『히어』(Hir)에 나타난 연쇄적 가정폭력과 젠더 경계 허물기

Abstract

Taylor Mac's Hir (2014) integrates the radical political aesthetics of the Theatre of the Ridiculous with experimental theatrical techniques to investigate gender politics and domestic violence within the family. The play depicts violent masculinity as a structural force that produces domestic abuse, which then circulates among family members. Paige, once a victim of domestic violence, assumes gendered power and develops an aversion to masculinity, while her son Isaac, recently returned from military service, internalizes distorted forms of masculinity and attempts to restore his father's patriarchal authority. The home, rather than serving as a safe and nurturing space, becomes a site where such violence is produced, internalized, and reproduced. Hir depicts domestic abuse not as an individual aberration but as a structural manifestation of institutionalized gender power, revealing the cyclical nature of familial abuse and its effects across generations. Meanwhile, the transgender child Max challenges heteronormative family expectations by identifying as hir, enacting a gender performance that disrupts binary and essentialist notions of masculinity and femininity. Through Max's embodiment of hir, the play critiques fixed gender roles and highlights the potential for alternative gender expressions to subvert inherited hierarchies within the domestic sphere. By dramatizing both the cyclical nature of familial violence and Max's gender fluidity, Hir exposes the intersections of gender, power, and familial norm within patriarchal structures, revealing how the practice of hir opens spaces for ethical engagement and transformed relational possibilities even within oppressive systems.