George Navarro, Misty (Week 6)

 When I first began to browse through Xandra Ibarra’s work, I honestly felt a little uncomfortable and had I not read the articles provided, I don’t think I would have understood much of what Ibarra is conveying. However, I do believe it is Ibarra’s intention to evoke such feelings. The work that caught my attention the most was Spictacles II: La Tortillera. This is a live performance developed and performed by Ibarra under the alias of La Chica Boom in 2004. In this performance, Ibarra is dressed as a Mexican housewife while she dances, makes tacos with her underwear, strips down and is left wearing a Tapatillo strap-on. Despite the uncomfortableness I felt for much of the video, Ibarra uses this character she has created to criticize the gender norms and stereotypes that exist for Mexican women and Chicanas. This performance made me uncomfortable for a number of reasons, however, the part that shocked me the most was when Ibarra removed a pair of underwear which had the Mexican flag printed on it, proceeded to place it in a tortilla, and then spit on it. Without further analysis, this could just be seen as something done for shock value, but I think it is a way to acknowledge the fetishization of Chicanas and Latinas in general while her spitting on them can be a sign of rejection of that. 

The question I would like to pose to Ibarra is: When developing these types of performances, do you consider the demographics of your audience and if so, what do you imagine them to be? Since this seems to be a critique or commentary on the issues that people who exist at the intersection of being Mexican/Mexican American and being a woman face, do you worry that people who cannot relate to these struggles may simply consider La Tortillera to be a caricature of Mexican women rather than a critique on societal expectations of them?