Puro Teatro: Latin American Homosexuality and Its Portrayal in Modern Cinema

Abstract

For many decades, discrimination of homosexuals has been an element of socio-political discourse in all the countries of Latin America. Due to the dichotomous division of models: the machismo, which is the model of masculinity, and the marianismo, which represents femininity, homosexuals do not fit into the normatively accepted gender-related social roles. The debate has contributed to their alienation, and consequently to the emergence of a specific subculture, incomprehensible to outsiders, that coexists with the dominant culture, which enables some of its elements to filter through into the mainstream. This may be illustrated with the example of Latin American literature; it is, however, the cinema, that has undeniably played the most important role in presenting diametrically different images of homosexual men. The films analysed in the present article corroborate the thesis that, despite the passage of time and the evolution of models, the discourse observable in film scripts remains basically unchanged: the silver-screen homosexuals are still the unwanted los otros, with a controversial lifestyle, unknown origins and very often dubious morals. Such images, fitting into stereotypical, defamatory models, invariably emphasise this, making it impossible to present an honest and unprejudiced depiction that could transcend the stigmatising perception. Regardless of whether the film character is an “effeminate clown”, a psychopathic murderer, a sad abandoned “pansy”, a “male hooker” or a paederast, he will still be shown from an arbitrarily imposed perspective: it is always a type of a homosexual, and not a homosexual as such. The implication is that the unfavourable attitude shall prevail as long as one-dimensional portrayal is not challenged and the homosexual character does not transcend the limitations of the macho contra maricón dualism, ceasing to be a means for spreading ideology and becoming a true protagonist.