Logan Gutierrez-Mozo

Intersectional Theories in Logan Gutierrez-Mock’s “F2MESTIZO”

Logan Gutierrez-Mock’s “F2MESTIZO” takes on the subject matter of intersectionality between race, gender, and class similarly to bell hooks’ theory on drag balls within the film, Paris is Burning. Because the ideas of passing between two races and defining gender identity are interdependent, we see characters enter and exit worlds of powerlessness and privilege, imitate white status to gain privilege, establish a two-fold world of us against them; this reveals much about the internalized racism that arises from the power complexities between races and genders. BP1 (Imitation of Whiteness)

In Paris is Burning, Jennie Livingston, a white lesbian film director, depicts the black gay

At birth, Logan is born a biracial white and mexican female, but through time, Logan passes as a white and is convinced that she, feels like a he, therefore revealing his transgender identity. bell hook critiques the manner in which Livingston portrays the black drag balls by informing readers that, “Within white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy the experience of men dressing as women, appearing in drag, has always been regarded by the dominant heterosexist cultural gaze as a sign that one is symbolically crossing over from a realm of power into a realm of powerlessness” (146). In many ways, drag allows people to cross into different worlds of social constructs as passing and transgender identities do. Logan realizes that “The class privilege that I experienced within my family was linked to my white skin privilege. The most “successful” people in my family are my middle sister (who can also pass as white) and myself. Neither of us were taught or encouraged to speak Spanish. And out unaccented English, our white skin, and our Anglo surnames all set us up to be better (whiter), to go to college, to have good jobs” (230-1). By enforcing a strict code of conduct to imitate white culture and white ideals, Logan becomes engulfed in a continuous cycle of internalized racism where instead of subverting or challenging societal norms

Paris is Burning shows all of the characters as only having one family, that being the drag family, and being “estranged from any community beyond themselves. Families, friends, etc., are not shown, which adds to the representation of these bac gay men as cut off, living on the edge… At no point in Livingston’s film are the men asked to speak about their connections to a world of family and community beyond the drag ball” (154). This depiction implicates drag as being the center of identity and expression that is only shown and expressed in drag balls, where although it seems to attempt the subversion of societal norms, only upholds them by concealing individual expression to the outside world where one is able to make a bold challenging statement. As Logan describes, “Spanish was the secret language I treasured in la casa de mis abuelitos… it was the language my family laughed in, the language they used for the stories we in the younger generations were not supposed to hear. English could not hold these emotions. English was for passing in the world” (230). The idea of “our” world and “their world” strengthens the dichotomy between the white race and the colored, the dichotomy between the heterosexual or “normal” and the transgender. By only expressing one’s true identities in a small group of accepting people and not expressing in the outside world to show resistance, the action only strengthens