Failed Performativities
Understanding "Elisa y Marcela", by Isabel Coixet (2019)
A Bachelor Thesis
Abstract: The following paper aims to understand the film «Elisa y Marcela», by Isabel Coixet (2019), coming from a series of ideas directly drawn from queer and gender studies. By the analysis done on the story of the first lesbian marriage in Spain, we intend to comprehend in which way the lives of the main characters, Elisa y Marcela, are structured, and which elements is their performativity open to. Via some concepts, such as monstrosity (Monique Wittig), failure (Jack Halberstam) and vulnerability (Judith Butler), we seek to understand the different choices and decisions both women make regarding their lives and their relationship, and how this is an example of what we like to call «failed performativity».
About the thesis:
Focus, methodology and initial assumptions
Coixet's film "Elisa and Marcela" (2019) tells the story of the first gay marriage in Spain, which took place in Galicia in 1901. This event set a precedent on the legal attainment of the right to marriage on the homosexual movement, which developed during the 20th century and continues to the present day.
Apart from depicting such a historical event, the film allows the viewer to do a reflective reading on gender and sexuality issues presented by the story of these two women, based on Butler's ideas on performativity and vulnerability, as well as on Halberstam's ideas on the notion of failure.
Initial assumptions
Performativity, according to Judith Butler, defends gender by itself as an act and not as a prior essence; that is, gender is constructed from the behavior of the person and does not exist prior to it. Performativity, moreover, is subject to social norms and a given context. To occupy a space of success or failure will depend, mainly, on how the person adjusts to the determined frameworks. In turn, occupying one space or another entails consequences, such as abjection in the case of failure. On the other hand, people are also in a situation of constant vulnerability, since we are interdependent beings and part of the self is structured in the other, who has influence over us. "Elisa and Marcela" will be but one example of how this has marked, and will continue to mark, the lives of the LGTB+ collective throughout history, and how all abject lives are subject to a situation of failure and a constantly exposed vulnerability.
Structure and contents
1. Performativities
a) Compulsory heterosexuality, by Adrianne Rich
b) Birth of the monster
c) A vulnerable monster
2. Failures
a) Elisa becomes Mario: usurpation of masculinity
b) Marcela gets pregnant
3. Exile
a) Portugal
b) Buenos Aires
Epilogue: From them to us
Where to read it
