Se eu fosse você: liminal spaces of gender and sexuality

Abstract

The body swap comedy is a privileged genre for investigating norms related to gender and sexuality in popular culture. This article explores these norms through the close analysis of the film Se eu fosse você (Daniel Filho, 2006), using Mikhail Bakhtin’s thesis on the carnivalesque and Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity. Despite the film’s overall strong conservative framework, it is argued that just as revealing as what the film tries to regulate is what it exposes: double standards, failures in the heteronormative matrix, and disruptive sex acts and gendered behavior.