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Articles

Vol. 10 No. 2 (2014): New Queer Theory in Film

Queerness as Conviviality: Race, Sexuality, and Risk in "Instructions Not Included"

DOI
https://doi.org/10.14288/cinephile.v10i2.198049
Submitted
March 28, 2023
Published
2012-12-01

Abstract

This article examines the film Instructions Not Included (Derbez 2013) in relation to queer theory and critical Latino/a studies. Queer, throughout this paper, refers to the term as it pertains to resistance as well as contingency. Jasbir Puar writes that queerness “as an assemblage moves away from excavation work [and] deprivileges a binary opposition between queer and not-queer subjects” (Assemblages 121-122). Instead of arguing that queerness is exclusively dissenting, resistant, and alternative, which Puar notes that it indeed is and does, queerness “underscores contingency and complicity with dominant formations” (121-22). Resistant and contingent forms of queerness in popular culture and film are part of a complex interplay between the role of queerness, race and ethnicity.