Mexican LGBT+ cinema

There are many Mexican LGBT+ films, a genre that has developed through the film history of the country since the 1970s.

Gay characters have appeared in Mexican cinema since the 1930s, but were not integrated until the ficheras of the 1970s. After this genre of sexploitation comedy, Mexico produced films as part of the wave of Maricón cinema. In 2001, with the success of Y Tu Mamá También, Mexico propelled Latin America into a period of increased LGBT+ film production unified as New Maricón Cinema.

Within Mexico-specific LGBT+ cinema, a conflict of homosexuality and national identity is common and a frequent topic of analysis.

History

Gay characters in Mexican cinema have been said by Michael K. Schuessler to have started out in films as stereotypes to be ridiculed, but, in line with "the change in conception about homosexuality in Mexican culture", writes that they developed into "complex characters with psychological depth".[1] Schuessler notes the films of Arturo Ripstein and Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, calling them a "transition point" before the works of Julián Hernández that comprise a lot of Mexican gay cinema in the 21st century.[1]

Early gay characters: Fichera

Fichera is the genre of Mexican film that contained the first gay characters. Dominating production in the country in the 1970s and early 1980s — around a third of Mexican films in 1981 were ficheras.[2]^:28 They contained characters including transvestites and jotos,[2]^:29 and were influenced by even earlier Mexican nightclub films that contained queens performing as a common trope; the type of gay characters in the films may fit the "in-between" type of Richard Dyer's categories.[3]^:75 Though showing such characters may have been considered progressive so early in film history, this is the only realization of LGBT themes and the characters were typically small parts and played for comedy by being based in gender deviance.[3]^:76 What are now considered among Mexican LGBT+ films in the 1970s and 1980s do not include films in the related but distinct genre of fichera.[4]

Maricón cinema

Maricón cinema is similar to the fichera but has a structured narrative and less comedy. Films of this era in Mexico include those of Ripstein and Hermosillo, particularly Doña Herlinda y su hijo.[2]^:175-176 Fresa y chocolate is said to be a "classic" of the genre, which lasted primarily up to, though with some films produced after, 2001.[2]^:178-179

Post-2001: Y Tu Mamá También and New Maricón Cinema

Several of the notable works of Ximena Cuevas, a Mexican performance artiste who incorporates themes of lesbianism into her works and who has been called "a perfect prototype for an emergent Queer New Latin American Cinema", were performed in 2001.[5]^:172 In this year, Y tu mamá también was also released. The popularity and success across the Spanish and English speaking worlds became a trigger moment in Latin American LGBT+ cinema, with more LGBT+ themes appearing in the mainstream.[5]^:176-177

In society

The 18+ rating given to Y Tu Mamá También in its native Mexico caused outrage, in part because of its reasoning seen as insufficient to warrant the rating but further because this rating completely bans anyone under 18 from seeing the film, which people believed was censorship as parents could not choose to allow their children to see it, if only as a form of education. This prompted its producers the Cuarón brothers to expose the RTC ratings board, which led to the system being separated from government control.[6] The film was released unrated in the United States, as it was feared it would receive the NC-17 rating, with the high rating also a point of condemnation against the US ratings board in Roger Ebert's review.[7]

Analysis

Homosexuality and national identity

Machismo and no-rules wrestling are predominant features of Mexican culture

Mexican women dressing for cabaret. The sparkling make-up and feathers used in shows are elaborate and performative exaggerations of feminine gender that can be used to "queer" a heteronormative space.

Several writers analyze representations of gay characters in Mexican cinema, or lack thereof, in relation to fitting into a national identity. In such writings, this identity goes beyond a formulation of machismo and Lucha libre to something more inherently potentially homophobic, where homosexuality is or was traditionally conceived of as not-Mexican.

Alfredo Martínez Expósito writes that though a "conspicuous scarcity of gay characters and themes in Mexican cinema" may be blamed on "a machismo-inflected patriarchy", the image of the homosexual is more likely controlled by "both the image that Mexicans have formed of his own country and the image that Mexico has exported to other countries". Martínez Expósito suggests that "cinematic attempts to introduce gay characters and themes in national cinema should necessarily be doomed" because "Mexicanness" as a concept and identity contains a lot of features associated with patriarchy, which he says explains why Mexican LGBT+ cinema (pre-2001) used various strategies in order to acceptably introduce their themes; characters who are camp but not gay, characters who are closeted, for example, up until "the latent homosexual in Y tu mamá también", which he suggests "tested the limits of national tolerance".[8]

Vinodh Venkatesh, in his writing on the role of children in Latin American LGBT+ films, also notes this theme more recently. Hendrix in 2011's La otra familia is educated on LGBT+ matters and has a representative choice to accept a foreign gay couple as his adoptive parents, implicitly a choice allowing queerness to be introduced into national identity. This film is also noted for instructionally introducing the English term "gay" as a modern and politically correct term to replace the extensive lexicon of gay slurs pertaining only to Mexico, and featuring exaggerated stereotypes of typical Mexican characters in Gabino and Doña Chuy trying to reinforce ideals of machismo, homophobia, and national identity all mixed together to Hendrix.[9]^:188-190

Christina Elaine Baker's doctoral thesis looks at Mexican cabaret and different forms of drag as being expressions of queerness outside of the mainstream represented by film. Baker extends her scope to view the queering properties of these performances to be "questioning not just identity constructions, but also the way the body exists in relation to the space and time within which the performances occur", suggesting that "the artists [...] queer, subvert and re-configure expectations of heteronormativity, the whitened mestizo physique and male/female gender binaries associated with mexicanidad," and that by using queer bodies in this way "they propose alternative definitions of what it means to be Mexican." Baker notes that there is no similar representation or challenge to what constitutes national identity in Mexican film of the Golden Age, which she places as the mainstream, but that the performance appears in the LGBT+ cinema movements that succeed it, including fichera and Maricón cinema.[10]

Films

Mexican writers Alfonso (top left) and Carlos Cuarón (bottom right) were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for their 2001 film Y Tu Mamá También, which Alfonso also directed and which starred Gael García Bernal (top right) and Diego Luna (bottom left).

The bisexual-themed 2001 Y Tu Mamá También was nominated for an Oscar.[11]

Year	Film title	Director	Notes
1938	La casa del ogro	Fernando de Fuentes	[8][12]
1951	Muchachas de Uniforme	Alfredo B. Crevenna	remake of the German Mädchen in Uniform[13]
1969	Modisto de señoras	René Cardona Jr.	[8]
1972	Fin de la fiesta		[14]
1973	Peluquero de señoras	René Cardona Jr.	[8]
1973	The Holy Mountain	Alejandro Jodorowsky
1975	Satánico pandemonium	Gilberto Martínez Solares
1976	Tres mujeres en la hoguera	Abel Salazar
1977	Alucarda	Juan López Moctezuma
1978	The Place Without Limits	Arturo Ripstein
1983	Appearances Are Deceptive	Jaime Humberto Hermosillo
1984	El Otro	Arturo Ripstein	[8]
1985	¿Como vés?	Paul Leduc	[8]
1985	Dona Herlinda and Her Son[15]	Jaime Humberto Hermosillo	features first same-sex couple in Mexican cinema[12]
1986	Casos de alarma 1/SIDA	Benjamín Escamilla Espinosa	[8]
1987	Clandestino destino	Jaime Humberto Hermosillo	[8]
1987	Mentiras piadosas	Arturo Ripstein	[8]
1988	El verano de la señora Forbes	Jaime Humberto Hermosillo	[8]
1989	El chico temido de la vecindad	Enrique Gómez Vadillo	[8]
1989	Santa Sangre	Alejandro Jodorowsky
1990	El día de las locas	Eduardo Martínez	[8]
1990	Machos	Enrique Gómez Vadillo	[8]
1990	Muerte en la playa	Enrique Gómez Vadillo	[8]
1991	Amsterdam boulevard	Enrique Gómez Vadillo	[8]
1991	Danzón	María Novaro
1992	Imperio de los malditos	Christian González	[8]
1993	Actos impuros[15]	Roberto Fiesco	written by Fiesco and Julián Hernández[16]
1993	Bienvenido-Welcome	Gabriel Retes	[8]
1993	En el paraíso no existe el dolor	Víctor Saca	[8]
1993	Miroslava	Alejandro Pelayo
1994	Dulces compañías	Oscar Blancarte	[8]
1994	Strawberry and Chocolate	Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío
1995	Cilantro y perejil	Rafael Montero	[8]
1995	Midaq Alley	Jorge Fons
1997	De noche vienes, Esmeralda	Jaime Humberto Hermosillo	[8]
1997	En las manos de Dios	Zalman King	[8]
1997	El evangelio de las maravillas	Arturo Ripstein	[8]
1999	Crónica de un desayuno	Benjamín Cann	[8]
1999	Sin destino	Leopoldo Laborde	[8]
2001	Y Tu Mamá También	Alfonso Cuarón
2001	De la calle	Gerardo Tort	[8]
2001	Demasiado amor	Ernesto Rimoch	[8]
2002	Exxxorcismos	Jaime Humberto Hermosillo	[8]
2003	A Thousand Clouds of Peace	Julián Hernández
2003	Lucía, Lucía	Antonio Serrano
2003	Vivir	Julián Hernández	short film[15]
2004	7 mujeres, 1 homosexual y Carlos	René Bueno
2004	Puñas rosas	Beto Gómez	[8]
2004	Temporada de patos	Fernando Eimbcke	[17]
2005	David	Roberto Fiesco	short film[15]
2005	Identidad	Julián Hernández	short film; also known as Fragmento de identidad and I Will Sleep When I'm Dead; basis for Broken Sky[15]
2005	Yo estaba ocupada encontrando respuestas, mientras tú simplemente seguías con la vida real	Raúl Fuentes	short film
2006	Broken Sky	Julián Hernández
2007	Bramadero	Julián Hernández	short film[15]
2007	Quemar las Naves	Francisco Franco Alba
2009	Raging Sun, Raging Sky	Julián Hernández
2011	Jet Lag	Sergio Tovar Velarde	[15]
2011	La otra familia	Gustavo Loza
2012	A World for Raúl	Mauro Mueller	[15]
2013	Instructions Not Included	Eugenio Derbez
2013	No sé si cortarme las venas o dejármelas largas	Manolo Caro	[2]^:177
2013	Peyote	Omar Flores Sarabia	[15]
2014	Four Moons	Sergio Tovar Velarde
2014	Perfect Obedience	Luis Urquiza
2014	Velociraptor	Chucho E. Quintero	[15]
2014	Wandering Clouds	Julián Hernández	short film[15]
2014	Yo soy felicidad de este mundo	Julián Hernández	[15]
2015	Eisenstein in Guanajuato	Peter Greenaway
2015	I Promise You Anarchy	Julio Hernández Cordón
2015	Muchacho en la barra se masturba con rabia y osadía	Julián Hernández	short film[15]
2015	Trémulo	Roberto Fiesco	short film[15]
2016	Boys on the Rooftop	Julián Hernández	short film[15]
2016	Macho	Antonio Serrano	[18]
2016	The Untamed	Amat Escalante
2017	A Place to Be	Tadeo Garcia	[15]
2017	Chavela	Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi
2017	Cuernavaca	Alejandro Andrade Pease	[17]
2017	Hazlo como hombre	Nicolás López
2017	I Dream in Another Language	Ernesto Contreras
2017	The Other Side	Rodrigo Alvarez Flores	[15]
2018	Esto no es Berlín	Hari Sama	[19]

See also

• LGBT culture in Mexico: Cinema
• Nuevo Cine Mexicano

References

1. Arroyo Quiroz, Claudia (2011). México imaginado : nuevos enfoques sobre el cine (trans)nacional. Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. OCLC 815945448.
2. Venkatesh, Vinodh (2016-09-27). New Maricón cinema : outing Latin American film (First ed.). Austin. ISBN 9781477310144. OCLC 921425424.
3. V. Lewis (2010). Crossing Sex and Gender in Latin America. Springer. ISBN 9780230109964.
4. "1976-1982: Los años de las "Ficheras"". Archived from the original on 2013-08-01. Retrieved 2019-08-28.
5. B. Ruby Rich (2013). New Queer Cinema: The Director's Cut. Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822354284.
6. Wood, Jason (2006). The Faber Book of Mexican Cinema. London: Faber and Faber Ltd. ISBN 978-0571217328.
7. Ebert, Roger (5 April 2002). "Y tu mama tambien; Review". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 8 October 2009.
8. Martínez Expósito, Alfredo (2012-12-15). "El cine gay mexicano y su impacto en la imagen nacional. Modisto de señoras (1969), Doña Herlinda y su hijo (1985), Y tu mamá también (2001)". Amerika. Mémoires, Identités, Territoires (in Spanish) (7). doi:10.4000/amerika.3379. ISSN 2107-0806.
9. Vinodh Venkatesh (2016). New Maricón Cinema: Outing Latin American Film. University of Texas Press. ISBN 9781477310175.
10. Baker, Christina (2015). "Queering mexicanidad in Cabaret and Film: Redefining Boundaries of Belonging". University of Wisconsin - Madison – via ProQuest.
11. "10 great LGBTQ+ films from Latin America". BFI. Retrieved 17 July 2019.
12. Lonely Planet. "Gay and Lesbian Mexico City" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on June 7, 2011. Retrieved December 5, 2009.
13. "Pioneering Mexican Lesbian Film Screened for the First Time Ever in the US". Remezcla. 2017-07-26. Retrieved 2019-08-28.
14. "End of the Party". 13 January 1972 – via www.imdb.com.
15. "Gay Movies from Mexico". www.listal.com. Retrieved 2019-08-27.
16. Actos impuros, retrieved 2019-08-27
17. "Outfest Offers a Look at the LGBTQ Community of the Americas Through Film". Remezcla. 2018-07-10. Retrieved 2019-08-27.
18. "Macho | Netflix". www.netflix.com. Retrieved 2019-08-28.
19. "From Gay Conversion Therapy to Leather Competitions: Must-See Latino Movies Playing Outfest". Remezcla. 2019-07-11. Retrieved 2019-08-27.