Trans/national necronarratives: mourning, vitality, and non-reproductivity in Una mujer fantástica

Abstract

This essay problematises transnational receptions of Sebastián Lelio’s Oscar-winning film Una mujer fantástica (A Fantastic Woman, 2017). Identifying a tendency to universalise and neutralise the experiences of Lelio’s trans protagonist Marina (Daniela Vega) in international reviews, the authors offer a reconsideration of the film as part of a larger body of work which they term trans necronarratives. The first part of the essay resituates the film within the longer history of trans representations in Chile. Coining the idea of the trans necronarrative, the second section elaborates on the foregrounding of death and mourning as central to the constitution of trans subjectivity. The third part considers the film’s final celebration of trans vitality in light of non-reproductivity and queer kinship formation. In the concluding section, the authors argue that the selective visibility that Una mujer fantástica brings to a white, middle-class, individualised trans subject partly explains its international success.