Paco España and Stage Transvestism during the transition

Abstract

The aims of this article is to analyze the role of transvestism in the media and, specifically, in the cinema of the Spanish Transition (1975-1981). The most representative figure of musical stage transvestism during this period was Paco España, impersonator of folk singers during the seventies. The first question is how the transvestite recovers the notoriety that he had lost with the establishment of Francoism. Although Judith Butler attributes to drag queen practice the ability to stage from the parody the performative character of any gender identity, in the Spanish Transition, transvestism also challenged the political order, as a symbol of monolithic counter-power that allows publicly exemplifying the end of the "virility" of Franco's power, although without fully affirming a new democratic identity. It represents a symbolic transgression of the Francoist virility model that is also externalized, especially in public shows that proliferate in tourist places and in big cities.