The Art of Ana Clavel

Ghosts, Urinals, Dolls, Shadows and Outlaw Desires

JaneElizabeth Lavery

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351546393
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Ana Clavel is a remarkable contemporary Mexican writer whose literary and multimedia oeuvre is marked by its queerness. The queer is evinced in the manner in which she disturbs conceptions of the normal not only by representing outlaw sexualities and dark desires but also by incorporating into her fictive and multimedia worlds that which is at odds with normalcy as evinced in the presence of the fantastical, the shadow, ghosts, cyborgs, golems and even urinals. Clavels literary trajectory follows a queer path in the sense that she has moved from singular modes of creative expression in the form of literary writing, a traditional print medium, towards other non-literary forms. Some of Clavels works have formed the basis of wider multimedia projects involving collaboration with various artists, photographers, performers and IT experts. Her works embrace an array of hybrid forms including the audiovisual, internet-enabled technology, art installation, (video) performance and photography. By foregrounding the queer heterogeneous narrative themes, techniques and multimedia dimension of Clavels oeuvre, the aim of this monograph is to attest to her particular contribution to Hispanic letters, which arguably is as significant as that of more established Spanish American boom femenino women writers.

CHAPTER 1

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Outlaw’ Sexualities and Desires in Ana Clavel’s Short Fiction

Desire is a key motif in Ana Clavel’s hitherto academically virtually unexplored collection of short stories Fuera de escena (1984), Amorosos de atar (1992), Paraísos trémulos (2002) and Amor y otros suicidios (2012), as well as a number of short stories either published in online journals or unpublished ones which were personally provided to me by the author. It is vital to give attention to this particular thematic area of interest given that desire, in all its multifarious guises, remains a constant throughout Clavel’s literary and multimedia work, as will become apparent in subsequent chapters. In this respect, the short stories form an early basis on which the later works by Clavel are built, in the sense that the issues raised by these short stories in relation to desire and in particular ‘outlaw’ sexualities are, in a way, embryonic in that they provide the seeds for Clavel’s concerns in later writing. In the short stories, as we also see very clearly in Clavel’s Los deseos y su sombra, Cuerpo náufrago, Las Violetas son flores del deseo, or El dibujante de sombras, Clavel’s exploration of specifically sexual desire in its various configurations — heterosexual, lesbian, homosexual, transgender —, has a celebratory function aimed at mocking taboo and prohibition. By examining ‘no-deseos’ [non-desires], that is repressed or unfulfilled desires and specifically ‘outlaw’ sexuality such as transgender desire, lesbianism, extramarital affairs, orgiastic sex, and even sexual relations between cousins, Clavel can be seen as disturbing the reader’s comfort zone in order to make him or her reflect upon notions of ‘proper’ or ‘improper’ relations. In particular, sexual multiplicity paradoxically serves both to bolster, and yet to challenge, the idea of desire as uniquely heterosexual, which is ultimately a product of (Mexican) culture’s symbolic order and its organizing practices. Shaped by their sociocultural environment and by the narratives in circulation, it will be shown how some of the characters in the short stories are stifled by the prevailing heteronormative discourses of gender and sexuality. As many of the characters thus alternately struggle with and give in to their desires, these desires are occasionally disproportionally intensified, at times leading to lack and frustration. However, Clavel appears to demonstrate how other characters are also able to represent themselves, and thus negotiate a position that defies repressive ideologies. Sexual multiplicity also reinforces but similarly queers traditional heteronormative romance as encapsulated in various popular cultural forms such as the novela rosa, fairy tales, and cinema. The popular plays a particularly important role in the lives of a number of the characters in Clavel’s short fiction as it functions to express their fantasies of ideal love, as well as of unfulfilled desire. Whilst fantasy offers sentimental and emotional escapism for the characters, so too do their fairy-tale notions of love and existence contrast dramatically with the dowdy monotony of life, a disparity which Clavel portrays through the use of humour and irony. Even though the stories expose the ways in which mass culture can perpetuate sexual and gender stereotypes, they similarly show the ability of a number of her characters to be not passive, but rather dynamic, consumers of mass culture, who can actively interpret it and use it to (sexually) creative ends, thus bestowing upon them a sense of freedom from restrictive lifestyles. Finally, ‘no-deseos’ also become intertwined with questions of feminism, (non-) motherhood, the role of creativity, life, and death, concerns which also crop up in Clavel’s later fiction, as we shall see.

Sexualities in their various configurations, and specifically the connections and disconnections between the sexual desires between men and women in Clavel’s short fiction (and indeed her subsequent writing), can be briefly contextualized in the broader cultural inscription of changing patterns of sexuality in the closing decades of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century in Mexico. Even though Mexico is still defined by its time-honoured machismo, since approximately the 1960s second-wave feminism and the LGBT movement have served in particular to bring to light the significance of sexuality, gender, and desire in the construction of identity in a specifically Mexican context. The modernization of Mexican society and its increasingly globalized environment since this period have led to significant changes in the lives of women and so-called sexual minorities. These sweeping changes have been widely documented and have had social, cultural, and political ramifications throughout Mexican society.¹ These transformations have had a number of positive effects on these sectors including the widening access of women to education and professional labour markets and the decriminalization of consensual intimacy between same-sex couples (1998) thanks to the feminist and sexual rights movements. Yet in a society which is characterized in the main by a keen interest in restricting sexuality to chaste behaviour and monogamous heterosexual marriage, changing gender roles and the increased visibility of diverse sexual orientations and behaviours have led to a repressive backlash.² The increased breakdown of the traditional patriarchal family unit, growing divorce rates and single-parent families, and the liberation of sexual mores or identities have often been seen as an assault on traditional notions of masculinity. This perceived ‘crisis of masculinity’, that is the anxieties Mexican men have had to confront when faced with the family crisis, has been blamed, for example, for domestic violence against women or particularly savage outbursts of discriminatory reactions against homosexual men or other sexual minorities. At the same time, whilst conventional gender categories have not been completely shattered, Mexico’s modernization process has meant that men’s traditional roles and their attitudes towards traditional forms of sexuality and desire have had to change and accommodate women’s new roles. Ultimately, by engaging with a range of ‘outlaw’ sexual desires, it may be suggested that it is thus Clavel’s intention, both in her short stories as well as her subsequent works of fiction, not only to bring to light Mexican society’s repressive heteronormativity and its particular fears, anxieties, and disavowed desires, but equally to celebrate those prohibited zones of pleasure, albeit in an often ambiguous, and not always positive, way.

Heterosexuality

Heterosexual and non-heterosexual desire is linked to Clavel’s particular interest in her, notwithstanding ambivalent, representation of popular culture. References to popular culture abound in the author’s short stories. Popular culture links the various characters emotionally or physically, as well as serving to express their fantasies of ideal love or sense of lack. For example, in the story ‘En un vagón de metro Utopía’ (Amor, pp. 15–28) [In the Carriage of the Utopia Metro], the male narrator and his partner Leonora draw from popular cultural forms to spice up their sexual lives. The childhood innocence typically attached to the fairy tale of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and the myth of Father Christmas are perverted as they become imbued with eroticism. Leonora enjoys sexual role-playing by enacting ‘Little Red Riding Hood’; and encouraging the male narrator to assume the role of the ferocious wolf. Whilst the narrator has clearly enjoyed a fulfilled sexual life with Leonora which results in the birth of various children, he grows bored of his monogamous ‘conventional paradise’ (book blurb) and the drudgery of everyday life. He comes to perceive Leonora’s penchant for sexual role-playing as repetitive: ‘últimamente ha comenzado a repetirse, como si solo supiera jugar a la Caperucita, o cuando más, a la Bella Durmiente — si bien debo reconocer que aunque todavía bella cada vez más durmiente’ [Lately she has started to be boring, as if she only knew how to pretend to be Little Red Riding Hood, or at most, Sleeping Beauty — although I must admit that whilst she is still beautiful she is ever more sleepy] (p. 20). An avid fantasist who creates his own ‘pequeño teatro erótico personal’ [personal miniature erotic theatre] (p. 20), the narrator seeks fulfilment by fantasizing of extramarital sexual affairs with unknown women, such as a waitress, and orgiastic sex with the ‘Chicas Santa Clos del metro’ [Santa Claus girls of the Underground] (p. 20), whom he starts stalking in the underground in the hope that he will be the object of their sexual attention (p. 20). For the narrator, the underground becomes a ‘sistema arterial de leyendas, deseos y temores’ [an arterial system of legends, desires and fears] (p. 21), and in many ways the female Santa Clauses represent those innate fears and desires. As the narrator seeks out these women in the underground, he compares his childhood excitement at the magic of Christmas with his sexual anticipation of coming across the women and engaging in sexual intercourse (p. 21). Once on the train, he conjures up in his mind an explicitly described scene in which he engages in orgiastic sex with three Santa Clauses of various striking or exotic appearances. But the narrator does not actually consummate the sexual act which ultimately remains in the realms of fantasy. Indeed, he is brutally shaken out of his fantasy dream as the ethereal beauties turn into threatening women who are there not to offer sexual services to the male passengers but rather, as one of the female Santa Clauses, gun in hand, crassly informs the narrator, ‘órale, cabrón, o ¿necesito decirte que esto es un asalto navideño?’ [come on, hurry up you bastard, or do I need to spell it out that this is a Christmas robbery] (p. 27). Even though Clavel can be seen to be challenging the borders of acceptability by exploring what some may perceive as morally challenging forms of sexuality in the way of extramarital and orgiastic sex, the clichéd view that dreams do not always live up to one’s expectations is brashly reinforced here with humorous irony. The final comical twist embodies perhaps the narrator’s fear of having to be confronted with the realization that sexual otherness enacted via fantasy does not necessarily lead to a form of bliss which, in his mind at least, can only be found beyond the ‘conventional paradise’ of monogamy.

The liberating yet equally entrapping effect of popular culture on the individual is no where better explored than in Clavel’s short story ‘Turbias lágrimas de una simple durmiente’ (Amorosos, pp. 69–76) [The Cloudy Tears of a Sleeping Simpleton]. Here the critique of (Mexican) heteronormativity is evinced via the prism of traditional heteronormative romance as encapsulated in certain popular cultural forms, including the novela rosa, fairy tales, and cinema. ‘Turbias lágrimas’ gives us a glimpse into the dreary marriage of a Mexican couple, Jorge and Marga, both of whom are representative of Mexico’s ideal social model of heteronormativity. Although fantasy provides sentimental escapism for the characters, their fairy-tale idea of love contrasts sharply with the drab mundaneness of their married life, a discrepancy which is captured through the author’s use of acerbic irony. The title of this story immediately alerts us to the ambiguous role of fantasy: ‘turbias lágrimas’ [cloudy tears], suggesting the lacrimose sentimentality of the novela rosa, the folletín, or Hollywood soap, and ‘durmiente’ [sleeping], a clear allusion to the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty indirectly mentioned in the short story (p. 70), clash with the word ‘simple’ which translates not only as ‘simple’ in the sense of uncomplicated, but also as ‘dim-witted’.

Reference is made to the final romantic scene of the Hollywood cult movie Blade Runner (1982, dir. Ridley Scott) in which the main characters played by actors Sean Young and Harrison Ford are seen driving off in their car into the sun-drenched mountains. In Clavel’s story, the Hollywood movie has a specifically mise-en-abyme function. Indeed, Jorge’s loose reconstruction of the sexually and emotionally intense relationship between the two characters Rachel and Rick in Blade Runner has a special resonance given that it serves as an ironic counterpoint to Jorge’s own lacklustre relationship with Marga. Jorge renames Harrison Ford’s character from Rick to George as a way of impersonating the character in order to get closer to his female heroine Sean Young/Rachel, who represents the ideals of romance, beauty, and luxury. Jorge’s conception of ideal romantic love is based on a fantasy which must be maintained via an impeccably choreographed performance. Performativity becomes particularly apparent via the references to the filming process, in which the film director intervenes, thus foregrounding, for instance, the illusion of romance (p. 69) or physical perfection as encapsulated in Sean Young/Rachel:

Limitada por las líneas que algún guionista dibujó en torno a ella, Sean sólo pudo mostrar su lado de mujer perfecta, perfeccionada aún más por la meticulosidad de Pitt que detenía las escenas sólo para que la maquillista le polveara el rostro. (Amorosos, p. 70)

[Restricted by the lines which were written specifically for her character by some scriptwriter, Sean was only able to project an image of a perfect woman, perfected even more so by the meticulousness of Pitt who would constantly stop the scenes in order to allow the makeup artist to retouch her face]

Ironically, Jorge — who has a ‘predisposición casi innata para la infelicidad, ese sentimiento de que la vida tiene que ser una película y, además, trágica’ [an almost innate predisposition to unhappiness and that sense that life has to be lived like a film and, what’s more, a tragic one] (p. 72) — lives his own life as a performance, enacting the role of a tragic victim of a melodramatic folletín. Yet even as the popular entraps Jorge, so too does it liberate him. Following Clavel’s view that ‘lo que te define es el no ser’ [what defines you being what you are not],³ Jorge seeks to overcome his tragic sense of self by becoming other by vicariously living through the fictive artifice of Hollywood film.⁴ The creative reconstruction of the movie permits Jorge to express his darkest inner self, thus liberating him from falling into the trappings of an emotionally repressed existence. However the emotional and sexual freedom that the popular offers is only transitory as the reader is poignantly reminded about the illusory nature of fantasy. George becomes engaged in a sexually steamy exchange with Sean/Rachel and, in contravention of the script, the male actor starts performing oral sex on the female actress. The film director is appalled by the idea of the characters having full-blown sex because ‘entonces cómo imaginar la segunda parte’ [how can one possibly imagine the second part] (p. 73). Jorge is similarly horrified at such a prospect given that to consummate the sexual act would be to kill the fantasy of the ideal. Intercourse threatens Jorge as it becomes a reminder of Sean/Rachel’s visceral physicality and imperfection, like that of Marga: ‘sumida en la ordinariez de la carne y el hueso’ [immersed in flesh and blood ordinariness] (p. 73). Such recognition is linked to Jorge’s horrified realization that he depends on the flesh-and-blood Marga to be able to recreate and sustain his fantasy of the unreal: ‘reprime la arcada al pensar de qué manera esta imperfecta mujer de carne y hueso le es tan necesaria para configurar el deseo por las otras que busca en la pantalla’ [stops himself from retching as he thinks how this imperfect flesh-and-blood woman is so utterly important for him in recreating those other women whom he seeks out on the screen] (p. 74). For Jorge, Marga must become one of his co-actors in his filmic recreation(s) to prolong the illusion:

Por primera vez, Jorge se da cuenta de que también por Marga la escena ha de volverse Sísifo a repetirse. Pitt diría: un poco más de rímel para enturbiar esas lágrimas de víctima que, al fin cómplice, Marga acepta derramar. (Amorosos, p. 74)

[For the first time, Jorge realizes that for Marga too the scene must constantly repeat itself in Sisyphean manner. Pitt would say: apply a little bit more makeup to the eyes in order to produce an effect of mascara-filled victim tears, which Marga, accomplice at last, willingly sheds]

Marga, much like her husband, perceives herself as a tragic victim of melodrama and in order to escape the harsh realities of a marriage comprised of unrequited love, she too draws from popular sources, this time in the form of fairy tales. Influenced by Sleeping Beauty, Marga has had the princess fantasy of finding her ‘príncipe azul’ [Prince Charming], whom Jorge comes to embody, since childhood. Despite his rejection of her, the only time when Marga feels a fleeting physical and emotional connection with him is when they make love (p. 74). It is thus why Marga agrees to participate in Jorge’s play-acting fantasies since this will allow both of them to express a reciprocal desire for the unattainable, permitting, in the case of Marga, the feeling of being loved by her h...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Ana Clavel and the Boom Femenino — Continuities and Queer Disruptions
• 1 ‘Outlaw’ Sexualities and Desires in Ana Clavel’s Short Fiction
• 2 Los deseos y su sombra Truth, (Ghostly) Selves, and (Multimedia) Luminous Shadows
• 3 Cuerpo náufrago Gender Troubling, Queer Desires, and Fantastical (Dis)embodiments
• 4 Genre Troubling: Viscerality and Urinals as Textual and Visual Markers of Disruption
• 5 Beyond Text: Intermediality, Inter/Hypertextuality, and Proyecto multimedia
• 6 Las Violetas son flores del deseo Outer-Circle ‘Perversities’, Hyperreal Golema Dolls, and Textuality
• 7 Peritextuality and Reader-Spectator Complicities
• 8 Multitextuality: (Cyber) Art Installation, (Performing) Dolls, and (Multi)authorship
• 9 El dibujante de sombras The Queering of Truth and a Poetics of Shadows
• 10 Further Queer Literary and Multimedia Interventions
• Conclusion: Some Final Thoughts
• Bibliography
• Index