Aztlán 2.0: Family, Space, & Queer (Im)possibility in Alex Rivera's "Sleep Dealer"

Our third paper, Jennifer Lozano’s “Aztlán 2.0: Family, Space, & Queer (Im)possibility in Alex Rivera's Sleep Dealer,” focuses on and critiques the containment of queer possibility in the popular science fiction film.... [ view full abstract ]

Our third paper, Jennifer Lozano’s “Aztlán 2.0: Family, Space, & Queer (Im)possibility in Alex Rivera's Sleep Dealer,” focuses on and critiques the containment of queer possibility in the popular science fiction film. Specifically, the paper explores the tension between the film’s invocation of a male dominated, heteronormative homeland that echoes the Chicano movement concept of Aztlán, and the silenced and gendered spiritual-political labor required for the protagonist to construct such a space. She argues that the film’s repression of feminine labor (and storytelling) work in concert with its foreclosure of queer and homosocial encounters for the young male protagonist, drastically limiting the film’s call to “get connected,” and reinscribing the bildungsroman tropes used to narrate the Chicano movement itself. Taken together, the papers composing our panel highlight the foreclosures, diversions, and new inroads for queer possibility in Latina/o youth narratives, and the ongoing significance for Latino/a studies scholars to intentionally traverse these pathways.

Panel 59