Earth Mother Cyborg’ Available from: http://earthmothercyborg.blogspot.com [Accessed 20 October 2009]. Plant, S. (1997) Zeros and Ones: Digital Women and the New TechnoCulture, London: Fourth Estate. Poster, M. (2002) ‘High-Tech Frankenstein, or Heidegger Meets Stelarc’, in J. Zylinska (ed.), The Cyborg Experiments: The Extension of the Body in the Media Age, London: Continuum, 15-32. Sutton, M and Sutton, D (2000) ‘Medium Specificity Revisited’, Convergence: The Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies, vol. 6, no. 2, 99–113. Tenhaaf, N (1996) ‘Mysteries of the Bioapparatus’, in M.A. Morse and D. Macleod (eds.), Immersed in Technology: Art and Virtual Environments, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 51-71. Zylinska, J. (2002) ‘‘The Future…Is Monstrous’: Prosthetics as Ethics’, in J. Zylinska (ed.), The Cyborg Experiments: The Extension of the Body in the Media Age, London: Continuum, 214 - 236.

Notes 1

Stelarc (1946- ) is an Australian performance artist whose works are dedicated to questioning the organic integrity of the human body through robotics and prosthetics. Eduardo Kac (1962- ) is a Brazilian-born interactive and installation ‘transgenic artist’ or ‘bio-artist’. His works explore the possibilities of biotechnology and genetics to critique the ways in which Western scientific discourse constructs difference. Helen Varley Jamieson is a writer, theatre practitioner, who has also worked in digital media since 1996. 2 Lygia Clark (1920-1988) was a Brazilian artist principally associated with the Neo-Concretist and Tropicália movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Her works consistently emphasised the importance of sensory perception and active participation by the viewer for their construction and are held to have prefigured many of the themes developed by later generations of digital artists.

CHAPTER THREE CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: FEMINIST WEBSITES AND POSTFEMINISM ONLINE CARLOTA LARREA

This chapter examines the meaning(s) of the term ‘post-feminism’ and interrogates whether it holds any currency in the Spanish context, focusing on the specific case study of feminist websites. In the UK and the US, the term has been in use for almost three decades now. From its origins in the popular media, with its fundamentally negative associations and meanings, to the more nuanced and complex discussion in academic writing, the term has been significant in helping women of different generations to renegotiate and re-define their understandings of feminism, its achievements, its present state in contemporary culture, and for their own lives. In my classroom experience of teaching feminist media studies, it has been a welcome tool to liven up discussion and facilitate engagement, as students tend to relate more to contemporary viewpoints and topics than to the history of feminism. Postfeminism is a helpful concept in making sense of popular cultural texts, and, in general, students are interested in work done on new forms of romantic or television comedy, make-over programmes and body image pathologies, and on the contradictory media discourses that describe young women today and illustrate changing definitions of femininity. However, the debate is relatively muted in the Spanish context. This chapter aims to make a contribution to it, and focuses on the Spanish online environment, an area of new media that is currently underresearched and deserves more attention. While there is a substantial and ever growing body of academic work on postfeminism in contemporary culture in the Anglophone context, particularly in cultural studies, the purpose of this contribution is to query

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whether we can identify similar themes and concerns, or elements of a ‘postfeminist sensibility’ (Gill 2007, 147) in Spanish culture. While work can and hopefully will be done on other aspects of Spanish (popular) culture (television, film, advertising, and cultural practices) this chapter will focus on the online environment. The internet has been hailed by some as a vital arena for feminist activity. I will compare two Englishlanguage feminist websites Feministing (US) and The F-Word (UK) with two Spanish ones, Mujeres en Red [Women on the Net] and E-mujeres [Ewomen] to see if post-feminist features and themes clearly recognizable in the Anglophone websites are also identifiable in the Spanish context. Do we find an echo of current debates in the Spanish websites, or are there marked differences? And what does this reveal about the current shades of feminism in these different contexts, and the use that feminist activity makes of new technologies? The focus will be on some of the key issues in the postfeminist debate: (1) feminist generational politics, i.e., if it is possible to detect the sense of generational conflict or renewal; (2) the recognition of diversity of voices and agendas within feminist activity, and a necessary attention to the ‘blind spots’ of the second wave: race, class and sexuality (Hollows and Moseley 2006, 11); (3) an effort to redefine feminism and femininity, and the links between them; (4) a concern with body politics and with political activism; and (5) an interest in the analysis of popular culture as the area where these issues are often articulated. Before the search for such elements in the websites, I will summarise the uses of the term post-feminism and its different definitions, and outline the main chronological differences in feminist activity between the UK and US, and Spain. The term postfeminism has been around in the UK and US media for over two decades now, and within academia it is a contested term with different, even opposing understandings of it. The academic debate about the term is vibrant and ongoing, and shows no sign of dying down.1 Most discussions of the term begin with the prefix, which can be understood either as ‘after’ feminism or ‘anti’ feminism. The most neutral definition would imply a periodisation of feminism, understanding post-feminism as the period ‘after’ the second wave, to depict what has happened after the fervent feminist activity in the 1960s and 1970s, and to describe the subsequent era when at least in theory equality between men and women has been achieved, and women have ‘endless’ choices to do with personal and public matters. This understanding of the term would imply a (not negative) process of transformation and change, and continuity rather than a break with the past. However, the ‘post’ has also been understood as meaning that feminism is dead, unnecessary, superfluous, and in some

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cases, pernicious for women. This negative understanding was the one that tended to predominate in early uses of the term in the media In Sarah Gamble’s words, ‘the media played a role in convincing women that feminism is unfashionable, passé, not worthy of serious consideration’ (Gamble 2001, 36). In the US context, messages began to circulate in the late 1980s (the Reagan era) regarding the death of feminism, as its goals had been achieved, and women did not seem to care about the movement any more. Furthermore, women seemed unhappy since the ‘you can have it all’ message proved to be a source of great anxiety for most women who struggled to perform well on all fronts. This often translated into the so called ‘retreatism’ or ‘new traditionalism’—the message encountered in some media forms (including romantic comedies) which portrayed young women who tired of the stress of a demanding professional life or the combined stresses of a professional and family life and then discovered satisfaction in a return to the more traditional roles of homemakers and mothers (Tasker and Negra 2005, 107). Susan Faludi’s book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women was the seminal text arguing this pessimistic point of view as she surveyed the Amerian media and political scene. Faludi summarized the situation as follows: Just when record numbers of younger women were supporting feminist goals in the mid 80s and a majority of women were calling themselves feminists, the media declared that feminism was the flavour of the 70s and that postfeminism was the new story—complete with a younger generation who supposedly reviled the women’s movement. (Faludi 1992, 14)

The late 1980s and early 1990s was a period in which besides Faludi, figures such as Naomi Wolf, Camille Paglia, or Katie Roiphe brought the debate about the victories and failures of feminism into the mainstream and garnered substantial press coverage regarding its survival or its death. In the UK in the same period we find the beginnings of the complexification of the phenomenon, with the emergence of contradictory, opposing meanings of the term. An example of this would be the recurring commentary about the ‘feminisation’ of the media. This ‘feminisation’ was understood in two opposing ways: on the one hand, it was used to denote the higher visibility of women as creators and producers, but also to refer to a wider range of representations, as well as in the presence of female roles in traditionally male genres; on the other, it was used to criticise the increasing space occupied by ‘lesser’ forms of popular culture or by ‘soft’ news. Another example would be the coexistence in the media of numerous stories of female success, both of younger women achieving

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more than their male peers in the education system, and older women reaching positions of great responsibility and power in the workplace, with stories of the increase of stress-related depression, anorexia and self-harm, or the uncomfortable overlap of labels such as ‘girl power’ and ‘ladette culture’. This panorama of unsettled media representations of postfeminist femininities illustrates the ambivalence of the term, and highlights how one of the central issues would be a re-drawing of the relationship of feminism and (traditional) femininity, and the role of popular culture as the space in which such re-drawing would be tested and contested. Indeed a different relationship to popular culture is one of the essential features of postfeminism, radically different to the hostile relationship of second wave feminism. Parallel to these uses and appropriations of the term in popular culture and media, we find the growth of academic postfeminism, which articulated the recognition that something more complicated than a backlash was happening. Postfeminism was used to describe the disappearance of the unified perspective of the second wave, and the acknowledgement of different voices, different subject positions, and the diverse needs of women Postfeminist theory, informed by the other key theories of contemporary thought such as post-modernism, poststructuralism, post-colonialism, and particularly new theories about identity and subjectivity and the psychoanalytic feminist theory influenced by Foucault and Lacan, contributed to the expanding understandings of the term. The academic debate has also been concerned with the sense of generational divide and even conflict between feminist scholars for whom the second wave was their formative period, and younger women who reject older forms of feminism and their perceived repressive (politically correct) attitude regarding traditional femininity and female roles. So while young women would take many of the social, professional and personal gains of feminism for granted, there seems to be a widespread refusal to be associated with feminism or labelled feminist, and to become involved in activism. Angela McRobbie has written about what she calls the ‘double entanglement’, which she describes as the simultaneous acceptance of feminism as common sense and its repudiation in both political culture and popular culture (McRobbie 2004, 255). However, this disavowal of feminism may be giving way to a sense of generational renewal and as will be discussed later, the internet has been identified as the outlet for new voices and renewed struggle. This snapshot introduction to the uses of the term in the AngloAmerican context can conclude with Rosalyn Gill’s contribution to the

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debate, and her suggestion of contemporary culture being suffused by a ‘postfeminist sensibility’: The notion of postfeminism has become one of the most important in the lexicon of feminist cultural analysis. Yet there is little agreement about what postfeminism is … postfeminism is best understood as a distinctive sensibility, made up of a number of interrelated themes. (Gill 2007, 147)

Although Gill focuses on sexual agency and consumption in her description of this ‘sensibility’, I will select some of the aspects and themes outlined above, and look for their presence in the online environment of feminist websites. I will query whether we can talk about a Spanish postfeminist sensibility which would comprise the aspects listed in the introduction: a sense of generational conflict or renewal; an attempt to redefine feminism and femininity, an interest in body politics and/or political activism, and the analysis of popular culture. Feminism is an historically specific phenomenon and the history of Spain has, of course, determined that the ‘phases’ of feminist activity differ from the Anglo-American context. Feminists such as Pilar Folguera have written about the late penetration of feminism into Spain (Folguera 2007, 111). Catherine Davies describes the four phases of twentieth century Spanish feminist writing, and the pendulum-like movement that took place in the final quarter of the century, during the transition, which resulted in the recuperation of the advances of the Republican period (Davies 1998, 5). The period of great activity labelled as second wave, against which postfeminism is often defined, corresponds to the timid reappearance of feminist activity in Spain in the context of clandestine political parties as well as the Catholic groups permitted by the regime (Carbayo-Abengozar 2000, 117). It was in the mid to late 1970s that feminist activity took off in the context of the transition and the design of the Constitution. Contemporary feminism in Spain has many faces, which include: a multitude of local feminist groups as well as associations, such as the institutionalised feminism of the Instituto de la Mujer, the Ministerio de Igualdad and other government-related activities and groups; the work done within Women Studies or Gender Studies institutes associated with universities; feminist activity related to specific professional groups; and the widespread feminist consciousness in women who do not belong to any organisations but who have grown up and were educated after Franco’s death, and, as a consequence, have come to expect the same rights and opportunities as men. The speedy advances for women since 1975, and the radically different opportunities and life choices they offered are now a given. Spanish women have, in many areas, caught up

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with their counterparts in other Western industrialised countries. If we were to define post-feminism as the period after feminism achieved advances, rights and equality for women, then we can talk about postfeminism in Spain. The next part of this chapter will consider whether there are also traces of the much more ambivalent ‘postfeminist sensibility’. The term ‘posfeminismo’ [postfeminism] is not in wide circulation in Spain. A search in the databases of El Pais (http://www.elpais.com/archivo/) and El Mundo (http://www.elmundo.es/hemeroteca/) throws up very few hits (for the 1995 to 2009 archives, eleven hits in El Pais, and nine in El Mundo), and most of them refer to articles related to non-Spanish public figures. In the academic context, there are two areas in which the term is occasionally used: contemporary art and literature. In art, the term sometimes appears in relation to video art and contemporary art theory. This is due to the attendant awareness of scholars and practitioners of the issues and practices in their international academic and professional arena. In literature, it is sometimes found in relation to the women writers who emerged in the context of the transition and who focused on issues of feminine identity in a changing society (Rosa Montero, Almudena Grandes, Marina Mayoral, Lucía Etxebarria amongst others). The significant body of writing by women writers who began to publish during that period and the high visibility and great popularity of some of them accounts for the ‘post-feminist’ academic work produced by Hispanists both in Spain and abroad, at Anglo-American literature departments. The fact that the term appears (and only timidly) in relation to these two objects of study has to do with the history and demarcation of academic disciplines at Spanish higher education institutions. Media studies and cultural studies are only beginning to take off in Spain. Women Studies and Gender Studies groups (‘seminarios’) are not as well established and integrated as their counterparts in the UK and US, and searches of the websites of these centres do not produce references to the term. The final section of this chapter will deal with the websites. These particular websites have been chosen because they have been established and are live for a number of years, and they are referenced widely, and visited by substantial numbers monthly. Even though in some cases they are edited or maintained by individuals, the blog element and their links provide a window to a wide array of voices and issues. My analysis is based on regular visits to these websites over a period of almost two years. During this period I have been able to establish both formal and thematic continuities as well as changes. These websites share a very optimistic assessment of the benefits of the internet for feminist activism. This is in

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line with other claims of extensive improvements in democratic participation through the internet, although hard evidence to support such claims is still to be provided. Furthermore, the degree of penetration, access and use of the internet by individuals and by organisations differs in the UK, the US and Spain.2 The use of the internet both for public and private matters is not as normalised in Spain as in the UK and US. However, feminist websites and the blogosphere have been seen as an expression of feminist health, and the potential of the internet for feminism, and more particularly for young feminists, is a feature of all the websites. The title of this chapter, ‘consciousness raising for the twentyfirst century’ is taken from the special issue of Scholar and Feminist Online on ‘Blogging Feminism: (Web)sites of Resistance’, which surveys the increased use of blogs for feminist activism and networking, and describes the blogosphere as the primary arena for feminist activity (http://www.barnard.columbia.edu/sfonline/blogs/aboutis.htm). The internet has been seen as a space for sharing information, networking, and community building; for empowerment through education and through giving space to a variety of voices, perhaps excluded from mainstream media; and, in a more utopian fashion, as a space where gender barriers can be erased or rendered invisible. Interestingly, the Spanish websites acknowledge the theoretical work done on cyberfeminism, from VNS Matrix, through Sadie Plant, Rosie Bradoitti, Cornelia Sollfrank, Faith Wilding, and Donna Haraway, and include links to and summaries of their work. In the Spanish context, one must mention Remedios Zafra who has theorised about the uses of the internet for feminists (Zafra 2004 and 2005). The websites will be analysed in terms of production and ownership (Who contributes and maintains? Who holds editorial and production roles?); general purpose (How do these websites conceive of themselves?); form (What is their look? What kind of language do they use? What are their technological features? How live are they? What are their links to the outside world or to other media?); and their intended audience or users (Do they promote user interaction and encourage participation, social networking, and discussion?).

Feministing (http://www.feministing.com/) Feministing was founded in April 2004 ‘to give young (my emphasis) women the opportunity to speak on their own behalf about issues that affect their lives and futures’. It is written and edited by a group of young women (mid twenties to early thirties) with backgrounds in journalism and

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in women’s studies, but the blog component is very prominent (it is a ‘blog and a community’) and a large proportion of its content is usergenerated. The website is a member of The Media Consortium, a network of the leading US independent, progressive journalism organisations. Defining the overall intention as ‘a call to get involved’ the ‘About Us’ section states: We draw attention to issues that are under-covered in mainstream media, analyze pop culture, media, and advertising through a feminist lens, push elected officials and media gatekeepers to be more accountable, highlight and amplify social justice activism (of the feminist and many other varieties), and disprove the stereotype of ‘humorless feminists’ on a daily basis.

This mission statement encapsulates the main foci of the website and echoes postfeminist features. In particular, it references: media and popular culture analysis; the use for internet as the space for a variety of non-mainstream voices and issues; and the search for a new register for feminism. Feministing is both journalistic, in the sense that it covers news and reports on social and political issues, and self-reflexive, in the sense that it voices different opinions on what feminism should be involved in nowadays. Even though there is coverage of international news, the emphasis is on the national US scene. The team’s youth and academic background is, as one would expect, crucial to the form and flavour of this website. Activism is very prominent, attested by the constant presence of longstanding feminist concerns such as reproductive rights and job discrimination, and includes a range of both nation-wide and local issues and campaigns However, the website strikes a balance between politics and an analysis of popular culture: an item on the reform of healthcare can be followed with commentary about the MTV awards. Written in accessible, vernacular language, the playful, upbeat tone of the website, and the attitude of the editors is remarkably fresh and makes this a very attractive website to read. The website logo is a purple, long haired and buxom lady with one finger up in the air. Humour is important on the website, with regular sections such as the agony aunt column ‘Ask a Feminist’, the weekly ‘Friday F*** You’ in which the most offending anti-women item or event of the week is identified by the editors, and the ‘Not Oprah Book Club’, where less mainstream books are recommended. Awareness of feminist media theory and familiarity with academic discourse is assumed in the section on ‘Un-feminist Pleasures.’

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Of the four websites surveyed, this is the most sophisticated technologically, the one most frequently updated, and the one with the clearest navigation considering the vast amount of information included, both in the daily front page and the archives and links. Daily updates make it particularly responsive to news and current affairs. The front page of this website provides a summarised narrative of news, campaigns, personal observations of the editing team and contributors, with links that develop such items. The front page is structured clearly with: a search box, community ‘faves’, editor favorites, and archives by month. The user can subscribe to RSS feeds and weekly updates. It contains links to feminist networks on YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and MySpace. It also features a large number of visual images in the form of video interviews, commercials, and television news items. In fact, the website is a good example of media convergence through the use of text, moving image, links to other internet sites, references to books, cultural events, and the printed press of all stripes, which all figure prominently. The content is very diverse. To give an example, one random day (9 December 2008) includes features about politics (the presidential debate and Palin’s disastrous interviews), activism (a call for donations to Planned Parenthood and a call for ideas for effective campaigns), legal affairs (amendments to laws regarding contraception), online issues (a definition of anti-feminist trolls and a list of feminist friendly male bloggers), and other miscellaneous topics (the desirability or not of faking orgasms).

The F-Word (http://www.thefword.org.uk/) The UK’s ‘first feminist webzine’, this site shares several features with Feministing: there is an emphasis on diverse points of view, user generated content, the youth of its creators and contributors, and the search for an accessible, new register. The site was founded by Catherine Redfern in 2001 and she edited it until 2007, when the editorship was taken over by Jess McCabe. As in the case of the American website, these women are young with a background in journalism and women’s studies, and they were inspired by the vibrant US feminist websites. However, the F-Word focuses almost exclusively on the UK, and it has very little content relating to other countries. The website has both regular and occasional contributors, who present themselves rather informally in one short sentence at the end of their posts. The current count of contributors (accessed 22 September 2009) is of just under 260. The website lists 70,000 visits per month. The F-word defines itself as ‘a reclamation of feminism for young women ʊto show doubters that feminism still exists,

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to give new voices without regular access to a platform.’ In view of the ‘impossibility to define feminism nowadays’, the website claims that the lack of a party line is very important, and the website has no definition or mission statement. It envisions itself as a place that acknowledges that differences exist, and while they state that they will not ‘be drawn into discussion about whether feminism is necessary or valid’, no interpretation of feminism will be excluded. This opening up of the nature of feminism is also a feature of postfeminism, and different from the second wave. The call for contributors encourages them to be ‘as non academic as possible’, to use ‘wit and sarcasm’, and to focus on popular culture. The content is organised into features, reviews, and blogs. Articles by category reveal that although politics and current affairs feature, there is more interest in analysing popular culture, cultural practices, media representations, and language. The F-word is much more self-reflexive than Feministing; the contributions are longer and essay-like. The quality of the writing is high although accessible, all entries are polished, and are occasionally followed by a discussion thread. The website relies less on visuals, is less live than Feministing, and has no foregrounded links to social networks. The archive of the material posted reveals the cultural bent of the website, as reflected in sections titled ‘family’, ‘fashion and image’, ‘men’, ‘stereotypes’, ‘sex and relationships’, ‘work and play’. This website focuses less on politics, and is more discursive with testimonials included. It is constituted primarily by first person accounts, opinion pieces, personal experiences, and reviews of culture and cultural events. This is in line with the website’s mission to show the relevance of feminism to young women’s lives. An examination of the category ‘feminism’ reveals how the entries deal, as personal statements, with traditional and more recent concerns: motherhood, disability, pornography, reproductive rights, race and religion are all approached from a personal point of view, but, put in the context of ongoing debates. One interesting entry traces a young Muslim woman’s decision to stop wearing the jihab, and the editors are careful to include opposing points of view: the section ‘family’ will contain both defences of motherhood and challenges to the current cult of motherhood in the media coverage of celebrities. This website is testimony to the relevance of feminism to a current generation of young women in the UK and shows their intellectual engagement with feminist issues and concerns. It illustrates the impact of feminism on their private and professional lives, and how the internet can be used to breathe new life into the debates.

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Mujeres en red (http://www.nodo50.org/mujeresred/) This portal was created in 1997 by journalist Montserrat Boix, and is described as ‘una de las redes mas importantes en español de intercambio de información en la internet sobre derechos humanos de las mujeres y empoderamiento’ [one of the most important Spanish internet sites for the exchange of information about human rights for women and for their empowerment]. In an interview included in the website, the editor states that Mujeres en Red is there to reflect a variety of voices in feminism: theorists, activists, and ‘feministas en la calle’ [grassroots feminists]. The website also claims to be international in character although one of the marked differences between this website and the Anglo-American ones is in its foregrounded relationship to Latin-American and North-African feminism. The website claims to have between 1,200 and 1,600 daily visits. Embedded throughout the website is a very positive assessment of the potential of the internet for women: ‘Las TIC se perfilan como una importante herramienta en el empoderamiento de las mujeres’ [ICT is becoming an important tool for the empowerment of women]. The internet is seen as a space for information exchange, and for elaborating strategies for social change. The metaphor of the spider’s web, used by theorists of cyberfeminism, is used as the logo for the website. This website has undergone changes in the period of this research project, while maintaining a consistency of content. The technological gadgets and links have increased (now it contains links to social networks and clips of moving image from television or filmed events) and the blog element has grown to occupy currently half of the front page. However, Mujeres en Red is emerging as an online newspaper (its front page includes the tag ‘el periódico feminista’ [the feminist newspaper], and, despite the growth of the blog component, it is much less participatory that the previous two sites discussed. The website collects material already published in other fora. The issues discussed, the tone adopted, and the kinds of contributions have tended to remain constant. Sections such as ‘globalización’ [globalisation], ‘lenguaje no sexista’ [non-sexist language], ‘empoderamiento’ [empowerment], or articles entitled ‘Resistencias teóricas y prácticas a la integración de la metodología feminista en la disciplina de las relaciones internacionales’ [Theoretical and practical resistances to the integration of feminist methodology to the discipline of international relations] illustrate the theoretical and academic flavour of most of the entries and the marked difference in the register employed. The contributors tend to come predominantly from politics, journalism and

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academia, and judging by their autobiographical information, they are women who have other outlets for expression. Traditional concerns of feminism predominate: equal rights, prostitution and abortion, and in the section on ‘feminismo’ we find an historical approach and an attempt to define rather than re-define: for example, the site provides definitions of ‘feminismo de la diferencia’ [difference feminism], ‘feminismo de la sororidad’ [sisterhood feminism] and ‘ecofeminismo’ [ecofeminism]. There is very little on popular culture, although some news about it is beginning to appear, for example, the petition to suspend the current TV series Sin tetas no hay paraíso [No tits, no paradise] due to its rampant sexism, or an item on Femitic, the competition for women film-makers. Overall, the website tends to reflect the academic discourse and the political activism of institutional feminism, and there is no presence of a new generation of young voices, although there are indications that it is a portal in transition both in terms of content and of format.

E-mujeres (http://www.e-mujeres.net/) There are marked similarities between this website and the previous one in tone, profile of the contributors, and its buoyant claims about the benefits of the internet for women and for feminist activity, in particular. Founded in 2000 by five women lead by Angustias Bertomeu, it was conceived originally as a place to advise women on legal, employment and communication issues. An added emphasis of this website is its educational mission and its engagement with a project of ‘alfabetización digital’ [digital literacy]: La Asociación E-mujeres es una organización feminista que pretende contribuir a la construcción de vías alternativas de pensamiento y gestión del conocimiento, mediante un sistema que permita tejer redes sociales, redes digitales y estructuras o plataformas de liderazgo de las mujeres para impulsar la incorporación de las mujeres a la Sociedad de la Información. [The E-Women Association is a feminist organisation that intends to contribute to the construction of alternative ways of thinking and of managing knowledge through a system that facilitates building social networks, digital networks and structures or platforms for female leadership to give impetus to the integration of women into the information society.]

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The website provides tools to learn how to create a blog and to develop software. An interview with Angustias Bertomeu describes the team’s concern with the digital divide in terms of gender, and the website’s mission to demystify new technology and the language used to describe it. A link to an ad posted on YouTube about women and new technology, created by the Instituto de la Mujer, reflects this project of ‘alfabetización digital.’ In terms of the profile of the contributors, the issues covered, and the origins of the posts, this website resembles Mujeres en Red. It also resembles Mujeres en Red in many other respects: its increased technical sophistication; the growing space occupied by blogs; the appearance of links to social networks; and the gradual expansion in space given over to popular culture topics, such as news about female film directors or sportswomen. However, the space for a feminist analysis of popular culture is still limited. Tagged articles by categories reveal that whereas items on politics and violence are in the hundreds, items on film currently amount to only ten (December 2009).

Conclusion There are many differences and similarities between these four websites Feministing and theF-word are produced by and address a younger generation of women who have a background in cultural or women’s studies. The websites are used as a platform to promote campaigns, resources, activism, networking and opinion. They are connected to a range of national and international sources, and they are written in a style that makes them ‘vernacular’ feminism, that is they use humour to discuss serious issues. Feminist theory is integrated and a knowledge of it is assumed on the part of the users/readers. They are more technologically sophisticated than their Spanish counterparts and make good use of the technological features available, although, in this respect, the Spanish sites are catching up fast. In the UK sites, the blog element is very prominent and essential; the content is to a very high degree user-generated, and allows for the presence of a wide range of voices and opinions. Besides following some of the historic issues of feminism (e.g. labour parity, gender violence, abortion rights), they offer a window to a wide range of other issues, one of which is a discussion about the shapes and flavours of feminism nowadays, its current state and its purposes. Culture and cultural practices figure very prominently, and the websites are very live and responsive to the news, so that there is a balance between an analysis of popular and

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political culture. The large component of testimonials and of opinion reveals a vibrant and evolving feminist identity Mujeres en red and E-mujeres see themselves as a base for dissemination of information and events, campaigns and activism, and as a site for education in new technologies. The element of user-generated content and opinion is much less prominent. Even though the blog component is growing, it does not appear as well integrated or fluid. The editors and contributors belong to an older generation and tend to have established careers in academia, politics or journalism. These contributors speak with the voice of institutional feminism and their language is not always accessible, unlike Feministing and the F-word. There is a much stronger emphasis on political culture rather than popular culture, although it does look like there has been a slight shift in this respect. There have also been changes in the technological features (an increase in moving image, links to social networks, etc) over the two years of my research. But they are markedly less live than the Anglo-American sites. Rather than assuming a familiarity with feminist theory or the theory of feminism, they include explanations in the archives of the websites. Judging from the content of these four websites, we can conclude that the features of postfeminism, as understood in the media and academic discourse in the Anglophone context, are only making a timid appearance in the Spanish online environment. There is not, so far, the same sense of a generational renewal and the use of the internet as a sphere in which younger voices can air their understandings and views on the issues and the relevance of feminism in the present day. The discourse presented in the Spanish websites is very close to the institutional feminism of political parties and of the Instituto de la Mujer, and social and political issues are presented devoid of personalisation or a testimonial aspect that might make them approachable for a general public. Issues of subjectivity and marginal identities, which figure in the Anglophone websites, are markedly absent from the Spanish websites. It might take another generation of Spanish women, one that hopefully will be exposed to feminist theory embedded in their university studies as it is applied to popular culture and cultural practices, to see a change in the uses of the internet.

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Works Cited Carbayo-Abengozar, M. (2000) ‘Feminism in Spain: A History of Love and Hate’, in L. Twomey (ed.), Women in contemporary culture: Roles and identities in France and Spain, Portland and Bristol: Intellect, 111125. Davies, C. (1998) Spanish Women’s Writing, 1849-1996, London: Athlone Press. E-mujeres net http://www.e-mujeres.net/ [Acessed 12 December 2009]. Faludi, S. (1992) Backlash: The Undeclared War against American Women, London: Chatto and Windus. Feministing.com http://www.feministing.com/ [Accessed 10 December 2009]. Folguera, P. (ed.) (2007) El feminismo en España: Dos siglos de historia, Madrid: Editorial Pablo Iglesias. The Contemporary UK Feminism http://www.thefword.org.uk/ [Accessed 27 November 2009]. Gamble, S. (ed.) (2001) The Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminism, London: Routledge. Gill, R. (2007) ‘Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility’, European Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 10, no. 2, 147-166. Hollows, J. and Moseley R. (2006) ‘Popularity Contests: The Meanings of Popular Feminism’, in J. Hollows and R. Moseley (eds.), Feminism in Popular Culture, London: Berg, 1-22. McRobbie, A. (2004) ‘Postfeminism and Popular Culture’, Feminist Media Studies, vol. 4, no. 3, 255-264. — (2009) The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, London: Sage. Mujeres en red El periodico feminista http://www.nodo50.org/mujeresred/ [Accessed 15 November 2009]. Tasker, Y. and Negra D. (2007) Interrogating Postfeminism, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. —. (2005) ‘In Focus: Postfeminism and Contemporary Media Studies’, Cinema Journal, vol. 44, no. 2, 107-110. Zafra, R. (2004) Habitar en (Punto) Net: Estudios Sobre Mujer, Educación e Internet, Córdoba: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Córdoba. —. (2005) Netianas: N(h)acer mujer en internet, Madrid: Lengua de Trapo.

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Notes 1

A list of recent conferences include: ‘Interrogating Post-feminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture’, UEA, 2004; the series ‘New Femininities: PostFeminism and Sexual Citizenship’, organised at the LSE but held at a variety of UK universities from 2004-2007; ‘Spanish Postfeminism?’, held at California State University in 2007; ‘The Point of Feminism’, at the University of Reading in 2008 Publications would include Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra’s (2007) Interrogating Postfeminism as well as Angela MacRobbie’s (2009) The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and Social Change, in addition to articles in Feminist Media Studies, Gender and Society, and Feminist Theory. 2 According to The Internet Users World Statistics website (http://www.internetworldstats.com/) for the period 2000-2009 North America has internet penetration of 73.9% of the population and experienced a growth rate of 132%; in the United Kingdom internet penetration is 79.8% and the rate of increase was 216%; in Spain internet penetration is 70.6% but user growth increased by 430%. Spain is still catching up in terms of penetration and internet use.

CHAPTER FOUR THE DRESSING OF BRAZILIAN BLENDED CULTURES SHEILA GIES AND TRACY CASSIDY

Since its discovery by the Portuguese in 1500, Brazil has experienced the blending of different cultures. Initially, the population consisted of Portuguese, Africans brought over to work as slaves, and indigenous peoples. From 1887 until the Second World War, the mixing increased with the arrival of considerable numbers of Italian, Spanish, German, Japanese, Jewish, Turkish, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, American, and Syrian-Lebanese immigrants, who all contributed to the formation of one of the most mixed-race countries in the world. In many respects, the difficulties of adaptation to the tropics that the immigrants had to face contributed to the formation of a multiracial Brazilian society and soul. More than just shaping the faces and lifestyles of Brazilian people, this cultural context can be seen and felt in the great majority of what is produced in the country. This chapter considers how the contours, cuts, textures and colours of contemporary Brazilian fashion reflect the particularities of the Brazilian hybridity.

The Blending of Cultures The various immigrant cultures acquired different contours in Brazil. Despite their different backgrounds, Momsen suggests that ‘all (inhabitants) are first, foremost, and solely Brazilians’ (1968, 125-126). This celebratory statement is echoed by the Brazilian anthropologist, DaMatta (1984), who affirms that Brazilians are considered the perfect synthesis of all of the races. This reveals the Brazilian capacity to reconsider oppositional categories and reconfigure them in a positive light. DaMatta explains,

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In the case of Brazil, what is in between black and white has an infinite and varied entirety of intermediary categories in which the mulatto represents a perfect crystallisation. Ortiz (1994, 44) explains that the myth of the three races makes it possible for all Brazilians to acknowledge themselves as nationals. According to Schwarcz, Brazilians use one hundred and thirty-six colours to define their skin colour, such as ‘coffee and milk’, ‘suntanned’, and ‘rusty white’. Schwarcz affirms ‘it is not possible to believe in a unique definition. Brazil is so many things!’ (2005, 15-17). This impossible definitional category for Brazil, as a society which celebrates inbetween-ness, is what shapes the Brazilian character and culture.

Brazilian Trajectory in Fashion Despite the tropical heat, from the colonial period right up to the twentieth century, the Brazilian elite continued to prize French and British style (Joffily 1999; Kury and Argreaves 2000). Ortiz explains this process affirming that ‘the colonised imports his consciousness; he is the reflex of the reflex’ (1994, 58). This kind of attitude is still evident in present day Brazil. For example, when the forty-one year old Brazilian ‘socialite’ Christina Rocha was asked if her elegant clothes were too warm for a certain social occasion, her answer was ‘my grandmother told me that elegant people … never feel the heat’ (Veja 1995, 92). As time passed, the mass of immigrants began to settle down and identify a certain aesthetic commonality. This had its public manifestation in February 1922 at the São Paulo Municipal Theatre where Brazilian composers, sculptors, poets, painters and intellectuals gathered together for the event called ‘Semana de Arte Moderna’ [Modern Art Week] to celebrate Brazilian aesthetics, which saw itself as a rupture with the European culture so admired in Rio de Janeiro. However, its influence on fashion would not be felt until twenty years later (Joffily 1999; Rainho 2002). The 1929 New York stock market collapse resulted in a political revolution in Brazil: the state became strong, unifying and nationalist, creating and protecting national industries (Alencar et al 1995). In 1930

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this was followed by a political revolution and Getulio Vargas’ populist dictatorship. His rule was underpinned by a celebration of racial mixing through such activities as football and Carnival (Freyre 2005 and Caldas 1986). The 1930s saw international cinema productions exploring the rhythm and swing of Brazilian music and dance without any reference to Brazilian reality. Since then, the tropics, heat, fruits, forests, samba, beautiful women, carnival and sensuality have become iconic (Freyre 1987). That this is a persistent view of Brazil is evident in Phillips. Writing about contemporary Brazilian design he asserts that ‘there is more to Brazilian style than Carmen Miranda’s fruit basket headgear’ (2008 np). By the 1950s the United States had become a considerable influence on Brazil’s economic and cultural development (Bonadio 2008). In particular, because of the influx of US music and film, American fashion became very popular (Schemes 2008). Meanwhile, the FENIT [National Textile Industry Trade Association] created in 1958 promoted the national industry and sponsored many fashion shows that attracted considerable public participation (Braga 2008). In the following decades sophisticated stores sold locally produced fabrics, particularly cotton. In the 1960s the acceptance of foreign fashion trends began to be challenged and Brazilian designers created their first collections inspired by popular Brazilian products, such as coffee. For the first time collections which could be identified as ‘Brazilian fashion’ were shown in Europe, Asia and America. In the early 1970s the Brazilian fashion designer Zuzu Angel became popular. Angel’s inspiring themes drew attention to the oppression of the military control imposed on the country during the 1960s, when opponents of the regime (including her son) ‘disappeared’. Hence, the beginnings of Brazilian fashion design were also marked by political commitment, and an engaged cultural expression. However, despite some criticism, the Brazilian habit of travelling to Europe to copy its fashion and lack of restrictions on the sale of foreign brands remained strong. Brazilian brands had yet to establish a market abroad. This was to change at the end of the 1970s as a result of the influence of television, in particular Brazilian soap operas, which had a definite and extensive influence on fashion (Caldas 2004 and Durand 1988). In the 1980s Rio de Janeiro began to have a greater influence on the fashion produced in the country. A new generation of fashion designers, who had become successful in the 1970s, increased the quality of their products. While they still habitually travelled to New York, Paris, Rome and London about four times a year, these professionals began to reevaluate their adaptation of foreign fashion and realised that such practices

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were no longer good for their business, and began to produce enough to export. When FENIT celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in 1988 the fashion industry was more mature and fashion designing as a professional career had begun to gain some recognition (the first fashion school in Brazil was opened in 1987). At this time, due to the removal of the tariffs on imports, there was an influx of cheap products from Asia. In order to overcome this and to be nationally and internationally competitive, the Braxilian textile industry had to make huge investments to modernise and reduce costs. In the 1990s Brazil entered the globalised information era. Brazilians became more critical and demanding fashion consumers and began to expect to be able to buy the products they had seen abroad in Brazil (Palomino 2003). This led to the creation of several fashion events. In 1994 ‘Phytoervas Fashion’ took place presenting winter and summer collections. It promoted some of the Brazilian designers who are still well known today. In 1996 the fashion event ‘Morumbi Fashion Brasil’ was created to launch fashion trends, and in 1997 the ‘Casa de Criadores’ was created to promote new talent (Braga 2004). In 2003 the ‘Fashion Rio’ event was established. In order to consolidate the Brazilian fashion season, Morumbi Fashion Brasil became Sao Paulo Fashion Week, which is now the fifth most important fashion event in the world, after London, New York, Paris and Milan. São Paulo is now known as the fashion capital city of Latin America (Shields 2008). Fashion events have spread nationwide, which means that almost all of the state capitals have a fashion week. In 2006, the challenges for Brazilian fashion identity were to serve international market needs inspired by Brazilian culture, without making it look either folkloric or regional. Many Brazilian fashion designers have established their brands both within Brazil and abroad through fashion magazines, television and movies. Names such as Herchcovitch, London-based Inácio Ribeiro, otherwise known as Clements Ribeiro (Braga 2008), and Carlos Miele based in Paris and New York (Ethel 2008) have also attained international acclaim. Also popular, both in Brazil and abroad, is Ronaldo Fraga who won the ‘Ordem do Mérito Cultural 2007’ [2007 Cultural Order of Merit], a prize instituted by the Brazilian Ministry of Culture. This was the first time it was awarded to a fashion designer. That year he was the only designer from South America to take part in the exhibition ‘Brit Insurance Designs of the Year’ at the Design Museum in London. A lesser-known label, Issa, created by Brazilian fashion designer Daniella Helayel, has become a favourite of Hollywood stars Keira Knightley, Scarlett Johansson and Eva Mendez, while Brazilian Marcia Ganem is the

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preferred designer of Alicia Keys and Janet Jackson. According to Emma Elwick, the market editor of Vogue magazine, ‘Brazilian design and designers are spearheading a new look that is increasingly taking over in Europe and the US’ (Shields 2008, np). When looking at the socio-historical development of Brazilian fashion from 1950 to the present day, Caldas (2008, 232-237) defines three periods. The first from 1950 to 1980 was characterised by the efforts of individuals and groups to delineate and coordinate actions. The second from 1990 to 2000 was marked by its media diffusion, big fashion events and their consolidation. The third, which is in its infancy, is where the creative, production and the professional education systems are maturing. In addition to the chronological overview, it is important to mention the significance of beachwear in Brazilian fashion. Phillips affirms that flipflops and minuscule beachwear are ‘the first things that spring to mind’ when thinking of Brazilian design (2008, np). Nowadays, famous Brazilian fashion designers run their own sophisticated stores. Large, modern shopping centres in big cities all over the country sell Brazilian fashion brands. In 2007, the Brazilian clothing industry made $34.6bn and, ‘according to AT Kearny’s Global Retail Development Index, published in June, the Brazilian clothing market is worth £18.9bn, and is growing at a rate of 7% a year’ (Shields 2008, np). In this context, the question is: what exactly is Brazilian fashion? In order to address this issue, four case studies have been carried out using material culture as a methodological approach. The methodology employed is described briefly below and the results of the case studies analysed.

Methodology The expression ‘material culture’ is a methodological approach referring to a particular way of looking at any designed object in relation to its cultural circumstances (Grant et al 2002, 198 and Schiffer 1999, 2). The primary data was obtained using the Jules Prown method, which aims to provide a means for the interpretation of culture from objects. It comprises three phases: 1) description, recording the internal evidence of the object itself; 2) deduction, interpreting the interaction between the object and the perceiver; 3) speculation, framing hypotheses and questions which lead out from the object to external evidence for testing and resolution (Prown 1982, 7). Information was acquired by interviewing those involved in the industry. The target was fashion design as a product and process, and, the

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focus was on production in particular. The interviews were translated from Brazilian Portuguese into English by Sheila Gies.

Sampling Two designs chosen randomly from each of the following designers were analysed: 1) Ronaldo Fraga: a muslin dress from the 1997 collection ‘Em nome do Bispo’ [In the Name of Bispo], a reference to Arthur Bispo Rosário, a Brazilian artist who suffered from mental illness; and a silk taffeta dress from the 1999 collection ‘A Roupa’ [The Clothing]. 2) Karlla Girotto: a pearl/net dress from the 2003 ‘O Vôo para o Escuro’ [A flight to the darkness] collection, which uses the idea of the imbalance between the social roles of women and men, a reference to the emotionally unstable women of the beginning of the last century studied by Freud; and a black dress from the 2003 ‘O Duplo’ [The Double] collection, a criticism of fashion seasons: ‘I thought of fractal church windows through which light would come into what was rigid, heavy, and dense.’ (Girotto, interviewed by Gies, 2005) 3) Mareu Nitschke: a jacket from 2004, planned after the start of the second Gulf War: ‘I wanted to combine Orient and Occident in the whole collection in an interlaced way, tied, as if one could not be detached from the other and they had to live together compulsorily’; and a black dress from 2005 collection ‘Gothic Geishas’: ‘It was an attempt to combine hiphop black culture with Oriental culture.’ (Nitschke, interviewed by Gies, 2005) 4) Cristina da Fonte: the Maracatu bikini (Maracatu is a Northeast folklore festival) and the Xylograph swim suit, inspired by illustrations in traditional Cordel literature, both from 2005.

Although the research is based on representative case studies, it provides deep insights into Brazilian culture expressed through fashion design, and provides a new approach to the study of contemporary Brazilian culture and fashion.

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Textures, Contours, Cuts, and Colours in the Brazilian Cultural Context The main substances from which each garment is made and how these are manipulated by the designers for specific and intended effect in the context of Brazilian aesthetics are analysed below.

Textures For Girotto, the textures were created according to the theme of the collection, inspired by her daily life. In her interview she said, ‘I still go to 25 de Março Street to buy fabrics: I look at everything even if it is what everyone has and sees. We must accept what we are’ (Girotto, interviewed by Gies, 2005). Her word ‘still’ indicates an acceptance of the historic trajectory in textiles and its relationship with Brazilian cultural identity, here symbolised by 25 Março Street, where the first immigrants established their fabric and clothes shops. It is very significant that her choice of fabrics is taken as a synonym of Brazilian identity. Girotto uses cotton, net, jersey and pearls in her pearl/net sack dress for their weight. The performance of these materials drives the creative process in the construction of the garment, which is a literal search for stability in the volume of the right and left detailing and of the front and back sections. Girotto uses the search for balance, using textures and volumes in the garment, as a means of representing sartorially her wish for greater social equality between men and women. Girotto’s use of texture brings about the symbolic expression of social engagement and non-conformity in a country where social differences are an historically meaningful issue. In her black dress the choice of the fabric was determined by how the texture of the fabric feels. Its stiffness represents a criticism of the unbreakable rhythm of fashion, which discards old garments for the sake of newness, and is combined with other lighter fabrics as a way of symbolising the break from this rigid rule. Girotto asked ‘why do we have to let the garments die after six months … they are still useful and alive as much as the ones I am making now’ (Girotto, interviewed by Gies, 2005). This is fashion as a form of engagement and criticism–a meaningful social change considering the historical foreign dominance in Brazil. For Nitschke, the use of a light, see-through fabric for his black dress is contrasted with the heavy embroidered belt, which reference the many layers of an obi (a traditional Japanese sash), as a way of unifying the Gothic style with the Japanese traditional style in dress. It is a mixture of diverse sources of inspiration that result in an imaginative but still

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harmonious and aesthetically rich look. This blending of cultures is not an unusual practice in fashion in general, but the ease and confidence Nitschke shows in doing so may be called a cultural blueprint. This is best explained in Nitschke’s words, referring to his preferences: ‘I like the mixture of jeans and knitwear and silks ... I also use silicone, straw and wood for unusual results’ (Nitschke, interviewed by Gies, 2005). This lack of restriction when using different textures recalls DaMatta’s words about the difficulty of applying the dualism of inclusion/exclusion to Brazilian cultural. For the fitted jacket, Nitschke takes two fabrics with similar textures and patterns and uses these with the same level of significance in the garment as a metaphor for equality within differences, in a direct expression of the positive coming together of people in Brazil. Fonte intentionally uses the traditional handcraft and folklore of northeast Brazil in the texture of the bikini top. This is a reference to traditional laces, and the pattern of the bikini bottom uses the Maracatu flower as the inspiration for the lines of the texture of the crystal beads. Since it was shown at the Sao Paulo Fashion Week, inspiration from Pernambuco state has become a trendy theme in beachwear in Brazil. Fonte also references the traditional popular Cordel literature in the form of the printed pattern of the swim suit jersey. She uses textures as a manifestation of a sense of belonging to a place, fashion and cultural consciousness. Fraga uses material and layering to challenge received representations of women in Brazil. He gives an extra texture to the taffeta and makes use of the steadiness of its pleats as a way of privileging the garment’s texture over body shape in order to express his critical view of the way the Brazilian woman’s body contours and sensuality have been exploited over the decades. Fraga also uses pure cotton as he ‘cannot disassociate from the Brazilian image of 100% natural fabrics’ (Fraga, interviewed by Gies, 2006). In summary, a mixture of differing and usually opposing textures is an essential distinguishing characteristic of these designs, which give the garments a strong identity. This has echoes of DaMatta’s (1984) heterogenous vision of Brazil, which these designers have extended to the use of diverse, unexpected and differing textures in one garment. It is evident that there is a reluctance among the designers to accept narrow and closed parameters to their designs, an openness to experience new ideas, and, in turn, it suggests that, for Brazilians, it is more important to be expressive than to be perfectly correct.

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Contours and Cuts The sack shape of Girotto’s pearl dress and the volume of the decorated areas and silhouette were driven by the way the designer constructed the garment, on a hanger, and this method of defining shape followed the same symbolism considered in choosing the texture. The search for balance in contours and cuts in the construction of this dress is, according to Girotto, her symbolic way of achieving equality between men and women. The way social inequality is experienced in the Brazilian context guides the designer’s choice of contours and cuts. The shapes and silhouettes of Girotto’s black dress suggest an influence of ancient European costume. It contrasts flat areas with padded details. A fitted top and revealing cleavage is combined with a voluminous bottom as a sartorial expression of the duality of fashion seasons. This is a critical view of European fashion which has had historical ascendance in Brazil. This garment displays a more mature attitude towards fashion in contemporary Brazil, as international trends are viewed with critical eyes and not merely followed without question. Nitschke’s black dress, although adopting the kimono’s geometrical shaped areas, contours body shape due to the fluidity of its fabric, which reinforces femininity as it is idealised by the designer. According to Nitschke, … the Japanese use the most incredible work in construction … but they don’t have what I have in fashion as a Brazilian designer, which is the femininity and body contours of Brazilian women, and I like it. (Nitschke, interviewed by Gies, 2005)

Therefore, the dress is a combination of what Nitschke sees as the best of both cultures. This emphasis on the sensuality of Brazilian women is not unproblematic. It relates to how Brazilians are still perceived abroad since the Hollywood films of the 1930s, and infers that the image of Brazilian women as sensual subjects has endured since then. However, Nitschke’s contemporary designs, while sensual are doing something different. His are intricate and creative construction of lines and curves that are not used to evoke a stereotypical image of Brazilian women. Nitschke’s fitted jacket combines a traditional silhouette with unexpected internal cuts where separated sleeves and fragments are attached with loops and buttons. This is the designer’s way of foregrounding the garment’s composition in order to symbolise the interdependence of people already referred to with respect to the choice of fabrics. At a remove from Brazil, the Gulf war is an inspiration for the designer.

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Conflict is at odds with his own values, which lead him to a sartorial expression of his beliefs. This, in turn refers to his identity as a Brazilian. He explains, ‘we are not a people who have separation as a principle’ (Nitschke, interviewed by Gies, 2005). Fonte’s Maracatu bikini has normative shapes for beachwear, although only the top has extra volume, which interferes with the body silhouette enhancing the bust volume and working for an idealised feminine body shape. The Xylograph swim suit has harmonious shapes and a revealing silhouette. These are creative and appealing, modern and cheerful. Although governed by the specificities of beachwear, the swim suit also reveals Brazilian taste in the approach to the body silhouette. Fonte creates shapes and silhouette intuitively and always from an ideal basic form. This demonstrates a lack of formality conditioned by the lack of fashion schools at the time she started her career. Fraga’s white dress silhouette has a normative vertical orientation where its rhythm is broken by a contrasting horizontal detail. The gathering in the skirt gives volume to the silhouette and favours the garment’s shape instead of the shape of the body. Fraga consciously disrupts body contour as a symbolic reaction against stereotypical images of Brazilian women, just as he also does with texture. It transmits ideas about who Brazilians are and how they should be into permanent and tangible forms. This dress has conservative and conventional shapes and uses playful details showing Fraga’s humorous side. This is evident from his logo, which is a drawing of the frames of his distinctive glasses. This representation of the designer’s glasses is a material symbol of his visual deficiency and of an aid to overcome it. Thus it uncovers a personal ability to deal with weaknesses. Referencing the artist Bispo do Rosário’s state of mind reveals the designer’s acceptance and romantic view of a mental problem, and also demonstrates a forbearance towards another’s differences and foibles. Mental illness as a theme dictates the shape of the sleeves, which are longer than arms usually are. In addition, the fact that the buttons are in a long sequence is explained by Fraga as ‘all crazy, they do not make sense’ (Fraga, interviewed by Gies, 2006). Fraga uses Brazilian cultural orientation for the definition of identity in clothes thus assuming his own emotional needs as representative of a collective: I search for a cultural reaffirmation and construction of the identity of a people. I put into my designs a certain fondness I would like to get for myself, which I believe is a universal desire that clothes can fulfil. (Fraga, interviewed by Gies, 2006)

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Following the contour of the female body as a way of expressing sensuality and femininity is a perceptible concern amongst these designers, which, in turn, uncovers deep-rooted historical ways of idealising the sensuality of Brazilian women. However, a critical view of and resistance against the ideal of beauty currently viewed as Brazilian is another meaningful feature of their work. The use of volume reveals openness to new and unexpected combinations and an ability to deal freely with divergent choices as a Brazilian characteristic.

Colours Colour is used by Girotto in the pearl/net dress as a way to draw a line in time, evoking a vintage appearance which can be viewed as an historic connection between the past (in reference to the beginning of the last century when Freud studied the emotionally instability of women) and the present. As explained by the designer, ‘I saw a strong relation between them and the depressive women of nowadays’ (Girotto, interviewed by Gies, 2005). Here, colour is used to symbolise the flowing passage of time from one condition and position to similar ones from a previous era. In the black dress, Girotto uses this colour as representative of darkness while the colourful circles inserted in the hemline symbolise the light coming into the darkness. According to Girotto this use of colour stands for the need for change following fashion seasons, ‘I thought of fractal church windows through which light would come into what was rigid, heavy, and dense’ (Girotto, interviewed by Gies, 2005). This new and critical vision of European fashion rules through the use of colour may infer the Brazilian lack of tradition in fashion, while, at the same time, European fashion acquires new contours in the contemporary Brazilian cultural context. For Nitschke it is important to follow international trends, such as the black dress, but he is also driven by what is available on the market, as in the case of the fitted jacket and the need for two close tones of the same colour in order to express the value of differences between people. The pinkish shades look casual and innocent, in a strong context, following the collection theme. As he states, ‘these two pinkish fabric patterns are similar and have the same level of significance in the design because differences do not make one more important than the other ... I love this concept’ (Nitschke, interviewed by Gies, 2005). Once again this recalls the Brazilian tendency not to create strict divisions, discussed earlier in connection with the use of texture, shape and silhouette. This suggests that there is a correspondence between the particular material employed and

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the manifestation of the social sphere. Another cultural trace is the restriction in the number of colours, which may be an attempt to keep away from the stereotyped view of Brazil as a tropical/colourful country. Fonte combines the colours of the Pernambuco state flag, white, blue, yellow, green and red as an inspiration for the Cordel images printed on the swim suit. The garments were made specially to represent the state of Pernambuco in a glamourous way at the Sao Paulo Fashion Week. As Fonte explains: ‘This is where I was born, grew up and where I have my company. It should have a special mention at the Sao Paulo Fashion Week because of the difficulties people here face’ (Fonte, interviewed by Gies, 2005). This is culturally meaningful because a flag is a symbol of a place. The bikini is white and uses colourful crystal beads which correspond to the colours of the Maracatu flower. Fonte also states that colours are driven by the particularities of the beachwear sector: ‘colours should match the sun-tanned skin and accentuate it’ (Fonte, interviewed by Gies, 2005). This means that the choice of colours is also driven by skin tones, which is important in the context of Brazilian identity (Schwarcz, 2005). In general, Fonte’s idea of colour becomes associated with the abstract idea of cheerfulness, ‘colours here (in the Northeast) are something associated with happiness. I never use sad or discreet colours. Summer colours such as green, orange, red, yellow and shade of blues are what everybody likes’ (Fonte, interviewed by Gies, 2005). The perception of popular preference associated with the Northeastern cheerful character evidences the designer’s deep immersion in her place and people, intensely experienced through her design development. Fraga stresses that his choice of colour is always a counter-response to international trends. This is another manifestation of design elements used intentionally as a social statement, considering the historical ascendance of foreign fashion trends. The taffeta dress employs colours inspired by the popular ceramic work typical of the Jequitinhonha valley (Jequitinhonha is a river in the state of Minas Gerais, and the Jequitinhonha valley is one of the poorest areas in Brazil). These are close to green and red, colours also associated with Christmas. Red has further meaning in this context. In this dress the red stands for the earthy tones of the soil in the Jequitinhonha area, as Fraga clarified in interview. The designer sees the unrestricted use of colours as the strongest characteristic of Brazilian fashion design: ‘ … even if we try to imitate the European, our relationship to colours shows we are not Europeans’ (Fraga, interviewed by Gies, 2006). Fraga’s statement is in tune with Fonte’s reasoning on colour and its relationship to Brazilian people. It is a sartorial expression of a people who have valued local cultural characteristics over historical colonial values.

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From the foregoing, in general colours tend to be a personal choice and following international trends in colour is not a great concern for Brazilian designers: rather, it is often avoided. No one single colour defines cultural preference. Instead, diversity is the key.

Conclusion The blending of cultures in Brazil is strong and dynamic and is perceived in the designs discussed. The findings of this study cannot be completely generalised to the whole country to the point of establishing a definitive Brazilian style in fashion. Indeed, these fashion designs are the product of certain strategic and aesthetic decisions influenced by the materials and their potential uses, and the way Brazilian designers engage with these aspects. Given their blended cultural background, this is what gives Brazilian design a particularly Brazilian quality. It is important to highlight that these choices are not confined to Brazil, but are faced by designers in many countries, particularly by those on the edge of the developed world where fashion emerges from a handcraft tradition, an amateur tradition or a small scale atelier tradition. What is significant to the identity of Brazilian fashion design is that even though some or all of the strategies that the Brazilian designers use are not peculiar to Brazil, the choices they make, the way they manipulate texture, shape, silhouette and colour enables their creations to be demonstrative of and clearly rooted in Brazilian culture, because these are guided by values acquired in the Brazilian cultural environment. Consciously or not, their blending of cultural roots become the dressing for their view of the world, and their values are manifested in the textures, shapes and colours of their design creations.

Works Cited Bonadio, M. C. (2008) ‘Alceu Penna e a ‘Invenção’ da Moda Brasileira’, 4° Colóquio do Moda, Novo Hamburgo: Brazil, cd, np. Braga, J. (2004) História da Moda Uma Narrativa, 3rd ed., Sao Paulo: Anhembi Morumbi Editora. —. (2008) Reflexões sobre Moda, vol 1, 4th ed., Sao Paulo: Anhembi Morumbi Editora. Caldas, D. (2004) Observatório de Sinais Teoria e Prática da Pesquisa de Tendências, Rio de Janeiro: Editora SENAC Rio.

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—. (2008) ‘Evoluções Recentes na Imagem da Moda no Brasil’, in A. Oliveira and K. Castilho (eds.) Corpo e Moda–por uma compreensão do contemporâneo, Sao Paulo: Estação das Letras e Cores, 231-238. Caldas, W. (1986) Cultura, Sao Paulo: Global Editora. DaMatta, R. (1984) O que faz o brasil, Brasil?, Rio de Janeiro:Editora Rocco. Durand, J. (1988) Moda, Luxo e Economia, Sao Paulo: Editora Babel Cultural. Ethel, R. (2008) ‘Entrevista com Carlos Miele’, in dObra[s], vol 2, issue 2, 90-93. Fonte, C., interviewed by Gies, digital recording, Recife, Brazil, 15 December 2005. Fraga, R., interviewed by Gies, digital recording, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 22 June 2006. Freyre, G. (1987) Modos de Homem e Modas de Mulher, 2nd ed., Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record. —. (2005) Casa Grande & Senzala Formação da Família Brasileira Sob o Regime da Economia Patriarcal, 50th ed., Sao Paulo: Global Editora. Girotto, K., interviewed by Gies, digital recording, Sao Paulo, 5 December 2005. Gies, S. (2008) ‘Brazilian Fashion Design: Outreaching Colonization’, in ‘The 6th International Conference of Design History and Design Studies, Osaka University, Communication-Design Centre Publishers, Japan, 270-273. Grant, J. et al (2002) The Archaeology Course book: An Introduction to Study Skills, Topics and Methods, London and New York: Routledge. Joffily, R. (1999) O Brasil Tem Estilo?, Rio de Janeiro: SENAC Editors. Kury, L. and Hargreaves, L. (2000) Ritos do Corpo, Rio de Janeiro: Senac Nacional Editora. Momsen, R. (1968) Brazil: A Giant Stirs, Princeton and London: Van Nostrand Searchlight. Nitschke, M., interviewed by Gies, digital recording, Sao Paulo, 20 December 2005. Ortiz, R. (1994) Cultura Brasileira e Identidade Nacional, 5th ed., Sao Paulo: Editora Brasiliense. Palomino, E. (2003) Moda, 2nd ed., Sao Paulo: Publifolha. Phillips, T. (2008) ‘Artistry in the blood’, The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2008/mar/14/tomphillips.insidebrazil, [Accessed 14 March 2008].

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Prown, J. (1982) ‘Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method’, The Winterthur Portfolio, vol. 17, 1-19. Rainho, M. (2002) A Cidade e a Moda: Novas Pretensões, Novas Distinções–Rio de Janeiro, século XIX, Brasília: Editora Universidade de Brasília. Schemes, C. (2008) ‘Alceu Pena and the Brazilian Fashion’, 4° Colóquio de Moda, Novo Hamburgo: Brazil, cd, np. Schiffer, M. (1999) The Material Life of Human Beings, Artifacts, Behaviour and Communication, London and New York: Routledge. Schwarcz, L. (2005) ‘Papo Cabeça Para Pensar’, in Brasil Almanaque de Cultura Popular, Sao Paulo: Andreato Comunicao & Cultura, 15-17. Shields, R. (2008) ‘Brazilian style: South American Fashion on the World Stage’, The Independent, http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/brazilian-stylesouth-american-fashion-on-the-world-stage-907215.html [Accessed 24 July 2008]. Veja (1995) (na) ‘Fofocas de closet’, in Veja, 1398 edition, Sao Paulo, Abril, 92.

PART II: LITERARY REPRESENTATIONS OF TRANSCULTURAL ENCOUNTERS

CHAPTER FIVE TRANSCULTURAL CONFLICTS IN MEXICO CITY: COMIC AND CONTRADICTORY REPRESENTATIONS OF FEMALE IDENTITY IN GUSTAVO SAINZ’S LA PRINCESA DEL PALACIO DE HIERRO PAUL MCALEER

As Northrop Frye observes (1964, 455), the narrative of Greek New Comedy and its successors takes the form of three major plot-lines: marriage, the triumph of a young man over an older one, and the release of a slave; all of which involve a resolution between the fictional society and the protagonist, who in the process acquires a social identity. In the comic novel, due to the medium’s greater interest in the cult of the self, a narrative of individual identity acquisition takes first billing. Consequently, the comic novel displays many of the characteristics of the Bildungsroman and, by default, the picaresque novel. Gustavo Sainz’s novel La Princesa del Palacio de Hierro (1974) [The Princess of the Iron Palance], set in Mexico City, inscribes both the novelistic and dramatic version of this proto-comic narrative. The anonymous protagonist/narrator, whom we shall call the Princess, marries at the end of the novel. She also narrates, from the privileged position of a thirty-something-year-old, the bawdy adventures of her youth as she learns lessons in love and life. Thus the novel clearly follows the patent of the Bildungsroman/picaresque novel, while retaining the marriage formula of comic drama. What is particularly interesting, however, is that Sainz does not bring these narratives to their classic resolution. Marriage does not precipitate a reconciliation between the Princess and the fictional society of the novel.

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Neither does she acquire an ostensible or satisfactory individual or social identity. The final pages of the novel are overshadowed by her avowed feelings of instability, lack of self-identity and of fulfilment (251). Despite the presence of the classic motifs of resolution, the garrulous and monomaniac quality of the Princess’s narration leaves the reader (or at least this one) with the impression that the character has failed to achieve an identity, thus leaving the narration open-ended. The final sentence ends with yet another hiatus, the last of the many which have appeared throughout the breathlessly oral-styled narrative. The aim of this short analysis is to explore why Sainz clearly inscribes the traditional narratives of comedy into what is a very funny book but fails to bring them to their classic resolution. The article focuses on the novel’s contemporary transcultural context and the role it played in the formation of new concepts of identity and, just as importantly, the changing face of female politics and representation in 1970s Mexico. It is argued that the new, more fluid notions of identity, brought about by an intense process of transcultural pollination, permeate Sainz’s text and, consequently, render comedy’s traditional narratives of resolution irrelevant. The term ‘transcultural’ is understood in this article, then, as both a process of cultural hybridisation and a period of history that, with the advent of ‘globalised’ culture and mass-media technology, has fostered accelerated and intensified forms of cross-cultural identities and products. However before we explore this context in greater depth, it will first be necessary to take a quick look at the history of comedy, the dissolution of its utopian heritage in the twentieth century and the problematic relationship between female characters and comedy in general. In the early years of the twentieth century and beyond writers such as Luigi Pirandello, Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, Italo Svevo and Eugène Ionesco began to dismantle the formerly clear demarcations between the comic and the tragic, in order to produce a seriocomic literature that, while inscribing the narratives of comedy, neuters or suspends the traditional resolution. Thus, the plot of many Absurdist plays and novels revolve not only around a search for meaning, but also the unachievable desire for a concrete social and individual identity. Critics, such as Martin Esslin (1984, 17) and Luigi Pirandello (1960, 30), have cited the Existential themes present in these works as the principal source of their tragicomic vision and the absurd humour that dominates their pages. In Existential philosophy the individual and society are seen through a particularly dystopian lens. The individual is a symbol of angst and solitude, unable to acquire a satisfactory identity and/or to bond with the other, while society is seen as a set of false behavioural or

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social traditions that cloak the stark meaninglessness of the universe. It is easy to see, therefore, how this understanding of social and individual identity might disrupt a utopian narrative, whose resolution is expressed via the themes of social and individual identity. It would, therefore, be possible to conclude that Sainz wrote his novel within the Absurd tradition and, consequently, repeats its ontological and creative paradigms. And, indeed, there are some aspects, including certain humorous episodes and moments of ontological representation that display loose affinities with these tragicomic works. However, there are many, more important features of the novel that do not. Sainz’s portrayal of identity and society is far less transcendental than those found in Absurdist literature. The novel’s comic plot is an earthy and urban narrative of conflict between two social groups. Its representation of individual identity is ontological rather than metaphysical. These two features make it very difficult to interpret the Princess as a metaphor for the existential understanding of the human condition and, thus, they cast doubt on the validity of the existential model as a tool to interpret Sainz’s treatment of the comic form. Indeed, in a wider context, we might ask whether this existential trope of human existence was still relevant in the transcultural context of Mexico in the mid-1970s. As we shall see, it is not, entirely. Perhaps a more fruitful avenue of investigation is to focus on the theme of feminine identity and comedy. The relationship between the comic tradition and female identity is a problematic one, especially in relation to the narrative of identity acquisition. In her informative study, Susan Carlson (1991, 76) argues that female characters are very rarely allowed to acquire a social or individual identity in the comic tradition. In fact traditionally, Carlson notes, women have two specific roles in comedy: subversion of social norms with their comic wit and fleeting carnivalesque freedom; and as a device that enables male dominance to re-establish social order via the subjugation of marriage. Carlson (1991, 76) goes as far to say that the Oedipal impulse of comedy, encoded as it is by Western ideologies of Patriarchal order, means that the classic formula of comedy is quite simply alien to the notion of female identity acquisition in the first place. Thus, most female characters in such comedies are either subjugated by the marriage formula or placed on the periphery of the resolution to such an extent that the symbolic act of the comic play is not relevant to them. In this respect, at first glance Sainz’s offers us very little variation on the traditional treatment of female characters in comedy. The Princess is allowed a certain licence to hilariously shock and subvert, which is then revoked at the end of the novel, after the marriage takes place. Once again,

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then, the patriarchal narrative of comedy would seem to deny a female character an independent social or individual identity. However, this would suggest that comedy and its relationship to female identity is somehow ahistoric; that is to say, that it has not only held tenaciously onto its phallic roots but, moreover, that these prejudicial codes have not changed throughout history. Yet, texts change, their meanings change, the ideologies that inform them change according to the different historical contexts in which they are iterated and, of course, interpreted. If Sainz’s novel does in fact reproduce the restrictive concept of female identity within the classic rubric of comedy’s phallic tradition, what does this mean in the context in which it was written? And, what are the contemporary patriarchal discourses that inform this meaning? Or, in other words, in what way does this comic formula align with the machista sociopolitics of 1970s Mexico? Beth Miller (1978, 72) suggests that Sainz’s own machista politics are the root cause of the Princess’s predicament, since his delineation implies that she (and women like her) are unable to transcend the social context that restricts them. There are, of course, not many more powerful ways of negating female agency than by presenting it as inescapably the construct of a male dominated society. However, as persuasive as Miller’s interpretation is, I do not think it quite captures the complexity of the novel or its treatment of female identity. So, what does the Princess’s lack of identity and agency indicate? The answer, as we shall see, does not lie in Sainz’s inscription of patriarchal codes but rather in his incorporation of conflicting ideologies of female identity. While Sainz’s portrayal of the Princess is particularly ambiguous and enigmatic, it is not based on the kind of ontological ambiguity and complexity that we see in modernist texts. In modernist comic novels, as James Wood (2004, 8) explains, characters are based on ‘the idea that we have bottomless interiors which may only be partially disclosed to us.’ Hence most modernist comic characters owe something to Freud’s concept of the irrationality of the human mind or, as mentioned earlier, the Existentialist understanding of the human condition. Sainz’s Princess, in contrast, is less unitary and displays less psychic depth than her modernist counterparts. Her erratic monologue, constantly punctuated with zany digressions, is saturated with references to the mass media and to images that suggest superficiality. There is also a palpable dissolution between the portrayal of the external and internal world in the novel. The Princess, as one of her boyfriend’s observes (182), is caught in a web of internalised quotations and images from popular and massculture that make it particularly difficult to differentiate between her own

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‘subjective’ reality and an ‘objective’ one. In short, she displays the now classic symptoms of the postmodern subject. She is the contradictory yet depthless model of the unstable self, who lacks both a centre and a sense of agency. The Princess’s own words, iterated as the novel draws to a close: ‘Yo no soy una gente estable’ [I am not a stable person], resonate with this interpretation (251). The chief constitutive factor behind this delineation is Sainz’s own contradictory understanding of female identity. The author (or at least the implied author) draws on different and antagonistic ideologies of the feminine that simply cannot be resolved. The conflict of these ideologies adds to the schizophrenic and ambiguous nature of the protagonist and of the novel. We, as readers, are simply unable to get a fix on this comic character, and are left at the end of the novel with an incongruous and, ultimately, somewhat bewildering notion of who she is. This reading becomes yet more persuasive if we take into account the transcultural context in which Sainz wrote and published the novel, and the contemporary issues of feminist politics. The 1970s was a period of great change in the cultural, social and political landscape of Mexico. As Jean Franco outlines (1989, 175), in the late 1960s new communities, informed by the growing presence of the mass media and ‘internationalised’ culture, began to contest the state and Church for interpretive power especially in the urban centres. What Franco is describing here is the beginning of the transnational/transcultural phase in Mexican history and culture. Of course, since its colonisation, Mexico had always been a transnational and transcultural state. However, as critics such as Néstor García Canclini (2001, 86) confirm, the last quarter of the twentieth century brought about an intense new form of transculturation (or in his terms hybridisation) with the advent of neo-liberal policies, new communication technologies, and the urbanisation of Latin American countries. Franco’s words testify that Mexico was at the forefront of this shift in Latin America. An important effect of the new globalised political and cultural landscape was the arrival of feminist politics. Jean Franco (1989, 186) again records that Mexican women (mainly middle-classed, initially) were eager and active participants in these new trends and their involvement in the 1968 protests precipitated the founding of feminist centres and literatures, such as the magazine Fem. Of course, it is important to remember here that the emancipation movement was not a 1960s phenomenon. As Shirlene Soto in The Emergence of the Modern Mexican Women (1990), and others show, the demand for civil rights for women in Mexico began as early as 1821. However, it is also certain that the 1960s

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and 1970s feminist movement and its advent into the wider public sphere were part and parcel of a broader transnational movement that also influenced new evolving feminist groups and ideals in the country. Thus, as Eli Bartra (2000, 42) and Lynn Stephen (2006, 242) record in their respective historiographies on the subject, 1960s and 1970s Mexican feminism was very much influenced by the larger counter-cultural and youth movement of 1968. We can also conclude that this new context meant that female identity (or at least the ways in which it was represented in the public sphere) became part of a transnational and transcultural process in which internal and adopted external ideological notions of female identity jostled for dominance, clashed and syncretised. This transcultural context gave rise to a matrix of different ideologies of female identity, in which patriarchal/machista gender politics clashed with both the home-grown and imported politics of feminism. The struggle, moreover, was played out on a social, political and, above all, symbolic level. Sainz’s novel is imbued with this symbolic conflict of identities. It inscribes both patriarchal prejudices about female identity and, at other moments, the discourses that challenge these prejudicial positions. It should come as no surprise, then, that a novel written in such a context delineates the female character through a multiple and schizophrenic lens. As Donald Shaw (1998, 148) notes, the Princess is drawn from a wide variety of different female archetypes: ‘She is rebellious, thoughtlessly imprudent, frivolous, and promiscuous and yet at the same time sporadically aware and not without moral principles.’ Some of these coathanger identities are taken from the traditionally Mexican patriarchal archetypes of female identity. The Princess is, for example, both protected and venerated as an innocent by males in her social group, yet is continually shown to be unfaithful to them, calling to mind the archetypes of La Malinche and La virgen de Guadalupe or the familiar embodiment of both, Chingadalupe: a term that captures an idealised image of women in Mexican machista society, in which she plays both the role of the prostitute and the consoling mother/virgin (see Kinsella in this volume for brief outlines of the La Malinche and La chingada archetypes). Due to restriction of space, however, only two of the many episodes that exemplify the contradictory representation of female identity at the core of the novel are considered here. As La Princesa is narrated in the first person, many of the comic episodes rely upon collusion between an implied authorial voice and an implied reader, constructed via the implication that the Princess is an unreliable narrator.

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In the following passage, for example, the Princess describes the first time she sees one of her boyfriends in a night club: Y dijo no, no, si está reteguapo, vamos a pararnos frente de él, vente a ver si podemos platicar. Entonces fuimos… Una de sus manos, larga y hermosa, se acariciaba a cada rato el lugar del corazón… Su cuerpo tenía el brillo de la vida deportiva; bajo el esmoquin se adivinaban músculos vibrantes, casi eléctricos, de agente secreto o ladrón de alta escuela. El perfume que exhalaba su cuerpo evocaba un pedazo de mar, ciertos cubiletes, una taberna llena de orangutanes o una verga lamida en la oscuridad…. (Sainz 1982, 211) [And she says no, no, he’s incredible, let’s go over there in front of him, come on, let’s see if we can get him to talk. So we made our way over there… One of his long manicured hands strayed up to caress his heart from time to time… His body had the glow of a life of sports, under his tuxedo you could imagine rippling, almost electrical muscles, like the muscles of a secret agent or an international jewel thief. The odour of his body evoked the sea, a leather dice cup, a tavern filled with orang-utans, or a cock licked in the darkness.... (Sainz 2007, 228)]

Here the reference to the ‘secret agent’, the exotic metaphors, the exaggerated erotic overtones all constitute what, in Jackobsonian terminology, is known as a thickening of language, which has the function of alerting us to the Princess’s spurious perception of the event. The language distorts the ‘real’ and yet at the same time implies a shared notion of what that ‘real’ might be. It is, in fact, an example of the practice generally associated with the technique of realism ever since the publication of Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote (published in two parts: 1605 and 1615), the process of which functions more as a decoding of idealism than as mimesis. Moreover, the melodramatic metaphors and sentimentalised similes are reminiscent of the linguistic style of mass-produced romantic literature, and more specifically the fotonovela [photoromance]. Indeed, the Princess’s monologue constantly evokes the type of overblown language and themes associated with one of Latin America’s undisputed best sellers, which, as Dianna Niebylski (2004, 39) explains, comes in three colours: pink for restrained and romantic; black for noir romances, and red for a more perverse treatment of sexuality such as rape and incest. The characteristics of the pink and black fotonovelas can be seen quite clearly in the passage above, but there are also many episodes in the novel that we might associate with the more lurid tone of the red variety.

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It is true to say that the fotonovela itself is contradictory in its representation of women. As Jean Franco observes (1989, 186), certain sub-genres propagate the controlling and compensatory myths associated with romance literature, while others offer images of women who have broken with the traditional family, and function quite clearly as propaganda for female emancipation both on an individual and economic level. The language of this scene, however, has a principal if not a monofunction. It is a parody that draws on a precursor text to attack or satirise an erroneous way of viewing the world. It is also a mode of language that delineates and criticises the feminine within the caricaturised rubric of a Mexican socialite: the ‘dizzy’, ‘irrational’, ‘sentimental’ and ‘immoral’ woman who constitutes a staple image of the female in machista cultures and societies. In this respect, the cultural codes used here construct both a male implied author and a male implied reader, who are invited to adopt a superior and critical position with respect to the protagonist. In other scenes, however, the Princess is delineated as someone who is in control of the humour of the novel. On almost every page she shows herself to be a more than capable joker and, moreover, to be quite aware of that fact. In one scene she even entertains the president of Mexico with a comic anecdote (196). Her comic repartee is broad in range, but for reasons of space we shall concentrate on the bawdy, libidinous and scatological aspect. In the following example the Princess narrates an anecdote concerning her roommate on a trip to Europe, who has just returned from an emergency trip to the dentist: Llega al hotel y se encierra en su cuarto. Le llevan la cena y le dice al mesero que un momentito, de a mudita, que no podía hablar, y se golpea en los labios con los dedos, que le habían sacado una muela y que le dolía aquí, y se señalaba la mejilla. Entonces que el mesero deja la charola rapidísimo y que empieza a besuquear. Y es que creyó que le decía que por favor le diera un besito aquí, en el cachete. Y Lupita no podía gritar y el otro fascinado porque creía que esos pujiditos y gemiditos eran de placer… Y se revolcaban en la cama y les daba risa, hasta que ella se rindió por la risa. Imagínate nada más…. (Sainz 1982, 210) [She gets back to the hotel, and she shuts herself up in the room. They take dinner up to her, and she says to the bell boy, Just a minute, but in sign language, right?, making signs, because she couldn’t talk, so she taps her lips with her fingers and tries to say she’d pulled a tooth and this is where it hurt, and she shows him her cheek. So the bellboy puts down the tray like a hot potato and grabs her and starts passionately kissing her. He thought she was telling him to kiss her right here, on the cheek. And Lupita

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couldn’t even scream. The guy was in heaven because he thought those grunts and moans were from pleasure right?… So they’re rolling around on the bed, and they both start giggling, until she gave in from giggling so much. I mean just imagine…. (Sainz 2007, 227)]

Raymond Williams (2003, 191) has commented that the Princess’s uninhibited mode of expression and sense of humour, surprisingly outrageous for a female character in the mid-1970s, ‘anticipates some feminist fiction of the 1980s and 1990s’. Thus the Princess’s libidinous jokes, bawdy anecdotes and promiscuous behaviour could well be read as a feminist type rebellion against the ‘proper’ and male imposed public image to which women should adhere. It is a sense of humour that a woman should not have, close to the type of laughter Hélène Cixous (1980, 254) evokes in her essay ‘The Laugh of Medusa’: a laughter that deconstructs the phallocentric image of the world and women. There are also other scenes, a little too long to be quoted here, in which the Princess’s joking paints the female body as an excessive, uncontainable and uncontrollable essence that Dianna Niebylski, in Humouring Resistance (2004), argues is a transgressive device that deconstructs male imposed definitions of female identity. An obvious counter argument to this suggestion is that this cannot be the case since the character has been constructed by a male author in the first place. Indeed Philip Swanson (1995, 123) argues that the Princess’s humour and ‘lusty accounts of sexuality and defloration, though narrated by a woman, are actually inscribing a conventionally construed notion of male identity.’ In other words, even the seemingly subversive joking is the product of a male gaze that reduces the female to one more fantasy or nightmarish image: the ‘nymphomaniac’, the ‘slut’. The above example is a case in point. However, at the same time, Niebylski’s Humouring Resistance (2004, 3) shows that laughter of women characters involving the body and ‘inappropriate’ sexual behaviour still provokes the idea of a transgression in Latin American fiction and society. Therefore the subversive aspect of the Princess’s sense of humour cannot be entirely ruled out. From these two examples, we can see that the novel and its implied author (and perhaps Sainz himself?) express a set of confused and contradictory ideologies of female identity. The representation of the Princess draws on different ideologies that are informed by patriachal/machista stereotypes, as well as feminist politics that challenge them. This symbolic conflict creates a multiple and schizophrenic delineation of female identity. Comedy is an appropriate vehicle with which to represent this model of the self. Comic characters have

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traditionally been erratic and chameleonic. T. G. A. Nelson (1990, 48) and Morton Gurewitch (1975, 137) propose that in the past the psychic farce of the comic character functioned as a kind of Freudian relief-valve that allowed a momentary release from the dominance of the logocentric concept of the self. However, what happens to this subversive energy when, as Fredrico Ainsa (2002, 64, 67 and 69) maintains, the dominant concept in a contemporary Latin American/transcultural context is decentred, multiple and schizophrenic? Furthermore, as Carlson’s study highlights, this fleeting ontological freedom and funniness endowed the female comic characters with a subversive quality. What happens to these carnivalesque impulses when patriarchal ideals are no longer dominant, when they have been challenged and de-centred in a transnational and more liberal context? Can, for example, the subversive representation of the female as an ‘inappropriate’ sexual being remain truly subversive when the patriarchal discourse against which it is protesting is no longer the dominant ideology it once was? On the other hand, do the representations that seem to validate the stereotypical and machista vision of women still have the same oppressive power? To answers these questions fully would require a more detailed analysis than the length of this chapter allows. However, we can, at least tentatively, offer some suggestions. Obviously, comic characters have not lost their subversive nor indeed their corrective potency. Nonetheless, something has happened to the cultural and social codes on which they rely to function. In short, in a transcultural and globalised era the modernist dichotomy of dominant and subaltern ideologies has given to way to a paradigm of competing ideologies. In Sainz’s novel, for example, the formerly dominant patriarchal ideology is challenged by the ideologies of youth culture and feminism. This is not a carnivalesque subversion against a dominant narrative that would simply have the effect of validating the dominance of patriarchal politics. Rather, the novel, its humour and its representation of female identity becomes a site of contestation. The comedy of La Princesa retains its oppressive/corrective and subversive/liberating power, but these are played out on a political, social and cultural landscape shaped by contestation rather than the binary of subalternity and dominance. Of course this is not to say that patriarchal codes have not retained some of their power and cannot be resurrected in order to objectify and oppress female identity, and deny it certain roles. Sainz’s comedy shows that such codes continue to operate; and, no doubt this symbolic representation reflects the very real issues facing women in 1970s Mexico. However, as we have seen, these restrictive stereotypes are simultaneously

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challenged by resistant ideologies of the feminine. It is, therefore, impossible to identify an implied authorial voice in the novel that is unequivocally aligned with dominant machista politics. The implied author is itself (himself?) a schizophrenic identity made up of different contesting codes. Nothing is more indicative of this shift in the political landscape of Mexico than the open ending of the novel. Sainz’s Princess is not happily subsumed by the marriage formula of comedy–the ending Carlson identifies as the mechanism that switches off the subversive potential of the female comic character. This is so because in the novel’s transcultural context the device no longer encloses the character within the patriarchal built-in safe-guard. Equally telling is the fact that the Princess fails to gain an individual identity (the utopian impulse of comedy). This particular narrative is intrinsically informed by the Enlightenment logo-centric concept of the self. According to Jorge Larraín (2002, 87), ‘the idea of a well-integrated and causal subject is an invention of Modernity, especially of the rationalism of the Enlightenment’ that began to lose cultural relevance in late-twentieth-century Latin America (and in the West). As national, cultural and economic borders were increasingly permeated by global forces, new concepts of reality and identity arose to take their place. ‘Reality’ became ‘realities’ that were fragmented, multiple and hybrid. Consequently, individual identity began to be seen as de-centred, temporal and contingent. Consequently, Sainz’s comic novel reflects a wider and pan-gendered process of changing identity that is ostensibly Latin American and transcultural. What this shift in the political, social, and cultural landscape of Latin America holds in store for feminist politics in the region and in the West is as yet not easy to see. Some feminist thinkers, such as Margaret Whitford (1994 cited Harris 1999, 13) who continue to fight for the right to claim an identity for the female subject, have heavily criticised this ‘postmodern’ model. They claim that the de-centring of the subject may well be a ruse to refuse women access to an identity that has hitherto been denied to them. Other critics, Dianna Niebylski (2004, 5) for example, view the same paradigm as a discourse of liberation from the restrictive roles assigned to women by the patriarchal tradition of the West and Latin America. This controversy that goes right to the heart of contemporary feminist theory and politics is, of course, symptomatic of the context in which these issues arose. Feminism in its contemporary guise is part and parcel of the transnational/transcultural age in which different and contesting ideological codes free-float in a global network of mass-communication and compete

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for dominance. Indeed the growing importance of feminism, gay and other subaltern groups on the Latin American and Western political stage is intrinsically related to the dissolution of the edifices of the Enlightenment and modernity. As the patriarchal discourses of science, state and rationality dissolved, their voices were given a public space to claim their rights and political agency. However, again, this arrival on a wider symbolic stage coincided with the de-centring and atomising forces of transnational and global cultural networks; or as Geraldine Harris (1999, 16 and 17) puts it, with ‘the so-called period of postmodernism.’ Is it any wonder that feminist politics itself is contested and split; or that feminist thinkers still continue the search for a female ‘subject’ when these concepts have been radically destabilised? Is it any wonder that Sainz’s novel written on the cusp of such a context exhibits all the symptoms of being fundamentally confused and schizophrenic in its representation of female identity?

Works Cited Ainsa, F. (2002) ‘The Challenges of Postmodernity and Globalisation’, in E. Voleck (ed.) Latin America Writes Back: Posmodernity in the Periphery, New York: Routledge, 59-78. Bartra, E. (2000) ‘Tres décadas de un neofeminsimo en México’, in E. Bartra, A. M. Fernández Poncela and A. Lau (eds.) Feminismo en México, México: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, 39-56. Carlson, S., (1991) Women and Comedy: Rewriting the British Theatrical Tradition, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Cixous, H. (1980) ‘The Laugh of Medusa’, in E. Marks and I. de Courtrivon (eds.) New French Feminism, Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 245-67. Esslin, M., (1984) Theatre of the Absurd, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. Franco, J., (1989) Plotting Women: Gender and Representation in Mexico, New York: Colombia University Press. Frye, N. (1964) ‘The Argument of Comedy’, in P. Lauter (ed.) Theories of Comedy, New York: Doubleday, 450-60. García Canclini, N., (2001) Culturas híbridas: estrategias para entrar y salir de la modernidad. Barcelona: Editorial Paidós. Gurewitch, M., (1975) Comedy: The Irrational Vision, London: Cornell University Press. Harris, G., (1999) Staging Femininities: Performance and Performativity, Manchester: MUP.

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Larraín, J. (2002) ‘Postmodernism and Latin American Identity’ in E. Voleck (ed.) Latin America Writes Back: Posmodernity in the Periphery, New York: Routledge, 79-84. Miller, B., (1978) Mujeres en la literatura, Mexico: M. Fleischer. Nelson, T. G. A., (1990) Comedy: An Introduction to Comedy in Literature, Drama, and Cinema, New York: Oxford UP. Niebylski, D., (2004) Humoring Resistance: Laughter and the Excessive Body in Contemporary Latin American Women’s Fiction, Albany: State University of New York Press. Pirandello, L., (1960) On Humour, A. Illiano and D. P. Testa (trans.), North Carolina: University of North Carolina. Sainz G., (1987) The Princess of the Iron Palace, A. Hurley (trans.), New York: Grove Press. Sainz, G., (1982) La princesa del palacio de hierro, México: Océano. Sotos, S., (1990) The Emergence of the Modern Mexican Women, Denver: Colorado, Arden Press. Stephen, L., (2006) ‘Rural Women’s Grass Work Activism, 1980-2000: Framing the Debate From Below’, in J. Olcott, M. K. Vaughan, and G. Cano (eds.) Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics and Power in Modern Mexico, Durham: Duke University Press, 241-260. Swanson, P., (1995) The New Novel in Latin America: Politics and Popular Culture After the Boom, Manchester: MUP. Williams, R. L., (2003) The Twentieth-Century Spanish American Novel, Austin: University of Texas Press. Wood, J., (2004) The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel, London: Jonathan Cape.

CHAPTER SIX THE INVERTED ROOM1 ANA GARCÍA BERGUA

In literature, as in many other things, truth is not always attained with greater certainty through the act of facing it as if it were perfectly fixed, frozen and visible before us. A writer’s ambition consists precisely of giving life to it, of making it incarnate and setting it in movement so that it is more clearly reflected through beings and actions, and by means of them, in them, it reaches its authentic meaning, that time, stopped by the narrative art, allows us to recover.... —Juan García Ponce.

I am the daughter and granddaughter of two families exiled to Mexico because of the Spanish Civil War of 1936. I belong to a generation called by the Spanish-Mexican-Jewish author Angelina Muñiz-Hubermann the ‘Hispano-American generation’, that of children who were educated as if the return to Spain was imminent, nourished by the recollection of the memories of parents and teachers, who studied in schools run by Spanish refugees such as the Madrid School and the Luis Vives Institute. We were the product of a long history of family escapes, separations and misfortunes that culminated in our birth in Mexico, almost by chance. Like many others of my generation, being born in Mexico was the result of an odd saga that converged in schools and houses populated with people who pronounced the Spanish ‘c’; who used to be communists or socialists; and who toasted to the death of the Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco every New Year. Nevertheless, we, the children of these Spanish exiles, were already Mexican. We could not say that we came from Spain, no matter how loudly we sang the school hymns that insisted on the glory represented by being and feeling Spanish. As far as I could make out, from early on our place of origin was in fact a tragedy, a tragedy from which, to make matters worse, we were exiled. Spain was a mother country cut off from us, suspended in the air amidst the indifferent and blind passing of history. Spain lived in us when

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we were at home and shared the pronunciation of our parents, which was so different from that playful accent of Mexico City. Such was our blended reality: the tacos and the string beans with sausage; the Mexican soap-operas on the radio mixed with Spanish Zarzuela [operetta] records; and the loud and expressive temperament of our parents and teachers in contrast to the heavily nuanced discretion which was so characteristic of the city’s natives. Mexico succeeded in entering our homes. Inside, the accent and the memory of our private mother country were preserved by force of pure stubbornness. With the passing of the years, the country from which our parents and grandparents had been forced to flee, and to which they would return someday—they swore—became a chimera, a dream, a place that was impossible to find in reality. For me, this struggle between the actual mother country and that inner, somehow spiritual homeland, continued unresolved for a long time. I had the sensation of living in an intermediate territory from which I observed Mexico, as if in a display cabinet, with a sort of fascination. So many things could have happened during our parents’ terrifying journeys into exile by train and ship, onwards to any place that could receive them: we could have been born in the Soviet Union, in the Dominican Republic or even in France. Our story could have been so many other stories, and, at the same time, the stories of all the Republican exiles were somehow ours. We all carried with us a little of that great escape and our identity was, in fact, at a crossroads. Perhaps this uncertain boundary of not totally belonging to any place made me take shelter in a personal and at the same time more universal territory that somehow belongs to the observer: literature. Literary imagination is usually born out of material limitations, and I think that I was no exception. My family lived in an old building in a central district of Mexico City, that belonged to an old Spanish landlord called Don Aconcio, famous among the tenants for his excessively frugal lifestyle. In that three-storey building, the Spanish refugees lived alongside families from the Mexican middle-class, people who had cages of Australian parakeets and canaries, and mosaic tiled flowerpots on their balconies. This building, located in the Condesa neighbourhood and close to the Escandón district (a bit more working-class), in the geography of my memory still brings to mind the world of the Spanish refugees: their schools, the market in San Juan that sold their food, and their cafés. During my childhood, in the absence of travels and adventures that my family could not afford, I used to invent parallel realities in the hidden corners of my building. I was sure that in the back yard, behind the porter’s lodge, there were spaceships, just like in the Twilight Zone, and

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that all I had to do was to look carefully for hidden doors in the closets where the brooms were kept, or get the key to the terrace roof with mosaic benches from where the yellow domes of the church of Juanacatlán could be seen. Anyway, my parents were too busy to take much interest in these imaginings and my classmates did not believe my stories–logically, I guess. I suppose those are the kind of things that make us start reading novels, a way of opening doors and peering through windows without taking too many risks. Thus, I became a child who sat on the floor beside my father’s big bookcase, immersed in Huckleberry Finn or in the film magazines from the 1920s that he used to collect. He was the film historian, Emilio García Riera, probably the first film historian Mexican cinema ever had. On those long afternoons, while I listened to the echoes travelling through the inner windows of the building, I liked to think that the house could suddenly turn upside down, that the floor could become the ceiling and vice versa. It amazed me to think that I could walk on the ceiling and jump over the arches, the lamps and the doorframes. My mind wandered into the parallel worlds within my own room, like the beetle in Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, or the insects in the drawings of Escher that crawl up and down impossible stairs. Later, I saw a film in which Fred Astaire does just this when he dances up walls and onto the ceiling. Nevertheless, when I think about why I write, this childish effort of the imagination always comes to my mind: that of trying to invent another world in a building or adopting a parallel point of view. I don’t know where this strange need comes from, but it is certainly real. Alternative worlds draw me in, and when I stumble across them, I feel the urge to plunge in. I think it is difficult for anyone to write for any other reason than an inner need. In my case, in the beginning this impulse probably came from a desire similar to when I wished to live upside down and to know what bats see when they hang from the beams in the dark–that is, what they hear when sound bounces on the walls. The sounds that bats hear have something in common with those that story writers hear without knowing where they come from. All of my family are writers in one way or another. It was something we had, a kind of innate gift or a corporate collective calling, and it was perhaps because of a certain inertia that I studied literature at university. However, I was convinced that my vocation was artistic; I was dominated by an obsession to copy everything I saw with colouring pencils or watercolours. So certain was I about being predestined for the visual arts, that I even left my literature studies and devoted myself to stage design.

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My career in the theatre was short; my drawings were very clumsy. My perspectives were out of sync with the small university theatres, and I felt frustrated by the technical difficulties of creating on stage the images I could see in my mind. I made scale models obsessively, trying to find a way to create what I could see in my mind’s eye. But my hands would not cooperate. Meanwhile, I read a lot, I scribbled short stories without finishing them, and listened to my sister argue with the members of her literary magazine as if I belonged to another world, a world of images that some day I would manage to represent in a comprehensible way, when the drawing and the theatre technicians surrendered to my attacks. Thus, I began to write El Umbral (1993) [The Threshold], my first novel—its original subtitle was in English: Travels and Adventures. I suppose this is still the novel which tells most about my life and background. It tells a fantastic story of angels, messengers and sects in a world of Spanish refugees which was, for want of a better phrase, my own paradox. Within a few months of starting to write it, I realised that I had not abandoned it, as I had done with so many others, and that the destiny of Julius—the main character—had become something of considerable importance to me. What astonished me the most was that I could describe the images that I could see in my mind’s eye. I could draw with words, with phrases, thanks to a mysterious and familiar ability I had acquired, who knows when or how. It became a pleasure or an immense pain, but not a struggle. El Umbral was also an experience of possession, or, as Christians and later spiritualists would say, akin to transubstantiation. This somewhat theatrical procedure allowed me to finally enter a parallel world that, in spite of being pretty eccentric, had a truth of its own. It was as if, finally, I had got to slip in through the doors of many buildings. I have not stopped writing since then. When I begin to write a novel, I feel as if I am setting off on a journey without a destination. The meaning of any journey lies, precisely, in the things we find along the way. For that reason I think novels and travel narratives are very similar. Both writers and readers must be patient, open to new experiences, and be prepared to immerse themselves in a different, fascinating, dreamlike, and even frightening reality. Therefore, I think that writers must also develop patience, to allow the seed of the world that they have conceived to expand and grow inside them. We novelists have little control over these characters and places if we wish them to come alive rather than being hollow pawns in a polemic or the pale incarnation of an idea. Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Kafka, Thomas Mann, the great inventors of our modern novel, created rich and complex, true worlds, authentic in their revelations about the human condition and

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the mysterious reality surrounding us. So that the novel can unveil a world, the novelist must listen to and watch it without prejudice. Many years ago I read an interview with Juan Carlos Onetti, in which the great Uruguayan writer described how he shared his home with his characters, who became part of the family. I remember thinking that his statement suggested that he was a little mad, but, over time, I have come to understand what he was saying. In fact, I could even say that Artemio González, the protagonist of my second novel, Púrpura (1999) [Purple], pretty much dictated the novel to me and I became no more than his stenographer. I was his medium, who sometimes could not avoid making a comment, poking a little fun at him and his situation, or even helping him along. Born in the fictional province of Tonalato, invented in honour of the novelist Jorge Ibargüengoitia’s fictitious town of Cuevano, for a long time this apparently sweet and innocent young man whispered his story to me about how he discovered that he was in love with his handsome and successful cousin. I do not know if his voice will ever return and must confess that sometimes I miss him. This ‘listening’ also has to do with something that was called ‘style’ in the nineteenth century. I cannot write every novel or short story with the same style, with the same cadence of words because I don’t have control over the poetic voice. I know that sticking with one style could be an option, but, for me the style in every new piece corresponds to what is narrated. This means that Artemio tells his story very differently to the omniscient narrator in Rosas negras (2004) [Black Roses] or the multiple narrators in Isla de bobos (2007) [Island of Fools]. Because of my search for a tone that responds to the story being told, my books seem to be very different from each other. I have a lot of respect for novelists like the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez or the Mexican Daniel Sada, who have a music of their own at the time of narrating, and whose works are admirable for the richness of the music that reveals the story. It is as if they had invented a language that a few can imitate awkwardly but that nobody else can speak fluently, and, in that sense, they are like poets. Speaking of style, I must acknowledge that my prose is indebted to the Mexican writers Jorge Ibargüengoitia, Salvador Novo and Juan José Arreola. It is quite possible that as a result of my theatrical and cinematographic inclinations, I am a person obsessed by the objects that surround characters and trigger situations. The expressiveness of objects can be an interesting resource when exposing an emotional scenario. Stories come to me like strange atmospheres, people or situations. For that reason my writing has been linked to the fantasy genre. Nevertheless, I always keep a foot in

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reality. It is still the same room, even if it turns upside down and is transformed entirely. To return to my beginnings, I think that the sensation of not coming from a place, but from a history made the narrative form my destiny. Maybe it is also the reason for my inclination to locate my narratives in the past. It explains my oblique interest in recreating other times, filling them with the light that illuminated them, as well as the clothes and the daily objects. In fact, I came to history proper by chance, as with many other things, when during the 1990s I found a job as a research assistant in the publishing house, Clío, which published history books. In dark newspaper libraries I rediscovered the pleasure of reading my father’s old magazines from when I was a girl: the small ads, the reports on cocktail parties and accidents, all the little stories that surround major historical events. It was like finding myself in the shoes of someone who had read the news item in its own time, getting under somebody else’s skin, being surrounded by another atmosphere and another music, concerned with other morals and other ideas. This was like an exercise in transubstantiation, just like the possibility of finding a lost identity in another time. Inspired by the newspaper reports, I set Púrpura some time during the 1930s or 1940s and Rosas negras—a novel about a ghost whose soul gets entangled in a restaurant’s chandelier—in the era of Porfirio Díaz at the beginning of the twentieth century, mixing fantasy and history. It was then that I hit upon the history of Clipperton Island, the story of a squadron of soldiers abandoned and forgotten on an island during the Mexican Revolution. This story became Isla de bobos. When I worked at Clío they wanted to make a film about this incident, so I was in charge of transcribing documents from different archives, as well as of copying everything I could find. Thus, I transcribed the file of Captain Ramón Arnaud in the Ministry of Defence (without the support of the publishing house this would had been impossible) and, in the Archivo General de la Nación—Mexico’s national archive—I found letters Arnaud’s widow had sent to president Álvaro Obregón and his wife begging for financial help and asking them to recognise her husband’s heroism. Other documents I copied, often by hand, included journalistic notes on the event, especially from the newspaper El Universal, and a review published in El Demócrata about the day some of the women and children were rescued from the island by an American ship, as well as their arrival at Salina Cruz, a port in the state of Guerrero. Time passed, and, although the publishing house did not get to make the film, the story kept dancing in my head. Certainly, it was a fantastic one: it seemed like the plot of a novel or a film, and, nevertheless, it had actually happened.

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This, in brief, is the story. In 1913, while the Mexican Revolution was raging through the country and, as a result of the tensions between the government led by Victoriano Huerta and the constitutionalist army, the armed forces were in chaos. Therefore, no supplies were reaching the island of Clipperton, an island in the Pacific Ocean 945 kilometres from the port of Acapulco. The inhabitants of the island consisted of a small band of soldiers sent there by the former dictator Porfirio Díaz to ensure Mexico’s sovereignty over the territory, their wives and children, and the workers of a US company that exported guano. They survived thanks to a delivery by boat every four months which brought supplies and news from the mainland. The only other living things on the island were crabs and large birds called boobies. Over the years, the captain had tried, and failed, to grow vegetables on the barren soil. As a consequence, scurvy decimated the garrison without mercy. In June of 1914, an American steamer arrived to rescue the factory workers and its crew offered to take the captain and his family to the US so that from there they could travel back to Mexico. The captain refused the offer of help, charged as he was to defend national sovereignty and believing it would be an insult to the Mexican government if he were to accept the help of an enemy country. That was how the captain, his soldiers, the women and children were abandoned on Clipperton waiting to be rescued by a Mexican government ship which never arrived. A little later the captain and his soldiers drowned while trying to reach a boat using a small raft. The women and children were left at the mercy of the lighthouse keeper, a mulatto fighter who declared himself king of the island and abused the women, even killing a woman and a girl. The women end up killing the lighthouse keeper and, on that very same day they were rescued along with the children. Not only had the soldiers been abandoned on an island, but there was also a story of patriotic pride involving the squadron’s captain refusal to be rescued by an American ship, and a story of the abuse of the women and children left alone on the island with the lighthouse keeper. As I said, the incident danced in my head to the point that I continued to research the subject by myself: I read whatever had been written about it, including some other novels. The novels worthy of mention are: El capitán Arnaud (1991) [Captain Arnaud] by Francisco de Urquizo; La tragedia de Clipperton (1982) [The tragedy of Clipperton] written by Teresa Arnaud de Guzmán, a niece of Captain Arnaud; La isla de la pasión [Isle of Passion] by Laura Restrepo, which originally came out in 1989 and was re-issued in 2005; and a novel in French called Le roi de Clipperton (2004) [The King of Clipperton] by Jean-Hugues Lime. There is also a book by Miguel González Avelar, Clipperton, isla mexicana (1992)

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[Clipperton, the Mexican island], which examines the events from a legal point of view. In addition to these, there were two plays, many newspaper articles and journalistic notes, and a film by Emilio ‘el Indio’ Fernández, La isla de la pasión (1941) [Clipperton, Passion Island]. All this material pointed most interestingly to the narrative nature of events on Clipperton. It reflected the fascination the story provokes: whether the Robinson Crusoe-like castaways fighting to survive, or the vision of the atrocities humans are capable of when placed in an isolated situation, as evidenced by the dismal story of the lighthouse keeper. Of course, some of the books and films are closer to reality, while others are pure invention. Nevertheless, in all of these versions I found something missing: all of them assumed Captain Arnaud’s logic when he refused to be rescued by a foreign ship. I wondered if some of the experienced generals of Porfirio’s army—practical men not used to risking their men’s lives unnecessarily—would have made the same decision? Another thing that troubled me was the man who had made that heroic decision. The captain’s file suggested an educated man from a once rich French family, who spoke three languages. Earlier in his career, he had deserted the army and for this he was jailed for five months in Santiago de Tlatelolco. Subsequently, in 1905, he was sent to Clipperton against his wishes as a sort of a punishment, as if the Federal army did not know what to do with him. He suffered from kidney trouble due to lack of proper food on the island and had repeatedly requested permission to return to the mainland. How did a man like this, mistreated by one of the most rigid military structures, which did not promote him to captain until 1913, come to think that the Mexico represented by the Federal army, would reward his heroic gesture? This issue seemed to me of the utmost interest, mainly because the Mexico that the captain hoped would come to the rescue had disappeared as a result of all the revolutionary turmoil. The feeble government of Victoriano Huerta, which had commanded Arnaud to go to the island, had been unable to resist the march of history, which was to bring into being revolutionary Mexico and the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) [Institutional Revolutionary Party]. Captain Arnaud was, literally, a human being dragged along by history, who briefly thought that his decision would get a response amidst the great surge of events. When I sat down to begin to write the novel, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the twentieth century Mexico ruled by the perennial PRI had gone. It was also the time of the attack on the Twin Towers and the war in Iraq, when fixed ideas about patriotism and heroism were being questioned, as opposed to the interests that impel them. I felt justified in .

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this questioning of the consequences of patriotism by the widow’s letters, by her sad destiny after being rescued. She wrote letters to the president asking for a pension; she struggled to feed her children; and she was unable to get treatment for them or herself for the terrible effects of scurvy. She begged the Mexican government—a government and an army that had nothing to do with those who had sent Arnaud to the island—to acknowledge her husband’s heroic gesture. Obviously, my recreation of the drama of Clipperton had to be fictitious. This let me freely explore the heroic choices and their consequences, the drives that animate human behaviour, the ideals of a mother country and sacrifice, with a vision influenced by the events of the present day. My interest was, again, to get under the skin of the characters in that moment in time that somehow obsessed me. So, I changed the characters’ names in order to make them mine. This would allow me to return to my source documents and even to take a look at the sick curiosity provoked in the press by the story of the lighthouse keeper, the selfproclaimed ‘king of Clipperton’ who abused the women after hiding the weapons of the dead soldiers. I incorporated these documents into my fictional world in the quest for a novel about Clipperton that addressed the accounts on Clipperton from the period. Another room, this time a real story, was turned upside down so that I could gain a different perspective. To get back to my family’s arrival in Mexico from Spain, it is possible that the history of Clipperton Island interested me also as the story of another exile. Perhaps, I somehow identified with Captain Arnaud because of the fact that the country he gave his life for had disappeared, a bit like that Spain which my grandparents and parents had to abandon which was an invisible Spain, an imagined country. I thought I also understood the widow who survived, and spent her last years struggling to obtain recognition for the heroic gesture of her husband, to achieve some meaning in a country that, after just a few years, already belonged to other people. Mexico had become a game whose rules she did not know and a country which had rejected her. It’s possible that those who live in exile are like those who live on islands, from where one sees the mainland with nostalgia and, of course, like a mirage that ultimately has nothing to do with reality: the place we left lives on only inside us.

Works Cited Arnaud de Guzmán, T. (1982) La tragedia de Clipperton, Mexico: Editorial Arquz. de Urquizo, F. (1991) El capitán Arnaud, Mexico: Secretaría de la defensa.

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Fernández, E. (1941) La isla de la pasión, Mexico/Argentina/Spain. García Bergua, A. (1993) El Umbral: Travel and Adventures, Mexico: Editorial Era. —. (1999) Púrpura, Mexico: Biblioteca Era. —. (2004) Rosas negras, Mexico: Plaza y Janés. —. (2007) Isla de bobos, Mexico: Planeta/Seix Barral. González Avelar, M. (1992) Clipperton, isla mexicana, Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica. Lime, J-H. (2004) Le roi de Clipperton, Paris: J’ai lu. Restrepo, L. (2005) La isla de la pasión, Mexico: Rayo.

Notes 1

This chapter was translated from Spanish to English by Adriana Díaz Enciso and Niamh Thornton.

CHAPTER SEVEN EXILE AND THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIP IN JOSEFINA ALDECOA’S MUJERES DE NEGRO AND LA FUERZA DEL DESTINO NUALA KENNY

This chapter will explore some of the implications of the transcultural experience and its generational impact, not only on the individual but on Spain as a nation. Josefina Aldecoa’s portrayal of exile reveals the positive and negative aspects of transcultural encounters and its bearing on the mother-daughter relationship. The Francoist dictatorship radically altered the cultural landscape of Spain and resulted in a mass exodus of inhabitants. While the political and socio-historical details of this period have been well documented, the story of the individual, especially the woman’s story, has received less attention. In the trilogy Historia de una maestra (1990) [Story of a Schoolteacher], Mujeres de negro (1994) [Women in Black] and La fuerza del destino (1997) [The Force of Destiny], Aldecoa, herself ‘una niña de la guerra’ [a child of the war], presents a woman-centred testimonial of life in twentieth-century Spain. The second and third novel of the trilogy chart the journey of Republican schoolteacher Gabriela and her daughter Juana, as they travel from Spain to Mexico and back again during the period 1936 to 1982, revealing their conflicting experiences of the exilic process. Both mother and daughter undergo a profound transformation during their years in exile in Mexico as they struggle to come to terms with their new surroundings. As the years pass, mother and daughter find themselves torn between their love for each other and their desire to live in separate countries, the place where they feel they most belong: Gabriela in Mexico and Juana in Spain. In 1975, Gabriela, at her daughter’s behest, returns to post-Francoist Spain. It is here that the intergenerational rift between

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mother and daughter becomes apparent. As Juana determinately moves forward with the political process for democracy, Gabriela enters the darkest period of her life, feeling she has been forgotten, not only by her offspring, but by Spain itself. Throughout the novels, Aldecoa’s desire to present a personal yet historical account of the Civil War and Francoist dictatorship is abundantly evident. Janet Pérez, in her work on women’s Civil War fiction, has identified a number of characteristics associated with these narratives. According to Pérez, the majority of women authors do not support the dictatorship. In addition, Pérez notes that women authors tend to focus primarily on the individual’s tale. Aldecoa does not dwell on battles won and lost but rather the implications for the women and children left behind. Pérez posits that many women writers adopt a contrasting style to their male counterparts when recalling the war years, primarily focusing on personal relationships rather than political events (Pérez and Aycock Wendell 1990, 169). Aldecoa’s novels subtly interweave autobiography, orality, memory, and historical fact to tell a story of war and dictatorship from a woman’s perspective.

The Mother-Daughter Relationship In addition to highlighting a personal experience of war and its aftermath, Aldecoa’s narratives actively strive to foreground the often-silenced voice of the mother, calling attention to the fact that women were denied a voice and forced to remain silent by Franco’s authoritarian regime. Aldecoa tells Gabriela’s story throughout the course of her life, allowing her to speak as a daughter, a mother, and an elderly member of society. She stresses the importance of generational interaction in order to understand the mother and one’s self. In Memories of Resistance, Shirley Mangini (1995, 65-6) confirms the importance of female memory texts, stating that such texts which deal with the early twentieth century in Spain, the war, and its consequences are undoubtedly the most important way to reverse the phantom role of women in the annals of contemporary Spanish writing. Marianne Hirsch warns of failing to inscribe the maternal voice, explaining that ‘to speak for the mother … is at once to give voice to her discourse and to silence and marginalise her’ (1989, 16). While mothers are beginning to be heard in contemporary narratives by women, the voice of the aged remains silenced reflecting the continuing disregard of the elderly in Western culture. Aldecoa successfully inscribes the maternal and ageing female voice in both Mujeres de negro and La fuerza del destino, thus enabling Gabriela to articulate her positive transcultural

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experience in Mexico and convey her overwhelming sense of dislocation on returning to her native Spain. Sarah Leggott in ‘History, Autobiography, Maternity: Josefina Aldecoa’s Historia de una maestra and Mujeres de negro’, points out how in Historia de una maestra, the first novel in the trilogy, it is Gabriela’s role as a mother that prompts her to write her story and dedicate it to Juana, while in Mujeres de negro ‘it is the daughter’s perspective which is given voice, and so both sides of the unique motherdaughter relationship are presented by Aldecoa (1998, 122). Aldecoa’s positive evaluation of the mother’s voice is not common, even in recent publications by women. In recording her life story, Gabriela is ensuring the survival of the stories of the women she encounters, as well as encouraging her daughter Juana to document her story and become involved in the collaborative process of reconstructing and preserving the past. For Gabriela, writing ensures the perpetuation of the past and acts as a barrier against forgetting. This bond between mother and daughter is tested to the extreme as Civil War forces the pair to flee to Mexico and embark on a new life. They must come to terms with their own conflicted sense of identity before they can begin to understand each other as individuals and the complexities of their relationship as mother and daughter.

Exile in Mexico In the wake of Nationalist victory in the Civil War, many decided exile was the only solution. Some fled for fear of persecution at the hands of the victors, while many felt restricted in a suffocating climate marked by censorship and repression. In the opinion of Edward Said, exile is ‘the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted’ (2001, 173). Exile is much more than a geographical separation; it not only adversely affects those who, for whatever motive, feel compelled to leave their country of origin, but also those who remain behind. Paul Ilie, in Literature and Inner Exile, defines exile as a ‘state of mind’. Hence, one does not have to leave one’s country to experience the feelings associated with exile, such as isolation and marginalisation. Ilie explains: A deprivation occurs in both directions, for while the extirpated segment is territorially exiled from the homeland, the resident population is reduced to an inner exile. Each segment is incomplete and absent from the other. (1980, 3)

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Returning exiles face the monumental task of trying to re-assimilate into their native land. In many cases, those in exile retain a sense of nostalgia and longing for the homeland. However, the idealised memory of home rarely lives up to expectations, often producing feelings of anxiety and dislocation on returning home to find a country visibly altered from the one left behind. Andrew Gurr describes exile as an eternal search for a sense of belonging: The need for a sense of home as a base, a source of identity even more than a refuge, has grown powerfully in the last century or so. This sense of home is the goal of all voyages of self-discovery. (1981, 13)

A sense of dislocation is evident in Mujeres de negro and La fuerza del destino as both mother and daughter return to Spain at different periods in their lives, embarking on a painful quest to come to terms with their identity and re-establish a sense of belonging in their native land. In Mujeres de negro, Juana recounts her memories of the war and life in Francoist Spain, living in a provincial town alongside her mother and grandmother following the death of her grandfather and the killing of her father during an insurrection in the Asturian mines. The failure of her mother to secure a teaching post in the Nationalist zone and the threat of persecution pushes mother and daughter to flee to Mexico, aided by Octavio, a wealthy Mexican landowner and Republican sympathiser who proposes marriage as a means of escape; an offer Gabriela cannot refuse. Exile forces mother and daughter to leave behind their home, their country, and their way of life. They must adapt to a future in Mexico, a country very different from Spain, despite sharing a common language. Mother and daughter gradually assimilate into Mexican life, feeling more politically and culturally accepted than in Francoist Spain. They integrate Spanish and Mexican values gaining a plurality of perspectives and an understanding of contrasting cultures. Slowly Gabriela falls in love with Octavio and with Mexico and sets about pursuing her passion for education by establishing a school on the Hacienda. Juana also adjusts well to Mexican life while her relationship with her mother flourishes, removed from the pressures of living under a dictatorial regime in Spain. Juana, despite missing her home, gradually begins to accept that her mother’s transformation is a positive one and that Mexico has provided them both with a wealth of opportunities. Nevertheless, exile poses many challenges. Gabriela feels compelled to repress the memories of her old life in order to wholly embrace Mexico as their adopted homeland. To encourage her daughter to become integrated with Mexican culture, Gabriela denies her Spanish roots. Remedios, the

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housekeeper and female voice of reason in Gabriela’s life, accurately states: ‘tu madre no quiere cocinar a la española porque no quiere recordar’ (MN, 116) [your mother does not want to cook Spanish food because she does not want to remember].1 Growing up in Mexico, Juana enjoys the freedom to determine her own course in life, something that many young women in 1950s Spain were denied. Her love of colour and independent nature is reflective of her positive experience in Mexico. Yet ultimately, her time there merely serves to re-affirm her desire to make Spain her true spiritual and ideological home and to become active in the political process to secure democracy for Spain. However, for Gabriela, following her initial trepidation at leaving behind all she cared for in Spain and starting over, Mexico becomes a refuge removed from the trauma of the Civil War and her memories of unrealised dreams. Thus the generational conflict between mother and daughter is symbolically depicted through their differing perspectives on Mexico and their ability to readjust to life in Spain. It becomes evident that the mother-daughter bond is not strong enough to withstand the pressure of a culture in conflict, caught between its past and its future. In Mexico, Juana attends a school founded by Spanish exiles offering a liberal education. The school opens up a new way of viewing the world for Juana and stirs dormant childhood memories of Spain. It creates a desire in the young adolescent to return home to Spain and her past. These feelings are primarily awoken on hearing the Spanish of her childhood spoken aloud. It is through language that Juana discovers her identity, feeling submerged in: … un ambiente en el que se hablaba el español de mi infancia … los ecos distintos de castellano, catalán, andaluz, vasco, gallego. Al regresar al lenguaje, regresé al país y al deseo de conocerlo algún día. (MN, 115) [an environment in which the Spanish of my childhood was spoken ... the various echoes of Castilian, Catalan, Andalusian, Basque, and Galician. On hearing the language, I returned to Spain and to the desire to know it someday].

Juana is anxious never to forget the past and urges her mother to pass on her memories and stories. She cannot deny her Spanish roots and is eager to return in order to understand her mother’s past and her own individuality. Leggott examines the usage of language in Historia de una maestra and Mujeres de negro, questioning its meaning and unifying quality for women. She points to how Juana’s identification with language

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‘raises the question of the kind of ‘patria’ which language can possibly be for women’ (1998, 118). Although Juana questions whether her mother could have imagined the impact hearing her native Spanish would have on her, Gabriela does encourage this positive identification with language. Gabriela urges Juana to see the world as her home, not to confine herself solely to one country: ‘el mundo es patria … no te aferres a las patrias pequeñas’ (MN, 80) [the world is one’s homeland … do not confine yourself to small homelands]. This statement echoes that of Virginia Woolf who affirmed, ‘As a woman, I have no country. As a woman, I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world’ (1938, 197). As Juana struggles to determine whether Spain or Mexico constitutes her true home, she finds solace in the notion of language as representative of home: ‘el idioma, mi única, mi verdadera patria’ (MN, 117) [language, my only real homeland]. Throughout the two narratives, Juana stands in total contrast to her mother. Growing up in Mexico, a land brimming with promise and opportunity in comparison to Francoist Spain, nurtured Juana’s carefree attitude, her love of freedom and of colour. Since childhood, Juana has associated her mother with black: ‘recuerdo a mi madre siempre de negro, negro sobre negro’ (MN, 194) [I remember my mother always in black, black over black]. Juana perceives her mother’s pervasive negativity and sombre attitude as an integral part of her being rather than a response to the suffering she endured during the Civil War and its aftermath. Juana fails to comprehend her mother’s inability to leave behind her melancholic disposition, even when surrounded by the beauty of Mexican culture and the welcome of its people.

The Daughter’s Journey Home It is only on arriving in Madrid in 1950 that Juana is confronted by the harsh reality of life under a dictator and realises how her mother’s decision to journey to Mexico enabled her to experience a youth free from repression and fear. She soon discovers the traumatic reality of exile. Paloma Aguilar articulates the depth of trauma involved in the exilic process and the psychological issues associated with returning home following a protracted absence: According to Aguilar the exile loses his group of reference, which is split and dissolved; on the other hand, he loses his familiar spatial images. When he returns, not having been inculcated with the values which have socialised the rest of society over so many years, being unaware of the historical memory which has been transmitted and having only his

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personal experience to fall back on, the subsequent break with his generation, with members of the former groups he belonged to and with his geographical area, is much greater (2002, 11). Rather than feeling truly at home in Spain, Juana experiences a sense of dislocation, causing her to question the nucleus of her identity: ¿Será que no me siento totalmente española? Mis referencias españolas eran referencias de una infancia en pueblos y en una ciudad de provincias. Tenía poco que ver con el mundo de mis nuevos compañeros. (MN, 14750) [Could it be that I do not feel entirely Spanish? My Spanish references were references from a childhood spent in small towns and a provincial city. It had little to do with the world of my new friends].

Finally, Juana begins to empathise with her mother’s despondency and that of the generation to which she belongs. Juana does not encounter the Spain of her childhood nor view it with the same childish innocence; she is faced with a country in ruins, deep in the throes of an oppressive dictatorship. During a train journey outside Madrid, Juana witnesses the impact of exodus due to economic necessity and fear. She is surrounded by mourning women in whom she recognises her mother: ‘reconocí a mi madre en la mujer de negro que viajaba a mi lado. La incapacidad de salir de su negro ropaje’ (MN, 154) [I recognised my mother in the woman dressed in black travelling beside me. The inability to leave behind her black attire]. She connects with her mother’s indomitable melancholy and austere exterior, but vows never to follow in her footsteps. Juana staunchly refuses to become ‘una mujer de negro’ [a woman in black] like so many women of her mother’s generation. Her desire for freedom becomes a manifest rejection of her mother’s way of life, illustrating her optimism for a better future for herself and for Spain. Juana and her politically active friends are eager to assert their authority, to take charge and change the course of Spain’s history. Yet, the young Juana still cannot settle in Spain, she continues her nomadic existence by travelling to Paris and then on to Mexico to comfort her mother following the death of Octavio, searching for a place to belong, before finally returning to Spain. She concludes that while her roots remain in Spain, she cannot deny the importance of Mexico: ‘México me pertenecía y yo pertenecía a México. Una vez más me reconocí víctima de un desgarro, a mitad de camino, en el centro del puente que unía mis dos patrias’ (MN, 201) [Mexico belonged to me and I to Mexico. Once again I found myself torn, halfway, in the middle of the bridge that linked my two countries].

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The End of Exile? In La fuerza del destino, Gabriela takes up the story, allowing both sides of the mother-daughter relationship be heard. The novel opens as she receives the news of Franco’s death. For her, this marks the end of her protracted exile. However, she is unsure of her feelings: ‘El final del destierro. Yo no estaba alegre. Demasiado tarde. No me sentía con fuerzas para brindar por Ezequiel, por nuestros sueños rotos, por mi vida truncada’ (FD, 11) [The end of exile. I did not feel happy. It was too late. I did not have the strength to raise a toast to Ezequiel, to our shattered dreams, to my life that had been cut short]. (This echoes Aldecoa’s own mixed emotions on hearing the news of Franco’s death, having lived most of her life under the shadow of the dictator, enduring an internal rather than geographical exile: ‘Los cuarenta años de la dictadura cayeron sobre mí como una losa. Demasiado tarde para los que éramos niños en 1936’) (2004, 171) [The forty years of the dictatorship fell down on me like a tombstone. Too late for those of us who were children in 1936]). At seventy-one years of age, Gabriela finds herself embarking on a new chapter in her life as she returns to Spain. To a certain extent, however, Gabriela has lived her entire existence in a state of exile; she has always stood apart from the majority and felt isolated due to her principles and outlook on life. Yolanda Pascual Solé posits: El exilio es el resultado del inconformismo que caracteriza a Gabriela a lo largo de las tres novelas: inconformismo ante la ignorancia, ante la desigualdad de acceso a la educación entre el hombre y la mujer. (2000, 398) [Exile is the end result of the nonconformity that characterises Gabriela throughout the three novels: her refusal to accept ignorance, to accept inequality of access to education for men and women].

Now an elderly Gabriela must face an emotional and psychological exile in Spain. Symbolically, she lives on the outskirts of Madrid, in a residential neighbourhood detached from the rest of the city; immersed into a world of silence. Gabriela feels isolated, both physically and mentally, from the radically altered Spain in which she finds herself. Pascual Solé (406) further comments: … ella que ha vivido un exilio interior, y también geográfico, a causa de las ideas y del tipo de sociedad que Franco representa, no puede identificar ningún aspecto de su identidad con ese espacio.

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[she, who has endured an internal, as well as geographical exile as a result of the ideas and the type of society Franco represented, cannot identify in any way with that space].

She soon realises she has become a stranger in her own native land; in a Spain so different from the one she felt compelled to abandon over thirty years previously. Her return reignites her painful memories of the Civil War and the loss of her loved ones. She becomes haunted by shadows and plagued by nightmares and vivid daydreams forcing her to relive a traumatic past, something she never experienced in Mexico. Jo Labanyi explores the options when one is faced with such ghosts of the past: One can refuse to see them or shut them out, as the official discourses of the State have always done. One can cling to them obsessively through the pathological process of introjection that Freud called melancholia, allowing the past to take over the present and convert it into a ‘living death’. Or one can offer them habitation in order to acknowledge their presence, through the healing introjection process that is mourning, which, for Freud, differs from melancholia in that it allows one to lay the ghosts of the past to rest by, precisely, acknowledging them as past. (2000, 65)

In telling her story and reconstructing her memories, Gabriela offers a voice to the vanquished by recounting the lives and deaths of loved ones, including those killed during the war. However, despite her attempts to lay these ghosts to rest, they continue to haunt Gabriela, and the more she carries the burden of reinstating their voices, the further she sinks into a nebulous world where she too becomes a shadow, unseen and silenced. In fact, Gabriela’s failure to assimilate into life in her homeland can be seen as symptomatic of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which Cathy Caruth defines as: A response, sometimes delayed, to an overwhelming event or events, which takes the form of repeated, intrusive hallucinations, dreams, thoughts or behaviours stemming from the event, along with numbing that may have begun during or after the experience. To be traumatised is precisely to be possessed by an image or event. (1995, 4)

Despite having lived through the Civil War and the dictatorial regime and been forced to flee her home for fear of repercussions for supporting Republican ideology, it is only when Gabriela returns home in 1975 that she feels truly silenced and marginalised. Gabriela only agreed to return to Spain to fulfil a promise she made to her daughter. She quickly becomes conscious that her generation no longer has a voice in contemporary

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Spain. She looks on quietly as her daughter’s generation takes charge, eagerly forging ahead with the future, without reflection on the past. Gabriela, a teacher, mother, and wife, was once a pillar of the community in Spain and in Mexico, yet now finds herself redundant, inactive and without a role to play in the creation of the nation’s democratic future. Hence, in returning to her homeland in search of her daughter, Gabriela experiences another more traumatic form of exile. She now questions where she truly belongs: ‘¿Dónde está el núcleo de mi vida? ¿En los treinta y ocho años de España o en los treinta y tres de México?’ (FD, 113) [Where is the nucleus of my life? In the thirty-eight years spent in Spain or the thirty-three years spent in Mexico?]. Gabriela regrets her return to Spain having found happiness in Mexico with Octavio, where she felt accepted, a fact that Juana could never fully comprehend. She longs to reveal the truth to her daughter, but fears it is too late: La verdadera Gabriela es la de México, debería decirle a mi hija, que siempre me ha tenido por austera, sacrificada, dura. Juana, no me conoces. Siempre he querido vivir intensamente. (FD, 104-05) [I should tell my daughter, who has always considered me to be austere, self-sacrificing, and harsh, that the real Gabriela belongs to Mexico. Juana, you do not know me. I have always wanted to live life to the full].

Juana fails to notice her mother’s despondency notwithstanding Gabriela’s persistent attempts to communicate with her in non-verbal ways. Unfortunately, as Gabriela allows her life to slip from her grasp she refuses to speak, while Juana still cannot acknowledge her mother’s concerns for the future: ‘no puedo hablar y Juana no puede adivinar lo que pienso’ (FD, 222) [I cannot speak and Juana cannot guess what I am thinking]. As the Constitution of 1978 is introduced and ratified by referendum, Juana intensifies her involvement in securing democracy for Spain. Gabriela disagrees with her daughter’s political ideology and questions the Socialist commitment to education. While Gabriela understands the ideals of the younger generation, she fears history may repeat itself if the lessons of the past are not heeded: ‘La historia no va a saltos. Cada etapa es consecuencia de la anterior’ (FD, 62) [History does not leap forward. Every stage is a consequence of what has gone before]. She fears that this emerging generation will forget the past and the warnings it holds for the future. Gabriela agrees that Spain can be transformed peacefully, yet she queries whether the past is being remembered and urges Juana and her husband: ‘venganza no, pero

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memoria sí. Perdonad, pero no olvidéis’ (FD, 75) [remembrance, not vengeance. Forgive, but do not forget]. The response of Juana is laughter, illustrating the unwillingness on the part of many to deal with the past, but also, the lack of regard for the elderly in contemporary society as the younger generation confronts the older one; as each group struggles to assert its control over the present and thus the future. It is clear that Juana and Gabriela are representative of two conflicting generations, mirroring Spain’s conflict between its past and its present, memory and amnesia.

Conclusion The linkage of the mother-daughter relationship and exile with transcultural encounters enables Aldecoa to entwine the personal and the national to create a realistic albeit problematic account of this period in Spanish history. In the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, the Francoist regime enforced a new collective memory and oppressive social system on the majority, a significant contributory factor in the emigration of countless citizens. In Mujeres de negro, we witness the plight of a young mother who feels compelled to abandon her home and way of life for fear of persecution and travels with her daughter to Mexico in search of a better existence. The years in Mexico prove fruitful for Gabriela and Juana and help to strengthen the mother-daughter bond. The vibrancy of the Mexican landscape and the warmth of the people encourage Gabriela to become less despondent and withdrawn. She begins to believe that a better life can be found in Mexico for her and Juana. Gabriela’s transformation is metaphorically depicted through her shedding of her sombre black attire and the donning of hints of subtle colour. For Juana, Mexico enables her to grow into an educated, confident young woman who refuses to accept any limitations or believe that dreams are not possible. Mexico also re-affirms her desire to return to her native homeland and make a difference, both politically and socially. Their eventual return to Spain, at very different stages in their lives, is not without difficulty. Juana initially struggles to reconcile herself with the landscape she left behind as a young child, despite having been instilled with a positive and inquisitive outlook on life during her formative years in Mexico. Unfortunately, Gabriela does not possess the strength of her daughter and cannot assimilate into post-Francoist Spain. She finds herself a stranger in her own country, residing both physically and metaphorically in a liminal hinterland, torn between the past and the present, the real and

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the imagined. She battles her desire to return to Mexico, her spiritual home, the only place where she could be her true self, with her innate need to be close to her only child. Yet, despite the deterioration of their relationship, Gabriela is proud of her daughter and of herself, for undertaking the journey to Mexico, a journey that provided Gabriela with some of the happiest memories of her life and moulded Juana into a strong woman who is determined to fully participate in Spain’s transformation from dictatorship to democracy.

Works Cited Aldecoa, J. (1990) Historia de una maestra, Barcelona: Anagrama. —. (1994) Mujeres de negro, Barcelona: Anagrama. —. (1997) La fuerza del destino, Barcelona: Anagrama. —. (2004) En la distancia, Madrid: Alfaguara. Aguilar, P. (2002) Memory and Amnesia: The Role of the Spanish Civil War in the Transition to Democracy, trans. by Mark Oakley, Oxford: Berghahn Books. Caruth, C. (ed.) (1995) Trauma: Explorations in Memory, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Gurr, A. (1981) Writers in Exile: The Identity of Home in Modern Literature, Sussex: The Harvester Press. Hirsch, M. (1989) The Mother/Daughter Plot: Narrative, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ilie, P. (1980) Literature and Inner Exile: Authoritarian Spain 1939-1975, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Labanyi, J. (2000) ‘History and Hauntology; or, What Does One Do with the Ghosts of the Past? Reflections on Spanish Film and Fiction of the Post-Franco Period’, in J. Ramon Resina (ed.), Disremembering the Dictatorship: The Politics of Memory in the Transition to Democracy, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 65-82. Leggott, S. (1998) ‘History, Autobiography, Maternity: Josefina Aldecoa’s Historia de una maestra and Mujeres de negro’, Letras Femeninas, vol. 24, 111-28. Mangini, S. (1995) Memories of Resistance: Women’s Voices from the Spanish Civil War, New Haven: Yale University Press. Pérez, J. (1988) Contemporary Women Writers of Spain, Boston: Twayne Publishers. Pérez, J. and Aycock, W. (eds.) (1990) The Spanish Civil War in Literature, Lubbock, Texas Tech University Press.

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Pascual Solé, Y. (2000) ‘Historia de una maestra, Mujeres de negro y La fuerza del destino de Josefina Aldecoa. Una trayectoria vital: Del exilio al no destierro,’ in Pilar Cuder Domínguez, (ed.), Exilios femeninos, Universidad de Huelva, 397-407. Said, E. (2001) Reflections on Exile: And Other Literary Cultural Essays, London: Granta Books. Woolf, V. (1975) A Room of One’s Own, London: The Hogarth Press.

Notes 1

All translations from Spanish to English are my own.

CHAPTER EIGHT TELLING THEIR ‘WAR STORY’: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE PERCEPTIONS OF BRITISH AND SPANISH WOMEN ACTIVISTS OF THEIR EXPERIENCES OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR DEIRDRE FINNERTY

The international dimension of the Spanish Civil War continues to attract much academic interest seventy years later. This is not surprising, given that Spain was the platform onto which the great ideological debates that marred the twentieth century were dramatically projected. Foreign aid was essential to the conflict and decisions taken by France, England, Russia, Italy, Germany and the United States impacted greatly on the war’s outcome. However, perhaps the most striking aspect of the international intervention was the arrival of the thousands of men and women who made up the renowned International Brigades. And if the presence of foreign men seemed out of the ordinary during the war, the arrival of many women members of the International Brigades would have been an even more astonishing departure. This was the first time in history that women in numbers dared to travel to a foreign land at war and risk their life for a foreign cause. This chapter will investigate, and compare and contrast the manner in which British and Spanish women who participated in the war recorded their experiences. Felicia Browne, the only British woman to fight (and die) at the front during the Spanish Civil War, wrote: ‘I am a member of the London Communists and can fight as well as any man’ (Jackson 2002, 130). In her farewell speech to the International Brigades, pronounced when they were withdrawn from action in October 1938, the Spanish Communist leader Dolores Ibárruri, better known as La Pasionaria, addressed the brigadeers as follows:

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Chapter Eight Comunistas, socialistas, anarquistas, republicanos, hombres de distinto color, de ideología diferente, de religiones antagónicas … vinieron a ofrecerse a nosotros incondicionalmente … anhelaban el honor de morir por nosotros. ¡Banderas de España! ¡Saludad a tantos héroes, inclinaos ante tantos mártires! (1938)1 [Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, Republicans, men of different colours, differing ideology, antagonistic religions … they came and offered themselves to us unconditionally … they aspired to the honour of dying for us. Flags of Spain! Salute these many heroes! Be lowered to honour so many martyrs!]2

Both women were representative of the radical advance that the active participation of women in the Spanish Civil War signified. Academics concerned with the study of women in the Spanish Civil War have noted clear differences in men and women’s accounts of the war. Angela Jackson has stated that: In general, women’s recollections of their interaction with war differ markedly from those of men, not only because the experience was in itself typically different, but because their distinctly gendered perspectives are reflected in their narrative form. (2002, 85)

The ‘War Story’, or the traditional patriarchal narrative framework that is given to war (discussed below), influences the way in which both British and Spanish women narrated their wartime experiences. In the words of Jackson, ‘War is told from the masculine perspective. This is reinforced by historians who prioritise the military and political aspects of war’ (2002, 3). If women are excluded from this narrative framework, how does this affect the way that they talk about war? This chapter will analyse the testimonies, letters, memoirs and diaries of British and Spanish women activists in the Spanish Civil War in relation to Miriam Cooke’s notion of the ‘War Story’. It aims to compare and contrast how British and Spanish women perceived their wartime experiences and motivations, and the extent to which their stories were shaped by the ‘War Story’ paradigm. According to Cooke, the ‘War Story’ is traditionally narrated in Western culture through a series of binary oppositions that include war and peace, front and rearguard, public and private, men and women, protectors and protected, despite the active role that women may have played. Women who publicly participate in the war-effort challenge the dominant ‘War Story’ narrative framework. I shall examine British and Spanish women activists’ accounts of the war, thereby investigating the influence of the traditional narrative template of war on their perceptions

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of their personal experiences. Jackson, in her study, British Women and the Spanish Civil War (2002), recounts British women’s involvement in the war and their motivations, through the inclusion and analysis of oral and written personal narratives. Jim Fryth and Sally Alexander’s Women’s Voices from the Spanish Civil War, 1991, also offers a collection of wartime letters, memoirs and diary extracts of British nurses, journalists and aid workers who travelled to Spain during the conflict to contribute to the war effort. On the Spanish side, I shall examine Tomasa Cuevas’ published accounts of the experiences of Spanish women in Testimonios de mujeres en las cárceles franquistas (2004) [Testimonies of Women in Francoist Prisons], a three volume collection of testimonies of Republican women imprisoned by the regime in the aftermath of the Civil War. It is necessary to clarify why oral testimonies of Spanish women collected after the Civil War will be compared to oral and written narratives of British women, some of which were produced in wartime. Firstly, narratives, whether oral or written, of British and Spanish women who participated in the Spanish Civil War are relatively scarce. Consequently, it is not feasible to eliminate texts produced after the war. However, it is also important to mention that the Spanish women who gave their oral testimonies did so forty years after the war’s end, and thus their views and interpretations of the war may have been altered to a degree over time. Nonetheless, this chapter aims to make a comparison of the material that is available. Secondly, on the question of whether oral and written narratives can be viewed together, I follow Shirley Mangini’s approach to women’s memory texts of the Spanish Civil War. Given the strong autobiographical and testimonial nature of the memory texts, she considers both oral and written texts as oral history and uses them as a source from which to analyse particular elements of the experiences of Republican women in the wartime and post-war period (Mangini 1995, 56-70). In addition, for our present purpose, it is the structuring of the narratives within patriarchal war discourses that is the focus, and for this reason the type of narrative becomes less important. In a sense, in speaking out about their mistreatment in the Francoist prisons, all of the testimonies in Cuevas contest the Francoist ‘War Story’ as a necessary crusade against liberalism. ‘Official’ Francoist memory of the Civil War was constantly reinforced throughout the forty years of the dictatorship to legitimise the military coup as a necessary measure to bring peace and order to Spain (Richards 1998). However, the focus of this analysis is not the emergence of a Republican counter-memory, but an investigation into women’s perspective on the war across two different cultures. This chapter will study the extent to which British and Spanish

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women’s opinions of their very public wartime activities were influenced by the dominant narrative framework of war which traditionally excludes them.

Historical Background Spanish women’s political awakening during the five years of the Second Republic had prepared them for the Civil War. This was a time of tremendous social change for women, a short flash of freedom before the dark and oppressive regime that was to come. Labour legislation, maternity insurance plans, education reform and the abolition of prostitution were introduced during the Second Republic (Nash 1995, 41). Article 34 of the Constitution had afforded women the right to vote from October 1931 and civil marriage and divorce had been legalised in 1932. The Catalan Generalitat had even legalised abortion in December 1936 (Lannon 1991, 213-228). Women formed and directed political organisations, created newspapers and magazines, organised food supplies, provided medical assistance, worked in the munitions factories and transport services and collaborated closely with men. Demand for women in the workforce increased as more and more men left to fight at the front (Lannon 1991, 219-21). Women who had lost their lives on the frontlines, such as Lina Odena, became war icons, and iconography depicting young women in dungarees, wielding guns, became very popular and featured on many posters in the first few months of the war (Lannon 1991, 217). On the Republican side some women became prominent and instantly recognisable political figures, the most famous of all being the communist leader, La Pasionaria, quoted above. As previously mentioned, the Spanish Civil War was not just a Spanish affair. It is estimated that the International Brigades comprised of approximately 2,400 British volunteers and many more were involved in other movements to aid the Republican anti-Francoist resistance both in Spain and in Britain (Jackson 2002, 6). Aránzazu Usandizaga asserts that when the Spanish Civil War broke out, apart from the Crusades of the Middle Ages, no previous war had received such a massive international response for ideological reasons (Jackson 2002, 15). It is impossible to determine the exact number of British women who were involved in the war, however it is estimated that more than seventy British women worked for long periods of time in the medical and refugee services (Jackson 2002, 269). Jackson also acknowledges that many more women travelled to Spain to participate in the war for shorter periods of time. Fryth maintains that reliable records exist of 170 English-speaking women,

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although these were not necessarily British, participating in the medical or relief services, and thirty more worked as journalists, radio broadcasters, or delegates (Fryth and Alexander 1991, 23). For the most part, British women who travelled to Spain had to be content with rearguard duties as they were not allowed on the battlefields. However, that is not to say that they did not risk their lives as they worked in makeshift hospitals set up near the frontlines. It has been well documented that one of the most important issues in the Spanish Civil War was the social, political, legal and cultural status of women. Republican Spain promoted an image of the independent mujer nueva, or ‘new woman’, who, like men, made every effort to defend democratic Spain, particularly among Communist and Anarchist circles (Folguera 1988, 73). During the Civil War, the Spanish Fascist Party, the Falange, founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera in 1933, availed of the labour of the Sección Femenina [Women’s Section] of the Party, who distributed pamphlets, made uniforms, cared for wounded soldiers, and were of assistance wherever they were needed but always in keeping with unequivocal gender designated roles (Bussy Genevois 1992, 267-286).3 As the war progressed, anti-Francoist women were encouraged even by Republican women’s groups not to participate in armed fighting but to occupy the traditional roles assigned to women at the war front, such as washing clothes and mending uniforms. When Minister for War Francisco Largo Caballero organised the Ejército Popular de la República [People’s Republican Army] women were forced back to the rearguard in an effort to improve the army’s efficiency (Folguera 1988, 74). Fighting was for men only; women were considered a hindrance due to their lack of military training or experience of carrying a gun (Nash 1995, 112). Nevertheless, it is fair to say that the Republican side still did not share the same determination as the Nationalist side to impose a traditional, domestic, role for women. Lannon states that: In the Republican rearguard, it was political groups most directly committed to a view of the Civil War as social revolution that produced women’s organisations and publications determined to shape a new status for women in Spain. (1991, 223)

Women and the War Story Jim Fryth highlights the extent to which women’s wartime participation went unrecorded when he cites a report by Gaumont British News of the first medical unit from any country to go to Spain. The speaker affirms that ‘The brave adventure of these ambulance men has started, and we too

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wish them the best of luck’ (Fryth and Alexander 1991, 23). The commentator fails to mention, however, that seven of these ambulance men are women, illustrating how the way in which war is traditionally narrated places even women who take on public roles in the background. I investigate below whether this traditional wartime discourse, which excludes women, was reflected in anti-Francoist women’s personal narratives. I shall examine the perceptions of the most active British and Spanish women participants during the war, as their participation does not sit easily within the War-Story paradigm. An ‘active’ participant in the Civil War, whether British or Spanish, will be defined as any anti-Francoist woman who had a specific post of public responsibility in Spain, or took on specific duties in the public sphere, in the activities associated with the conflict, either at the front or at the rearguard. ‘Active’ Civil War participants include nurses, journalists (including radio broadcasters), nurse’s aides, secretaries, women working in administration for any of the political parties, women who gave talks at conferences and party meetings, who worked in munitions factories, those who distributed propaganda, volunteers in the rearguard aid organisations and also any woman who took on specific responsibilities outside the home. While López Rodríguez (2008) has documented that some Nationalist women (both Spanish and international) took on essential and sometimes dangerous roles, the strict exclusion of journalists and international observers from the Nationalist zones meant that British women on the Nationalist side were not given the same opportunity to record their experiences as those on the Republican side during the war, a notable exception being British nurse Priscilla ScottEllis, the author of a lengthy memoir. Furthermore, Usadizaga notes that the Nationalist image of women did not inspire new ways of thinking or offer them new modes of expression about their role in society (2000, 24), nor did Spanish Nationalist women themselves challenge their subordination to men (Jackson 2002, 5). As such, British and Spanish women on the anti-Francoist side are most relevant to the analysis of women’s narrative construction and the traditional modes of writing/telling about war. In her book Women and the War Story, Miriam Cooke revolutionised the way in which war is perceived. Focusing on women’s voices in literature about the Algerian War of Independence, the Six-Day War, the Intifada, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Gulf War, Cooke contends that women’s experiences contest the conventional cultural paradigms and meanings of war.

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Women and the War Story suggests that there is no one history, no one story about war, that has greater claim to truth but that history is made up of multiple stories, many of them herstories, which emanate from and then reconstruct events. (1996, 4)

Cooke defines the War Story as ‘a narrative frame that has for millennia shaped the articulation of the war experience’ (1996, 6). She contends that ‘The War Story gives order to wars that are generally experienced as confusion’ (1996, 15). Cooke maintains that war, like gender, is considered to be natural and binary. She argues that: … military historians force a grid on the anarchy; they arrange experience and actors into neat pairs; beginning and ending; foe and friend; aggression and defence; war and peace; front and home; combatant and civilian. Emphasizing that such splits occur, they explain women’s need for protection as the reason men must fight. (1996, 15)

The ‘War Story’ organises the confusing and difficult experience of war into a coherent narrative. However, Cooke believes that women’s counternarratives cause us to question our perceptions of war. She asserts that women’s writing that retells women’s experience from outside the dominant paradigm has the potential to interrupt the traditional War Story pattern. Language matters. In women’s writings, there is no right place for killing or theft or rape. These women refuse the polarization of space that conceals the fact the violence of war is not so different from the violence of peace. They reject black and white certainties and thus cast doubt on the validity of semiotic transformations occasioned because of the space and action with which they are attached. (1996, 43)

Cooke maintains that women who write outside the War Story paradigm emphasise the social over the political, illustrating a different kind of civic engagement (1996, 11). Jackson has stated that ‘narratives reflect the conscious or unconscious desire to ‘compose’ a life-history within an internal logic’ (2002, 11). Accordingly, do British and Spanish women compose their stories within the ‘internal logic’ of the War Story? Do British and Spanish women conform to or challenge this paradigm when they speak about their war experience? In her work on the testimonies of Spanish women imprisoned for their wartime involvement, Mangini has previously noted that the female

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narratives conform to Estelle Jelinek’s idea that ‘females emphasize not so much their political and historical connections, but rather their personal relationships with others’ (1995, 58). Nonetheless, opinions differ amongst academics as to how international women volunteers perceived their involvement. Valentine Cunningham contends that international women’s writings prove women’s role in the Spanish Civil War conformed to strictly traditional models (1986, xxxii). Usandizaga disagrees with Cunningham in the introduction to her anthology of the writings of women members of the International Brigades, and observes that many women expressed opinions about their participation that contradict traditional notions of what a women’s wartime role should be (2000, 21). A number of recurring features came to my attention while considering the narratives of British and Spanish women according to Cooke’s theory. These were: 1. the presence or absence of an attempt to fill in the historical gaps in the narratives with knowledge acquired later in life.4 2. the contrasting motivations of British and Spanish participation in the war 3. the presence or absence of a denunciation of the suffering caused by the conflict and a rejection of the notion of war 4. the tendency to comply to traditional discourses of the ‘heroic warrior’ when referring to male combatants.

A marked contrast can be perceived in the descriptions of British and Spanish women of their motivations for their wartime participation. (Of course, a certain degree of difference is to be expected as the war would determine the future of Spanish women, whereas, the British women had a less personal involvement). However, despite their Republican leanings, British women, particularly nurses, deviated greatly from the War Story by emphasising their willingness to help the suffering, regardless of the side to which they belonged, illustrating a more humanitarian and less political agenda. This does not conform to the War Story which tends to perpetuate binary oppositions, such as friend and foe, in order to achieve a political victory. When explaining her reasons for going to Spain, Penny Phelps stated that: I didn’t go to Spain for any political reasons, there was a need somewhere. I mean, it’s like you see a gap and you think ‘Oh dear, that’s dangerous’, or they need help, and so I thought I could perhaps help in some small way. (Jackson 2002, 10)

Ann Murray describes treating a fascist soldier:

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We got a wounded Fascist in. He was a Fascist officer, a high sort of ranking Spanish officer. And of course, we had to treat everybody, you know. But the young Spaniards, the casualties were shouting at us ‘Leave him to die, leave him to die’. But of course we were just there to treat all the people. (Jackson 2002, 100)

Phyllis Hibbert maintained that British nurses volunteered from a purely humanitarian perspective, ‘I say humanitarianism because 60 per cent of the nursing staff had no definite political views, but were merely democrats with a desire to succour the suffering’ (Jackson 2002, 85).5 Spanish women, on the other hand, were motivated by a very clear political agenda during the war. In this respect, the Spanish women conformed to the Cooke’s notion of the War Story by emphasising a particular political, rather than social, standpoint which they were prepared to defend in wartime. In her oral testimony to Cuevas Antonia García remarked that ‘Yo defiendo la política del Partido donde sea porque creo que es la justa’ (2004, 345) [I defend (Communist) Party policy anywhere because I think it is right]. For many Spanish women their political beliefs were a source of great pride which they continued to defend, even when brought before the Francoist authorities towards the end of the war. When questioned by the Francoist Civil Guards, Pilar Calvo responded in the following manner, ‘Yo le contesté que no había matado a ninguno, que tenía un ideal, lo tenía y lo tendría toda la vida, no lo podía negar porque lo tenía dentro de mí’ (Cuevas 2004, 159) [I replied that I hadn’t killed anyone, that I had a belief, I had it and I would have it all my life, I couldn’t deny it because I felt it deep inside of me]. Paz Azati was not willing to renounce her political beliefs when being tried by the Francoist courts, even though admitting to Communist Party membership meant a longer prison sentence. Paz was immensely proud of belonging to the Party which is clearly illustrated in the following quote: Porque para nosotras aquello era como una defensa, un galardón, un orgullo. Yo me acuerdo que a mí me dijeron: ‘¿Usted, qué era? ¿de las Juventudes?’ y yo dije: ‘No, yo era del Partido Comunista.’ (Cuevas 2004, 359) [Because for us that was like a defence, an award, something to be proud of. I remember that they asked me: ‘What were you? Were you in the Juventudes?’ and I said: ‘No I was in the Communist Party’.]

When referring to how British women experienced the reality of war, Alexander observes that:

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Chapter Eight The stern reality of watching so many die … or starve … or people faced with impossible choices … and the gradual defeat of Republican hopes meant that the war these women describe is closer to emotional suffering than the heroism of armed combat we are more familiar with from men’s memoirs ....(Fryth and Alexander 1991, 21)

This corresponds to Cooke’s notion of ‘messier’ narrations of war. In Cooke’s view, women are less likely to glorify war, focusing instead on the suffering caused by war. This is clearly demonstrated in the following quotes from British women which emphasise the horror of suffering and the devastation of war. In her collection of unpublished memoirs, Frida Stewart writes: The first impression of the centre was quite unforgettable–the stench that assailed you as you approached the entrance, the sight of the muck heaps and piles of rusty rubbish and refuse, and of the ragged people sitting and leaning in the doorway, the filthy bony little children crawling about in the semi-darkness of the interior. It was all like something out of Dickens at his most sordid, hardly believable that it could exist in 1937. (Jackson 2002, 119)

Thora Silverthorne was so traumatised by the suffering that she openly pleads that a man she refers to as Shon, clearly a close friend or relative, not to come out to join her. She writes: I can imagine by this time Shon is almost at the point of coming out. Please don’t let him, I just couldn’t stand the strain of knowing he was in danger too…. (Fryth and Alexander 1991, 57)

This resists the patriarchal framework which necessitates, to the point of glorification, men’s bravery and willingness to fight. Some British women even reject the notion of war altogether as is demonstrated in the following quote from Penelope Phelps: War is a great atrocity. The responsibility lies with those who started the war. But Spain is red, a friend said to me. ‘Yes’, I replied, ‘It is red with blood. Blood is splashed over the streets and the gutters run with it. For weeks my fingernails were stained by the blood, and my arms were spattered up to the elbows with it.’ (Fryth and Alexander 1991, 80)6

On the other hand, in the three volumes of Spanish testimonies, only one reference suggests an objection to violence. Amparo Arranz Castillo

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declared that ‘Lo que es por mi parte, no recibiría nadie ni un golpe’ (Cuevas 2004, 579) [Personally, I wouldn’t lay a hand on anybody]. As a general rule, descriptions of the horror of war are strangely absent from the testimonies of Spanish women. Their narratives describe concisely and succinctly their sense of duty and obligation to defend their government in whatever way they could. The references they make to armed combat and to their own wartime participation are very matter of fact. In the course of her testimony to Cuevas, Nieves Waldemar states that, ‘Era una Guerra y había que ayudar a la causa del gobierno republicano’(Cuevas 2004, 91). [It was a war and one had to support the Republican cause]. A similar detached tone is evident in the testimony of Encarna Juárez: Empezó la Guerra. Eso tiene muchos pormenores, pero lo dejamos atrás … Teníamos que atender frentes, que en eso tampoco voy a entrar en detalles; cada una ha trabajado en las cosas que eran capaces. Así fuimos luchando hasta mayo. (Cuevas 2004, 681-4) [The war started. I could explain in a lot more detail, but let’s move on …We had to play our part at the front, but I’m not going to go into go into detail about that either; every woman worked in whatever she could. We struggled on like that until May.]

In fact, despite the atrocities of the war, many of the Spanish women highlight that they would be willing to go through their experiences all over again. In the words of Flor Cernuda Arrones, ‘Las mujeres lo hemos pasado muy mal, pero a pesar de todo, sientes ya tan dentro de tí el ideal revolucionario, que volveríamos a empezar’ (Cuevas 2004, 157) [We women have had a hard time, but in spite of everything, you feel the revolutionary ideals so strongly inside of you that we would start all over again]. Although they do not glorify war, they have no regrets about their wartime activities, which some, like Petra Cuevas recall with a certain sense of satisfaction. Aunque ya estamos viejas y achacosas por lo que nos han hecho pasar, hemos visto morir al dictador y él no hizo morir a nuestro Partido como tantas veces lo había dicho. Aquí estamos los viejos con un Partido joven. (Cuevas 2004, 379) [Although we are old and feeble because of all that they put us through, we lived to see the dictator die and he didn’t put an end to our Party like he said many times he would. Here we are, old people with a young Party.]

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Perhaps this can be explained by the fact that the wartime suffering endured by the Spanish women was overshadowed by the hardship they endured in the post-war period, which they openly denounce. Consequently, the testimonies of the Spanish women do not contest patriarchal war discourses of a ‘just’ war. They believed it necessary to oppose fascism, and in spite of the consequences that they faced as a result, they would do so again if required. As Marta Acklesburg describes, these women had many powerful and positive memories of the Republic and the Civil War experience. She suggests that, ‘they had experienced a depth of commitment, and a sharing both of vision and hardship which are rare, and which they had no desire to forget’ (Acklesburg 1992, 132). When referring to male soldiers (with occasional exceptions such as Silverthorne’s quoted above), the narratives of the British and Spanish women closely converged in that they mostly conformed to the traditional master narrative of war, which requires that its male citizens become brave warriors who will sacrifice all for the Patria [Fatherland] (Cooke 1996, 33). Interestingly, of the many narratives studied, I found no overt references to women’s need for protection. This, we can probably safely assume, was due to the active roles assumed by the authors of the narratives during the war. On the news of the death of Comrade Ball, a prominent Communist campaigner Nan Green, emphasises his courage and sacrifice: Please give this very sincere sympathy to Comrade Ball’s father; tell him his son died with many other fine fellows but not in vain. The English comrades did much towards keeping our front, they set a splendid example and greatly raised the morale of all the other battalions. (Fryth and Alexander 1991, 57)

In her poem ‘Like a Man’, dedicated to her husband who died fighting at the front, Spanish aid campaigner Kathleen Gibbons reiterates the traditional archetype of masculine heroism in the following stanza: Banners hung, many, at Victoria Station His wife with his boy child waited in patience, He returned withered, greying and aged, This laughing, round-robin from the Fascist cage, This darling still breathed and thought–like a man. (Jackson 2002, 187)

A similar type of idealisation of male combatants is present in the testimonies of the Spanish women. When describing torture and punishment beatings, Agustina Sánchez Sarinyera, a Communist sentenced

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to thirty years imprisonment for her political activities, asserts that, ‘Y si una mujer resiste los palos hasta que la maten, tienen que resistir más los tíos’ (Cuevas 2004, 235) [And if a woman withstands the beatings until they kill her, the men have to withstand even more]. Speaking about the women political prisoners in Cordoba’s women’s prison, Manolita del Arco commented that: ¡Que ejemplo de serendiad y valentía nos daban aquellas mujeres! Ni una queja, ni un reproche, pero sí una pena muy honda y un gran deseo de conservarse por sí tenían ocasión de seguir haciendo algo por los hombres que, jugándose la vida, defendían los derechos de un pueblo que el régimen estaba atropellando. (Cuevas 2004, 391) [What an example of serenity and bravery those women gave us! They never complained or criticised, but instead had a deep sense of pity and a strong desire to survive in case they had the opportunity to continue to do something for the men, who, risking their lives, defended the rights of the people that the regime was destroying.]

Adela, another Communist activist speaks about her entry into political life after the news of her brother’s execution. She felt that she could never be as heroic as he was but she decided to follow in his footsteps regardless. In her own words: No ingresé en la Juventud hasta el año … sería finales del año 36, cuando supimos la noticia de su fusilamiento. Yo sabía que no iba a sustituirle, porque él valía muchísimo, pero me decidí y pedí el ingreso. (Cuevas, 458) [I didn’t join the Juventud until the year … until the end of 1936, when we got the news of his execution I knew that I could never replace him, because he was such a fine member, but I made up my mind, and I asked to join up.]7

To conclude, women’s testimonies and writings about this period serve to broaden our existing perceptions on what their role was and how they perceived their own personal experiences and involvement. Those who took an active part in the Spanish Civil War have powerful memories of their participation. Usandizaga explains that women’s voices urgently look for possible modes in which to express their experience, and that the verbal relationship between women and war in the Western world has always been difficult. She believes however, that in some cases, by breaking free of the traditional roles of mothers and spouses during wartime, women freed themselves from the traditional modes of

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expression used to describe war (Usandizaga 2000, 22). By analysing and comparing individual women’s accounts of their war experiences in the Spanish Civil War, this chapter has considered the elements of their perceptions which conform to or deviate from the master narrative of war. It is clear that both British and Spanish women seemed to be most influenced by the War Story narrative framework when describing male combatants. On the other hand, British women appear to have been less influenced by the War Story paradigm than Spanish women when describing the horror and devastation of war. In addition, British women’s reasons for going to war stemmed from a more humanitarian than political agenda, unlike the Spanish women. By focusing on personal perceptions and opinions rather than on historical analysis of these participants, it is possible to gain an insight into British and Spanish women’s experience of the Spanish Civil War and how women coped with new challenges that they had never been faced with before. However, whether British or Spanish, the testimonies, letters, diaries and memoirs examined in this chapter are united by an overwhelming sense of passion, enthusiasm and commitment to the Republican cause. Their voices speak of their inspirations and motivations, hardship and suffering, courage and resolve.

Works Cited Acklesberg, M. (1992) ‘Mujeres Libres: The Preservation of Memory under the Politics of Repression in Spain’, in L. Passerini, (ed.), Memory and Totalitarianism: International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 125-43. Bussy Genevois, D. (1992) ‘Femmes d’Espagne: De la République au Franquisme’, in F. Thebaut (ed.), Histoire des Femmes le XXieme siècle, Paris: Plon 267-286. Cenarro Lagunas, Á. (2006) La sonrisa de Falange: Auxilio Social en la guerra civil y en la posguerra, Barcelona: Crítica. Cooke, M. (1996) Women and the War Story, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Cuevas Gutiérrez, T (2004) Testimonios de mujeres en las cárceles franquistas, Huesca: Instituto de Estudios Altoaragoneses. Cunningham, V., (ed.) (1986) Spanish Front: Writers on the Civil War, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Folguera, P., (ed.) (1988) El feminismo en España: Dos siglos de historia, Madrid: Editorial P. Iglesias. Fryth, J., and Alexander, S. (1991) Women’s Voices from the Spanish Civil War, London: Lawrence and Wishart.

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Gallego Méndez, T. (1983) Mujer, Falange y Franquismo. Madrid: Taurus. Ibárruri, D. (1938) Mensaje de despedida a los voluntarios de las Brigadas Internacionales 1938 [online]. Available from: http://www.retoricas.com/2009/06/discurso-pasionaria-brigadistas1.html [Accessed 28 December 2009]. Jackson, A. (2002). British Women and the Spanish Civil War, London: Routledge. Jelinek, E., (ed.), (1980) Women’s Autobiography, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Lannon, F. (1991) ‘Women and Images of Women in the Spanish Civil War’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. 1, 213-228. Lee, Laurie. (1992) A Moment of War, London: Penguin. Mangini, S. (1995) Memories of Resistance: Women’s Voices from the Spanish Civil War, New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Nash, M. (1995) Defying Male Civilisation: Women in the Spanish Civil War, Denver: Arden Press, Inc. Richards, M. (1998) A Time of Silence: Civil War and the culture of repression in Franco’s Spain 1936-1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rodríguez López, S. (2008) Quintacolumnistas: Las mujeres del 36 en la clandestinidad almeriense, Almería: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses. Usandizaga, A., (ed.) (2000) Ve y cuenta lo que pasó en España. Mujeres extranjeras en la guerra civil: una antología, Barcelona: Planeta.

Notes 1

Ibárruri, D. (1938) Mensaje de despedida a los voluntarios de las Brigadas Internacionales 1938 [online]. Available from: http://www.retoricas.com/2009/06/discurso-pasionaria-brigadistas-1.html [Accessed 28 December 2009]. 2 All translations from Spanish to English are my own. 3 Founded in 1934 by Pilar Primo de Rivera, the Women’s Section of the Falange existed for over forty-three years and exerted considerable power over Spanish women. The organisation is credited with playing a major role in the post-war construction of Spanish femininity (Gallego Méndez, 1983). 4 Jackson has observed that there is a tendency for men to attempt to fill in the gaps in their personal experience with retrospectively gained details (2002, 103). Keen to clarify the overall picture of war, men include this information in their narrative, but women rarely do so, thus resisting the dominant narrative framework given to war. Nonetheless, I do not deal with this feature of the narratives in this chapter

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because it cannot be demonstrated by a selection of quotes, as it is a feature which marks the entire texts of the narratives of both British and Spanish women. 5 Although, some British women, like Nan Green, had a clear political agenda before they left for Spain, these women were not in the majority. Sally Alexander also remarks that once in Spain, many British women did develop a political awareness (1991: 15). Nonetheless, Jackson notes that references to internal party politics are strangely absent from the narrative of British women activists in the Spanish Civil War, including very politically active women. She maintains that this could be partly due to a different agenda amongst women (2002, 114). 6 Nevertheless, descriptions of the horror of war are also present in the writings of British men e.g. Laurie Lee (1992). 7 The speaker refers here to joining the Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas (United Socialist Youth).

CHAPTER NINE VOICES FROM THE SIDELINES: THE CRÔNICAS OF INÊS PEDROSA AND MARIA JUDITE DE CARVALHO AT THE INTERSECTION OF LITERARY CANON AND JOURNALISM SUZAN WILLIAMS

An exploration of the crônicas of Maria Judite de Carvalho and Inês Pedrosa raises the question of why these two women writers chose the role of the chronicler for a significant part of their literary production. 1 By choosing what is considered the literary light-weight of the crônica, Carvalho and Pedrosa place themselves quite consciously outside a canon that favoured (uma) evolução da história literária como um processo imanente regido pela ansiedade de influência dos autores consagrados da generação anterior, (que) é altamente elitista e marcado pela política de género, de modo que só consegue incluir o pai e o filho. (Edfeldt 2006, 28) [an evolution of literary history as an intrinsic process led by the influence of the consecrated authors of the previous generation, which is highly elitist and marked by the politics of gender, in a way that would only include the father and the son]2.

European intellectual history has been, and still is, intrinsically tied to a literary canon, which ‘designates what academics, professionals, critics, or other institutional authorities have judged to be great writings by exemplary figures (nearly always male, nearly always privileged) of the past’ (Winders 1991, 11). Canon thus functions as an instrument of institutionalizing and placing texts into a literary hierarchy, which, as Edfeldt points out in her study ‘confere à autoria masculina a produção

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literária representativa de uma experiência universal’ (2006, 27) [texts written by men are accepted as being representative of a universal experience], whereas the texts by women ‘se inserem no campo literário como uma atividade meramente feita por, para e sobre as mulheres’ (Edfeldt, 27) [are seen in literary terms as a writing by, for and about women]. In the collective national memory, constituted by the literary canon, texts by women authors are seldom included, as they are deemed to lack the exemplary universality required. In this climate of literary marginalization women writers are therefore forced to work within the limits of a writing primarily marked by gender. As Graça Abranches sums it up: O dilema caracterizado por Virginia Woolf como ou se é escritor(a) de 1ª e mulher de 2ª, ou se é escritor(a) de 2ª e mulher de 1ª tem manifestado particular resistência ao tempo em Portugal. (1997, cited in Edfeldt 2006, 28) [The question first raised by Virginia Woolf whether one is firstly a writer and secondly a woman, or secondly a writer and firstly a woman has shown a strong resistance to change over time in Portugal].

Maria Judite de Carvalho and Inês Pedrosa in their journalistic writings seem to have manoeuvred themselves quite consciously into a popular and therefore–in the eyes of the literary purists–an insignificant literary field. Writing columns of approximately a page in length on trivial issues was unlikely to bring them closer to the higher echelons of literature, or towards earning a place as a canonical writer. One might argue that Carvalho and Pedrosa chose the crônica as a genre that offers ‘the least concentrated form of art, (that) can be taken up or put down more easily’ (Barrett 1992, 46), something women were able to do, while not being too distracted from the traditionally ‘female’ tasks of childcare and housework. As a short form of writing, the crônica would not require the lengthy concentration of a monumental novel. Or were they, like the American journalists in the 1950s that Tom Wolfe describes in his book on The New Journalism, biding time in newspaper offices till the opportunity would come to ‘light up the sky with the final triumph ... ‘The Novel’’ (1973, 5). The evidence suggests a rather different picture, since both Carvalho and Pedrosa, were also writing novels and short stories while working on their crônicas; and, what seems even more significant, they were both acclaimed writers as well as journalists and had already published novels and short stories favourably received by Portuguese literary criticism,

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when embarking on their career as crônistas. When Carvalho starts contributing her Rectângulos da Vida [Pictures of Life] in the Diário de Lisboa in 1968, her name was not unknown. Her collection of short stories As Palavras Poupadas [The Words We Save] had won the Prémio Camilo Castelo Branco in 1962 and the literary critic Jacinto do Prado Coelho had lauded her as ‘um escritor (sic) que, logo nos primeiros passos, se reveleu como uma notável promessa’ (Navas 2004, 10) [a writer, who right away in their first efforts revealed a noteworthy promise]. Forty years later Pedrosa’s third novel Fazes-me Falta [Longing For You], was not only immensely successful commercially—31,000 copies were sold in six editions—but was also well received by literary criticism. Augustina Bessa-Luís describes the novel as being ‘um outro despertar cultural’ (Da Cunha 2004, 49) [another cultural awakening] and Eduardo Prado Coelho hails it as ‘um dos romances mais importantes e apaixonantes publicados este ano’ (Da Cunha, 49) [one of the most important and most impassioned novels published this year]. Carvalho and Pedrosa quite consciously crossed the line between what constituted the traditional forms of narrative of national significance, like the novel and the short story, and the more ‘ephemeral’ forms of writing at the fringes of literary production, such as the crônica. They could easily have dedicated their writing careers to the more conventional genres of fiction and moved away from journalism. This suggests that both authors quite deliberately chose journalism as a medium for a specific expression of a female way of writing that would not contribute to ‘uma escrita de mulheres confusa e embaraçada como elas’ [a writing by women, confused and embarrassed like they are], as Agustina Bessa-Luís (cited in Parente Cunha 1999, 9) puts it, but to constitute ‘uma literatura feminina, uma forma de a mulher se interrogar’ [a women’s literature, a means by which women can interrogate themselves], which is also manifest in their other fictional texts.

How to Speak the Silence The question as to why Maria Judite de Carvalho and Inês Pedrosa chose to write crônicas, might be answered more satisfactorily by analysing the opportunities journalistic texts offered to writers. By the middle of the twentieth century the post-structural deconstruction of unified subjectivity and the post-modern suspension of value judgement had changed the intellectual and philosophical foundations of the literary landscape, where concepts such as literature’s claim to universal truth, the omniscience of the narrator and the author’s absolute power over narration and characters were called into question. As Michel Foucault formulates it, ‘we shall have

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to speak of this act of scission, of this distance set, of this void …’ (2001, xii), where classical rationality and its institutions of hierarchy and order of thought are questioned and where, in literary terms, the traditional boundaries between genres become increasingly blurred. Journalism in the 1960s developed from a simple medium of reporting facts and events to a platform of experimentation, where the journalist subjectively commented on the raw material of the news, entering into a dialogue with the reader and so opening up new communicative strategies. Journalistic writing had ‘yet to be canonized, sanctified and given a theology’ (Wolfe 1973, 28) and was therefore able to undermine traditional conventions of writing such as objectivity, introducing autobiographical elements, stream-ofconsciousness, oral sections and a non-linear chronology to a genre that moved away from presenting news to (re)counting stories. This development in journalism is paralleled in a feminist desire to subvert the male dominated machinations of literary production in a gesto de transgressão … assumido pelas mulheres e aprofundando a ruptura do nosso tempo com a tradição herdada …, a partir do rompimento de fronteiras entre vários campos de conhecimento e conseqüente ruptura da rígida hierarquia de valores que servia de fundamento ao sistema tradicional (patriarcal). Uma das fontes intelectuais e políticas dessa ruptura ou contestação aos cânones é, sem dúvida, a ‘revolução feminina’. (Parente Cunha 1999, 10) [gesture of transgression ... perpetrated by women, which deepened the rupture with inherited Tradition in our time ..., arising from a break of boundaries between various fields of knowledge and the resulting rupture of rigid hierarchies of value which served as the basis for the traditional (patriarchal) system. One of the intellectual and political origins of this rupture or questioning of canons is, without doubt, ‘the feminist revolution’.]

Carvalho and Pedrosa might never have sought inclusion into the rigidity of the national literary consciousness constituted by the canon of great Portuguese writers; as women they have always been outside national discourses of greatness, as they formed ‘the Other’ that was not represented by the hierarchical institutions of patriarchy. In consciously choosing a genre like the crônica Carvalho and Pedrosa affirm this exteriority, seeking new ways of literary expression, that would represent ‘the unthought ... (which) is, in relation to man, the Other ... (which) is both exterior to him and indispensable to him’ (Foucault 1970, 326), and which would form a ‘writing (which) is the moment of this original valley of the other within being’ (quoted in Derrida 1978, 30). In their writing

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new possibilities of thought are opened up, new paths paved, as they, as women, gaze in from the outside onto traditional rationality and undermine patriarchal thought patterns. Feminist writers, philosophers, and critics in Europe and the US formulated ‘discourses on radical otherness as feminine’ (Braidotti 1991, 9) and followed ‘(Luce) Irigaray’s demand for an ‘other’ space for the feminine, somewhere other than in masculine spaces’ (Braidotti 1991, 257). The genre of the crônica offers this exteriority to the more consecrated forms of writing such as the novel and the short story, and the attraction of the crônica lies in a combination of the literary freedom of journalism and a feminist desire to re-invent literary conventions. According to Graça Abranches, Carvalho and Pedrosa use the light tone, the numerous references to popular culture, colloquialisms and the shortness of the crônica out of a ‘necessity to invent a new heritage, a new tradition of writing ... using a manifest and subversive disruption of the alien male word’ (Abranches 1997, 205).

Author-Reader Relationship The crônica is notable for its directness and dialogic style, enabling not only a correspondence with the reader but also ‘(um) exercício de intervenção social’ [an exercise in social intervention] as Pedrosa (2005, 16) describes it. The crônica due to its brevity strikes a chord with the reader that reverberates into a changed process of thinking. The interpretations of the chronicler are never only ‘uma decifração de si por si mesmo do que como uma arbertura de si mesmo que se dá ao outro’ (Navas 2004, 35) [an interrogation of oneself as an opening up of oneself towards the other]. The author, who often is also the narrator and protagonist of the crônica, is in daily conversation with a reader, who, due to the mundane triviality of the stories depicted, can share in the described events. But this relationship between chronicler and reader is not merely incidental; it is right at the heart of the crônica ‘to make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text’ (Barthes 1974, 4). Similar to the reciprocity of epistolary fiction, the crônica only comes to life in the response of the reader: ‘uma crônica sem leitores é menos do que uma página em branco’ [a column without readers is less than a white page], as Pedrosa herself described it (2005, 17). Often an implied ‘we’ divulges the sentiment of the crônista, which ‘foregrounds the construction of identity in relationship’ (Waugh 1989, 3). It is the community of her readers to whom she is speaking when Carvalho, divulging a personal truth on the times she lives in, states: ‘subitamente fazemos parte de um todo e não podemos libertar-nos, voltar

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atrás, ao tempo de coisas simples’ (1991, 13) [suddenly we become part of a whole and we can not liberate ourselves from it and turn back to the times of simple things]. Similarly Pedrosa writes: ‘porque é que não queremos ter tempo para reconhecer a exelência do nosso tempo’ (2005, 174) [because we do not want to have time to recognize how good the times we live in are]. In Diários de Emília Bravo (Diaries of Emília Bravo) Carvalho addresses her reader with ‘Caras leitoras que se lamentam’ (2002, 23) [Dear readers who lament] and so implicitly addresses a hypothetical grievance of her readers. Pedrosa directly answers one of her readers ‘real’ letters in Discutir Deus [Discussing God]: ‘a propósito de uma crônica anterior, escreveu-me uma leitora’ (2005, 355) [in relation to a previous column, a reader wrote to me]. The reader becomes the crônista’s confidante accompanying her in her thoughts and feelings, the plays she watches, the books she reads. With Carvalho the reader walks through Lisbon: ‘apanhar o metro em Picoas, sair no Rossio, subir o Chiado, depois a Rua Garrett até chegar ao Bairro Alto ou ao Largo da Misericórdia’ (Navas 2004, 42) [taking the underground in Picoas, getting off at Rossio, walking up the Chiado, afterwards the Rua Garrett until reaching the Bairro Alto or the Largo de Misericórdia] and follows her from home to her office. We disembark with Pedrosa in New York, attend an opening at a gallery and visit the park in Tompkins Square. The author’s daily life or at least what she chooses to reveal of it, forms an integral part of the crônica and further strengthens the bond between author, text and reader.

Polycentrality Not only do we follow the steps of their daily activities, the reader also participates in the crônistas’ thought processes. In their writing Carvalho and Pedrosa often use stream-of-consciousness or a shift from first-person view to third-person view in order to move the reader on to a particular thought pattern or conclusion. In Carvalho’s O Comboio [The Train], the ‘objective’, third-person description of a middle-aged man is soon interspersed with the personal. ‘Estava-se numa loja de brinquedos’ (Carvalho 1991, 263) [We were in a toy-shop], the author concedes and, though still short of the intimate ‘I’, it becomes clear that the reader is watching the man through the crônista’s eyes. So we stand with her in the toy-shop and listen to the dialogue between the man and his wife, and nod in assent with Maria Judite, when she interprets the man’s feelings as his wife suggests, it is time to go: ‘mas não falara verdade (Carvalho, 263)

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[but he did not tell the truth]. The reader is completely drawn into the scene, sharing the sentiments of the chronicler as she describes the sheer joy in the man’s eyes watching a toy-train and his resentment at leaving the shop and having to leave his happy childhood memories behind. The apparent objective realism of the first few lines is soon revealed as a mere playful delusion. The reflexive pronoun ‘-se’ not only opens the toy-shop to the reader and figuratively lets us in, as we hear the couple speak and share in the man’s emotions; it also functions as a mirror. The man’s sentiments interpreted by the crônista also become the reader’s. Here the crônica abolishes the traditional distinction between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’, resisting the male emphasis ... (on) some transcendental realm of ‘knowledge’ and ‘truth’ ... (as) this is what denies validity to women’s understanding of women’s experiences, because ... (they are) rooted in the particular ... the realms of emotion and physicality (Stanley and Wise 1993, 63).

The story of the man and the toy train becomes a metaphor for happiness stifled by adult conventions, leading from the particular scene to a more general point on the human condition. Again and again it is the small print, the reading-between-the-lines that cause Pedrosa to take a closer look, to use the particular in order to put across a more general point of view. In A Idosa de 60 Anos [An Elderly Woman of 60] she departs from the mere ‘notícia que uma idosa de 60 anos tinha morrido num dos múltiplos incêndios deste país de deixa-queimar’ (Pedrosa 2005, 255) [news-report that an elderly woman 60 years of age had died in one of the many fires of this country where arson is so common place] to embark on a discussion on ageism and sexism. She dissects the brief text of the newspaper report and takes the simple word idosa [elderly woman], to show that certain attitudes towards beauty, women and age continue to exist in Portugal and how little the lives of older generations count: ‘uma mulher de sessenta anos morre, num fogo que deveria ter sido prevenido ... chama-se-lhe idosa e sua morte torna-se natural’ (Pedrosa 2005, 258) [a woman of sixty dies in a fire that should have been prevented ... she is called ‘elderly’ and her death seems natural]. By selecting this news item, well removed from the headlines, Pedrosa places value on what may seem minor aspects that otherwise would have gone unnoticed and honours the life of this woman and her death, under these particular circumstances. In doing so she counteracts an ‘economy ... that ... requires that women lend themselves to alienation … and to exchanges in which they do not participate’ (Irigaray 1985, 172).

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The Macro-economy of (His)-stories of Greatness versus the Micro-narrative of the Female and Private Realms The headline news are translated by the crônista into the daily struggles women and men face; the personal dimension that never makes it to the front pages. In Lisbon, 2004 Pedrosa juxtaposes the TV presenter’s comments celebrating the fact that Portugal won the Euro-2004 football championships with the quiet death of a young woman suffering from cancer and an older woman’s loneliness facing the same illness: ‘A rapariga chorou e gritou durante todos os minutos da sua derradeira noite neste mundo’ (Pedrosa 2005, 315) [The girl cried and screamed every minute of her last night on this earth] but her cries and tears are drowned out by the young men’s cries of victory watching the football game. The macro-narrative of the national football team winning the championships is interspersed with the very personal story of a woman facing death. Headline news as an expression of ‘total history ... deprives (events) of their own singularity’ (McNay 1992, 13), the women’s story is not heard in the mythologizing, male histories of greatness. It is not the events that are granted fleeting significance in the rapidly changing carrousel of media attention that the eye of the crônista rests on, but the very quiet and personal story of two women facing illness and death, underlining the ultimate measure against which life is set. The crônista demonstrates how, if we look at the bigger picture of life and its finality, the great events in the national consciousness descend into insignificance. Pedrosa draws a conscious line between what the media, steeped in a patriarchal society, consider important and great and what has real significance in every woman’s and every man’s life. ‘Esta é a prova de que somos grandes, a grande demonstração do valor de Portugal’ (Pedrosa 2005, 318) [this is evidence of our greatness, a great demonstration of Portugal’s worth] comments the TV presenter, but the crônista relativises all notions of grandeur and national importance in the stillness that follows the end of a young woman’s life: ‘mudavam os lençois e o nome no cartão de identificação da cama da rapariga que acabara de morrer’ (Pedrosa 2005, 318) [they changed the sheets and the name tag of the bed where the girl had just died].

Um tempo quase eterno [A timeless time] Despite contemporaneity being the essence of most crônicas, dealing with the news or latest book, film or political or technological development, in their sketches Carvalho and Pedrosa convey ‘um tempo quase eterno,

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invulnerável, no meio do tempo cronológico’ (Navas 2004, 49) [a timeless time, invulnerable, in the midst of chronological time]. They are not interested in a mere repetition or exegesis of the headline news; questions of death or happiness are not bound up in a particular event. On the contrary the event in time sparks off a discussion on a more general, timeless theme. The crônica’s literary boundaries are sufficiently openended in order to leave the crônista free to move between past, present and future. As the time-frame of the crônica is that of its author, we live time through her recounting in a complete ‘vivência do tempo por dentro ... (um) momento de exata coincidência entre si e a vida’ (Magalhães 1995, 40) [living time from the inside ... (in a) moment of total harmony between the self and life]. It is precisely this inner life, the description of what it means day-to-day to be a woman in Portugal in the 1960s and 1970s or in the first decade of the new millennium 3 that motivates Carvalho’s and Pedrosa’s crônicas. They counteract and subvert the ‘myths’ of big political and sporting event in underlining the timeless and the private: ‘Certa noite acordei porque ao longe, no silêncio daquela hora vazia ... uma mulher chorava….’ [One night I woke up, because far off, in the silence of that quiet hour ... a woman cried], writes Carvalho (2002, 12). Carvalho’s and Pedrosa’s crônicas put words to the culturally imposed silence experienced by many women as they are still so often excluded from the dominant national narratives. Car crashes and plane crashes that move the masses make up the headline news, but ‘da mulher, nada’ (Carvalho 2002, 12) [of women nothing] is reported. In a time-space vacuum, certa noite [one night] and ao longe [far off], this omission of women’s experiences is repeated time and again, as the female chronicler tries to re-write the narratives that sustain main-stream culture: ‘A primeira qualidade de um crônista é a persistência’ [The one essential trait of a chronicler is persistence] writes Pedrosa (2005, 14), as it is their daily reminders that can change national mythologies.

Conclusion I hope it has been adequately demonstrated that the canon as a ‘museum’ of national literary consciousness that exhibited some–mainly male and privileged–writers to be emulated by younger generations bore no attraction for Maria Judite de Carvalho and Inês Pedrosa. They have placed themselves outside such a canon, choosing the popular crônica, as a space exterior to male-dominated literary hierarchies. Journalistic writing, as a genre without a canonical tradition or fixed literary boundaries, offered the two women writers a ‘transitional space (that) works (as) an

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interface ... something that forms a boundary and opens up into endless possibility’ (Braidotti 1991, 269), where, away from traditional patriarchal institutions, a new–female–way of writing could emerge. Carvalho and Pedrosa quite consciously avoid the exemplary universality required by a canon of national literary greatness, in order to present in their texts the micro-narrative of the private and the personal, the small and seemingly insignificant events that make up women’s lives. Far from descending into triviality, by subverting the macro-narratives of great events of national importance, Carvalho and Pedrosa reach a timeless ‘thought (which) must be put to the service of creation, of liberty, against phantoms of negativity’ (Braidotti, 280). Their journalistic writings are, therefore, not merely an add-on, born out of financial or professional necessity, but represent an integral part of the two women authors’ literary vision. In their crônicas they seek a way of ‘breaking patriarchal forms (and of introducing) radical forms –nonlinear, non-hierarchical and decentring ... (as) a way of writing the feminine’ (Navas 2004, 58). It is this, their literary credo, this conscious commitment to an exteriority of thought processes, which places both writers outside the canonical forms of literary production. And in the popular crônica they found the appropriate medium that would leave them free to ‘se tirar para os braços do seu próprio tempo’ (Pedrosa 2005, 13) [throw themselves into the arms of their time] as the crônica as a literary genre is ‘young enough to be soft in her (their) hands’ (Woolf 2000, 77). It allowed them to introduce a new tradition of women’s writing, by crossing the boundary between the more traditional and popular literary cultural forms and thus to affect change in the culture in which they lived.

Works Cited Abranches, G. (1997), ‘Verlernen um zu Sprechen: Politik und Poetik Portugiesischer Frauen im 20. Jahrhundert’, in Thorau, H. (ed.) Portugiesische Literatur, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch, 204-235. Allegro de Magalhães, I. (1995) O Sexo dos Textos, Lisbon: Editorial Caminho. Barrett, M. (1992) Virginia Woolf on Women and Writing, London: The Women’s Press. Barthes, R. (1974) S/Z, New York: Hill and Wang. Braidotti, R. (1991) Patterns of Dissonance: A Study of Women in Contemporary Philosoph, Cambridge: Polity Press. Carvalho, M. J. de (1991) Este Tempo, Lisbon: Editorial Caminho. —. (2002) Diários de Emília Bravo, Lisbon: Editorial Caminho.

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Cunha, M. (2004) Sucessos na Literatura: Regras, Receitas e Supresas na Literatura Portuguesa Contemporânea, (Master’s Thesis), Universidade de Lisboa. Derrida, J. (1978) Writing and Difference, London: Routledge Edfeldt, C. (2006) Uma história na História: Representações da Autoria Feminina na História da Literatura Portuguesa do Século XX, Stockholm: Stockholm Universitet. Foucault, M. (1970) The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, London: Tavistock Publications. —. (2001) Madness and Civilization, London: Routledge. Irigaray, L. (1985) This Sex Which is Not One, New York: Cornell University Press. McNay, L. (1992) Foucault and Feminism: Power, Gender and the Self. Cambridge: Polity Press. Pedrosa, I. (2005) Crônica Feminina, Lisbon: Dom Quixote. Navas, R. (2004) Leituras Hipertextuais das Crônicas de Maria Judite de Carvalho, Lisbon: Edições Colibri. Parente Cunha, H. (ed.). (1999) Desafiando o Cânone: Aspectos da Literatura de Autoria Feminina na Prosa e Poesia (anos 70/80), Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro. Stanley, L. and Wise S. (1993) Breaking Out Again: Feminist Ontology and Epistemology, London: Routledge. Waugh, P. (1989) Feminine Fictions: Revisiting the Postmodern, London: Routledge. Winders, J. A. (1991) Gender, Theory and the Canon, Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. Wolfe, T. (1973) The New Journalism, New York: Harper& Row. Woolf, V. (2000) A Room of One’s Own, London, Penguin Books.

Notes 1

The crônica is a short piece of journalistic writing which reflects the author’s thoughts and opinions rather than simply divulging information; a literary comment on cultural and societal questions. 2 All translations are my own. 3 The dates given here reflect the decades in which Maria Judite de Carvalho and Inês Pedrosa published their crônicas.

CHAPTER TEN THE SPANISH WOMAN, HER ‘OTHER’ AND THE CENSORS: TRANSCULTURAL ENCOUNTERS IN THE POST- CIVIL WAR NOVEL JACQUELINE P. MULHALL

In post-Civil War Spain, prevailing social codes were informed by a feverishly conservative Catholicism which was both patriarchal and xenophobic in its application. Even as late as the 1950s, Franco’s regime was still an isolated and inward-looking regime and went to extraordinary lengths to filter out discourse which subverted the conservative, Catholic norms it advocated. All cultural and media production was subject to the prior scrutiny of the censors who deleted, modified and sometimes suppressed those works they considered prejudicial to the ideology of the regime. Notwithstanding such strict censorship, the 1950s saw a boom in literary production and in women’s novelistic production in particular. The type of neorealist novel that came to prominence in Spain was inspired by the neorealist movement in Italian cinema. These women’s neorealist novels are characterised by a distinct emphasis on issues of concern to Spanish women 1 . The key thematic concerns of such novels are relationships and the sexual awakening of the young women, marriage and the related themes of marriage breakdown, and the role of women as mothers. Notwithstanding the inward-looking almost xenophobic nature of the Francoist regime and the very specific focus of the novels on matters of concern to Spanish society, the novels are also a site of a very interesting and unexpected transcultural encounter. The transcultural encounter occurs in the context of the discourse on the ideal of the Spanish woman and her ‘Other’. This chapter will examine this encounter. Because of their heavy realism and uncompromising language, feminine neorealist novels proved fertile terrain for the censor and were regularly

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censored on grounds of moral subversion. Yet despite each novel being reviewed by two or more censors, there are several cases where seemingly obvious transgressions of prevailing moral codes remained untouched by the censors’ pencil whereas other seemingly innocuous passages were removed or modified. However, it may well be the case that such seeming inconsistencies are, in fact, consistent with societal norms and systems of thought and that this explains why some transgressive passages were deemed appropriate. Using a Foucaultian paradigm, this study will dissect the discourses of the Spanish woman and her ‘Other’ and posit that such discourses informed the manner in which the censors dealt with these postWar novels by female writers. It further proposes that notions of morality and immorality in Franco’s Spain were as contingent on the national origins of the person committing the act as they were on the inherent immorality of the act itself. The issue of censorship during the Francoist period is multi-faceted and within the restrictions of this chapter it is possible to consider only a specific aspect of the process. The present chapter will reflect on the commonly censored theme of marriage and through a discussion of the dominant discourses of this area, suggest how the discourse of the Spanish woman and her ‘Other’ guided the censor to his decisions. The argument presented in this chapter is based on a paradigm developed by Michel Foucault. In The Order of Things (1970), Foucault challenges the scholar to contextualise and historicise the actions of the past. Based on that framework, this discussion of moral censorship in Franco’s Spain is informed by a consciousness of the social forces at work in the censors’ time. Accordingly, the practices of the censors are examined with reference to the discourses of the period. Foucault proposes that the societal structures and systems of thought on a given subject are unique to each particular socio-historical period; that the socio-historical period creates norms of behaviour and codes of morality that are unique to that period. He then posits that the most appropriate way to learn about the societal structures and systems of thought of a particular historical period on a given subject, is to examine closely the contemporary archive with the objective of discerning the patterns of thought that recur in contemporary discourse.2 The notion that discursive practices allow us to rationalise and make sense of what is around us and, to some extent, influence our responses to experience suggests that the decisions of the censors were both guided by and were a constituent element of the discursive practices on morality in Franco’s Spain. Furthermore, it suggests that the prevailing ideas, attitudes and beliefs about morality in Franco’s Spain would necessarily have been reflected in the censorship

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process and in the practices of the censor, indeed that the censors’ decisions could not have been other than what they were. Thus understood, it can be argued that the implicit rationale the censor employed in evaluating the feminine neorealist novel is a product of the discourse of the period. This implies that his normative judgements, his response to the novel in question, and his decisions with respect to the novel were informed by the discourse of the period. Thus, a censor’s reception of a novel, his expectations of the author, the genre and the content of the novel, and eventually the decisions he made with respect to that novel are manifest in and produced by discourse.3

The Post-War Novel A quote from the first page of the manuscript of Paulina Crusat’s Las ocas blancas (1958) [The White Geese] describes the difference between the post-War feminine neorealist novel and the more popular novela rosa [romantic novelette] stating: Entre la novela rosa y la novela seria hay una diferencia fundamental: la verdad. La verdad es una palabra que en la novela, donde todo es ficción, propiamente no quiere decir nada, pero todos entendemos muy bien lo que dice. (Expediente 4104-58. Manuscript, 1) [The fundamental difference between the romantic novelette and the serious novel is Truth. Truth is a word which when used in relation to a novel, where everything is fiction, strictly speaking, does not actually mean anything, but we all understand clearly what is meant.]

This emphasis on portraying recognisable situations and characters meant that post-war feminine neorealist novels proved fertile terrain for the censors who were charged with protecting the moral rectitude of the reading public. In Franco’s Spain, morality was understood as a code of conduct or behaviour. In the 1950s, it was principally associated with women, who were entrusted with the moral guardianship of society (O’Byrne 1999, 203). The notion of morality was closely aligned to the Catholic Church’s concepts of right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. It extended to issues related to marriage and divorce, sex and sexual desire and the role of women as mothers and wives. It counselled women on their duties in such matters as filial piety, patriotism and obedience—especially to the state—in her role as mother, to her parents and later to her husband. Indeed, the post-war novel was an almost unique gynocentric space in

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which women writers of the period could articulate the totality of the feminine experience. They did this by deconstructing the dominant myths by dealing with themes deemed morally suspect and which were therefore proscribed. These aforementioned themes challenged and, ultimately, had the potential to destroy the ideal of Spanish womanhood and, with it, the foundations of the Francoist project. Such proscribed themes presented a version of Spanish womanhood that was regarded as degraded by and was repugnant to the sensibilities of the deeply conservative, Catholic society of the day. In the post-war years, the novel provided women writers with an otherwise absent platform from which to question the Church and statedriven moral formation of the female persona and the social conventions that sustained it.

Morality and Moral Censorship State censorship operated within a framework provided for by the Ley de prensa [Press Law].4 The Ley de prensa was ushered in quietly on 22 April 1938 and its enactment was reported without fanfare the following day in the Sunday newspapers. Although originally an act of wartime politics and concerned in the main with control of the press, the law also provided for the system of prior censorship which was to shape and regulate Spanish cultural production for most of the next four decades. The law, the work of General Franco’s Falangist brother-in-law, Ramón Serrano Suñer, was inspired by the censorship laws of Fascist Italy and Germany in the 1930s but was also tinged with the values of orthodox Catholicism that permeated every level of Spanish society. Although by the 1950s, Franco’s regime had long since loosened its ties with Fascism, its bonds with the Catholic Church had strengthened. In 1951, Gabriel Arias Salgado was appointed to the Ministry of Information and Tourism. His tenure is particularly notable for the increased vigilance of the censors in matters of morality and dogma (Merino and Rabadán 2000). Gabriel Arias Salgado was a convinced Falangist with an impressive knowledge of Catholic theology; he considered the state to be the custodians of the supposed bien común [the common good]. Although the immediate post-war years were marked by a cultural vacuum precipitated by the death and exile of many of Spain’s greatest writers, artists and intellectuals, by the beginning of the 1950s, a literary revival of sorts was underway. Describing the early years of Arias Salgado’s tenure, Abellán says,

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… al comienzo de la década de los cincuenta la producción literaria había vuelto a la normalidad después de la desestabilización propia de los años de posguerra. (Abellán 1980, 9) [by the beginning of the 1950s, literary production had returned to normality after the instability of the post-War years.]

This renaissance in publishing prompted concern about what was being read and provoked increased emphasis on control through prior censorship. Ana María Matute, speaking about the restrictions that she faced as a writer under Francoism, the period during which she was most active, complained ‘no se podía hablar de incesto, de sucidio, de adulterio, de homosexualidad, y de la infinidad de cosas que forman la naturaleza humana’ (Farrington 2000, 77). [One could not talk about incest, suicide, adultery, homosexuality or the multitude of things that make up human nature.]

Divorce, Discourse and Censorship Francoist authorities placed considerable emphasis on the marriage contract, and devoted similar energy to maintaining the integrity of that bond. Given Catholic belief in the indissolubility of marriage, it is hardly surprising that this was case. As a result, marriage breakdown and divorce were sites of great concern for the censors and the manuscripts archived in the censorship files reveal that the censors routinely removed passages from those novels which contravened discursive practices relating to these issues. Carmen Kurtz’s Al lado del hombre [Beside the Man] (1960) is a striking example of how the matters of marriage and divorce were dealt with by censors. The novel describes the train journey from Bilbao to Barcelona of two strangers—Carla a young Spanish middle-class woman and a middle-aged married man, el hombre [the man] of the title. The main action of the novel centres on the conversation of the protagonists and culminates in the night of love they share at a hotel when they finally reach their destination (Expediente 4327-59. Original Manuscript). 5 Al lado del hombre is of particular interest for two reasons: firstly, the directness of its challenge to the moral codes promoted by the regime and, secondly, the extent of the cuts made to the original text. In the novel, Kurtz deals with the subject of marriage on a variety of levels from the adolescent hopes of Carla and her childhood friends, through the disappointment in marriage experienced by the protagonist’s friend María Fe and Carla’s aunts, to the proposed acceptable alternative choice of

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religious life, to the complete rejection of social and religious mores surrounding premarital sex and divorce. The censors removed several passages from the conversation that takes place between the protagonist Carla and el hombre. The cuts made on page 47 and page 61 of the original manuscript involve text that directly calls into question the customs and laws surrounding marriage in Spain at the time. Pero es difícil luchar contra las costumbres. Los pueblos instituyeron ceremonias y leyes de matrimonio antes de conocer el amor. El amor es un sentimiento total civilizado. Pero esas ceremonias y esas leyes siguen en vigor y han sido reforzadas antes de haber sufrido una natural reforma. (Expediente 4327-59. Manuscript, 47) [It is difficult to fight against custom. Communities created ceremonies and matrimonial laws before knowing love. Love is a completely civilised emotion. But these laws remain in force and have been strengthened before having undergone a natural reform.]

Those passages removed from page 97 represent a very direct challenge to the notion of marriage as an unbreakable bond. … A mí me parece muy bien lo de “atar” pero también me parece lógico lo de “desatar”. Mucho decir para justificar la indisolubilidad del matrimonio aquello de que: “todo cuanto ataréis en la tierra, atado quedará en el cielo” Pero ¡qué cuernos! (Expediente 4327-59. Manuscript, 97) [To ‘bind’ oneself to another would seem to me to be a good thing, but it also seems logical to me that one should be able to ‘unbind’ oneself. All that repetition of ‘whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven.’ simply to justify the indissolubility of marriage. What rubbish!]

Similarly the passage removed from page 98 of Kurtz’s manuscript reiterates the notion that the marriage bond was not perpetual, and that forever was not indefinite. The passage reads: La entrega de Laura había sido sencilla, sin ruegos, sin frases, sin condiciones, sin falso pudor. Se entregaba como una prueba más de confianza hacia él, pues Laura era inocente y aquel paso en su vida lo dio tan segura tan auténticamente como daba los otros. Recordaba su frase, eso sí: “Para siempre”. Para siempre… (Manuscript, 98) [Laura had given herself to him without any fuss, with no demands, no talk, no conditions, no false modesty. She gave herself as proof of her trust

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in him. Laura was innocent and she took this step in her life as surely and sincerely as she had taken all the others. She remembered his words: “Forever”. Forever... ]

Through the comments made and the opinions expressed by the female protagonist (a Spaniard), the novel very obviously subverted accepted notions in relation to femininity and women’s role in Spanish society. The inherent danger posed by such resistance lay in its ability to destabilise accepted societal norms and therefore, so far as the censors were concerned, it had to go. Yet a review of the censorship files reveals that the concerns of the censors lay principally with the conduct of Spanish characters. The immorality of French characters went unchecked in Carmen Martín Gaite’s Entre visillos (1958) [Behind the Curtains] with two French women having the audacity to flirt with the soon-to-be-married fiancé of the protagonist’s friend Gertru. The subversive activities of the British also went unchecked with an English character, Julia, permitted to voice support for free-love and liberality in sexual relations in Kurtz’s La vieja ley (1956) [The Old Law]. Likewise, in Mercedes Salisachs’s Carretera intermedia (1956) [Second-Class Highway], the censor showed little concern for the moral well-being of the French wife of the protagonist’s lover, who was also involved in an adulterous affair. The conduct of the French woman failed to draw comment—the censor probably having concluded that such behaviour was to be expected of the French, whereas the behaviour of the Spanish protagonist was heavily criticised, with the censor caustically recording in his report: Todo ello es un trasunto de traiciones al matrimonio y a la moral, es una obra corrosiva e intolerable. NO PUEDE PUBLICARSE. (Expediente 235–51. Document dated 29 November 1955) [All of this is a complete betrayal of marriage and morality, it is a corrosive and intolerable work. IT CANNOT BE PUBLISHED.]

The Spanish Woman and Her ‘Other’ The reason the censor in the above case could have made seemingly inconsistent decisions in relation to the same novel is revealed in the discourse of the period. The institutions of the Francoist state went to considerable lengths to create and model the female persona. The discursive practices on womanhood and her moral obligations in that role subordinated the woman, legally, socially and economically, reducing her

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social role to mother and wife. These discourses were disseminated through the media, the education system, legislation and religious dogma. At this period, a traditional conservative image of Spanish womanhood was being disseminated through clever recourse to icons and archetypes that embodied the ideal of Spanish womanhood. Many of these icons were drawn from the Golden Age, centuries earlier. The ideal which these icons were said to represent related to duty, to faith, to the Patria [fatherland], and to duty as a wife and duty as a mother. The archetypes which appear most frequently in contemporary discourse are La Perfecta Casada [The Perfect Wife] by Fray Luis de León (1527-1591) and models produced by Juan Luis Vives (1493-1540). These were joined by a host of iconic figures from history, such as Queen Isabella of Castile, Saint Teresa of Avila and Catherine of Aragon, proffered as paragons of Spanish femininity. The 1950s also saw the emergence of new contemporary icons of Spanish femininity. For instance, Fabiola de Mora y Aragón on marrying the Belgian Crown Prince became the new embodiment of Spanish womanhood, a figure with whom young Spanish women could identify and whom discursive practices suggested young women should aspire to emulate. The influence of Hollywood also permeated Spanish discursive practices and Hollywood starlets appeared regularly in the popular media.6 From among these starlets, the popular magazines such as Garbo, Hogar, M, Marisol, and Assumpta, seem to have chosen Grace Kelly as a particularly attractive icon, her Catholic background and her marriage to one of Europe’s Catholic monarchs undoubtedly marking her out as a suitable heroine for young Spanish women. Other famous women were also viewed sympathetically in the media and were carved into suitable representations of femininity by editors and journalists who stressed their innate domestic role as wives and mothers rather than their more public role as writers, actresses, or even Heads of State—the young Queen Elizabeth II regularly featuring in the aforementioned magazines in the 1950s. In the popular media, women were constantly reminded of their responsibility to preserve marital harmony as a means of avoiding the likelihood that a marriage would encounter difficulties. Helpful advice and suggestions, purportedly from eminent experts, appear with conspicuous frequency in everything from short stories to features on home decorating. The features, particularly those dealing with perceived norms of feminine behaviour and relationships, quite often employed a multiple-choice quiz format. Quizzes with titles such as ¿ERES UNA BUENA ESPOSA? [Are you a good wife?] (Ventenal, 1 May 1947, n.p.) appeared in a whole range of popular magazines with remarkable regularity. In such quizzes, readers were asked to evaluate themselves by answering a series of questions and

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then to compare their answers to the proposed ideal. The proposed ideal consistently echoes the aforementioned conservative traditional construction of wife and mother. This ideal suggested that a good wife should serve her husband, defer to him in all matters, be compliant, and to concern herself only with domestic matters. The quiz results invariably suggest that if the reader does not conform to the ideal she should hastily reform her ways. Closer examination of the archive suggests that another aspect of moral modelling was also at play; one which relied on transcultural encounters to reinforce its message. Examination of the press and periodical archive offers an illuminating insight into the mechanisms by which the accepted notion of the female persona was formulated and disseminated by intermingling the discourse on Spanish womanhood with that of her ‘Other’. Simone de Beauvoir suggests, It is not the ‘Other’ who in defining himself as the ‘Other’, establishes the One. The ‘Other’ is posed as such by the One in defining himself as the One. (1953, xviii)

Although writing about the male/female relationship, Simone de Beauvoir’s assertion readily maps onto the situation that prevailed in Franco’s Spain where an official notion of womanhood was (at least partly) defined by means of defining the ‘Other’ of that womanhood. Review of the archive reveals a trend similar to that of colonial discourse in which the superiority of the race, in this case the Spanish race, was defined by reference to the ‘Other’. Although more commonly associated with the ‘Age of Discovery’ and the period in which Spain began colonising the Americas, a similar phenomenon is evident in the 1950s, whereby Spain, its people and the values ascribed to them are defined in dominant discursive practices in contrast to the people and the values of the Second Republic, England, France and the United States. This is a particularly prominent aspect of the discursive practices on morality in general and of feminine morality in particular. Indeed, the archive shows that the censors were not that preoccupied with the immoral conduct of working-class women, prostitutes and foreign women and, indeed, probably viewed their immorality as an inevitable consequence of their origins. The editors of the Spanish newspapers and periodicals seemed to have a particular fascination with English, American and French women, although their Italian, Swedish, German and even Turkish counterparts also occupied considerable column inches. The treatment of the foreign

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woman is best described as a discourse of the exotic ‘Other’ in which representations of English, American and French women are particularly prevalent. The most common representations of foreign woman come in the shape of cinema actresses. As in other parts of the world, the dalliances of Hollywood’s rich and famous enjoyed considerable media coverage particularly in the prensa rosa [glossy/gossip magazines] where glamorous photographs almost always accompany a gossipy news story. In the more sober media, representations of the foreign ‘Other’ usually take the form of ‘Letters from Abroad’ columns. In these columns a, usually male, foreign correspondent proffers a pseudo eye-witness account of foreign women; how they live; their attitudes; and the consequences of those attitudes for society. These articles focus on those aspects of a woman’s life which were of particular importance in Franco’s Spain, especially marriage. Throughout the lifetime of the regime, but particularly in the 1950s, the media consolidated the official representation of Spanish womanhood through an intriguing campaign which juxtaposed representations of the Spanish woman with those of her non-Spanish ‘Other’.7 While Spanish women were seen as chaste vessels, her ‘Other’ is cast in the role of a morally suspect, libertine, sexualised being. In an amusing article from an edition of Marisol published in January 1956, the (male) columnist fulminates about the scandalous French habit of kissing ‘en pleno día y en público aunque prefieren la penumbra y un lugar poco frecuentado’ (Marisol, 16 to 22 January 1956, n.p.) [in broad daylight and in public even though they prefer the semidarkness and a quite place]. The journalist also registers his astonishment that young French women, even from the best families, are allowed out alone at night—a clear inference that a young woman out alone at night could surely be up to no good. Indeed so shocking is the behaviour mentioned in the article that the columnist deemed it necessary remind and reassure the reader that he is referring to France and that such things could not happen in Spain. A great deal of attention was given both to marriages and divorces in the popular press and any researcher coming to the theme of divorce through an examination of the popular media may at first be confounded by the proliferation of articles devoted to the theme. However, deeper analysis of the articles reveals that the treatment of divorce follows a very particular pattern that, in a way, replicates the practices of the censors. The prensa rosa regularly carried stories about the broken marriages of the Hollywood elite. Throughout the 1950s the details of the divorces of Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor enjoyed ample coverage. However, this coverage is almost always balanced by journalistic

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comment which invariably takes on the distainful tones of moral superiority, suggesting that marriage breakdown simply did not exist in Spanish society. This helps explain why on this issue the popular media appears to be at odds with the common understanding of prevailing discursive practices. There are surprisingly numerous articles across all printed media which suggest that the fair-haired women of the North were less likely to enjoy marital happiness despite the male predilection for blondes. Indeed in such articles Spanish women are consoled with the suggestion that although blondes have more fun, given the choice, men would eventually opt for her darker, presumably Spanish, counterpart (Teresa 24 December 1955, 18). A 1951 ABC newspaper article following Elizabeth Taylor’s divorce from the hotel magnate, Conrad Nick Hilton carried the headline UNA GRAN TRAGEDIA [A Terrible Tragedy]. The article, prefaced by the story about the Hollywood starlet, is in fact a stinging attack on the practice of divorce. It focuses on the ‘documented’ effect of divorce on children. The Spanish reader is expected to be scandalised by the fact that as a direct result of divorce, in the United States ‘quedaron 390.000 niños semi-huérfanos’ [390,000 children have been left semi-orphaned] and the reader is expected to be alarmed by the report that doctors had likened the moral, emotional and intellectual effects of divorce to the devastation wrought by the polio epidemic which plagued the United States in the 1940s and 1950s (ABC Madrid 13 December 1951, 11) It is interesting to note that although Rita Hayworth and her Hollywood counterparts receive considerable coverage in the prensa rosa, the marriage breakdown and subsequent divorce of the Spanish actress Sara Montiel received scant coverage, a further indication that the mechanisms of the press and censorship conspired to convey the notion that such scandals did not happen to the morally superior Spanish. At the same time, El Español discussed divorce with weighty headlines like UN VINCULO QUE NO SE ROMPE: EL MATRIMONIO [Marriage: A Bond Not to be Broken], and reported on the Catholic Church’s preoccupation with rising divorce rates in France, England and Northern European Nations accompanied by a subtle reminder to readers that the Church authorities had no such concerns about the situation in Spain (El Español 1957, 14).

Conclusion This chapter has discussed the censorship of feminine neorealist novels. Built around a Foucaultian paradigm it posits that the decisions of the censors were as a result of dominant discourse. The censored passages

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discussed related to marriage and encompass marriage, marriage breakdown and divorce. In modelling the female persona, the Francoist authorities, in addition to relying on home-grown icons and archetypes as instructional models for Spanish women, also employed a discourse of the ‘Other’ thereby defining the Spanish woman by contrasting an essentialised version of Spanish femininity with a, usually foreign, ‘Other’, highlighting the perceived deficiencies in this ‘Other’. The censor’s task was to police the boundaries of acceptable discourse and then to remove and/or modify any content from literary production that challenged the orthodox, Catholic norms which prevailed in Spain under Franco. Foucault’s theories posit that societal norms recur in discourse and that these then create the boundaries on a given matter, thus tacitly defining what is considered acceptable and unacceptable in that society. This discussion of the censorship of feminine neorealist novels demonstrates that where the censors did not remove subversive passages related to the theme of divorce, for example, this was not due to oversight on their part. Instead, such instances demonstrate that the censors conducted their review of these novels in a manner that was entirely consistent with prevailing discourses. It further suggests that definitions of immorality in Franco’s Spain were as much related to who had sinned (Spanish or non-Spanish) as to what the sin was.

Works Cited Beauvoir, de S. (1997) The Second Sex, London: Vintage Farrington, P. (2000) ‘Interviews with Ana María Matute and Carme Riera’, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, vol 6, issue 1, June, 75-89. Foucault, M. (1974) The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, London: Tavistock. Kurtz, C. (1956) La vieja ley, 1st ed., Barcelona: Planeta. —. (1961) Al lado del hombre, Barcelona: Planeta. Martín Gaite, C. (1958) Entre visillos, Barcelona: Ediciones Destino. Merino, R., Rabadán, R., (2002), Censored Translations in Franco’s Spain: The TRACE Project—Theatre and Fiction (English-Spanish) [online]. Montreal, Érudit. Available from: http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/007481ar [Accessed 20 January 2009]. O'Byrne, P. (1999) ‘Spanish Women Novelists and the Censor (19451965)’, Letras Femeninas, XXV, 1-2 Primavera Otoño, 199-112 Salisachs, M. (1956) Carretera intermedia, Barcelona: Condal Luis de Caralt.

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Notes 1

I recognise that there is an ongoing debate about the appropriate classification of post-Civil War women’s literature and that scholars have been appealing for a move beyond the usual pigeonholing that characterises the field. One classification that has emerged is Patricia O’Byrne’s novela neorrealista femenina (Femenine Neorrealist Novel). Her definition acknowledges that women were subject to the same literary influences as their male counterparts and recognises the feminine focus of their subject matter (1999, 100). The broad scope of this definition recognises the particular concerns which characterise women’s novelistic production of the period as well as the literary genre. 2 Examples of these discourses can be observed across a wide range of published material aimed at a female readership. They are particularly prevalent in schooltextbooks and popular magazines for young women but can also be observed in daily newspapers and popular literature. 3 The overwhelming majority of censors were anonymous over-worked, underpaid public servants. Some were also writers who supplemented their income using their literary talents to evaluate the work of others –Camilo José Cela being the most famous. Very few women worked as censors, although there are reports that women evaluated children’s literature. I have, however, found no evidence of this. 4 The full text of the Ley de prensa can be viewed in the Spanish State Gazette, Ley 22 abril 1938 (Ministerio del Interior) PERIODICOS. Ley de prensa, Boletín Oficial del Estado, n. 549 (23 de abril 1938), 6915-1. 5 This citation is from the original manuscript of the novel. The censored passages and original manuscripts cited in this chapter are archived at the Archivo General de la Administración [Spanish Civic Archive] in Alcalá de Henares, Madrid. When submitted to the censors for review, each novel was assigned a file number [Expediente] which it retained throughout the process. The files are now archived in the Spanish Civic Archive using these numbers. 6 The newspapers and magazines cited in this chapter are available in digitised and/or micro-film format in the Biblioteca Nacional Española. 7 I have chosen the term non-Spanish in order to recognise that the phenomenon, although not discussed in this chapter, could refer to several types of women. The non-Spanish or anti-Spanish woman quite often was of Spanish birth and resided in Spain and in all other ways would be considered Spanish. Prostitutes; former milicianas [women militia]; intellectuals; and the sexually compromised amongst others all occupied this stratum and the discourse of the period classified them as debased, anti-Spanish and unrepresentative of Spanish womanliness. They were the antithesis of Spanish femininity, a distortion of the cultural ideal and the polar opposite of the values ascribed to women in Francoist Spain.

CHAPTER ELEVEN WOMEN WRITERS AND THEIR ANIMALS: VIRGINIA WOOLF’S FLUSH AND MARIA GABRIELA LLANSOL’S JADE, TWO DOGS WITH A VOICE OF THEIR OWN RAQUEL RIBEIRO

I would like to have the plural of animals heard in the singular. —Derrida 2002, 415

The relationship between writers and their companion animals has been widely documented in anthologies of short stories, poems about animals, and even in collections of moving photographs showing the artist and the animal in a perfect unison of love. The list of writers who published about animals is extensive, and includes Montesquieu, Descartes, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Kafka, and Coetzee. But women writers also wrote about their animals. As Ellen Moers points out, ‘George Sand had a horse named Colette; Christina Rossetti had the wombat; Colette had all those cats; Virginia Woolf was positively dotty about all sorts of animals’ (Moers 1977, 260). Hélène Cixous, Clarice Lispector, Sylvia Plath and Doris Lessing also wrote about their animals. This essay presents a parallel reading of Virginia Woolf’s Flush (1933) and the Portuguese author Maria Gabriela Llansol’s Amar um Cão (1990) [To Love a Dog], two texts about two special dogs, Flush and Jade, in search of a voice of their own. It also documents their relationship with their female owners. The proximity between Woolf and Llansol will demonstrate how some of Llansol’s concepts (such as the figure or scene of fulgor) are relevant for a comparative reading of the texts. Moreover, this essay exemplifies how, by writing about these two companion dogs, Woolf’s and Llansol’s texts show that ‘dog writing [could] be a branch of feminist theory’ (Haraway 2003, 3).

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Either as characters or as character’s companions, these (real or fictional) animals document an important part of the lives of humans, their owners or creators, and yet they simultaneously underscore the abyss that has always existed between animals and humans. The issue of language is crucial, as Jacques Derrida points out, since most of the philosophers in the Western tradition concur that … the animal is without language. Or more precisely unable to respond, to respond with a response that could be precisely and rigorously distinguished from a reaction, the animal is without the right and power to ‘respond’ and hence without many other things that would be the property of man. (Derrida 2002, 400)

In the late 1970s, the ecofeminist movement re-examined the relationship between humans and animals from a feminist perspective, questioning how the commoditisation of nature occurred through a process similar to that of the subjugation of women by a male-centred society. Ecofeminists analysed the relationships between women artists and animals/nature, focusing on how women writers and their animals could somehow challenge artistic and literary conventions. Interestingly, in The Cyborg Manifesto (1985), Donna Haraway’s critique of ecofeminism was precisely based on the ‘pagan’ proximity between women and nature, which insisted on ‘the organic as opposed to the technological’ (Haraway 1991, 174). Haraway’s theory, on the contrary, ‘seeks to destabilize the nature/culture dualism that grounds the oppression of both women and nature’ (Alaimo 1994, 133). If the 1980s was a fertile decade to publish a left-wing feminist manifesto on cyborgs, twenty years later, Haraway reached the conclusion that the cyborg was no longer the figure for the twentieth-first century–in its place there was now the dog. In The Companion Species Manifesto (2003), Haraway explains that ‘dogs, in their historical complexity, matter here. Dogs are not an alibi for other themes; dogs are fleshy material-semiotic presences in the body of technoscience’ (Haraway 2003, 5). More recently, Haraway continued the theme in When Species Meet, a text guided by two questions essential to an evaluation of the current relationship between humans and animals: ‘Whom and what do I touch when I touch my dog?’, and ‘How is ‘becoming with’ a practice of becoming worldly?’ (Haraway 2008, 3). Both Haraway and Llansol discuss concepts relevant to this analysis of Flush and Amar um Cão.

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The Animal as Figure There are two concepts developed by Maria Gabriela Llansol throughout her works that I consider to be extremely close to others recently presented by Haraway: the figure and fulgor, or the scene of fulgor.1 As Silvina Rodrigues Lopes posits, ‘a primeira coisa a compreender é que não há personagens nos livros de Maria Gabriela Llansol’ (Lopes 1988, 42) [the first thing to understand is that there are no characters in Maria Gabriela Llansol’s texts]. In the place of characters, Llansol proposes the figure: Identifiquei progressivamente ‘nós construtivos’ do texto a que chamo figuras e que, na realidade, não são necessariamente pessoas mas módulos, contornos, delineamentos. Uma pessoa que historicamente existiu pode ser uma figura, ao mesmo tempo que uma frase ..., um animal, ou uma quimera. ... [O]s contornos a que me referi envolvem um núcleo cintilante. (Llansol 1998, 130) [I have progressively identified the ‘constructive knots’ of the text which I call figures and which, in fact, are not necessarily people, but modules, shapes, contours. A person who has existed historically can become a figure, but so can a sentence ..., an animal, or a chimera ... The shapes that I have mentioned involve a shining nucleus].

The figurative kingdom, as Llansol puts it, is a kingdom-to-come towards the creation of a community. By affirming the autonomous matrix of the figure as an independent, glittering nucleus of energy, Llansol retracts her responsibility for the creation of such beings. This is one of the basic principles which distinguishes a Llansolian figure from a character: characters are the author’s responsibility (here understood as an original creator), while figures are generated by an energy emanating from the text. Llansol rejects the character (and its narrative normativeness) and replaces it with the figure, the primordial element of her textuality: ‘Sentia-me infantil em dar vida às personagens da escrita realista porque isso significava que lhes devia igualmente dar a morte’ (Llansol 1998, 130) [I felt childish bringing to life the characters of realistic writing because this meant that I should also bring them death]. Characters are ‘people’, and even when they are animals, they usually undergo the narrative process of anthropomorphism, granting them human qualities. Figures, on the other hand, are not or are no longer people but shining nuclei of energy. According to Llansol, anyone or anything, an object or a landscape, can become a figure: it must appear in the text through a source

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of energy (fulgor), and renounce its previous biographical, canonical or narrative existence. The scene of fulgor could be interpreted as a gap literally opened inside the text that generates an intense confluence of energy, through which a figure appears. Karin Hopfe accurately asserts that the scene of fulgor is ‘o ponto culminante do sistema poético de Llansol’ (Hopfe 2002, 181) [the culmination of Llansol’s poetic system]. It is always ontological since it establishes a relationship between the simultaneous presence and absence of a being, propelled by the writing. Jade’s birth, in Amar um Cão, could be considered an excellent example of a scene of fulgor in Llansol’s oeuvre: _______________ houve uma breve hesitação da parte de quem transportava o recém-nascido _____________ o meu cão Jade, ... muito, e com grande intensidade, aconteceu durante esse tempo breve em que Jade foi deixado suspenso sobre um medronheiro, sem mãe visível, num berço nem celeste, nem terrestre. No lugar que toda a planta acolhe. (Llansol 2000a, 39)2 [_______________ there was a brief hesitation from the one carrying the new-born _____________ my dog Jade,... a lot, and with great intensity, occurred during the short time in which Jade was left suspended upon a strawberry tree, without a visible mother, in a cradle neither celestial, nor terrestrial. In the place welcomed by every plant].

Ontologically, Jade is born in a cradle that is neither celestial nor terrestrial, without a mother. This cradle is precisely the place, marked with a long space, in which Jade (the narrator’s dog) appears suspended from a tree, as if he were a bird or a fruit. However, his ontology has destined him to a different canine existence, the life of a figure born out of a scene of fulgor. Llansol explains that fulgor is a ‘fonte de ser’ [source of being] intrinsically related to poetics (Llansol 2000b, 197). Her books are neither things, nor metaphors, since her text ‘‘cria’ seres futuros que não são projecções imaginárias’ (Llansol 2000b, 198) [‘creates’ future beings who are not imaginary projections]. The text, then, ‘não avança por desenvolvimentos temáticos, nem por enredo, mas segue o fio que une as diferentes cenas fulgor’ (Llansol 1998, 130) [does not advance by theme, or plot, but by following the thread that joins the different scenes of fulgor]. Llansol’s fulgor thus resembles Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of becoming, the mechanism used by Kafka to metamorphose his characters

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(Deleuze and Guattari. 1975, 40). For both philosophers and Llansol, only writing and literature can attain a state of illumination or revelation in the text: fulgor. Only through writing can men achieve fulgor, the becomingother or becoming-invisible of literature (Deleuze and Guattari 2004, 256341).

Figuration as Feminist Motto For Haraway, touching the dog means the human becomes with him. ‘To be one is always to become with many’ (Haraway 2008, 4). Haraway’s becoming with refers to bacteria as the force of symbiosis in the process of becoming, stressing the relevance of infection and bacteria due to their propensity to create communities, ‘organisms [which] are ecosystems of genomes, consortia, communities, partly digested dinners, mortal boundary formations’ (Haraway 2008, 30). This collective assemblage provokes a becoming with, since these figures become with each other, they are beings-in-encounter, ‘mundanely here, on this earth, now, asking who ‘we’ will become when species meet’ (Haraway 2008, 5). Secondly, for Haraway figures are assemblages of people ‘through their invitation to inhabit the corporal story told in their lineaments’ and ‘nodes or knots in which diverse bodies and meanings coshape one another’ (Haraway 2008, 4). Haraway and Llansol concur that figures exist where (or when) the ‘biological and literary or artistic come together with all of the force of lived reality’ to the extent that, as Haraway states, ‘my body itself is just a figure, literally’ (Haraway 2008, 4). In addition, there is, thirdly, the question of love for a ‘significant other’ (Haraway 2003, 7). Haraway believes that animals are constantly neglected when it comes to narrating a human history or documenting relationships of love, nurturing, and surrogacy. The animal is ‘forever positioned on the other side of the unbridgeable gap, a gap that reassures the Human of his excellence’ (Haraway 2008, 77). For Haraway, human history should be concomitant with a history of the animal. A history of colonialism and oppression should always include–be it the absence of, the exclusion of, or the importance of–the animal. Dogs, like cyborgs, are part of a larger structure, the companion species that bring together ‘the human and non-human, the organic and technological, carbon and silicon, freedom and structure, history and myth, the rich and the poor, the state and the subject, diversity and depletion, modernity and postmodernity’ (Haraway 2008, 4). Haraway explains how the word ‘companion’ comes from Latin cum panis meaning ‘with bread’ (Haraway 2008, 17). On the other hand, ‘species’ derives from specere, meaning ‘to behold’. Species is

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also the foundation for respecere, ‘to respect’, the core of Haraway’s theory: To hold in regard, to respond, to look back reciprocally, to notice, to pay attention, to have courteous regard for, to esteem .... To knot companion and species together in encounter, in regard and respect, is to enter the world of becoming with, where who and what are is precisely what is at stake (Haraway 2008, 19). A theory of companion species should be considered as a solution to the growing isolation of the individual and to the lack of respect among beings, respecere in ‘optic/haptic/affective/cognitive touch’ (Haraway 2008, 164).

Flush and Jade, Two Literary Dogs Virginia Woolf once explained that she was so exhausted after writing The Waves (1931) that she decided to write Flush immediately afterwards: ‘I lay in the garden and read the Browning love letters, and the figure of their dog made me laugh so I couldn’t resist making him a Life’ (Flint 2000, xvi). Flush was, in fact, a cocker spaniel, the pet of the British poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861). As a biography, Flush can be placed alongside Woolf’s other biographical writings, such as Orlando (1928). It accounts for Flush’s life supported by a thorough list of sources at the end of the text, essentially Browning’s letters and poems. The narrative follows Flush from birth to death although the biography is delayed by a short introduction in which Woolf presents the historical lineage of the spaniel breed, accounting for how pedigree sustains class structures in dog-society. Flush was a real dog now transformed into a literary figure, yet there are some biographical details in Woolf’s life that might explain why she chose to write the biography of a dog and how this is relevant to establishing a comparison with Llansol’s short story. According to Quentin Bell, Flush is partly ‘a work of self-revelation’, because the narrator is ‘Virginia herself but an attempt is made to describe Wimpole Street, Whitechapel and Italy from a dog’s point of view, to create a world of canine smells, fidelities and lusts’ (Bell 1973, 175). Woolf used the metaphor of the animal to describe people in general, including her siblings, because an animal kept for companionship is synonymous with an object of affection. Woolf was able to portray with such accuracy the idiosyncratic behaviour of a cocker spaniel because she herself had a spaniel called Pinka, a puppy given to her by Vita Sackville-West. The

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fact that Pinka ‘became, essentially, Leonard’s dog’ (Bell 1973, 175) is not without significance to our understanding of Woolf’s biographical relationship with animals. Lady Ottoline wrote to Woolf shortly after the publication of Flush: ‘Don’t you sometimes hug your dog–I did my darling Socrates–hugged him & [sic] hugged him–and kissed him a thousand times on his soft cheeks’ (Bell 1973, 175). Interestingly, Bell states that Woolf would have strongly replied ‘No’, because she was not, ‘in the fullest sense of the word, a dog lover’ (Bell 1973, 175). Here lies a tension between Llansol and Woolf: Woolf did not ‘love’ dogs whereas Llansol’s Amar um Cão is a set of guidelines explaining how to love a dog. Bell argues that: Flush is not so much a book by a dog lover as a book by someone who would love to be a dog. In all her emotional relationships, she pictured herself as an animal …. Her dog was the embodiment of her own spirit, not the pet of an owner. Flush in fact was one of the routes which Virginia used, or at least examined, in order to escape from her own human corporeal existence. (Bell 1973, 175-176)

The question posed by Woolf and Llansol is not whether to love a dog, but rather how to love him. In the case of Flush and Jade (also a cocker spaniel), it should be stressed that they challenge the conventions of literary canons by addressing the issue of how marginal figures (like dogs) might define their identity through literature. Llansol wrote in her last book: ‘Não há texto autobiográfico’ (Llansol 2007, 11) [There is no autobiographic text]. Yet, the Llansolian reader has been aware, since A Restante Vida (1983, 44) [The Life that is Left], that in the life of this author there was a dog called Jade. However, Jade is no longer the biographical dog that once existed, becoming instead a ‘cão textual’ [textual dog]: Entre Amar um Cão e o cão que eu amei há apenas o ressalto de uma frase. Com um deles vivi; o outro era o cão textual que nos acompanhava, ainda antes de o ter encontrado no futuro que nos veio a reunir. (Llansol 2002, 234) [All that lies between Amar um Cão and the dog that I loved is a sentence. I lived with one of them; the other was the textual dog who accompanied us, even before having met him in the future that brought us together].

The textual dog Jade is now intrinsically detached from the real one–he is a figure. It is irrelevant whether Llansol owned Jade, since that ‘sentence’

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makes the text stumble, creating a gap which generates meaning and opens the narrative sequence to possibilities of existence. Woolf wanted to escape her ‘human corporeal existence’ (Bell 1973, 176) by writing the life of a dog and by extension criticising issues of class, gender and power, not only during the Victorian period (the narrative time of Flush), but also during her own time. Just as Amar um Cão is essentially described as a ‘mapa para atravessar sem dano de vida o campo de minas em que se tornou a nossa cultura’ (Joaquim and Llansol 2007, 84) [map showing safe passage through the minefield that our culture became], so Flush should be read as a ‘testimony to the lives that have never been narrated, the inscrutable and therefore unrepresentable, the discarded and therefore wasted’ (Caughie 1991, 61). By giving a literary life to Flush, Woolf proclaims his identity as a figure: she gave him a voice able to pronounce an identity from which he would have been banned historically. Rather than an existence confined to a footnote in the life of a woman poet, Flush could be considered a Llansolian remnant, a ‘restante vida’ [life that is left].3 Whilst Amar um Cão is considered important in Llansol’s oeuvre, Flush is not one of Woolf’s most canonical texts. Among other reasons, it is known that Woolf dismissed Flush as being ‘by way of a joke’ (Snaith 2002, 618), calling it a ‘silly book’ and ‘a waste of time’ (Caughie 1991, 47). Quentin Bell recalls that Woolf knew that ‘the critics would like it [Flush] for reasons which did her no credit; she would be admired as an elegant lady prattler’ (Bell 1973, 174). Woolf chose to write about Browning, however, with the purpose of shedding light on a poet who attained popular recognition, but whose poetry no one was reading anymore (Woolf 2000, 109). ‘Woolf understood that the fascination with Browning’s life had prevented readers from fully appreciating the politics of her writing’ (Snaith 2002, 615). In other words, biography and text became so incestuously connected that the common reader forgot how to listen to literature, focusing rather on the details of its author’s life. In my opinion, Woolf wrote Flush precisely because Browning’s life was too scrutinised: instead of writing a biography of the poet, she accomplished it through the eyes of her dog, and, in so doing, ‘stretched the limits of literary canonicity’ (Flint 2000, xvii). By establishing an almost physical resemblance between Browning and her dog–‘yes, they are much alike’ (Flint 2000, xvii)–Woolf is showing how Flush and Browning are companion species. In this case, the word companion appears to be literal, for Flush (the dog but also the text) mirrors Browning’s confinement–‘a bird in a cage would have as good a story’ (Woolf 2000, 26)–while living with her father. Their lives were parallel, the dog felt, because ‘he and

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Miss Barrett lived alone together in a cushioned and firelit cave’ (Woolf 2000, 24). The similarities between Browning and her dog could be considered to represent not merely correspondence between women and dogs as a result of their shared marginality, but rather that they actually become companion species. Dog and owner acknowledge each other in their first meeting: There was a likeness between them, as they gazed at each other each felt: Here am I – and then each felt: But how different! ... Between them lay the widest gulf that can separate one being from another. She spoke. He was dumb. She was woman; he was dog. Thus closely united, thus immensely divided, they gazed at each other. (Woolf 2000, 18-19)

What is striking about Flush is the proximity established by Woolf between humans and animals, using, like Llansol, ‘the presumed, customary split’ among realms in order to ‘examine the way assumed hierarchies function within society’ (Flint 2000, xvi). This is precisely where Woolf encounters Llansol–or Flush meets Jade–since the fusion of the animal and human kingdoms thus allows Flush to exist beyond his biography and literary life. In order to portray a dog’s life, Woolf resorted to the metaphor of smell. Humans cannot experience the sense of smell as dogs can, and Woolf suggests this by stating that ‘the greatest poets in the world have smelt nothing but roses on the one hand, and dung on the other’ (Woolf 2000, 86). Consequently, poets could not understand what it is like to be a dog and dwell in a world of smells. To Flush, ‘love was chiefly smell; form and colour were smell; music and architecture, law, politics and science were smell. To him religion itself was smell’ (Woolf 2000, 86). When he moves from London to Florence, Flush will seek out new ‘raptures of smell’ (Woolf 2000, 86), in short, a new life filled with ‘olfactory abundance’ (Smith 2002, 353) now ‘veined with human passions’ (Woolf 2000, 88). Jade, on the other hand, states: ‘Não vejo, farejo com o meu farofarol’ (Llansol 2002, 215) [I don’t see, I smell with my beacon-sense]. For Jade, in place of smell, everything was text.

Jade Learns How to Read In the same way that Flush will experience new smells throughout his life, Jade ‘quer aprender a ler sobre um texto que eu porei a arder por ele’ (Llansol 2000a, 42) [wants to learn how to read upon a text that I will set alight for him]. Reading (upon) (‘ler (sobre)’, in Portuguese) is paradigmatic in Llansol, since in all her works the practice of reading is always related to the experience of learning. It is through the palimpsestic

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superimposition of a text being read upon a text being written that meaning can be generated in her works. Since we established the birth of Jade as the archetypal scene of fulgor, it is crucial to underline how birth, reading and writing go hand in hand in the Llansolian text, a fact supremely attested to in Amar um Cão. There are two dogs, as we have stated: the real Jade, and the textual one. Augusto Joaquim explains that Jade is ‘o primeiro cão’ [the first dog] and that in his birthplace ‘todo o cão começa’ [every dog starts]. Jade is also the last dog because ‘depois deste, cão não é cão’ [after this, dog is no longer dog]: instead, after Jade, all dogs become figures (Joaquim and Llanasol 2007, 37). Consequently, in the scene of fulgor of the beginning we witness two births: one is a ‘serde-vida’ [being-of-life], the other, a ‘ser-de-texto’ (Barrento 2007, 6) [being-of-text]. The textual dog is related to the first one by name, gender and birthplace, but the garden where the real Jade used to play is now transformed into a ‘metonímia de um mais amplo espaço edénico’ (Barrento 2007, 6) [metonymy of a wider Edenic space]. In the short story, the relationship established between Jade and the child echoes some passages of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Like Alice and her friends, both Jade and the child are constantly challenged by philosophical questions about language and its realm, learning and reading, and how these binaries are connected. If, in the first instance, this relationship is strange because she is a human and he is a dog, in the second instance, the Llansolian text in fact enables this relationship precisely because they belong to different worlds. In Amar um Cão (contrary to the literary process of anthropomorphism), the dog does not speak like the human; rather it is the human who must find a common language with the animal in order to be understood. The dog asks the child why she is playing alone: ‘Por necessidade de conhecer. De conhecer-te’ [Because of the need to know. To know you], she replies, because ‘o cão do futuro é o meu verdadeiro interlocutor’ (Llansol 2000a, 41, 42) [because the dog of the future is my real interlocutor]. Jade thus allows her into his realm, ‘entraste no reino onde eu sou cão’ (Llansol 2000a, 42) [you have entered the realm where I am dog], he says. This idea is developed later in another text, a dialogue showing how the dog-realm is a supreme example of the realm of languages: ‘Queres um jardim?’, perguntaram-lhe. ‘‘Não, não quero um lugar onde tudo tenha nome’, respondeu a menina ... ‘Então, entraste na linguagem’’ (Llansol 2002, 219) [‘Do you want a garden?’, she was asked. ‘No, I don’t want a place in which everything has a name’, she replied … ‘You have entered language, then’].

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For Llansol, like Wittgenstein, language is a game through which the child will learn how to penetrate the dog-realm, as the dog will learn how to read in the precise gap created in the text marking the distance between ‘os perigos do poço’ [the dangers of the well] and ‘os prazeres do jogo’ [the pleasures of the game] (Llansol 2000a, 42). As Pedro Eiras points out, in relation to Wittgenstein, ... o jogo não pode ter essência, a não ser aquela que ele mesmo decida, precisamente, pôr em jogo. E nesse sentido, todos os jogos de linguagem se podem tornar jogos de vida ou de morte, isso só depende do jogador. (Eiras 2007) [the game cannot have a principle except the very one it decides play about with. In that sense, every word game has the potential to become a game of life and death, it just depends on the player].

The game between the dog and the child is, precisely, a game of life and death to the extent that the ‘wheel’ (risk/ danger/ fear) can only exist in relation to the ‘game’ (fruition/ pleasure/ daring), since these are the elements essential to the process of reading upon i.e., learning. As such, Jade is learning how to write and to read against the fear of the dangers of the wheel. ‘Ensinar Jade a ler é escolher o caminho do fulgor e não o da verosimilhança’ (Santos 2007, 19) [Teaching Jade how to read is choosing the way of fulgor, not that of verisimilitude], because to Llansol ‘ler é ser chamado a um combate, a um drama’ (Llansol 2000b, 18) [to read is the same as to be called to combat, or a drama]. Jade, ‘partindo a tela’ [breaking the lead], asks the child to fight with him (not against, but with), a combat from which he feels ‘ter saído vencido, mas com rebeldia’ (Llansol 2000a, 42, 40) [he emerged defeated, but rebellious]. Flush was intimately connected to Browning’s writing: ‘Flush could not read what she was writing an inch or two above his head. But he knew just as well as if he could read every word, how strangely his mistress was agitated as she wrote’ (Woolf 2000, 36-37). Similarly, Jade witnesses his companion writing, describing his relationship with the woman’s body thus: … já te falei da minha dona? os sentimentos // que a assaltam de madrugada acordam-me, excitam-me, inquietam-me, e ela diz-me que são a sua autobiografia ... de repente, ela levanta o lápisponta [sic], e diz ‘sentem-se’ ... a ponta desce sobre o caderno, a ferrar-lhe o dente como eu faria, e forma-se um halo de luz à volta dela .... Tantas vezes cheirei o seu corpo inteiro, ainda não sei, menino, não saberei, na bacia enevoada do nosso afecto, não a distingo da aurora, do emaranhado natural do seu

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jardim, do prato de leite e de comida, da voz que me diz o nome, da graça de me ter sentado entre os legentes do caderno, ladro-o, ladro-a, ganindo aos saltos a vida. (Llansol 2002, 222-223) [Have I told you about my owner? The feelings // that assail her during the night wake me up, excite me, disturb me, and she tells me that these feelings are her autobiography ... suddenly, she raises her pencil point and says ‘sit’ ... the pencil descends towards the notebook, she grits her teeth as I would, and a halo of light is formed around her .... I have smelled her whole body so many times, I’m not sure, child, if I would know it in the foggy basin of our affection, if I could distinguish her from the dawn, from the natural tangle of her garden, from the bowl of milk and food, from the voice that says my name, from the pleasure of sitting among the lectants of the notebook, I bark it, I bark her, whining life in leaps and bounds].

Dog and child/ owner are, therefore, the lectants4 and writers of this text barking at it, staging a combat read upon each other, because, to Llansol, ‘ler é nunca chegar ao fim de um livro respeitando-lhe a sequência coercitiva das frases’ (Llansol 2000a, 45) [to read is never to reach the end of a book following the coercive sequence of sentences]. As such, a sentence ‘lida destacadamente, aproximada de outra que talvez já lhe correspondesse em silêncio, é uma alma crescendo’ (Llansol 2000a, 45) [read distinctly and placed next to another to which it might correspond in silence, that is a growing soul]. This spreading or growing soul is an amalgamation of the human and the animal in the process of becoming figures: just as the child is a soul growing towards her dog, so the sentences, the figures, and the fragments of this text, should be read as growing souls conjugated out of the common light. This is the light that ‘ilumina marido e mulher, pais e filhos, sentados à mesa’ (Llansol 2000a, 44) [shines upon husband and wife, parents and children, seated at the table] a light which generates ‘a lei do hábito de servir’ [the law of the custom to serve], true happiness, power structures, discipline and order, yet, at the same time, perpetuates the shadows, pushing those expelled by history to the margins. Dog and owner are now involved in an act of rebellion against the kingdoms created by men (categories intended to separate them).

Conclusion José Augusto Mourão states that ‘o cão não é uma ‘coisa’ que se tem’ (Mourão 2004, 165) [a dog is not ‘something’ we own]. A dog is an equal because, unlike the realist encounters amongst beings sustained by power and ownership, preventing them from recognising each other as

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companion species, the fulgorian encounters are a space of dispossession and becoming with. If Flush is, like the majority of pets, as Jacqui Griffiths suggests, (Griffiths 2002) integrated into the family institution and controlled by its rules (a microcosm of society), in Santos’s words, subordinated to the common light, Jade is allowed to ‘sair do reino do Poder e entrar no reino da liberdade’ (Santos 2007, 22) [leave the realm of Power and enter the realm of freedom]. In this sense, Flush is (still) not entirely free, since his identity is dominated by what society defines as canine in opposition to the human. Hence, ‘in relation to the white, male, adult subject of enunciation [Flush] faces what amounts, anthropomorphically speaking, to subjective castration’ (Griffiths 2002, 169). Flush is still under the common light, but Jade is not. Whilst Jade can read, Flush cannot. ‘Quando leio um texto, escrevo sobre ele; mas quando leio sobre um texto, escrevo com ele’ (Santos 2007, 22) [When I read a text, I write upon it; but when I read upon a text, I write with it]. Reading upon, writing with: Llansol read upon Woolf could be paralleled to the becoming of Jade writing with Flush–two figures now transformed into textual dogs in search of a voice. Through the process of figuration, both Woolf and Llansol created voices of resistance, of rebellion against established orders. Figuration suggests an alternative reading of history because ‘feminist theory proceeds by figuration at just those moments when its own historical narratives are in crisis’ (Haraway 2004, 47). Like Llansol, Haraway is adamant that a figure should be an entity which resists the power apparatus: Figuration is the mode of theory when the more ‘normal’ rhetorics of systematic critical analysis seem only to repeat and sustain our entrapment in the stories of the established disorders. ... We must have feminist figures of humanity. They cannot be man or woman; they cannot be human as historical narrative has staged that generic universal. Feminist figures cannot, finally, have a name; they cannot be native. Feminist humanity must, somehow, both resist representation, resist literal figuration, and still erupt in powerful tropes, new figures of speech, new turns of historical possibility. (Haraway 2004, 47)

The becoming of a woman with an animal, out of the patriarchal set of thought, is an excellent example of a figuration, and, as textual dogs, Flush and Jade could be framed in dog-writing as ‘a branch of feminist theory’. By becoming figures they are tropes of feminist figuration, no longer attached to a real name, history, or a human.

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To conclude, it seems that the concept of figure in Llansol can attenuate a series of gaps which were historically established between human and animals. First, the figure determines the singularity of a being, and the animal is no longer plural (the animals) but becomes figure, corporeality of fulgor. Secondly, the Llansolian figure is enunciated through textuality, therefore the issue of the animal not being capable of replying to the human is no longer relevant: the animal-figure is not narrative, like a character, not dependent on the real world, thus becoming a textual being who can only be perceived or understood through text. Finally, language could be the abyss separating humans and animals, but as Flush and Jade demonstrate, this wide gulf must be trespassed by humans (and not vice-versa) in order to reach a becoming with, entering the realm of figuration. Flush and Jade could thus be considered autobiographical animals (Derrida 1999) able to attain a ‘writing of the self as living, the trace of the living for itself’, even if they have been ‘refused the power to transform those traces into verbal language, discursive questions and responses, denied the power to efface its traces’ (Derrida 2002, 415, 417-418). After Flush and Jade, however, animals could finally trace a voice of their own, shedding a light on the possibility of animals writing their own biography, inscribing their place in the human world through the telling of their story not along with, but, if necessary, upon the human. Derrida explains that this ‘would not be a matter of ‘giving speech back’ to animals but perhaps of acceding to a thinking ... that thinks the absence of the name and of the word otherwise as something other than a privation’ (Derrida 2002, 416).

Works Cited Alaimo, S. (1994) ‘Cyborg and Ecofeminist Interventions: Challenges for an Environmental Feminism’, Feminist Studies, vol. 20, no. 1, 133152. Barrento, J. (2007) ‘Um Berço de Perguntas. Amar um Cão (1)’, in M. Etelvina Santos, J. Barrento and C. V. Rodrigues (eds.), Um Ser Sendo. Leituras de Amar um Cão, Colares: Espaço Llansol, 5-17. Bell, Q. (1973) Virginia Woolf: A Biography, vol. 2, London: Hogarth Press. Caughie, P. L. (1991) ‘Flush and the Literary Canon: Oh Where Oh Where Has the Little Dog Gone?’, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, vol 10, no. 1, 47-66. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1975) Kafka–Pour une Littérature, Mineure, Paris: Minuit.

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—. (2004) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, vol. 2, trans. Brian Massumi. New York: Continuum. Derrida, J. et al (1999) L'animal autobiographique: Autour de Jacques Derrida, Paris: Galilee. Derrida, J. (2002) ‘The Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow)’, Critical Inquiry, vol. 28, no. 2 (Winter), 369-418. Eiras, P. (2007) ‘Como se faz um jogo das comunidades? Maria Gabriela Llansol e o desconhecido’, paper presented at conference ‘30 Years Since the Book of Communities’, Liverpool, United Kingdom, September 5. Flint, K. (2000) ‘Introduction to Flush’, in Flush, Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, xii-xlvi. Griffiths, J. (2002) ‘Almost Human: Indeterminate Children and Dogs in Flush and The Sound and The Fury’, The Yearbook of English Studies, vol. 32, 163-176. Haraway, D. (1991) ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’, in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, New York: Routledge, 149-181. —. (2003) The Companion Species Manifesto. Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness, Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press. —. (2004) ‘Ecce Homo, Ain’t (Ar’n’t) a Woman, and Inappropriate/d Others’, in The Haraway Reader, New York: Routledge, 47-61. —. (2008) When Species Meet, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Hopfe, K. (2002) ‘A escrita no diário / o diário na escrita: Diário, de Maria Gabriela Llansol’, in M. de Fátima Figueiredo and K. Hopfe (eds.), Metamorfoses do Eu: O Diário e Outros Géneros Autobiográficos na Literatura Portuguesa do Século XX, Frankfurt: TFM, 175-185. Joaquim, A. and Llansol, M. G. (2007) Desenhos a Lápis com Fala: Amar um Cão, Lisbon: Assírio e Alvim. Llansol, M. G. (1983) A Restante Vida, Porto: Afrontamento. —. 1996) Inquérito às Quatro Confidências. Diário III, Lisbon: Relógio d’Água. —. (1998) Um Falcão no Punho, Lisbon: Relógio d’Água. —. (2000a) ‘Amar um Cão’ in Cantileno, Lisbon: Relógio d’Água, 37-49. —. (2000b) Onde Vais, Drama-Poesia?, Lisbon: Relógio d’Água. —. (2002) O Senhor de Herbais, Lisbon: Relógio d’Água. —. (2007) Os Cantores de Leitura, Lisbon: Assírio & Alvim. Lopes, S. R. (1988) Teoria da Des-Possessão, Lisbon: Black Sun. Moers, E. (1977) Literary Women, Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

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Mourão, J. A. (2004) O Fulgor é Móvel. Em Torno da obra de Maria Gabriela Llansol, Lisbon: Roma Editora. Santos, M. E. (2007) ‘A Fraternidade do Ímpar. Amar um Cão (2)’, in M. Etelvina Santos, J. Barrento and C. V. Rodrigues (eds.), Um Ser Sendo. Leituras de Amar um Cão, Colares: Espaço Llansol, 18-36. Smith, C. (2002) ‘Across the Widest Gulf: Nonhuman Subjectivity in Virginia Woolf’s Flush’, Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 48, no. 3 (Autumn), 348-361. Snaith, A. (2002) ‘Of Fanciers, Footnotes, and Fascism: Virginia Woolf’s Flush’, Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 48, no. 3 (Fall), 614-636. Woolf, V. (2000) Flush, Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics.

Notes 1

From Latin fulgore, i.e. an intense and sudden shining, or light(ning). There is no English equivalent to this word, although Romance languages can contribute to a wider translation of the concept. For the purpose of this article, I will use the word fulgor in its original Portuguese form, meaning an intense and sudden light or appearance. 2 The long en-dashes such as these ___________ and the spaces interrupting sentences such as these [ ] are an original characteristic of the Llansolian text and I have maintained them in the translated sections. To Llansol, the long line suspends the continuity of a text, its linerarity, because ‘there are sentences which, in the threshold of the worlds, should not be entirely written; there are sentences whose direction of meaning will always be obscure’ (Llansol 1996, 75). 3 Another Llansolian concept, the life that is left (‘restante vida’) represents those who were silenced, excluded from history by power and the powerful (poor men, and women, animals or nature, for instance) whom Llansol includes in her literary project. 4 Lectant (from reading, i.e., legere in Latin) is another Llansolian concept: an engaged reader who reads while s/he acts, generating text through the act of reading.

PART III: TRANSCULTURAL ENCOUNTERS IN FILM

CHAPTER TWELVE TRANCULTURAL ENCOUNTERS IN ICÍAR BOLLAÍN’S FLORES DE OTRO MUNDO (1999): FROM RACISM TOWARDS ACCEPTANCE OF THE ‘FEMALE OTHER’ PATRICIA O’BYRNE

The film title chosen by Icíar Bollaín and co-script writer Julio Llamazares, Flores de otro mundo [Flowers from Another World], gives rise to expectations of ‘pleasing spectacles of otherness’ (Nair 2002, 1) which prove to be quite misleading, serving to reinforce the contradictions and challenges the film poses. In her second film as director, a film which depicts a transcultural encounter, Bollaín directly engages with racism from the perspectives of both the immigrant and the ‘racists’.1 As in the case of the topic of domestic violence, the subject matter of her most acclaimed film, Te doy mis ojos (2003) [Take My Eyes], racism is a highly sensitive and controversial issue. Étienne Balibar holds that in contemporary societies ‘racism as attitude, discourse and practice is banned’ and believes that this has led to a point of ‘extreme tension, perhaps extreme confusion, in the use of the category of racism’ (Balibar 2008, 1630-31). In recent times there have been many well-publicised cases in Spain of the confusion to which Balibar refers, such as that of Spanish Formula 1 supporters painting their faces black, wearing wigs, and sporting t-shirts reading ‘Hamilton’s family’. In response to claims of a racist insult to black British driver Lewis Hamilton, the incident was described by those involved, and indeed by many Spaniards, as a bit of a joke. 2 The photograph of the Spanish National basketball team pulling their eyes into a slanting position in advance of the Beijing Olympics exemplifies the same ambivalent attitude towards racism and racial sensitivities. Spain’s transformation from a culturally homogenous society to one of the main recipients of immigrants in the European Union, has happened at a very rapid pace which has not allowed time for debate or

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discussion on the consequences for the nation state. Other than in relation to flagrant xenophobic attacks, the question of underlying racism has still not been addressed today; over a decade after the making of her film, the issues Bollaín raises are still highly relevant. Since the arrival of significant numbers of economic migrants to Spain beginning in the mid 1980s, Spanish film has documented the phenomenon. Bollaín’s Flores de otro mundo, awarded the Film Critics’ Prize at Cannes in 1999 for the best international film, along with Montxo Armendáriz’s Cartas de Alou (1990) [Letters from Alou], Cosas que dejé en la Habana (1997) [Things I Left in Havana] directed by Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón) and the more recent box-office success, Fernando León de Aranoa’s Princesas (2005), are among a small number of films produced in Spain in the last two decades that take a serious approach to the subject of immigration. What is commendable about Bollaín’s treatment of conflictive transcultural encounters is her holistic approach. While her film most definitely does not exonerate the ‘racists’, it does not set out simply to condemn them. Rather, it is a genuine attempt to explore and sensitively uncover what is often subtle racism in a society where many would genuinely claim that there is no racism. Bollaín’s quest to analyse and comprehend issues of social conflict from the perspective of all sides is key to the success of her films. Her contact with renowned film director Ken Loach (firstly through her acting role in Loach’s Land and Freedom (1995), and later her presence during the making of his 1996 film Carla’s Song)3 may have helped persuade her of the importance of ideological conviction coupled with a balance in portrayal, which have now become hallmarks of Bollaín’s own films. Most of the racist behaviour in Flores de otro mundo is not perpetrated and tolerated by maverick members of the community; indeed the characters are all stereotypically representative of any rural community. Similarly, in Te doy mis ojos, the film does not set out simply to depict domestic violence. It could more appropriately be described as a love story that has gone horribly wrong: the abusive husband is not a formulaic, alcoholic brute or wife-beater; he is depicted as an over-sensitive, tender man who is no longer in control of his uncommunicated fears and insecurities. While the audience’s response is to condemn his actions unreservedly, we also understand the catalyst behind them. This, like Flores de otro mundo, is far from a homiletic film preaching a message. It is much more effective: it is an invitation to consider the issues presented. Social issues for Bollaín are never black and white; she compels her audience to grapple with all aspects of a problem and the complexities of its causes. In this respect, her films are a valuable contribution to

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confronting serious issues in contemporary society. Flores de otro mundo is set in Santa Eulalia, a remote Spanish village in the throes of depopulation and in desperate need of young women to ensure its future. To this end a fiesta de solteros or bachelors’ party is organised which attracts a busload of women, interested in finding partners or simply in having a good time. The film follows the story of two of the relationships that result from this encounter as well as a third relationship between a villager and a young Cuban woman. The main focus is the integration into village life of Milady, the young black Cuban and of Patricia, a Dominican mother of two. These characters symbolise, respectively, the two stereotypical interpretations of the immigrant woman in Spanish film and literature, as noted by Ross, ‘that of sexualized, exotic Other and that of the motherly caretaker’ (2008, 218). Patricia, who is also dark skinned, marries Damián, a shy villager in his late thirties who lives alone with his mother, while middle-aged Carmelo brings the young Milady from Cuba to his comfortable, newly-renovated home in the village. Meanwhile Alfonso, a refined, more educated villager and one of the instigators of the fiesta, establishes a relationship with Marirosi, who comes from Bilbao and is a divorced mother of a son nearing adulthood. This chapter will first consider Spain’s multicultural profile before focussing both on the film’s subtle exposure of latent, unacknowledged racism and on the challenges facing villagers forced to reconfigure their sense of identity in the face of unsolicited transcultural encounters. The concluding section will consider the possibility for conviviality and acceptance of the ‘otherness’ that the film posits.4 According to Spain’s National Institute for Statistics, there are approximately 5.5 million non-nationals legally residing in Spain, of whom a little over 35% are of Latin American origin.5 Notwithstanding Spain’s relatively generous (by European standards) amnesty and regularisation policies for non-EU immigrants in the past, it is possible that there are up to one million of ‘illegals’.6 It is important in the present context to consider the evolution of the 12% non-national make-up of the population. As Juan Goytisolo points out, immigration only takes root in Spain from the mid-1970s coinciding with the opening of multinational companies in Spain. The arrival of mainly European industrialists, investors, highly paid executives and retirees is followed in the 1980s by immigrants from Latin America, mostly from Peru, Ecuador, Argentina and Chile. However, it is not until the arrival of what Goytisolo refers to as the ‘la tercera ola de inmigrantes’ (2000, 112) [the third wave of immigrants], who cross the Mediterranean from the African continent that immigration–in its totality–becomes a contentious issue in Spain. Due to

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its peripheral location and political and economic situation, Spain did not experience immigration earlier in the twentieth century, so the transformation to a multicultural society came about more intensely and rapidly than in most other European nations. Since the expulsion of the Moorish and Jewish populations from Spain by the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabel, at the end of the fifteenth century, Spain had not been exposed to encounters with cultural, religious or ethnic otherness on its home soil. In the twentieth century Franco would reinforce the notion of unity at all levels, with attempts to crush manifestations of even regional difference. Thus post-Franco Spain, in the throes of its transition to democracy, is confronting the issue of immigration with embedded historical attitudes of non-tolerance and against a backdrop of challenges to a single, secure sense of national identity posed by the efforts of the autonomous regions to reassert their repressed identity, be it Basque, Catalan, Galician or other. Furthermore, Spaniards–unlike most of the original European Community members–are initially acutely conscious of their new European identity, acquired with membership of the European Union in 1986, as it marks acceptance to the European fold following decades of exclusion. The reconfiguring of identities and of sense of self is further compounded in the last quarter of the twentieth century as Spain experiences rapid economic and social changes. There is no doubt that the closing decades of the last century are marked by massive changes but as Bollaín’s film shows, legislative and other changes do not have immediate impact, indeed often they have no impact on attitudes. Within any community the reception of the established inhabitants to non-native outsiders is subject to a number of variables. In her discussion of racism and xenophobia in Spain, Barbadillo Griñán highlights key factors which influence attitudes towards the ‘foreign Other’, such as levels of education, political and religious beliefs, gender, demography and age. Her study on racism in Spain found that, for the most part, more educated groups revealed more positive attitudes and openness towards immigrants, as did a younger generations of Spaniards7 and those from urban areas (1997, 176-77). These trends are very much evident in Bollaín’s film. Alfonso, the most educated of the villagers would not appear to show any overt racist tendencies, although as discussed below, his limited defence of the black Cuban woman could point to vestiges of a superior post-colonial mentality. Marirosi, the nurse from Bilbao, who is much the same age as Aurora the bar tender, is an open-minded person who shares none of the village woman’s xenophobia. The older the villager, the more racist he/she is, as seen in the example of Damián’s mother (who is very much a product of her generation) and in the

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comments of the elderly villagers. For the present discussion the most important variable identified by Barbadillo Griñán is the gender division in demonstrations of racism. However, before discussing gender-based racist trends in Bollaín’s film, I would like to consider the two distinct kinds of racism identified by Barker and Taguieff (cited in Wieviorka, 1997, 298), as they coincide with the different gender manifestations of racist behaviour in Flores de otro mundo. There is general consensus amongst scholars that the nature of racism has been gradually evolving from the old flagrant racism to new more subtle versions, and that these newer manifestations can be divided into two types (Wieviorka 1997, 298). Firstly, we have the consideration of the Other as an inferior being, who has his/her uses and is therefore tolerated. In the case of Spain (and other Western nations) these are usually the immigrants who take on tasks of the lowest order that the native population are often no longer willing to undertake and these immigrants can be exploited. In relation to women, this exploitation is frequently sexual exploitation. The second type of racism is where the Other is considered as fundamentally different, in which he/she is seen as ‘a danger, an invader who should be kept at some distance, expelled or possibly destroyed’ (Wieviorka, 299). The first type where the Other is tolerated because of his/her usefulness is known as inegalatarian racism, while the desire to get rid of the Other is known as differentialist racism. (It should be noted that differentialist racism covers a range, from the views expressed by Aurora that people should ‘stick to their own’ and remain in their place of origin, to the most heinous act of National Front groups.) The racist tendencies of the women in the film, discussed below, both on the bus and in the village, are examples of the differentialist type of racism, and although unacceptable and highlighted as such by Bollaín, they are at the lower end of the scale. The women perceive the female outsider as a threat to their sense of space and identity and thus want to be rid of the threat and return to security. Santa Eulalia is desperately in need of people, above all women of childbearing age, yet both its female and male inhabitants exhibit the confusion and ambivalence to the newly arrived immigrants to which Balibar refers. The bar tender, Aurora, genuinely does not consider herself racist: ‘Yo no tengo nada contra esa gente … yo sólo digo que cada oveja con su pareja, y cada cual en su casa’ [I have nothing against those people … I’m just saying there’s someone for everyone. And people should stick to their own].8 While she is expressing her understandable fear of change to the core concept of villager, she is also expressing her feelings of superiority in her dismissive use of the collective ‘esa gente’ [those

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people]. Her comments are followed directly by her cold treatment of Patricia’s fetching young daughter, Janay, who comes to buy milk. Even the Spanish women who arrive from outside to the bachelors’ fiesta share Aurora’s view regarding the invasion of their space; the film opens with the whispered line: ‘Creo que son dominicanas. Están en todas partes.’ [I think they’re Dominican. They’re everywhere]. The whispered remarks reinforce the notion of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and the speaker’s travelling companions eagerly demonstrate that they are of like mind. The most extreme example of racism among the women characters in the film is illustrated repeatedly by Damián’s mother in her comments to Patricia. (In the depiction of this character, it can be difficult to decipher how much of her resentment is attributable to the much clichéd strains of mother-in-lawdaughter-in-law relationships and how much to deeply embedded racist attitudes.) However, there is no ambiguity regarding the mother-in-law’s opinion of Milady, the young Cuban and Patricia’s Dominican friends. In sharp contrast to her own closed, narrow definition of womanhood and women’s roles, she interprets the expressive, colourful mannerisms of the Latin American women as indicators of low moral standards thus establishing her own sense of superiority to these foreign women. Rigid, misguided moral standards are central to the sense of identity of women of her generation. She instructs Damián to tell Patricia that she does not want Milady in the house again and she later tries to do the same following the visit of Patricia’s Dominican friends. She watches the Dominican women with a bitter, censorious expression as they dance to their music, laugh, and exude vitality while they prepare the dinner. In addition to her comments, in the case of Damián’s mother, it is through the extraordinary facial expressions of actress Amparo Valle that the full force of her moral condemnation of the female Other is communicated. In contrast to the racist discourse of the women in the film, the racism of the male characters is clearly of the first type, inegalatarian racism. In the case of Spain, inegalitarian racism cannot be considered without reference to lingering superior post-colonial attitudes. Moreover, when it comes to the female immigrant, on occasion this combines with an arrogant machismo, as we will see illustrated in the character of Carmelo. As is typical of Bollaín’s other work, she often resorts to humour rather than sanctimonious comment to expose the extreme. Towards the end of Flores de otro mundo, when planning the next fiesta de solteros one of the older, less attractive of the men asks ‘Oye, vosotros creéis, ¿vendrá alguna para mí?’ [What do you all think? Will one come for me?]. We know from earlier remarks such as ‘¡Que buena está! … ¡Que besazos tiene que pegar!’ [Look at her! … The kisses she must give!], made as the speaker

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gazes lecherously at Milady, what these elderly villagers have in mind. At this late stage in the film, when the audience is fully aware of the absence of any kind of diversion in the village other than watching sport or pornography in the local bar if you are male, the extent of the underlying irony that one of these beautiful, vivacious young Latin American women could possibly want to commit her life to a Santa Eulalian octogenarian has become totally absurd. Humour aside, the attitude of the old villager to these women, while totally extreme, is portrayed as credible. Far more disturbing than the derisory hopes of a pensioner is the example of Carmelo, who typifies the comfortably-off sex tourist who takes advantage of the poverty of the subaltern young woman. 'Y para eso yo tengo a mi cubana cuando me entran ganas. … Me la voy a traer y se acabarán los viajes.’ [I have my Cuban woman for that, when I want action, bam! … I’m bringing her back with me and the trips are over]. His comments reduce Milady–to whom he never refers by name–to a material possession at his disposal. The irony of Milady’s name–or more accurately, her lack of name as Frank Leinen’s observes–coming as it does from the English ‘My lady’, is particularly relevant (2009, 94). There is no room for her individuality, her desires or her needs. Carmelo’s attitudes towards the female Other are not confined to Milady. He tells Damián that ‘Las morenitas (son) mucho más fáciles para hablar. Para hablar y para todo, porque les gusta’ [Dark skinned ones are much easier to talk to. Easier to talk to and for everything else too, because they really like it] (my translation). The comments of the elderly men demonstrate similar perceptions. These reveal that the colonial myths of the sexual voracity and excessive lasciviousness of South American women (first documented by Vespucci in the early sixteenth century) for some continue to inform views on the women of Spain’s former colonies. 9 It is not without significance that in the only sexual encounter we witness between Carmelo and Milady she is singularly not interested, and manages to sexually saturate Carmelo, in record time, without having to remove a single garment. It is patently obvious to the audience that Milady’s interest in Carmelo is motivated by her poverty rather than by sexual drive. She sees in Carmelo her ‘sugar daddy’, a means to a better life. For Carmelo, Milady’s role takes on a further dimension when he brings her to the village: prior to this point it has been limited to sexual gratification but he intends to expand this to the domestic sphere by installing her in his ultra modern kitchen, and later he considers that children might be a welcome addition and would keep Milady occupied. When Carmelo first shows her the house, enthusing about the quality and style of the kitchen installations, Milady is shown to have no interest whatsoever in the

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kitchen or its appliances. His superior, almost dehumanizing attitude towards Milady is graphically depicted in the scene where he brutally punches and kicks her on the ground, following her return from her adventure in Valencia. The audience is horrified by the level of violence but the scene serves to ensure our outright rejection of the post-colonial disdain for the subaltern female Other. This is one of those rare instances when Bollaín is wholly explicit, thus the impact is even more shocking. Indeed, what may come to mind watching this scene is both the difficulty of visualising a young Spanish woman being kicked and brutalised in such a manner by a ‘respectable’ middle-aged man to the disproportionately low-key reaction of the onlooker, the educated, sophisticated Alfonso. Carmelo’s fear is, of course, that she has been with other men whereas the flashes of Milady in Valencia focus on her dancing and having fun with young people her own age. Alfonso pushes Carmelo away but without the anger and outrage that such an attack should elicit. After Alfonso has tended her wounds, Milady returns to the house of the assailant. Luis Martín Cabrero refers to the presence of an older type of racism in Bollaín’s film, that ‘exercised by the colonizer over the colonized’ and Carmelo’s behaviour typifies this (2002, 8). Damián, who belongs to a younger generation than Carmelo, and who is a far more sensitive figure exhibiting none of the machismo of Carmelo, does not appear to harbour any post-colonial superiority. Nor is there any obvious racism inherent in his attitude to Patricia, that is, until a row breaks out when she tells him that legally she is still married to the father of her children, who has turned up and is pressing her for money. Then when tempers are unleashed he says, ‘Ya sólo falta que me digas que trabajabas de puta en Madrid.’ [All you‘re short of telling me is that you worked as a prostitute in Madrid] (my traslation). Here Damián is questioning the morality of her conduct, in line with views of the other villagers that Latin American women in Spain are attracted to prostitution. Of course while it is true that large numbers of immigrant women in Spain are involved in prostitution, it has nothing whatsoever to do with mythical sexual desires. Surprisingly, it can be difficult for indigenous men to grasp that the women normally engage in this work out of sheer necessity. Apart from this exchange, which also serves to uncover the fact that Damián has had to set aside racist prejudices–and it is not the case that he never had any–Damián is a key figure in the film in highlighting the potential of a positive and mutually beneficial transcultural encounter which enables the convivialty of different cultures. For harmonious conviviality to become a reality, there is a need for openness and tolerance among the different cultural groups but it is also

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important that there is a sense of equality in the relationship between the Self and Other (Gilroy 2004, xi). In the fictitious world of Flores de otro mundo this involves not only the acceptance of the immigrant as an equal but also confronting and eliminating the embedded sense of superiority of the first world native and former colonizer. In a climate of racism informed in part by post-colonial prejudice, the women immigrants Bollaín depicts are strong characters who are not prepared to become the silent, accepting subordinates of their former colonizers. Milady dresses as she pleases in very striking body-hugging clothing, does what she pleases, continues to ring her Italian boyfriend and does not allow herself become enslaved either sexually or domestically to her benefactor, Carmelo. She is clear on her views of the village which is not at all as she had expected: ‘Y en el verano, ¿es tan feo así como ahora?’ [Is it as ugly in summer as it is now?], she inquires of Patricia on their first meeting. From the arrival of the excited, vivacious girl from Havana who delights in the excitement of life in Valencia, Milady has become muted following Carmelo’s assault, appearing almost enslaved. However, she avails of the first opportunity to escape, as offered by Carmelo’s assistant, who enthuses about showing her more countryside. The young woman from Havana has seen enough countryside and heads off alone, without any means of support, for brighter lights. Like Milady, Patricia also knows what she wants and is determined to achieve it. Her maturity is evident in her willingness to compromise, a willingness absent in the more youthful Milady. When she first speaks to Damián, she unequivocally states her priorities: ‘Yo estoy mirando por mis hijos, ¿entiendes?’ [I’m looking out for my children, you know?]. She left Madrid where she had worked sixteen hours a day when she realised she was not getting any closer to being able to bring her children to live with her. She is willing to work hard, she is willing to give Damián’s mother time but she too has limits and it is her strength and tolerance that forces Damián to confront his mother. When her aunt ask her about her new husband, her reply is ‘Damián es un hombre muy bueno, me respeta’ [He’s a good man, he respects me]. This is central to conviviality, a respect that is absent on the part of most of the villagers. In the film, the Dominican women are presented as strong, positive characters and contrast sharply with the dour, intolerant village women. It is interesting that those who consider they hold the high ground be it moral, financial or historical, emerge as a collective in urgent need of a wake-up call. The immigrants are depicted as caring and generous to one another (even youthful Milady gives Patricia her prized box of cigars, her only possession of value, when she is trying to meet her estranged husband’s financial demands), spirited and colourful in comparison to the

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villagers who live in embittered stagnation, a stagnation reflected in the dull clothing they, and indeed later Patricia, wear which contrasts sharply with the striking colours and styles of the Latin American women. The latter do not perceive themselves as in any way subservient to the host nation and former colonisers. Patricia’s aunt is definitely not impressed with life in the village and is genuinely concerned for her niece and her young Cuban friend: ‘La una limpiando caca de vacas, la otra que se da golpes con los armarios.10 Esto no me gusta nada, ¿a que no?’ [One is cleaning cow shit and this one gets attacked by cabinets. I don’t like any of this, who would?]. Having witnessed the harsh nature of the work Patricia must undertake and the hostility of her mother-in-law, she tells Patricia that she must ring her if things do not work out. Inegalitarian racism, that is, where the Other is tolerated because of his or her usefulness, is only possible when the Other is willing to tolerate conditions of subordination. Clearly the Latin American women in the film are portrayed as selfassured and intelligent and most definitely not prepared to take on the role of underdog. Despite Bollaín’s highlighting of numerous instances of both inegalitarian and differentialist racism in Santa Eulalia, as is typical in Bollaín’s films of social realism or cine social, Flores de otro mundo offers hope by showing that even in extreme circumstances conviviality is possible. 11 There is a beautiful encounter towards the end of the film where Patricia’s children are playing in the snow with the local children; it is a scene of happiness and total integration. The old men of the film are a dying breed, while the younger men such as Damián, may have some difficulties but are prepared to reconfigure concepts of Self and Other, to compromise and to accept difference. There is no place for the inegalitarian racism of Carmelo who, in a powerful scene at the end of the film, is depicted dining alone on Christmas day as he listens to the King’s Christmas message. However, the most significant and inspiring reform is that of Damián’s mother who for much of the film embodies extreme embedded differentialist racism. Towards the end, she appears to have accepted, albeit unwittingly or subconsciously, that her fears were unfounded, probably in no small part due to the patience of Patricia, and her life is now enriched. She has become more humane, and when Patricia’s aunt shouts for Gregoria to move in for the First Communion photograph we learn her name for the first time. As noted by MartinMárquez (2002, 267), Bollaín reinforces the importance of this scene of conviviality through the use of a freeze-frame. Gregoria is also seen smiling on Christmas day as she gives presents to her new grandchildren. It is interesting to note that the two latter scenes of conviviality depicting

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religious cultural celebrations arise from a shared cultural heritage, dating from the colonial experience. While it may not be the most desirable common denominator for the initiation of a harmonious co-existence, it at least marks a turning point.12 Bollaín is here, as she is throughout the film, a realist; she is not the happy-ever-after director. The end of the film is also a reminder that unacknowledged racism continues to be ingrained in everyday life and conversation. Alfonso’s sister’s comments on the departure of Milady remind us that racism has not disappeared. Another of the film’s concluding scenes is a further subtle reminder to the audience that immigrant women do not yet enjoy anything like the same privileges as most Spanish women. The financially independent Marirosi has options and chooses not to live in Santa Eulalia; Patricia does not have this option and when Milady flees, it is to an insecure future. Flores de otro mundo presented a timely wake-up call to the Spanish people, reminiscent of the wake-up call of one hundred years earlier that marked the end of their vast empire, with the loss of Cuba and the last of the colonies. The film depicts the arrival to Spain of the formerly colonised Other. This can be seen as a symbolic redressing of the loss and, similar to the challenge of 1898, calls on the Spaniards to awaken from their slumber and respond. In today’s New Spain, with an immigrant community of almost 5.5 million, there is no place for superior postcolonial mentalities, for differentialist or inegalitarian racism. The new immigrants are not prepared to accept exploitation; and in order to take advantage of the positive dimensions afforded by transcultural encounters and to ultimately achieve conviviality, as Gilroy points out (153-168), it is necessary to revisit the colonial past and accept the necessity to reconfigure former concepts of national identity and embrace multiculturalism in its positive sense. Only then is harmonious conviviality possible and a source of enrichment. In her treatment of racism, Bollaín has addressed a complex social issue of the New Spain, an issue, similar to domestic violence, which unless confronted and understood, will not go away. Bollaín and Llamazares do not set out to apportion blame but they do oblige their audience to reconfigure deep rooted concepts of Self and Other and to consider the potentially enriching effects of transcultural encounters and the potential for harmonious conviviality. Through a humorous portrayal of a bachelors’ party, Bollaín draws attention to her country’s need of immigrants while highlighting the renovating and rejuvenating possiblities of multicultural conviviality. The director challenges her audience to confront not simply blatant manifestations of racism–as seen in Carmelo’s actions–but also subtle underlying expressions of both inegalitarian and

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differentialist racism manifested by numerous other characters.

Works Cited Balibar, E. (2008) ‘Racism Revisted: Sources, Relevance, and Aporias of a Modern Concept’, PMLA, vol.123, n.5, 1630-1639. Barbadillo Griñán, P. (1997) Extranjería racismo y xenofobia en la España contemporánea, Madrid: CIS, Siglo veintiuno. Bollaín, I. (1999) Flores de otro mundo, Spain: La Iguana, Alta Films. Flesler, D. (2004) ‘New racism, intercultural romance and the immigration question in contemporary Spanish cinema’, Studies in Hispanic Cinemas, vol. 1. n.2, 103-118. Gilroy, P. (2004) After Empire. Melancholia or Convivial Culture?, London & New York: Routledge. Goldberg, D.T. (2008) ‘Racisms without Racism’, PMLA, vol.123, n.5, 1712–1716. Goytisolo, J. and Naʀr, S. (2000) El peaje de la vida: integración o rechazo de la emigración en España, Madrid: Aguilar. Leinen, F. (2009) ‘‘Hola, estáis en vuestra casa’: La negociación de conflictos culturales, étnicos, y de género en Flores de otro mundo de Icíar Bollaín’, Revista Iberoamericana, n.34, 89-102. Martín-Cabrera, L. (2002) ‘Post-colonial Memories and Racial Violence in Flores de otro mundo’, Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, vol. 3, n.1, 43–55. Martin–Márquez, S. (2002) ‘A World of Difference in Home-Making: the films of Icíar Bollaín’, in Ferrán O. and Glenn, K.M. (eds.) Women’s Narrative and Film in Twentieth-Century Spain: A World of Difference(s), London & New York: Routledge, 256-272. Mason, P. (1991) ‘Continental Incontinence’ in Corbey, R. and Leerssen, J. (eds.), Alterity, Identity, Image: Selves and Others in Society and Scholarship, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 151-190. Nair, P. (2002) ‘In modernity’s wake: Transculturality, deterritorialization and the question of community in Icíar Bollaín’s Flores de otro mundo’, Post Script, n. 21.2, 38-49. Ross, C. B. (2008) ‘!Mamá, que buena estás! Representations of the Immigrant Woman in Sobreviviré (1999) and I love you Baby (2001)’, Letras Femeninas. vol. xxxiv, número especial, 217-232. Triana-Toribio, N. (2003) Spanish National Cinema, London: Routledge. Wieviorka, M. (1997) ‘Racism in Europe: unity and diversity’ in Guibernau, M. and Rex, J. (eds.) The Ethnicity Reader. Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Migration, Massachusetts: Polity Press

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(Blackwell Publishers Ltd.), 291-301.

Notes 1

The first feature film she directed, ¿Hola, estás sola? (1995), [Hi, are you alone?] depicts an encounter between two young Spanish women and a Russian who has no English. 2 Hamilos, P. (2008) Racism, what racism? asks Spain. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/08/spain.sport [Accessed 12 December 2009] 3 Bollaín published a journal called Un observador solidario [A Sympathetic Observer], documenting the making of Loach’s film, Carla’s Song (Madrid: El País Aguilar, 1997). 4 Bollaín’s treatment of the racist theme is confined to the female Other, more specifically the Latin American female Other. Moreover, because these immigrants are from Spain’s former colonies, the issue of post-colonial mentality combines in many instances with racism. 5 http://www.euroresidentes.com/Blogs/2009/06/population-statistics-in-spain2009.html [Accessed 10 December 2009] 6 For obvious reasons, there are no official figures for the number of undocumented residents. For estimates, see http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/Hay/millon/papeles/elpepuesp/20080219elp epinac_9/Tes [Accessed 10 December 2009] 7 Barbadillo Griñán’s study highlights racist tendencies in adolescent groups and the 18-25 age bracket (1997, 189). The younger generation in the context of the film refers to the age group 25-45 years. 8 Unless otherwise stated, the translations of dialogue from the film are taken form the DVD (Chatsworth, CA: Image Entertainment, 2005). Where I considered the film’s translations did not capture adequately the original Spanish meaning, I have given my own translations. 9 Cf Peter Mason’s essay ‘Continental Incontinence’ for a discussion of Vespucci’s reports. 10 This is a reference to the excuse Milady used for the bruising Carmelo inflicted on her. 11 Chapter 6 of Triana-Toribio’s Spanish National Cinema discusses cine social from the 1990s onwards. 12 This is the basis for J.M. del Pino criticism of Flores de otro mundo. He believes that the film is testimony to a ‘disturbing closeness to past Spanish colonial projects of religious conversion and evangelization in Africa and the Americas’ (cited in Flesler, 114). However, the assimilation of the immigrants depicted is a much more complex and gradual process and, moreover, I believe it a reductive interpretation to place such emphasis on celebrations which are now more cultural and family occasions throughout the developed world than representative or reminders of the evils of colonialism.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN PERSPECTIVE AND FOCALISATION IN THE REPRESENTATION OF THE TRANSCULTURAL ENCOUNTER IN PRINCESAS (2005) GABRIELLE CARTY

Princesas (2005) [Princesses], directed by Fernando León de Aranoa is set in the Madrid of the first decade of the new millenium. The narrative revolves around a friendship between a Spanish character called Caye (Candela Peña) and a Dominican character called Zulema (Micaela Nevárez), both of whom work as prostitutes. An important function of this central friendship is to act as a metaphor to present and explore the transcultural encounter in contemporary Madrid–and, by extension, in Spain more generally–one feature of which is its feminisation with large-scale immigration of women from the Andean Countries and the Caribbean islands. Historically, in spite of a self-image as an ethnically homogeneous society, the non-coincidence of the nation state and cultural identity has always been of importance in Spain, at the same time as the ethnic and cultural hybridity of Caribbean societies is especially pronounced. Yet despite the plurality of identities involved, references to the presence of Dominican characters in a Spanish setting inevitably recall a shared colonial past (Hispaniola being the site of the very first Spanish colonies in the Americas) and the present of the film is in this sense a postcolonial present. The widest descriptions of the ‘postcolonial’ view it as the study of the culture affected by imperialism in both the coloniser society and in the colonised society, an understanding that, however: …blurs the assignment of perspectives. Given that the colonial experience is shared … does the ‘post’ indicate the perspective of the ex-colonised,

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the ex-colonizer, the ex-colonial settler, or the displaced immigrant in the metropole?’ (Shohat and Stam 1994, 39)

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the perspective(s) offered in Princesas in its representation of the encounter of a displaced immigrant with the ‘centre’ (both of the former empire and with Spain as now belonging to the economic ‘centre’). It is also of relevance to any analysis that the status of Spain as a destination country for economic migrants is something relatively new (it had previously been a country of net emigration). The speed and scale of mass immigration caught Spanish society in general unprepared and its struggles to adapt have provoked much debate in the public sphere, as well as uncertainty and anxiety in the general population. For the purposes of this discussion, other aspects of the film are considered only as they relate to its representation and rhetorical use of a divisive issue in contemporary Spain, the transcultural encounter. Perspective is one aspect of an historically important debate within postcolonial criticism, that is: ‘a struggle between those who want to align themselves with the subaltern and those who insist that this attempt becomes at best only a refined version of the very discourse it seeks to displace’ (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin 1995, 9). Ashcroft et al identify a further major strand in postcolonical criticism—influenced by Bhaba and Spivak—as moving away from such oppositions to examine the mixing of cultures through appropriation and resistance and the creation of new cultural forms. In a transcultural and globalised era, the modernist dichotomy of dominant and subaltern ideologies has given to way to a paradigm of competing ideologies (see McAleer in this volume). However, the postcolonial approach continues to be useful in considering the mass displacements of people resulting from the effects of economic globalisation. Unfortunately, money and corporations may be globalised but legal obstacles to the movement of people continue, creating the concept of ‘illegal’ immigration (frequently accompanied by other asymmetries). Consequently, the focus of this analysis is narrative perspective as a rhetorical device and how it affects the interpretation of the events represented. This issue of perspective(s) is clarified to a large extent by consideration of the context of production and reception: that is, ‘whose stories are being told?’, ‘who is making the film? and ‘for whom?’ as proposed by Shohat and Stam in their study of multiculturalism in the media, Unthinking Eurocentrism (1994, 184 and 205). Consideration of the context of reception also involves reference to contemporary press reviews and mention of the film’s relatively good performance at the box office.1

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Whose Stories are Being Told? Advance publicity for the film as well as the published script highlighted that among the conscious aims of Princesas was to give a voice to women who work as prostitutes. From León de Aranoa’s description of the women involved these are specifically immigrant prostitutes, whom he calls ‘las mujeres invisibles’ [the invisible women]. Podréis verlas, pero en realidad no estarán ahí. No tienen papeles que lo demuestren, que les den la identidad y la vida, el derecho a caminar por las calles. Tampoco su trabajo existe … Las mujeres invisibles carecen además de voz. Oiréis a muchos hablar en su nombre, nunca a ellas. (León de Aranoa 2005a: 139) [You may see them, but in reality they’re not there. They haven’t got the papers to prove it, to give them an identity and a life, to give them the right to walk the streets. Their work doesn’t exist either … Moreover, the invisible women have no voice. You’ll hear many people speaking on their behalf, but you’ll never hear them.]

He also makes mention of his visits to Casa de Campo (the largest urban park in Madrid) with Hetaira, a collective dedicated to working for the rights of prostitutes, so that he could make a film that would be ‘desde la mirada de las chicas’ (León de Aranoa 2005a, 136) [from the girls’ point of view]. 2 Such an emphasis on research and on giving voice to the disadvantaged is an element of León de Aranoa’s public persona as a director. As a scriptwriter he had been associated with comedies. However, his films as a director were received as innovative—Familia (1996) [Family]—and subsequently as socially committed following the release of Barrio (1998) [Neighbourhood]3 and Los lunes al sol (2002) [Mondays in the Sun] both of which were commercially very successful. As a result, Princesas was widely anticipated as a third instalment in a trilogy of films on disadvantaged groups–urban youth in the case of Barrio, unemployed men in Los lunes al sol, and prostitutes in Princesas. In Princesas, indeed, the central characters are doubly marginalised as women and as prostitutes while Zulema is further marginalised by her (il)legal status. In the event, the occupation of the main characters notwithstanding, many reviews did not find the film a socially committed portrayal of the world of prostitution (for instance, Batalle Caminal 2005 terms them ‘prostitutas de cine forum’ [cinema forum prostitutes]). In their chapter devoted to ‘Stereotype, Realism and the Struggle over Representation’,

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Shohat and Stam maintain that, despite the eminently constructed nature of cinema, questions of realism are not trivial. Film audiences and critics have the right to compare a film with their own personal and cultural knowledge. Fiction film inevitably brings into play real-life assumptions about social and cultural relationships. Indeed, films that represent marginalised figures in a realistic mode implicitly make factual claims, even when they do not claim to represent specific people and events (ibid, 179). In the instance of Princesas, it is certainly the case that despite the director’s claims for accuracy this is not a verisimilar portrayal of prostitution: for the most part the clients are elided (the majority sitting unseen inside their cars); there are no pimps; Caye and Zulema can stop work when they choose; there is a single token drug addict; the violence Zulema suffers is due to her status as an illegal immigrant rather than as a prostitute and at the end of the film, Zulema can give up work and go home without impediment. So far as the protagonists are concerned, much of the film involves conversations between the two where they seem to discuss everything—except what unites them (prostitution). 4 Other reviews noted what they felt was the odd combination of abstract thought and an overtly fairytale framework—the Princesses of the title—with social content (e.g. Bermejo 2005 and Reigosa 2005). But to argue about whether or not the film is realistic is unproductive, both because prostitution is a structural element rather than the subject of the film (a point to which I return), and because it is important not to confuse realism as a style with realism as a goal. ‘Realism as a goal is quite compatible with a style which is reflexive’ (Shohat and Stam 1994, 180). This opens the possibility that the ‘fairytale’ set in the world of prostitution is ‘really’ about something else. However, if an exploration of the social situation of prostitutes is not what the film is about primarily, what are its chief concerns? Many critics concluded that the film was not about prostitution but about a friendship between two women (e.g. Casas 2005 and Parra 2005). It is surprising (or revealing, since most critical attention was focused on Candela Peña who portrayed Caye), that only a few received the film as chiefly or even at all concerned with immigration or the interaction of Spaniards with the Other—for instance, the reviews by Cobo, Gómez or Torreiro ignore it (all 2005). In fact, the character of Zulema and her status as an illegal immigrant are integral rather than incidental to the narrative and the presence of an important immigrant character in Princesas is directly connected to the film’ consciously anti-xenophobic stance (Carty, 2009). From one point of view, the film is a version of what Isolina Ballesteros terms an ‘immigration film’ (Ballesteros 2005, 4). She

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identifies the emergence during the 1990s of a genre in European cinema that focuses on the phenomenon of immigration and xenophobia. With the aim of intensifying their critique of society, in such films ‘a sense of (ins)urgency is achieved … though the coincidence of various marginal (or ‘undesirable’) positions in society that reinforce the category of otherness’ (Ballesteros 2005, 4). This aptly describes the positioning of Zulema who during the course of the film contends with poverty, separation from her family, legal discrimination, physical violence and, eventually, illness. As a film that adopts the ‘immigration film’ agenda, Princesas exposes and denounces some of the difficulties and abuses faced by immigrants in contemporary Spain as well as presenting a sympathetic portrayal of the immigrant character. In the analysis of films that present a positive portrayl of marginal characters (here an illegal immigrant), Shohat and Stam identify as particularly illuminating an approach that investigates focalisation: Gerard Genette’s reformulation of point of view to include the structure of information within the world of the story (1994, 205). This approach goes beyond the ‘positive’ image of the Other and takes into consideration the narrative structure and access to information and agency. Despite her positive portrayal, the film denies Zulema agency, portraying her as a helpless victim, implicitly of global economic inequalities and explicitly of the Spanish legal system (see Carty 2009), while her story is used to raise a number of aspects of contemporary Spanish society and identity.

A Spanish Perspective Another important factor in determining the perspective(s) offered in film is the extent to which there is delegation of voice to the communities represented (1994, 214)–in the case of minority groups this means whether or not they had any input into and/or control of their own representation. Alberto Elena notes that their past and present involvement in production is the reason that in numerical terms the representation of Argentineans in Spanish cinema is disproportionately large compared to the percentage of immigrants from Latin America who come from Argentina (2005, 113116). But, given the relatively recent nature of large-scale population inflows to Spain, there are no established or second generation immigrant communities comparable to Beur in France or Turks in Germany. Consequently, those feature films that have addressed the issue of transcultural encounters in contemporary Spain have mostly been made by Spaniards rather than by filmmakers from the cultural groups depicted. In a few cases they have had an input into the script–for example noted

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Cuban scriptwriter, Senel Paz, wrote the script for Cosas que dejé en La Habana (1997) [Things I Left in Havana]. By contrast, in front of the camera there is a greater presence, in particular of Latin American actors, as from 1990 onwards an increasing number of immigrant characters from different parts of the world have appeared in Spanish films, and among such representations of immigrants Latin Americans are an important group (Gordillo 2007, 4-5). In the case of Princesas, the film was directed, written and produced by León de Aranoa, with a Spanish crew and mainly Spanish cast. It is therefore a majority representation and, as we shall see in a moment, aimed at a majority audience. In such a representation, it is unlikely that minority groups would have any power over the manner in which they are represented. Even the role of Zulema (a Dominican character) was played by Micaela Nevárez, a Puerto Rican living in the United States. Since it is the norm for Spanish-speaking actors to adopt the accent of whatever nationality they are portraying,5 and given that acting is an illusion in any case, it can be argued such non-originary casting is just another facet of representation. Notwithstanding, the casting of Nevárez as Zulema further tips the balance of power in the film’s representation of the transcultural encounter in favour of Spaniards. The casting of Candela Peña as Caye reinforces this imbalance, since it pits an actress unknown to Spanish audiences against a well-established actress, whose performance in this film was very well received. This choice of a well-known Spanish actress for the role of Caye responds to the need to address potential audiences in a way that will engage them (the box office performance of the film mentioned earlier confirms that the film was quite successful in this respect). Given the majority audience’s identificatory propensities, beyond the immediate commercial imperative of attracting an audience, such casting also strives to ‘get the message across’ by employing ethnocentric focalisation associated with a ‘name’ performer. That the focalisation is resolutely Spanish is further confirmed by the ‘filtering’ role Caye plays in the representation of the transcultural encounter. Thus, the film begins with Caye, while Zulema is introduced via the Spanish character’s point of view not once but twice. Indices of her presence (Caye sees clothing hanging on the line of an apartment above her; later Caye hears loud music coming from the apartment) are followed by Caye’s discovery of a badly battered Zulema cowering in the bathroom only to realise that she has already met her in their other ‘first’ meeting–a row over a client. In the early part of the film, the narrative point of view is aligned almost exclusively with that of Caye, her daily life and increasingly her friendship with Zulema. At this point, what the spectator knows or does

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not know about Zulema is the same as what the character of Caye knows. As the viewer gets to ‘know’ Zulema, greater access is provided to this character’s subjectivity and Caye no longer accompanies her as frequently in the scenes in which she appears. In this way, the organisation of the narrative and of the distribution of information in the film as a whole replicates the changing attitudes of first Caye and, subsequently, the group of Spanish prostitutes while the double introduction of Zulema provides Caye with the chance to revise her first reaction to the Other. Throughout, Caye’s point of view predominates and she is also the carrier of the norms of the text. It is her opinions that are explored and her character development that is pivotal. Thus, despite the space given to the character of Zulema, the address and focalisation of the film do not permit the minority group (ostensibly Dominicans in this case) to speak for themselves. One consequence of this is that the character of Zulema stands synecdochically not only for other Dominicans but for Caribbean women in general (a point taken up in the discussion of masculinities). Her character is specifically a Dominican but, due to her illegal status, generically a helpless victim of the majority culture befriended by Caye whose character acts as a ‘bridge’ between the audience and the Other. An important function of this narrative structure is to raise aspects of Spanish identity in the face of contemporary mass movements of peoples.

Interrogation of Xenophobia An issue raised right at the outset is the anxiety associated with the phenomenon of immigration, linked in the popular mind and, especially in the popular press, with criminality and unemployment. This was almost an unimaginable situation before Spain’s accession to the European Union, but in subsequent decades economic migration to Spain accelerated arousing the anxiety of those most exposed to the effects of globalisation on their work prospects. In an important sequence near the beginning of the film, the Spanish prostitutes complain about competition from foreign women who they claim–inter alia–undercut their prices (their other comments are openly racist remarks). This group voices a perception of immigration as an invasion that threatens the destination country’s employment and customs, a perception that is in wide circulation in certain sectors of politics and the media: it is not coincidental that the women back up their comments by saying they ‘heard it on the television’. In what can be taken as a statement of intent for the film as a whole, the presentation of this conversation works to question these widely held attitudes since the women’s views are presented as unreasonable and

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racist. Initially, Caye shares these attitudes but her character comes to question them as a consequence of her friendship with Zulema. The relationship that develops between Caye and Zulema, therefore, is employed as a vehicle to present a challenge to xenophobic attitudes and anxieties about mass immigration and, as already mentioned, the structure of information in the film as a whole reflects a move from hostility and suspicion of immigrants towards increasing curiosity about and openness towards other cultures on the part of Spaniards. The status of Caye as the (ethnocentric) focal character, as well as the dominance of her point of view, has already been established. In the light of this, a further asymmetry between the two protagonists is noteworthy: that of voice. Caye’s lengthy monologues contrast with the relative silence of Zulema. The pattern is established in their initial meeting, when Zulema is entirely silent while Caye gives vent to her anger in the row over the client. Subsequently, their conversations are dominated by Caye who recounts her philosophical musings, hopes and fantasies while Zulema listens, and sometimes make comments. Although her plight is one of the thematic foci of the film, we do not hear as much from her as we might expect. One explanation is that Zulema is, simply, the silent effaced Other–one of the voiceless, invisible women mentioned by León de Aranoa in the passage quoted earlier in the chapter. However, since he specifies that among his aims in making the film was to give a voice to such women, another possible explanation is that a Spanish audience would assume that Zulema shares cultural traditions with Spaniards and so there is no need for her to explain her culture. As Isabel Santaolalla points out, contemporary immigration from Latin America is only one part of a wider phenomenon but, unlike immigrants from other countries, Latin Americans arrive in Spain with greater expectations of acceptance because of a shared past. Indeed she terms Latin Americans the ‘familiar’, and therefore less threatening, Other precisely because of the postcolonial relationship (Santaolalla 2005, 171). On this basis, Santaolalla is interested to see how cinema can reflect and contribute to the potential for revitalisation of Hispanic identity that this renewed encounter offers. It is, therefore, noteworthy that in Princesas Spanish characters display profound ignorance about Santo Domingo (e.g. the prostitute who, in an attempt to be friendly, asks Zulema if she was scared on the raft journey from Santo Domingo). At the same time, the Spanish prostitutes adopt an attitude of superiority towards Zulema. Their ethnocentrism is made explicit in the early sequences already mentioned. Caye, too, angrily refers to Zulema in terms that identify her with untamed nature (the jungle) and

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sets up an ethnocentric contrast between the jungle and the modernity and civilisation of Spain: ‘aquí hay unas normas’ [here, we have rules]. At times, Zulema even uses this knowledge gap to make jokes: for instance, when the hairdressers ask her how to walk with ‘el culo fuera’ [with their bums out]. However, she does not fill in the knowledge gap. Her references to home (apart from references to her son) are few, though they include a telling response when Caye asks ‘hay equilibristas en tu país?’ [are there any tightrope walkers in your country?] and Zulema replies ‘diez millones’ [ten million of them]. Moreover, she never expresses her reactions to Spain. In this way her voice is muted and the effect is to reduce the possibility of cultural conflict. Instead the emphasis is on her financial situation, her family who are depending on her sending home money, while the refusal of her residence application has criminalised her and left her vulnerable to exploitation. This emphasis is important for two reasons. Firstly, the representation of immigration is divorced from the criminality mentioned earlier as part of media representations of immigrants, and is instead linked to the real motives for global migratory flows, economic inequalities (those ten million tightrope walkers). Likewise, the elision of cultural conflict–notwithstanding the critical presentation of the cultural ignorance of Spaniards–rejects by default the notion of cultural incompatibility associated with New Racism or, more properly, differentialist, inegalitarian racism (Miles cited in Flesler 2004, 105). As already mentioned, prostitution is a structural element and, as such, it has several functions in the film. So far as the film’s challenge to xenophobia is concerned, the importance of prostitution is that it places Caye and Zulema on an equal footing (in any other work situation the social positions of the women would necessarily have been widely different), something that facilitates a change in the basis of the transcultural encounter. The initial situation in which Caye and the other prostitutes adopt an attitude of superiority toward Zulema is predicated on inequality and a lack of respect, and gives way to intercultural communications based on friendship and respect. Communication predicated on equality is absent from many films featuring immigrant characters but is of fundamental importance to negotiating and overcoming social conflict between Spaniards and newcomers (Gordillo 2007, 8). In Princesas, this shift in the basis of communication is accompanied by the (timid) acknowledgment of interdependence and the beginnings of a ‘hybrid’ approach to cultural contact. This is signalled through Caye’s adoption of a new African braid hairstyle. Initially, the other women call her a traitor for doing so. By the end of the film Zulema

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has taught the hairdressers how to braid, and the salon where the prostitutes meet is offering ‘exotic’ African braids as an exciting new style. Thus, the braids open up a cultural space where negotiation can take place–Bhaba’s ‘third space’ of enunciation (1994, 218). A further pointer in the direction of hybridity, is the film’s soundtrack. As with so much in this film, the music heard is closely aligned with the focal character of Caye. The songs ‘Cinco razones para vivir’ [Five Reasons for Living] and ‘Me llaman calle’ [My name is ‘street’] relate, respectively, to the fact that this character finds it hard to make sense of the world, and to a play on the pronunciation of the word calle [street] and the name Caye in Spanish that conflates her identity and her occupation. However, it is significant that the singer is Manu Chao, an artist with a transcultural personal background, who has recorded in a variety of languages and who has consciously sought to incorporate aspects of music from a variety of cultures into his own performance.

Interrogation of Masculine Identities A second contemporary issue raised in the film via the transcultural encounter, is masculinity identities. Thus, a noteworthy aspect of Princesas is its critique of traditional notions of masculinity. As Inmaculada Álvarez Suárez argues persuasively, the status and validity of traditional concepts of masculinity have been under attack for some time now in certain strands of Spanish film, whether through representations of male Cuban immigrants constructed with reference to female desire, or in comedies that satirise the supposed ‘virtues’ of the Iberian male, notable the Torrente series of films directed by and starring Santiago Segura (Álvarez Suárez 2008). In Princesas, however, there is nothing funny about the corrupt functionary’s efforts to batter Zulema into submission and he is unconcerned with female desire. In fact, two versions of masculinity are given prominence in the film: the ‘traditional’ model of masculinity vulgarly referred to as the macho ibérico [Iberian male] embodied by the nameless government functionary (Antón Durán Morris) and a gentler, reconstructed, ‘feminised’ model of masculinity represented chiefly by Caye’s boyfriend, Manuel (Luis Callejo), although, importantly, the volunteer (Alberto Ferreiro) is similarly a feminised male. The film’s representation of the traditional model of masculinity is closely linked to Zulema’s status as an illegal immigrant prostitute from the Caribbean, and in this sense she is the vehicle for the interrogation of this version of masculinity. The first point to note is that the fact that Zulema is a prostitute contradicts the widely disseminated myth of hyper-

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sexualised Caribbean women. It is clear that for Zulema prostitution is a matter of economic necessity and has nothing to do with desire (her brief relationship with the volunteer further underlines this). Consequently, both the comments of the Spanish prostitutes at the beginning of the film about the special propensity of black and mulatta women for sex and, the more generalised stereotype of Carribean women as hyper-sensual and sexualised (see O’Byrne in this volume for a discussion of the character of Carmelo in Flores de otro mundo (1999) [Flowers from Another World]) are flatly rejected by the narrative structure. There is also an important shift in narrative perspective associated with Zulema’s contacts with the Spanish functionary (if indeed he is a government official: Zulema thinks he is a policeman but she is not sure). On the strength of promises to get her papers that will allow her to reside in Spain, this character abuses her and demands sexual services. At the outset he is an absent presence, but as the film progresses, increasingly, he makes his presence felt. His abusive relationship with Zulema is an extreme representation of traditional binary gender relations. Significantly, whereas the bulk of the film is aligned with Caye’s point of view, the attack in the hotel bedroom is one of the few situations in which Zulema has narrative independence and where there is significant access to her subjectivity. It is precisely this access that generates the feelings of horror at what is going to happen when his folder comes into view and the audience realises the identity of Zulema’s client. The evolution of this relationship is in stark contrast to the evolution of the intercultural encounter depicted between the female characters in the film. As already indicated, over the course of the narrative there is a warming of relations and increased understanding and interchange between Zulema and the Spanish prostitutes whereas the situation deteriorates with respect to the fuctionary: the second beating is worst than the first. The reason for this is that she dares to challenge him (the meeting in the bar) provoking even more intense attempts on his part to control her. Here, Zulema’s legal position is important since he could only behave like this with someone who has no other option and who cannot go to the police. The clear implication is that the premise of the traditional model of masculinity is domination based on economic and legal inequality backed up, if necessary, with physical violence. Zulema’s physical appearance too is significant in the critique of traditional masculinity. Her statuesque figure, ‘coffee and cream’ colouring and long dark hair constitute an attractive version of the stereotypical, sexualised Caribbean woman. This stereotype is a long-established one (Santaolalla 2005, 175) but it took on new relevance following the demise

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of the Soviet Union which had previously supported Castro financially. The loss of Soviet aid created an urgent need to earn hard currency, one of the consequences of which was a spectacular rise in sex tourism to Cuba by Spanish men (many Spanish companies invested in tourism in Cuba). This obsessive fascination is lampooned in Cuarteto de La Habana (1999) [Havana Cuartet] directed by Fernando Colomo which contains memorable scenes of an airplane load of sex tourists as well as an elaborate spoof television news report featuring a mulatta. Indeed, Santaolalla notes that by the early 2000s the image of the mulatta in Spanish cinema had come to play a role similar to that of Swedish blondes in 1970s Spanish cinema and she asks why this is so (2005, 180). Her conclusion is that Spanish women are no longer willing to accept traditional binary gender roles (submission/domination) and demand reciprocal relationships that respond to their own desires. The paradox that emerges, whether films reinscribe or are critical of the traditional version of masculinitity, is that the role of Spanish women in society has changed rapidly in recent decades while many men have clung to their traditional roles so that immigrant women have filled the gap left by Spanish women as sex objects on screen (and as prostitutes on screen and off).6

Conclusion In the discussion of the film’s challenge to xenophobia, what emerges as of greatest importance is the evolution of the character of Caye, which posits openness to and acceptance of the Other. Moreover, Caye is contrasted favourably with characters who are slow to do this, while the contrast with the corrupt official who refuses to do so contributes to the strength of the film’s critique of the model of masculinity he embodies. Nonetheless, the conclusion of the film does not support conviviality. Princesas does not have recourse to any of the more usual endings associated with films that feature immigrants–assimilation, integration or, less frequently, cultural negotiation. Instead, there is a complete rupture: Zulema returns home. According to Caye, this is ‘porque quiere’ [because she wants to], but it is an enforced decision since she cannot get papers and she is ill. Consequently, although significant space is given to the presentation of the difficulties facing illegal immigrants and the focalisation of the film is deployed to ‘get the message across’, Zulema’s primarly role is to question aspects of contemporary Spanish society, whether anxiety in relation to globalisation or contemporary masculine identities.

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Works Cited Álvarez Suárez, I. (2008) ‘Masculinidades encontradas. Estrategias de representación de género en el cine español sobre inmigración cubana’, Secuencias, n. 28, 61-76. Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G. and Tiffin, H. eds. (1995) The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, London, New York: Routledge. Ballesteros, I. (2005) ‘Embracing the other the feminization of Spanish ‘immigration cinema’’, Studies in Hispanic Cinemas, vol. 2, n. 1, 3-14. Batalle Caminal, J. (2005) ‘Puterío poético’, Guía del Ocio de Barcelona, 9 September. Bermejo, A. (2005) ‘Princesas. Mirar alrededor’, Metropoli, 9 September. Bhaba, H. (1994) The Location of Culture, New York: Routledge. Carty, G. (2009) ‘La mujer inmigrante indefensa: Princesas, lejos de su reino’, Iberoamericana, vol. IX, n. 34, 127-135. Cobo, M. (2005) ‘Princesas nostálgicas’ [online], El ojo critico digital. Available from http://www.elojocritico.net/webant/cultuc11.html [Accessed 27 September 2008]. Elena, A. (2005) ‘Latinoamericanos en el cine español los nuevos flujos migratorios’, Secuencias, n. 22, 107-133. Flesler, D. (2004) ‘New racism, intercultural romance, and the immigration question in contemporary Spanish cinema’, Studies in Hispanic Cinemas vol 1, n. 2, 103-118. Gómez, L. (2005) ‘As princesas bailan’, Galicia Hoxe, 9 September Gordillo Álvarez, I. (2007) ‘El diálogo intercultural en el cine español contemporáneo entre el estereotipo y el etnocentrismo’, Comunicación Revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales, n°4, 207-222. León de Aranoa, F. (2005a) Princesas guión literario, Madrid Ocho y medio, Libros de Cine. —. (2005b) ‘Princesas de la calle’, El País Semanal, 4 September, 48-51. Ministerio de Cultura, ‘El cine y el vídeo en datos y cifras’ [online]. Available from http://www.mcu.es/cine/MC/CDC/Anio2005/ CinePeliculasEspaniolas.html [Accessed 22 December 2009]. Parra, P. (2005) ‘Prostitutas, pero mujeres’, Tiempo, 2 September. Reigosa, C. G. (2005) ‘Princesas’, La Voz de Galicia, 10 September. Santaolalla, I. (2005) Los «Otros» Etnicidad y «raza» en el cine español contemporáneo, Zaragoza, Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza and Ocho y medio, Libros de Cine. Shohat, E., Stam, R. (1994) Unthinking Eurocentrism, London, New York Routledge.

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Tobío, C., Díaz Gorfinkiel, M. (2007) ‘The Work-Life Balance I. New gendered relationships in Spain: ‘the other’ in the care triangle’, International Journal of Iberian Studies, vol. 20, n. 1, 41-63. Torreiro, M. (2005) ‘Princesas’, Fotogramas, 1 September.

Notes 1

The top grossing Spanish film in 2005, by a long way, was Torrente 3: El protector [Torrente 3: the Protector] directed by Santiago Segura, which figured alongside US blockbusters at the top of the list. Princesas was the third highest grossing Spanish film–second if Kingdom of Heaven directed by Ridley Scott, and classified as Spanish by the Ministerio de Cultura, is excluded (Ministerio de Cultura figures). 2 These visits are the main focus of an article written by León de Aranoa and published in El País semanal at the time of the film’s release (León de Aranoa: 2005b). At that time, before it was closed to traffic, Casa de Campo was, almost literally, an open-air brothel. 3 The film was released internationally under its Spanish title. 4 There is one conversation where they compare notes on what sexual services they provide, what health checks they have done, etc. but it quickly develops into a conversation about the emotional vulnerability of Caye. 5 This is not to say that the practice goes unremarked or without negative comment when actors are deemed to fail in the task–a notable instance was the derision of Jorge Perrugoria (a Cuban) as Goya in Volavérunt (1999) directed by Bigas Luna [They Flew – the name of a 1799 etching by Goya]. 6 The conclusion that Princesas along with many contemporary films reflects male gender roles that have remained largely unchanged while women’s have altered significantly, is supported by sociological studies that find the ‘replacement’ of Spanish women by immigrant women in the areas of housework and child-minding (Tobío and Díaz Gorfinkiel 2007).

CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE LEGACY OF MEXICO 1968 ON FILM IN ¿Y SI PLATICAMOS DE AGOSTO? (1981) DIRECTED BY MAYRSE SISTACH AND FRANCISCA, ¿DE QUÉ LADO ESTÁS? (2002) DIRECTED BY EVA LÓPEZ SÁNCHEZ NIAMH THORNTON

For many reasons, 1968 was a year with considerable transnational resonance; it was also the year Mexico hosted the Olympic Games. Internationally, the Games are best remembered for the infamous Black Panther salute by two African American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, an act which could be read as the performance of what was generalised unrest by civil society movements in many countries on a transnational stage. Often forgotten outside of Mexico are the student protests against the backdrop of the run up to the Games, which were inspired by the international student protests in France, Berkeley, Prague, etc. In Mexico, these protests culminated in the massacre of a still undetermined number of students on 2 October 1968, ten days before the Olympic opening ceremony. The deaths were subject to censorship in the local press, and sparsely reported abroad. At the time, the protests and the violent reaction of the army were well documented by student filmmakers from the recently established film school. However the first feature film on the subject to get local distribution was not made until 1989. This film, Rojo amanecer (1989) [Red Dawn] directed by Jorge Fons, while a powerful evocation of the massacre, was subject to government controls, and this, in turn, discouraged other filmmakers. However, there are two films which are often overlooked by scholars when considering representations of 1968 on film: the short film ¿Y si placticamos de agosto? (1980) [Can We Talk About August?] directed by Maryse Sistach

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and Francisca, ¿De qué lado estás? (2002) [Francisca, Which Side Are You On?] directed by Eva López Sánchez. The first was the internally renowned director’s graduate project and centres on a child’s experience of 1968, and the second is an international co-production that represents the political legacy of 1968. I shall consider the significance of these two films in the context of the national imaginary of 1968.1 In addition, I shall consider how both films explore space, childhood, and the legacy of history, variously, as local experience and transcultural themes.

Context The conditions under which the student movement developed were both local and part of a global youth movement, spurred on, in part, by a number of factors. These include the apparent success of socialism in Cuba as a potential example of a new direction for change; a growing civil rights movement as witnessed in places as disparate as the US and Northern Ireland; and international protests against the US war in Vietnam as the increased globalisation of the mass media brought images of war and its consequences to a transnational audience. In addition, there were specific conditions in Mexico which brought about general unrest and organised protest. Brewster (2005, 35-6) explains, In Mexico, student numbers increased from 76,000 in 1960 to 247,000 in 1970. There were insufficient jobs for graduates, and universities became politicized as students demanded social justice, employment, and improved living standards. A youth culture developed, fostering a spirit of political activity that was not viable in other parts of Mexican society. Although the protestors were responding mainly to national issues, many showed awareness of wider concerns.

Depicted in the media as an idle, burgeoning middle class, young people garnered little sympathy from the larger working class across the country. The tensions were underscored in popular culture where young people were portrayed as dangerous and subversive in films such as Los Caifanes (1967) [The Outsiders] directed by Juan Ibáñez. This association of young people with the events in 1968 to the exclusion of other actors, depoliticised their demands and reduced their protests to a product of youthful excess. In addition, 1968 has been memorialised as a student movement because most of the filmmakers who recorded it were students. The best known documentary to emerge from 1968 is El grito (1968) [The Shout] directed by Leobardo López Aretche. The footage they shot was of fellow students printing, socialising, debating, and preparing for the

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marches. Although in most of these films there are a few shots to remind the viewer that it was also a movement which included workers, the emphasis is on student participation. As Brewster notes, the student movement was part of a continuum which had begun ten years earlier with protests by railway workers (19589), followed the next year with demands for wage increases by teachers and oil workers. In 1962 there were strikes by telephone operators and in 1965 by doctors. This next year, 1966 saw the resignation of the university’s Rector, Ignacio Chávez, following strikes and marches at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). This means that 1968, viewed in isolation may look like youthful rebellion sparked by transcultural fervour, whereas specific local issues were influenced by global conditions. In Historia de un documento (1971) [History of a Documentary] directed by Óscar Menéndez, one of the documentaries released by participants in the protests, Rodolfo Alcaraz says with some irony that ‘todo empezó con un simple pleito entre estudiantes de dos escuelas’ [it all began with a simple fight between the students from two schools]. On 22 July, students from the Politécnico Nacional and the UNAM clashed in the streets. A special police force, the granaderos, was brought in to contain the student violence, using extreme force to subdue the skirmishes. Over the summer months student protests continued, so too did the police and army crackdowns. In response, the students from all sides joined together to put forward demands against the granaderos’ brutality. The result was a movement united against a common enemy. These protests culminated in the demonstration in Tlatelolco. Tlatelolco is a highly symbolic space also called the Plaza de las tres culturas [Square of the three cultures] because the central square is surrounded by three edifices: Aztec ruins, a colonial church and modern government buildings. These, in turn, are bounded by tall residential tower blocks. On the day of the protest, some student leaders gave speeches from occupied floors of some of these tower blocks, many of which are named after key dates or leaders in the Revolution. Thousands of students gathered at the square and were soon encircled by army tanks with low flying helicopters overhead. Amongst the protestors was a secret battalion of the army identifiable to one another by white gloves they wore on one hand. Events thereafter are highly contested. It has been suggested that the presence of the undercover battalion was unknown to the rest of the troops who were gathered in the square to maintain order. Much of the testimony suggests that the secret group provoked the army leading them to attack

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the students, most of whom attempted to flee. The numbers killed has never been satisfactorily confirmed, and figures vary from the official government number of forty-four to more than 200. For some, the number could be as high as 400 as is claimed in México, la Revolución congelada (1973) [Mexico, the Frozen Revolution] directed by Raymundo Gleyzer, a film in which the folk singer and civil rights campaigner, Óscar Chávez, sings ‘mandó matar el gobierno/ cuatrocientos camaradas’ [the government ordered them to kill/ four hundred comrades]. Afterwards, over 2,000 were imprisoned for indefinite periods of detention. Brewster (2005, 38) sums up the consequences in this way, ‘the massacre brought an abrupt end to the student movement and left a generation devastated by death, imprisonment, exile, and terror.’

1968 on Screen In the immediate aftermath documentaries by Leobardo López Arretche, Menéndez and Gleyzer, amongst others, appeared. However, the first feature film on the subject, Rojo amanecer, was not released until 1989. Whereas Rojo amanecer has been considered in detail by critics, little attention has been given to a lesser known short film that appeared much earlier ¿Y si platicamos de agosto? (1980) directed by the well known filmmaker Maryse Sistach.2 Sistach is one of a generation of women directors in Mexico who studied film at the Centro de Captación Cinematográfica (CCC). This was her final year student project and her first film. She subsequently made her name with films such as Anoche soñé contigo (1992) [I Dreamt About You Last Night], Nadie te oye: Perfume de violetas (2001) [Violet Perfume: Nobody Hears You], and La niña en la piedra (2006) [The Girl on the Stone].3 Set in 1968, ¿Y si platicamos de agosto? is a short lasting thirty-five minutes which tells the story of an adolescent boy and his relationship with a teenage girl who comes to stay in the family home. Their tentative love story is set against the increasing tension in the city. The camera lingers on slogans painted on the walls of buildings, television news reports of student demonstrations are to be seen, radio reports heard, students are shown preparing and painting banners, and teachers and parents discussing the students’ activities. All this happens in the background as the young boy puzzles over how to negotiate an adult world through what is still a child’s point of view. As well as his excitement and fear of the unknown, there is a build up of tension as the teenage girl gets involved in the student protests. The relationship between the two blossoms into an innocent story of first love

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as all the while the girl gets increasingly caught up in the protests. The final scene shows the boy scrambling across the rooftops in an attempt to follow the girl as she leaves the city in disgrace having been found in bed with him. These images of the boy chasing his innocent love are accompanied on the soundtrack by the now infamous speech given by president Díaz Ordaz on 1 October 1968, the eve of the massacre, saying, ‘hemos sido tolerantes … pero todo tiene su limite’ [we have been tolerant … but there is a limit to everything]. The message is clear, after 2 October 1968 Mexico lost its innocence. This is a film which keeps away from representations of the mass protests, but raises them through individual involvement in the events. ¿Y si platicamos de agosto? is told from the young boy’s point of view. That is, we witness the story as if accompanying him, with many over the shoulder shots.4 Motivated by his crush and a desire to belong among the older teenagers, he attempts to make sense of the political events and the activities. Not old enough to be allowed out to rallies, he acts as witness to events behind the scenes, and the happenings and shared stories he sees and hears in his neighbourhood (as, for example, when we see him amongst a crowd who are drawn into a piece of political theatre).5 The time period is confined to that of the run up to 2 October 1968. There is considerable tension and a sense of foreboding in the final sequence: the boy’s hopeless chase after his dream coupled with the president’s ominous words. The impact of Díaz Ordaz’s words heard over the visuals in this way can be contrasted to how the speeches given by the students are mixed with the visuals in El grito, mentioned earlier, and other documentaries. In the documentaries any speeches by officials, such as that given at the opening ceremony of the Olympics, are contained within a designated space. At some times, this is because the scene is taken from official footage, and at others, because the scene is recorded from the television. Having Díaz Ordaz’s speech audible to the audience while the child moves through a public space gives the impression that his words form part of the urban landscape and suggests that the president is omniscient. Where the students’ speeches earlier suggested unity among the crowd, the president’s speech works as a threat because it contrasts with the wishes of the characters in the film and coincides with a moment of loss for the boy. ¿Y si platicamos de agosto? more than any other film which addresses the period leading up to the protests, gives an insight into how the ‘1968 Tlatelolco massacre dramatically showed the intolerant, autocratic character of the political system, and increased income inequality undermined the notion of a perpetual Revolution that brought ‘social

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justice’’ (Schmidt 2001, 27). The film is an attempt to explore the effect of the massacre on the everyday life of a family at the periphery of events, who mostly witness them at a distance. Juxtaposing dramatic historical events and the routine of family life rejects the myth that conflict and violence happen elsewhere, away from home and contests the allegations that the participants were outsiders. The narrative role of the family in the film draws attention to what Michael Billig called ‘banal nationalism’. He argues that ‘crises do not create nation states as nation-states’, by which he means crises such as war with other nations or internal conflicts. Instead, … daily, they are reproduced as nations and their citizenry as nationals … For such daily reproduction to occur, one might hypothesize that a whole complex of beliefs, assumptions, habits, representations and practices must also be reproduced. Moreover, this complex must be reproduced in a banally mundane way, for the world of nations is the everyday world, the familiar terrain of contemporary times. (Billig 1995, 6) What could be more banal and mundane than the family, whilst also being heavily weighted throughout history as a unit which represents the nation in microcosm. The tension between the oft repeated role of the family as representative of the nation and the family in counterpoint to the events that take place is a compelling element of ¿Y si platicamos de agosto?. The manner in which the film is shot refuses the conflation of family and nation, and in this respect a comparison with Rojo amanecer is useful. In Rojo amanecer there is an almost tick box approach to showing an archetypal middle-class family, with the stay-at-home mother, civil servant father, conservative grandfather, radical university student sons, and two adolescent younger children. All of the events take place in the one apartment, underscoring the feeling that the family and the space it occupies are co-terminous with the nation. According to Salvador Velazco, in Rojo amanecer the apartment ‘es un microcosmos de la familia mexicana de clase media de los sesenta’ [a microcosm of the Mexican middle-class family of the 1970s], and ‘se vincula la atroz massacre del 68 con la ‘sacrosanta familia’ de la que se dice baluarte el Estado mexicano’ [the terrible massacre of 1968 is linked to the ‘sacrosanct family’ that is a cornerstone of the Mexican state] (Velazco 2005, 71). By contrast, in ¿Y si platicamos de agosto? because of the decision to adopt a point of view observing the events witnessed by the boy from over his shoulder, we are not given any real sense of who his family are apart from what they mean to him. They are restricted to moving figures in what appears to be a stable family environment, but of little interest to him. By having the narrative and the camera follow the

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boy’s story, the film moves away from the family as a unit of national struggle to emphasise the personal and devastating consequences of state actions on individual happiness. As in Rojo amanecer, events in ¿Y si platicamos de agosto? take place largely within the apartment, but there are also several scenes of outside spaces to help establish locale. This locale is not defined in terms of its historical importance. There are no major monumental spaces or landmark features in the mise en scène. It is an urban location, but an anonymous one. It is evident that the film is set in Mexico City more through the girls’ discussions of their involvement in the protests than through any easily identifiable landmarks, as the film narrates the boy’s individual personal experience of his first love, his relationship within a family and community and the external influence of the state on their lives. The all pervasiveness of Díaz Ordaz’s speech unifies the space aurally. Meanwhile, the boy is connected to others through his interactions with his family and his meanderings through his neighbourhood on his bike, playing with friends, attending school, and going to local shops. The juxtaposition of these worlds in the film places side by side what Henri Lefebvre called the ‘near order’ and the ‘far order’. He explains that the city … is situated at an interface half-way between what is called the near order (relations of individuals in groups of variable size, more or less organized and structured and the relations of these groups among themselves), and the far order, that of society, regulated by large and powerful institutions (church and state), by a legal code formalized or not, by a ‘culture’ and significant ensembles endowed with powers, by which the far order projects itself at this ‘higher’ level and imposes itself. (italics in original, Lefebvre 2004, 101)

For Lefebvre the city exists as an imaginary projection of itself, since no one can fully experience it all at once. This is particularly true of the large megalopolis that is Mexico City, even if it was on a smaller scale in the 1960s. The city therefore becomes a ‘mediation among mediations’ (italics in original, Lefebvre 2004, 101). An individual must negotiate their way through the near order, which, in turn must mediate with the far order. The choice of a child as a protagonist emphasises the lack of power of the individual when faced with state brutality and adds a further layer of mediation. This is a child’s life rendered significant through his moment of sexual awakening set against a grand historical backdrop in which the state imposed terrible sanctions on those who transgressed the status quo.

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In 2001 the then president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, signed into law an Act to open up the archives of the case files on the events of 1968. Subsequently, many have claimed that there have been considerable difficulties in accessing the complete files. However, as a symbolic move this law represented a positive change (see Doyle and Zavala nd) and was to help shed some light on what had happened. In line with this greater access to the past a number of television documentaries were made by Carlos Mendoza, including Operación Galeana (2000) [Operation Galeana] and Tlatelolco, las claves de la masacre (2002) [Tlatelolco, Keys to a Massacre] which return to the events of 1968. A feature film from the same period which deals with the aftermath of 1968 is Francisca, ¿De qué lado estás? (2002) directed by Eva López Sánchez.6 In keeping with contemporary trends in film production in Mexico, the film is a Mexico/Spain/Germany co-production. Consequently, while dealing with local concerns it does so using an international cast and crew. It was shot in Mexico City and Veracruz with support from the UNAM. Although set in 1971, the film opens with stills and moving images from student protests in 1968 and, on the DVD extras of the version released in Mexico, the director describes it as ‘una película en el marco político del 68’ [a film set in the political context of 1968]. Other extras include a quotation from an historical account of the events by Rubén Aréchiga Robles, Asalto al cielo: lo que no se ha dicho del 68 [Assault on the sky, what has not been said about 1968]: ‘los estudiantes mexicanos del 68 fueron los primeros en vivir su adolescencia y juventud en un país que ya no era basicamente rural’ [the Mexican students of 1968 were the first generation to grow up in a country that was no longer rural]. These extras are there to establish that the historical context is Mexico in transition. Interestingly, since in the international DVD release none of these extras were included, the Mexican version provided an historical context that was not available to a transnational audience. This absence neutralises the political message and the specificity of the historical backdrop to the story and feeds into an image of Mexico as a violent country. The enemy in Francisca, ¿De qué lado estás? is the state as represented by the Halcones [Falcons]. These were the secret police force set up by a government paranoid about the possibility of violent reaction to the events of 1968, and they spied upon, interrogated and killed those they suspected of subversion. On 10 June 1971, popularly referred to as Jueves de Corpus [Corpus Christi Thursday] when 80,000 students staged a demonstration at the Monument of the Revolution, it is estimated that thirty to fifty people were killed by the Halcones. This incident was with the subject of both El bulto (1992) [The Lump] directed by Gabriel Retes

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and Jueves de Corpus (1998) [Corpus Christi Thursday] directed by Marcos Almado. Jueves de Corpus, which has received little critical attention, is a police drama. It presents events as the unfolding revenge story of a man who witnessed his father’s murder at the hands of members of the Halcones who have subsequently become powerful businessmen, police officials and politicians. The story pointedly alludes to corruption in 1990s Mexico and how the memory of the tragic events have been covered up. In contrast, El bulto has received more attention, although much of it quite negative. For Miriam Haddu (2007, 23), … in El bulto, the events of the past, such as the massacre at Tlatelolco in 1968 and the 1971 Corpus Christi killings, aside from their symbolic qualities, are revealed as having little significance for present day Mexico.

El bulto is more celebratory of the present, seeing the 1990s as a time of possibilities, market successes and the end of the 1960s radicalism. The protagonist of El bulto, Lauro (Gabriel Retes), goes into a coma after being brutally beaten at a march. He wakes up twenty years later in a very changed Mexico. His old comrades are now either rising high on the tide of the capitalist success that Mexico briefly enjoyed in the early 1990s, or are part of the political establishment. It is a bittersweet comedy that turns into a family melodrama in the final third. There are many mood changes in the film. It moves from the serious documentary-style footage at the opening in which the police are shown attacking demonstrators, then to the middle section when Lauro awakes and has to adjust to the changes in his life, until he gets angry and frustrated with his family and friends. In the end, he reconciles with them and what he views as the compromises they have had to make. It is a film that starts with serious intent only to slide into silliness and excessive sentimentality. In contrast, Francisca, ¿De qué lado estás? is a thriller with a very sombre mood throughout. The thriller story revolves around Bruno (Ulrich Noethen), a Spanish-born, German national who was a former communist party member, now reluctantly turned police informant on his arrival in Mexico to take up a post as a lecturer at the UNAM. The other characters are his politically engaged students who are involved in a radical, direct action cell that he is charged with spying on. Inevitably, he sympathises with their cause; he then falls in love with one of them, Adela (Fabiola Campomanes), becomes involved in their cause and is wrongly accused of murder. As a consequence, he goes on the run and later into hiding in the jungles of Veracruz with the aim of escaping with Adela to the US, where they hope to reinvent themselves. The thriller and melodramatic elements

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of the film serve to heighten the mood and give considerable urgency to the narrative. However, these aspects also undermine the seriousness of the subject matter. History becomes primarily a tense, narrative backdrop after the obligatory badge of authenticity in the opening. Notwithstanding this, there is a welcome move away from a focus on family and on the domestic (although the film retains elements of this) to a wider political and social context. The title comes from a scene in the film when Bruno is asked ‘¿De qué lado estás?’ [Which side are you on?] by José, one of the students after the two watch El grito with other students at a secret screening. Bruno’s reply is ‘Las cosas no son tan blanco y negro’ [Things aren’t so black and white]. The rest of the film explores this taking of sides and, through Bruno and Adela’s relationship, it portrays Bruno as someone who has become compromised by his actions and is, therefore, unable to make any significant changes in society. For the hero of a thriller, Bruno is strangely passive. He reveals himself to be the product of international turmoil and thereby, a tragic victim of world historical forces. Born during the Spanish Civil War to German and Spanish communist parents, he was sent to the USSR as an evacuee. After the war he was reunited with his mother in Berlin, where he studied history and joined the communist party. He later entered the security services and spied on behalf of the communists. This resulted in his best friend’s death. Disillusioned with communism he fled to Paris, deciding thereafter to reinvent himself and move to Mexico. This backstory, which he recounts to Adela, signals him as someone who has been both subject and object of the drama of history and, on a narrative level, explains why he is so reluctant to get involved in the armed struggle that Adela and the other students feel they must embrace. As protagonist, he bears the burden of imbuing some meaning into the indecision over taking up arms. This is done through evocations of his troubled past. Drawing on a transcultural historical context in this way suggests that violence and conflict move in waves around the world, but also that they have severe personal consequences on individuals such as Bruno caught in their wake.

Contrasting Visions In this film the configuration of space differs from that in ¿Y si placticamos de agosto?. Where ¿Y si placticamos de agosto? is set exclusively in the city, Francisca, ¿De qué lado estás? moves between the city and the countryside. The city is controlled by an all-seeing secret police force who are aware of Bruno’s movements and monitor when he

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transgresses their agreed rules. As representatives of the state, they are the far order who control the rebel’s movements. They are also a constant, if more distant, threat in the countryside. This is the difference between the city and the countryside. The city is controlled absolutely by the far order, whereas the countryside provides an opportunity to escape from government and police control. However, in the absence of the far order, there is another hierarchy which is corrupt and potentially more oppressive. Bruno realises this when he finds that his only source of income is trafficking illegal goods and he sees his boss murder innocent poor people because he suspects them of robbery. It is clear that he is taking out his anger on people who are essentially his indentured slaves. The rural spaces are not represented as a real alternative to the city, just another site of repression and danger. Emily Hind has explored the representation of the countryside in recent Mexican film. She uses the term provincia [province] to describe ‘national landscapes outside of Mexico City’ (2004, 26). For Hind, films such as Y tu mamá también (2001) directed by Alfonso Cuarón, ‘conceive(s) of provincia as the obliging fulfilment of Mexico City residents’ desires’ (2004, 41).7 Usually, the provincia signifies a space where the characters can escape their humdrum existence and the constraints of city life to be free to indulge in sensory pleasures. In contrast, in Francisca, ¿De qué lado estás? the countryside has similar constraints and limitations to the city, which prove more terrifying because the rules are unknown to the outsider. Meanwhile for Bruno, the near order does not provide much support. Adela chooses to leave him and he is killed by Gabriel, the now teenage son of the man he was falsely accused of murdering. Family is corrupted by conflict. Bruno’s own background was marred by his parent’s involvement in violent struggle and now the next generation is brutalised by a legacy of violence. In this pessimistic ending, Gabriel is destined to continue the cycle of violence, which Bruno’s life has demonstrated is negative. Violence connects the man and boy across cultures and experiences. López Sánchez portrays violence, irrespective of the context, as damaging on an individual and a societal level. The message is that through the end of childhood innocence, society is corrupted—an idea explored in ¿Y si placticamos de agosto? also, albeit in different ways.

Conclusion Nineteen sixty-eight saw both the disruption of the grand narrative of the Mexican nation and the notion of its government as safe and democratic

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and, in the context of the Olympic Games, an end to the government’s attempt to project the country internationally as a peaceful and modern place. ¿Y si placticamos de agosto? explores 1968 from the perspective of a child. In her consideration of ‘crazyspace’—a positioning specific to what she terms ‘children’s screen products’ or visual products made for and about children—Máire Messinger Davies suggests that ‘there is a sense, as with fairytale, of the universality of the experiences of childhood’ (2005, 393). This is something underscored in the film through the use of spaces that place the child in a large, urban landscape without specifically pinpointing what city it is. Sistach appears to be emphasising the universal elements of the story through the child’s experiences, at the same time that, through the specificities of the events, the film is set in a particularly Mexican historical moment. Francisca, ¿De qué lado estás? is transcultural for a variety of reasons: through its use of a transnational genre, the thriller; it is funded and stars actors from outside of Mexico; the story involves characters marked by their experiences in other countries; and, most importantly, its implicit message is that conflict itself creates a shared experience for individuals. We are to understand that violence is damaging and has a lasting legacy. This may be a problematically ahistorical conclusion, but one that seeks to create a commonality of experience between European and Mexican experiences of violence, moving away from the perception of Mexico (and Latin America) as uniquely violent and unstable places. Space is important in both films. Elissa J Rashkin (2001, 101) has written about Sistach as having ‘an appreciation of the city as part of the subjective identity of its inhabitants’ and this is evident in the film shot from the young boy’s point of view. The city in Francisca, ¿De qué lado estás? is controlled by an authoritarian police force, who can only be escaped through death. The attempts by the characters to flee to the countryside result only in equally brutal outcomes. Both films are careful to trace the particularities of the events that they allude to and portray. Yet, both also have strong transcultural themes and content which transcend the purely local interest. They are films worthy of consideration for their attempts to re-examine a tense moment in Mexican history, and to move it away from the specificities evident in other films such as Rojo amanecer and El bulto.

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Works Cited Arredondo, I. (2001) Palabra de mujer: Historia oral de las directoras de cine mexicanas (1988-1994), Madrid: Iberoamericana. Billig, M. (1995) Banal Nationalism, London: Sage. Brewster, C. (2005) Responding to Crisis in Contemporary Mexico, Tucson: The University of Arizona Press. Doyle, K., Zavala, S., (2008) 2 DE OCTUBRE DE 1968—Verdad Bajo Resguardo [online], Vancouver, The George Washington University, Available from: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB258/index.htm [Accessed 10 September 2009] Haddu, M. (2007) Contemporary Mexican Cinema 1989-1999: History, Space, and Identity, Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press. Hind, E. (2004) ‘Provincia in Recent Mexican Cinema, 1989-2004’, Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture, 26.1 & 26.2, Winter and Spring, 26-45. International Theatre of the Oppressed Organisation [online]. Available from: http://www.theatreoftheoppressed.org/en/index.php?nodeID=1 [Accessed 22 December 2009]. Lefebvre H. (2004) Writings on Cities, selected, translated and introduced by E. Kofman and E. Lebas, Malden & Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Maciel, D. R. (1999) ‘Cinema and the State in Contemporary Mexico, 1970-1999’, in J. Hershfield and D. R. Maciel (eds.) Mexico’s Cinema: A Century of Film and Filmmakers, Wilmington, Delaware: SR Books, 197-232. Messinger Davies, M. (2005) ‘‘Crazyspace’: the Politics of Children’s Screen Drama’, Screen, 46:3, Autumn, 389-399. Rashkin, E. J. (2001) Women Filmmakers in Mexico: The Country of Which We Dream, Austin: University of Texas Press. Rodríguez Cruz, O. (2000) El 68 en el cine mexicano, Puebla: Universidad Iberoamericana, Plantel Golfo Centro. Schmidt, A. (2001) ‘Making it Real Compared to What? Reconceptualizing Mexican History Since 1940’, in G. Joseph, A. Rubestein and E. Zolov (eds.) Fragments of a Golden Age: The Politics of Culture Since 1940, Durham & London: Duke UP, 23-70. Velazco, S. (2005) ‘Rojo amanecer y La ley de Herodes: cine político de la transición mexicana’, Hispanic Research Journal, 6.1 February, 6780. Zolov, E. (1999) Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture, Berkeley & London: University of California Press.

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Notes 1

For a testimonial account of the cinema of 1968 see Rodríguez Cruz (2000). See, for example, Maciel (1999), Haddu (2007) and Velazco (2005). 3 See Rashkin (2001). 4 For more on the particularities of a child’s point of view see, for example, Messinger Davies (2005). 5 This is an enactment of what Augusto Boal called ‘invisible theatre’, where performers act out real-life scenarios in public spaces to inspire people to react and create potential for debate and real change. For more on this see International Theatre of the Oppressed Organisation. 6 For more on López Sánchez see Arredondo (2001). 7 Interestingly, this film was distributed internationally under its Spanish title a literal translation of which is: And (I’ve had) your mother too. 2

CONTRIBUTORS

Gabrielle Carty holds a Masters in Italian film from the University of Reading and a PhD in Spanish film from Queen Mary, University of London. Her research interests are Spanish film, star theory and the role of women in comedy and she has published in the area of contemporary Spanish film. She lectures in Dublin City University in the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies, where she contributes to a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules in translation, culture and film. Tracy Diane Cassidy is a Senior Lecturer in Fashion Marketing/Business for Fashion Design, a Research Development Facilitator and Research Centre Leader of the Fashion Technology Research Centre in the Department of Clothing Design & Technology, Hollings Faculty at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is a qualified knitwear designer and has run a number of small businesses. Her research specialist area is colour forecasting though her research interests spread broadly across the areas of fashion design and business practice. She has published articles and a book in these areas. Margaret Anne Clarke graduated from the University of Liverpool with a PhD in Brazilian Literature. Her research interests include contemporary Brazilian digital culture and writing, and the use of computer and multimedia applications for language learning. She has published articles and book chapters in all these areas. She is a senior lecturer in Portuguese at the University of Portsmouth, UK. Deirdre Finnerty is a third-year PhD student in the School of Languages, Literatures, Culture and Communication at the University of Limerick. She has three main research interests: gender and memory, motherhood, and memory and representation of the Spanish Civil War. Ana García Bergua is a writer. Born in Mexico City in 1960, she studied French and theatre set design at the UNAM. She has published four novels: El umbral (ERA, 1993), Púrpura (ERA, 1999), Rosas negras (Plaza y Janés, 2004) and Isla de bobos (Seix Barral, 2007); four books of

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short stories: El imaginador (ERA, 1996), La confianza en los extraños (Debate,2002), Otra oportunidad para el señor Balmand, (CONACULTA, 2004) and Edificio (Páginas de Espuma, 2009); and the chronicles: Postales desde el puerto (CONACULTA, 1997) and Pie de página (2007). Many of her stories are collected in anthologies. In 1992 she was awarded the young writers grant Jóvenes Creadores by FONCA and in 2001 she was made a member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores of this institution. She also has a column entitled ‘Y ahora paso a retirarme’ in the Mexican national newspaper, La Jornada Semanal. Sheila Gies was awarded her doctorate by the Manchester Metropolitan University for her thesis on the Material Culture of Brazilian Fashion Design from 1985 to 2005. She has published widely on the subject of material culture as a methodological approach for the study of Fashion Design. She received a Distinction from the MMU for her MSc. in Clothing Product Development on the topic of Clothing Design for the Wheelchair User. Tina Kinsella is currently reading for her Ph.D in Visual Culture at The National College of Art and Design in Dublin, where she is funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. She is interested in the discursive space between ethics and aesthetics, and her doctoral thesis, ‘Interrupting Othering’, investigates the construction and disruption of gendered identities within artwork. She holds an M.Phil. in Gender and Women’s Studies from Trinity College, Dublin and her most recent publication is ‘The Banal and the Evident: Pornography, Technology and the Market’ in the Journal of Postgraduate Studies (Trinity College, Dublin). She is also an art practitioner. Nuala Kenny completed her doctoral studies in University College Dublin in 2009. Her dissertation, which investigates memory and gender in the novels of contemporary author Josefina Aldecoa, was partly funded by a scholarship from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Her recent research interests include twentieth century Spanish popular and material culture and representations of women. At present she lectures in Spanish language and culture at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Carlota Larrea earned her doctorate at the department of Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University. She is now a Senior Lecturer in Media Arts at the University of Bedfordshire, where she is academic

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director for the media undergraduate courses and teaches film and television studies. She has published on contemporary Spanish literature and film. Her interests include contemporary European art film, postfeminism, and self-reflexivity in film and literature. Paul McAleer is a lecturer in Latin American literature at the University of Manchester. His research focuses on comedy and humour in Latin American literature and culture. In general terms, his interests are in the history of comic form in the European and Latin American novel and its societal and cultural functions specifically in relation to the utopian impulse of comedy. His publications include ‘El proceso, Kafka, and the Comic Novel: Ana María Shua’s Soy paciente and the Fear of Individual Freedom’, The Modern Language Review (January 2010). Jacqueline Mulhall is completing her PhD at the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies, Dublin City University. Her thesis looks at the censorship of women writers in Franco’s Spain. Her research was funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences and by a Marie Curie Early Stage Research Training Fellowship which she held at the Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla. Her interests include Foucaultian theory, historical-memory and transnational relationships. She currently lectures in Spanish Studies at the University of Limerick. Raquel Ribeiro earned her doctorate at the University of Liverpool, in 2009, with a thesis on the concept of Europe in the works of the Portuguese author Maria Gabriela Llansol. She has published in Ellipsis (October 2008) and in the Journal of Romance Studies (Spring 2009), and she contributed to the essay collection Jovens Ensaístas Lêem Jovens Poetas (Oporto, Deriva: 2008). As a novelist, she published Europa (ASA, 2002), under the pseudonym Maria David. She currently works as a freelance journalist in Portugal, and her interests include Portuguese and Lusophone literature and cinema. She is developing a study on the cultural representations of the presence of Cuban soldiers in Angola during the civil war. Patricia O’Byrne is a lecturer at Dublin City University, in the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies, where she lectures on the comparative literature programme and contributes to a range of undergraduate literature, film and intercultural modules. Her recent publications include ‘Testimonial Literature and Spanish Women

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Novelists’ (Romance Studies, 2008) and ‘Popular fiction in post-war Spain: the soothing subversive novela rosa’ (Journal of Romance Studies, 2008). Niamh Thornton is a lecturer in Spanish and Film studies at the University of Ulster, Coleraine. A specialist in Latin America with a particular focus on Mexico, her research interests include literature, film and cyberculture. Her publications include Women and the War Story in Mexico (Edwin Mellen, 2005), a co-edited volume with Par Kumaraswami entitled Revolucionarias: Conflict and Gender in Latin American Narratives by Women (Peter Lang, 2007), and several chapters and articles. She is currently completing a monograph on conflict in Mexican film. Suzan Williams obtained her degree in Hispanic Studies at the University of Birmingham and she joined the Department of Hispanic Studies at Birmingham in 2006 to work on an MPhil on the work of Teolinda Gersão, funded by an Instituto Camões scholarship. Her main research interest is in contemporary Portuguese women’s writing.