THE SPANISH POLITICS OF MONSTROSITY: QUEER UFOs, FEMINAZIS, AND OTHER FANTASTIC CREATURES
Summary
What is a monster? Whom or what characterizes monstrosity? This thesis explores how
monstrosity is being depicted by the Spanish far-right political party, Vox. From a
feminist and queer perspective this study seeks to analyze Vox’s political discourses
about LGBTI and feminist people, exploring how family values, but especially the figure
of the child, shapes certain lives as monstrous and not others. Hence, by taking the
feminazi and Gaysper as case studies, figures that I discuss as Spanish monsters, the focus
will be primarily on Vox’s narratives and, from there, it will be observed how
contemporary political understandings of Spanish monstrosity are related to queerness.
On the one hand, departing from these case studies, this research examines how the
monster’s power is being used as a far-right political tool that intends to destroy feminism
and LGBTI people by portraying queerness as a symbol of monstrosity; while, on the
other hand, it also aims to question how the monster’s destructive power can be used as
a queer empowering tool against that same destruction. Therefore, I propose various
strategies that can be useful critical queer tools for working through patriarchal and
nationalist violence. To do this, I finally suggest the re-appropriation of queer monstrosity
and the embracing of queer negativity, which, through this thesis, I demonstrate to be
(in)adequate resistance strategies for monstrous alliances.