CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/20/2015

Mujercitos!

Featured image is reproduced from Mujercitos, Susana Vargas and Cuauhtémoc Medina's fascinating collection of photographs of "effeminate men" documented in the pages of Alarma! the Mexican anota roja or "red page" crime blotter tabloid, from the 1960s to the 1980s. Vargas writes, "Through their participation in these photographs mujercitos provide themselves with the feminine subjectivity that the accompanying text and Mexican homophobic society denies them. Through these images, mujercitos portray only female subjectivity, giving it a space of recognition, validation and appreciation. The photographs are showcases for their glamor. Most importantly, the photographs allow the mujercitos the consolidation of their desires, working as a site of subversion and resistance to many forms of violence in Mexico. Historically peripheral sexualities in Mexico have re-appropriated denigrating terms to empower themselves linguistically: my use of the term mujercitos is intended to extend and recognize the resistance enacted by mujercitos through these photographs."