Femme Aggression and the Value of Labor

This chapter makes the question of affective labor explicit as it works through Maureen Catbagan’s video series Crush (2010–2012), which features a woman in high heels crushing plastic toys. Catbagan’s decision to feature a white woman in this critique of domestic labor brings to light the pervasiveness of discourses of white feminine misery as read through Joan Riviere’s “Womanliness as Masquerade,” while also highlighting the object-centered nature of fetishism. Catbagan’s project asks viewers to read for race and sensuality in other modes because their Filipino identity is rendered invisible. This reorientation of representation produces brown jouissance in relation to mimesis and virality, thereby upending questions of value and commodification.