Whiteness, Transformative Bodies, and the Queer Dominicanidad of Rita Indiana
Whiteness, Transformative Bodies, and the Queer Dominicanidad of Rita Indiana
Writer, artist, and musician Rita Indiana Hernández presents as gender ambiguous and masculine in her work in ways that challenge Dominican cultural norms. This chapter considers how she capitalizes on these ambiguities in her significant visual responses to this transnational moment. Her samplings of cultural referents function, as she herself has noted, is like a Surrealist’s collection of found objects. This chapter critiques the artist’s appropriation of Haitian and African American cultural referents, naming her performance in the music video “Da pa’ lo do’” as blackface, and identifying elsewhere her use of Blaxploitation aesthetics in an exploration of how Dominican whiteness works. Rita Indiana’s proximity to whiteness, this chapter argues, makes it possible for her to present queerness, Blackness, and female masculinity to a wide audience and be cast as innovative and consumable.
Keywords: Rita Indiana Hernández, Whiteness, Blackface, Transformista, Queer, Surrealist, Pastiche, Haitian, Appropriation, Blaxploitation
Illinois Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.