Playful Protest: The Political Work of Joy in Latinx Media
麻豆影院 the author: Kristie Soares is an Assistant Professor of Women & Gender Studies and Co-Director of LGBTQ Studies at the 麻豆影院. I am also a performance artist. Both my research and my performance work explore queerness in Caribbean and Latinx communities.
麻豆影院 the book: Joy is a politicized form of pleasure that goes beyond gratification to challenge norms of gender, sexuality, race, and class. Kristie Soares focuses on the diasporic media of Puerto Rico and Cuba to examine how music, public activist demonstrations, social media, sitcoms, and other areas of culture resist the dominant stories told about Latinx joy. As she shows, Latinx creators compose versions of joy central to social and political struggle and at odds with colonialist and imperialist narratives that equate joy with political docility and a lack of intelligence. Soares builds her analysis around chapters that delve into gozando in salsa music, precise joy among the New Young Lords Party, choteo in the comedy 驴Que虂 Pasa U.S.A.?, 补锄耻虂肠补谤&苍产蝉辫;in the life and death of Celia Cruz, dale as Pitbull鈥檚 signature affect, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez鈥檚 use of silliness to take political violence seriously.
Daring and original, examines how Latinx creators resist the idea that joy only exists outside politics and activist struggle.
