"I want your pity. That's what I want": the sexiness and silliness of the hot mess in performances by Katherine Araniello

The ‘hot mess’ is a contested state or identity, shifting and unstable; a spectacle that courts attention, dares us to laugh, and reveals our own desires for acceptance. The hot mess is relatable in her ordinariness and imperfections; she is also a diva, an attention (and pity) seeker. UK artist Katherine Araniello (1965-2019) expands the playfulness and eroticism of the hot mess as an empowering positionality by complicating who gets to be messy and how. Araniello consistently critiqued stereotypes of disabled people as vulnerable, and of cultural initiatives that re-frame disability as exceptional, inspirational, or heroic. Pity, a key affect in her performances, is harnessed alongside sexiness and silliness as signifiers of ‘vulnerability’. The self-assuredness and strident exhibitionism depicted by Araniello subverts the focus on overcoming apparent hardship or tragedy to reach empowerment, by instead seeming to exploit her own physical difference to achieve her wants. In work focused on sex and sexuality, Araniello places the disabled person in the position of control but draws attention to the devious ways in which that power is wielded. The development of sexual self-assuredness, silliness, and erotic aesthetics becomes especially compelling in later video works that combine bold visuals with explicit lyrics. Araniello’s power stems not from producing the expected narrative of tragedy and desperation, but by laying claim to the ideology of ‘feeling hot’. Pity and shame as tools in Araniello’s creative arsenal frame the hot mess as silly, sexy, and disarming in an affective resistance of a tragedy model of disability.