*Photo credit: Vivianne Gillman




Julia Pastrana, also known as the ugliest woman in the world, was a girl, a woman, and despite her general appearance, one of us.

QueerMango was invited to attend the Bangkok premiere of this exceptional play and what we learned is so much more than we expected. Not only did we experience a blindfolded and sensory enhanced performance put on by Peel the Limelight, but we were also given the opportunity to open our minds and hearts in order to deeply understand the emotional complexity of this story.

This play has been performed in many countries, oftentimes in the dark rather than blindfolded, and was initiated by the work of Laura Anderson Barbata. After years of research seeking the true story of what happened to Julia, Barbata’s efforts resulted in the recovery of the embalmed body of Julia Pastrana from a laboratory in Oslo to Mexico, in 2003.

The production took place in a very small and dark space that appeared empty with the exception of a small elevated stage in the center. Audience members were escorted by dim flash lights to a circle of seats which faced the small platform in the middle of the room and promptly asked to apply their blindfolds at the start of the play.

The obscurity and emptiness soon became crowded as a miscellaneous group of people began creating overwhelming auditory stimuli inducing imagery in the minds of spectators and placing us in an early-19th century carnival in England.

We cannot describe what the experience brought to our imaginations as we were encircled by undetectable sounds, Mexican songs, shouts, rustles, poetic exchanges, melancholic whispering, and various perfumes. The experience was overpowering as well as sensational to say the least.

Julia Pastrana’s story can be generically explained as the barbaric isolation of a multi-talented Mexican girl, born with a genetic facial deformation and exploited by an avid and money-hungry manager, who in his exploits, became her husband.

We discovered that the tale of Julia Pastrana is also a story of a human trafficking and imperialism as we learned that Julia’s husband was a white American man who bought and kidnapped Julia as a young Mexican girl, pulling her from a poor village with the promise of a great future full of wealth and happiness. The price of this wealth however, resulted in the exploitation of her abnormalities even after her death, for the pleasure and entertainment of the privileged elite.

The exploitation of Julia’s deformity and marketing her solely because she is different from mainstream society became a reality as we found ourselves curious to remove the blindfolds and see for ourselves what could be so entertaining about someone so different.

As the play progressed we began to wonder if it was in fact the blindfold that made us to be so madly curious to see the face of Julia. Why was it that we wanted so badly to see what she looked like? 

With Julia Pastrana’s play we experienced the desire to see and understand the unknown, and began to reflect on our own obsession with what is different as well as the pity that we feel for those born into a body that is not what we understand as ‘normal.’

We began to understand the unfortunate success that comes with showcasing the different as something to which we can laugh and gawk, comment and gossip.

Ultimately, we felt the pain and the atrocity of a society obsessed with beauty and money. The ugliness and the exploitation perpetuated by people who trick others into human trafficking.

It is still true that the market for human trafficking and exploitation remains because of a consistent demand, and that human exploitation and mystification will end only when we begin to understand our own social desire to witness what is different, to draw a connection between us and them, and to reflect on the true meaning of normality.

Within mainstream society today, LGBTQ people are continually driven to isolation for their differences. Specifically, we often witness not only curiosity stemming from mainstream society, also but also the exploitation and mystification of those who do not fit into a definable gender category. 

Julia was a girl, she was a woman of vast differences, but she was unjustly exploited and her body was used to perpetuate a damaging definition of what is normal and what is not.

For these reasons and for the overall experience, we highly recommend that you go and see this play, for it’s not about what you see, but rather your personal reflection on what you do not see that truly matters. 

Tickets are still available for shows on November 22, 27 and 28 and can be bought here.

When: 13th – 28th November 2015, 7:30pm
Where: Spark Drama, 2nd Fl Jasmine City Building, 2 Sukhumvit 23, Bangkok
Price: 500 thb full price – 350 THB with student ID
Near: Asok BTS
Booking: here

More info and event schedule on their page

Queerometer: 3.5/5 because, unfortunately, society still dictates the meaning of ‘freak and ugly’

Ilaria_Team

by Ilaria Nardone

Restlessly moving, queering and mangoeing around. Loving girrrlz, tech, online marketing, feminism, travel and adrenalin pumping sports.