The Supernatural Closet: Examining Death, the Afterlife, Translation, and the Archive in Le favolose (2022) and Tra le rose e le viole (2002)

Abstract

Questions of language and translation arise in relation to discussions of transness in Roberta Torre’s film, Le favolose (Torre 2022) and Porpora Marcasciano’s book, Tra le rose e le viole (Marcasciano et al. [2002] 2020b). Both works place transness in parallel with the supernatural, describing trans women as favolose, which, although translated as“fabulous,” is etymologically derived from favola, meaning“fairytale.” The women portrayed in both works reveal nuanced personal understandings of gender, and we examine whether these linguistic deviations from the gender binary are questions of translation and language, culture, or the period in which they take place. Marcasciano’s work stages an Italian-specific trans narrative, yet to be translated into English; Torre’s film, however, allows Marcasciano and her peers to be understood by international audiences thanks to its English-subtitled release. When gender binaries are fractured, it is not absurd to break the boundary between the real and the unreal in order to place ideas of queer space in conversation with theories of the supernatural. Eliza Steinbock describes a transgender character’s filmic reveal as being a“violent moment of physical disclosure” (2019, 5). Le favolose works back from this to allow a trans-centered narrative to escape the finality of death via the creation of queer utopian spaces. The queer spaces in Torre’s film revolve primarily around the closet, and the centrality of clothing in trans womens’ lives is demonstrated by both texts. Closets form a sort of affective archive, recording the stories and emotions of the women who wore the clothes within them. The merging of documentary and fantasy in Le favolose and the creation of an alternative archive, as Ann Cvetkovich (2003) states, allows for the creation of history from absences and discussions of gender in relation to life, death, and anything outside these confines.