Wise Latinas

Document Type

Article

Authors

José Esteban Muñoz, New York UniversityFollow

Abstract

This essay situates Mario Montez's performance in the film Screen Test #2 (Andy Warhol, 1965) within a select history of Latina resistance to reason in the face of hostility. Alligning Sonia Sotomayor's embodied performance and production of knowledge in the US Supreme Court nomination proceedings in 2009 with Montez's resistance to Warhol screenwriter Ronald Tavel's penetrating interrogation in the aforementioned film, the essay argues for a mode of affective performativity that I describe as "brownness." In the process, I both revisit and revise the heated scholarly debate around the Warhol film and highlight the resistant and embodied performance of affect that marks the Puerto Rican drag performers screen appearance. Finally, I extend my reflections on brownness through a consideration of a recent performance by artist Nao Bustamante.

Recommended Citation

Muñoz, José Esteban (2014) "Wise Latinas," Criticism: Vol. 56: Iss. 2, Article 6.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/criticism/vol56/iss2/6