Resumen

AND, Michelle Yates  y  KERNS, Susan. Destabilizing Journeys: The Chicago Feminist Film Festival and The Fits. Cuad. Cent. Estud. Diseñ. Comun., Ensayos [online]. 2021, n.91, pp.259-265.  Epub 10-Ago-2021. ISSN 1853-3523.  http://dx.doi.org/10.18682/cdc.vi91.3845.

The Chicago Feminist Film Festival aims to decenter and destabilize Hollywood norms, including Hollywood’s tendency to place cisgendered white male protagonists at the center of films structured according to the hero’s journey. Thus, The Fits (2016) was a natural opener to the inaugural festival, embodying many of the festival’s values in destabilizing what constitutes “normal” ways of seeing the world. In particular, in centering black girlhood, The Fits subverts the white and male gaze. Main character Toni takes on the active gaze usually reserved for white and/or male characters, subverting the objectified status generally prescribed to female characters. The Fits also unsettles the heroine’s journey by troubling Toni’s transformative return. While it may seem that through “the fits” Toni is assimilated into normative gender relations, it is also possible to read Toni’s transformation in the film as form of insubordination, a resistance to this assimilation.

Palabras clave : Feminist; Festival; Film; Transformation; Race; Heroine.

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