标题：Sa Kanilang Naiibang Pag-iindak at Pamumukadkad: Performativity at Pagkalesbiyan sa mga Indie Film na Rome and Juliet at Ang Huling Cha-Cha ni Anita
摘要：This paper features two Filipino independent films that discuss the relatively avoided topic of lesbianism in the Philippines. The “indie” films Rome and Juliet (2006) by Connie Macatuno and Ang Huling Cha-Cha ni Anita (2013) by Sigrid Andre Bernardo are comparatively studied to present the different images of the lesbian in the Filipino experience. This study relied upon the thoughts of the feminist philosopher Judith Butler and her idea of performativity. This idea broke the biological and naturalistic myths about sex which opened the assumption that sex is the cause of gender and it is that which serves as an implication for its being fluid. According to Butler, the terms “gender is performed” should be differentiated from “gender is performative.” The former concept is based on the matrixes that society dictates and imposes which then becomes a guideline on how to perform a gender; on the other hand, the second concept is shaped in view of the repeated performance of gender as a subversive break towards reconstruction coming from the imposed matrixes. This paper discovered how a variety of lesbian images were formed in the two abovementioned films, wherein due to the actions and decisions of the lesbian characters, they have proved that it was only the society’s matrix that control and create conflict to disrupt the free formation of these images. Although Butler is a western thinker, she was able to deepen the discourses of the Filipino scholars about gender which a number of them have endeavored to understand through gender studies and lesbian films in the country. By trying to find an alternative analysis of the state of the lesbian in the Philippines that does not detach itself from the narrative of the country’s patriarchal and third world status, this paper may significantly contribute to gender activism and advocating equal aspirations for a true, free society.
关键词：Butler; lesbianism; gender performativity; independent films
