“We hysterics are the best”: reappropriations and exorcisms of hysteria in feminist posthumor

Abstract

This paper proposes a revision of the theorizations of hysteria in order to provide a critical analysis of a new humorous genre that we will call feminist posthumor. In the exploration of the own lack of formality and composure that we observe in some Spanish humorists of the recent panorama (Isa Calderón, Gakian and Esty Quesada), we find a reappropriation of hysterical gestuality enormously productive in humoristic and feminist terms. From their audiovisual productions, these presenters, youtubers and performers offer us a mosaic of sometimes brilliant and sometimes banal narratives, with a language full of new uses and a lucid and raw gaze on reality; a gaze that contrasts and refutes the good discourses of our therapeutic societies and industry of happiness, which tend to hide the collective discomfort and hide it under the imperative of individual decision and responsibility.