The erotic grotesque as a transfeminist rebellious dispositive in the video clip here comes the period by Panocha Chichimeka

Abstract

The grotesque constitutes a detonator of essences and dichotomies, because it supposes a mixture between domains categorized as separate or even opposite. From the origin of the concept, the grotesque has transgressed the established aesthetic-moral, social and even ontological order. Consequently, the grotesque appears as an appropriate device to transmit transfeminist discourse. The present article analyzes, from the music video Aquí viene la regla/ Here comes the period (2022) by the Mexican performer Panocha Chichimeka, the functioning of the erotic grotesque. In this video, she attacks the taboos that menstruation entails, by demanding a free and pleasurable sexuality, without censorship, disgust or guilt for menstruating people. For this purpose, this article unravels the most significant elements of this verbo-visual performance, which are mainly linked to the “terrifying or traumatic” grotesque associated with what comes from outside to destabilize the world, and with “the carnival grotesque”, that relativizes the established hierarchies and values from the parodic and festive inversion. Finally, this study shows the subversive potential of the implementation of the grotesque in alliance with transfeminism, by resituating bodies beyond patriarchal desire and heterocentered sexuality, in other words, by freeing them from “the inhumane forms of necessity on which conventional ideas are based”.