Carmelita Tropicana: Your Kunst is Your Waffen
Carmelita Tropicana. Carmelita Tropicana: Your Kunst is Your Waffen, 1994.
Description:
"Carmelita Tropicana: Your Kunst is Your Waffen." Co-written and directed by Ela Troyano. Camouflage costume designed by Uzi Parnes. Film 28:00. 16MM color. Produced by Ela Troyano in Association with Independent Television Services. Premiered on PBS in 1994. Photo Credit: Paula Court.
Cast: Carmelita Tropicana, Annie Iobst, Sophia Ramos, Livia Daza Paris, Maureen Angelos, Henry Gifford, Pamela Sneed.
My sister Ela Troyano and I wanted to write a film based on our family history. Ela Troyano directed "Kunst is Your Waffen" – Art is your weapon, a political satire that dissects cultural stereotypes and mixes genres, the telenovela, experimental film with the American musical.
José Esteban Muñoz in his book "Disidentifications, Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics" writes about the film:
“Ela Troyano’s strategic use of camp allows her film and its characters to reinhabit these stereotypes, both calling attention to the inaccuracy of these representations and 'fixing' such representation from the inside by filling in these representational husks with complicated, antiessentialist, emotionally compelling characters.”
Medium:
Video
Tags:
telenovela, political satire, Latina, identity, Ela Troyano, camp
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