Fantasies of Valentina

Abstract

This article analyzes a RuPaul's Drag Race contestant, Valentina, and the ways her trans/queer of color and Latinx performance strategies obfuscate neoliberal, colonial-capitalist logics. Drawing on trans of color theory, television studies, and Latinx studies, this article argues that Valentina's queer nonbinary racialized televisual persona—which includes, for instance, her iconic lip-synch, mask-wearing faux pas, or campy telenovela moments—enacts aesthetic and performative tactics that defy demands for capitalist productivity, minoritized respectability and professionalism, and racial uplift. The article examines how a trans/queer Mexican American drag queen like Valentina, herself a televisual spectacle, defies discourses structured around debating good versus bad representation, a binary that hamstrings much of the scholarship on Latinx people on television by remixing Latinx stereotypes such as the Latina spitfire with trans/queer possibilities. This torquing of stereotypes centers trans/queer racialized Latinx joy, pleasure, and humor, activating worlds hospitable to trans/queer of color living and thriving.