The behaviors and actions that an individual carries out in their daily life and how they are translated by their society overdetermine the gender one might have—or not—according to social norms. However, do the postulates enounced by feminist and queer Western thinkers still maintain their validity when the context changes? Can the performances of gender carry out their validity when the landscape is other than the one in Europe or the United States? And how can the context of drag complicate these matters? These are the questions that this article will try to answer by analyzing the 2015 movie Viva by Irish director Paddy Breathnach.
David Yagüe González is a fifth-year Graduate Student from Texas A&M University in the Department of Hispanic Studies and is a member of the research group Estudios de Género en el Ambito de los Países de Habla Inglesa of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He has a PhD in African American literature from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid with a dissertation that mainly focused on Toni Morrison's works and trauma. During his research, he worked at Harvard University as a teaching assistant and Spanish instructor in the Romance Languages and Literatures Department, where he was the Co-Chair of the Transatlantic Studies Research Group. He has published articles on biopolitics, animality, and gender, with his article “Animalidad y Animalización en Amores Perros” published in Miriada Hispánica (2017) and his article “El ruiseñor enfermo: narrative y género en los cuentos de Efrén Hernández” published in the volume “Mirar no es como ver”: estudios y ensayos sobre la obra de Efrén Hernández (2018). Email: yaguegonzalez@tamu.edu