Analyzing Jose Munoz's Nea Volcano

In his essay, José Muñoz first describes the affective mood of depression in relation to people of color, by illustrating Bustamante’s video, Neapolitan. From my perspective, the repeated video that displays a Hispanic woman sobbing while watching a film, portrays how minorities can feel out of place with the normal conventions expressed by “white” Americans. Muñoz argues that race, is defined as performativity; how someone acts brown or white. The “feelings of brown,” may suggest that Latin Americans may struggle to perform similarly as their non-colored peers. Hence, as Munoz said, “Feeling brown in my analysis is descriptive of the ways in which minoritarian affect is always...partially illegible in relation to the normative affect performed by normative citizen subjects.” The state of illegibility exemplifies that despite the circumstances; Latinos and Latinas may appear to behave eccentrically in relation to the normative conditions.

Towards the conclusion of the essay, Muñoz further avails his argument, as he addresses Melanie Klein’s theory of the depressive position. He describes an object have the feeling of comfort from a good breast and loathes the …show more content…
Also, the television set is veiled with the comforting fabric, which depicts the strong influence of the media within the home. As imagined, the camera facing the woman, demonstrates how preoccupied people may be with the media, especially members of different ethnicities. As the author said, “Brownness…in North America is enabled by practices of self-knowing formatted by the nation’s imaginary.” The media helps develop the main racial notions within a society, in order to portray and disperse the dominant white culture. This activity could be detrimental to retain their cultural and individual