Queer Issues in Contemporary Latin American Cinema (review)

252 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies scripted, the citational practices that characterize both, how traditions get constituted and contested, the various trajectories and influences that might appear in one but not the other. (32-33) Whether or not one is interested in the individual performances she discusses in individual chapters (I found some chapters much more engaging than others), Taylor's reflections on the broader need ro consider rhe issues raised by performance theory are a must for anyone interested in cultural criticism. Her claim rhat the embodied repertoire can provide us with alternative ways of viewing history and the historical process is both intriguing and polemical . The subtlety with which Taylor engages the complexities involved in examining issues of reception where intercultural audiences are concerned ought to be a model for further analysis on the subject. The book is itself both a performance and a contribution to the archive. The remarkably effective way in which she combines personal story with analytic reflection is a fitting demonstration of the usefulness that can result from being able to sustain an awareness of one's spatio-temporal role as an observer even as one gets lost in the findings of archival discovery. Among contemporary cultural critics , only Susan Suleiman and Ruth Behar can match Taylor's talent for using personal anecdote to enlighten her intellectual argument. The book's only notable weakness, I think, is its insufficient treatment of the role that technology and cyberspace play in any analysis of performance today. While the final chapter (at once a very personal and intellectually provocative first-hand account of a New Yorker witnessing the events immediately following 9/11) addresses television coverage of the 9/11 incident, on the whole there is very little discussion of how technology and the Internet are radically changing the ways in which performers perform and audiences respond to their performances . Perhaps a book dealing with these issues is already in the offing for Taylor. Despite this criticism, I have good reason for endorsing Taylor's book wholeheartedly, all the more so because of the circumstances surrounding my writing of this review. By some odd coincidence, I received an e-mail reminding me of my earlier promise to write this review during the week of President Reagan's funeral . As I watched myself glued to the coverage of the various events, news and talk shows surrounding the funeral for an ex-president with whose views I disagreed strongly, I kept replaying many of Taylor's observations and, what is more, finding demonstrable proof of their accuracy . In other words, as I watched the weeklong performance of public and private mourning , I realized that my ability to examine the events as both, more multi-faceted and less selfevident than they might appear on first sight, was in large part a result of just having reflected on these issues through Taylor's convincing and enlightening arguments. Dianna Niebylski University of Kentucky Queer Issues in Contemporary Latin American Cinema University of Texas Press, 2003 By David William Foster Regents' Professor of Spanish, Interdisciplinary Humanities, and Women's Studies at Arizona State University, David William Foster has published the following books: Mexico City in Contemporary Mexican Cinema, Contemporary Argentine Cinema, Gender and Society in Contemporary Brazilian Cinema, and Sexual Textualities: Essays on Queer/ing Latin American Writing. Professor Foster has established himself as one of the leading scholars in the field of Latin American Cinema and Gay Studies. His latest book, Queer Issues in Contemporary Latin American Cinema, proposes a new approach to Latin American Cinema . Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 253 The book, organized in one introduction and four chapters, provides a wide survey of fourteen films: De eso no se habk, El lugar sin lÃ-mites, Aqueles dois, Convivencia, Conducta impropia, The Disappearance of GarcÃ-a Lorca, Doña Herlinda y su hijo, No se lo digas a nadie, En el paraÃ-so no existe el dolor, A intrusa, Pkta quemada, Afrodita, and Fresa y Chocolate. The analysis centers around the key concept of "Queerness." According to Alexander Doty, quoted in Foster's book, queer is an umbrella concept for: anything that challenges or subverts the straight, the...