Diversity Without Pity #10 | Y tu mamá también

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The last dog days of summer are winding down, and IDSL is going on vacation. This is part one of a series in DWP exploring the wanderlust, adventure, and self-discovery that travel affords.

Roger Ebert, in his review of School Daze, opened by saying it was the first movie in a long time to feel like the movie had its own internal universe, instead of explaining itself to a theoretical white audience:

Spike Lee’s “School Daze” is the first movie in a long time where the black characters seem to be relating to one another, instead of to a hypothetical white audience. Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It” was another, and then you have to go back to films like “Sweet Sweetback’s Badass Song” in 1970. Although the film has big structural problems and leaves a lot of loose ends, there was never a moment when it didn’t absorb me, because I felt as if I was watching the characters talk to one another, instead of to me.

Criterion: 10 Things I Learned: Y tu mamá también

This is how I feel when watching Y tu mamá también. It shows me an aspect of Mexican life, told through the perspective of Mexican performers and a Mexican director.

For a while in Latin American cinema, Spanish-language movies marketed to U.S. audiences (and not directed by Pedro Almodóvar) fell along a spectrum. On one end was Mi Vida Loca. On the other end was El Norte. Both of which are seminal, but they are limited narratives. Like narratives about African Americans struggling under gang violence, injustice, or poverty (a.k.a. “struggle movies“) these movies don’t allow Latino people to just be. Where are the middle-class, educated, pot head kids who like comics, screwing, incessantly masturbating, and questioning their adulthoods?

Ah, yes…there it is!

The movie is often cited highlighting themes of sex and sexuality. It also highlights how class and light-skinned privilege operates within certain Latin American communities, especially close friendships. Friends Tenoch and Julio (played by Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal, respectively) are relatively privileged because they are lower-middle- to middle class. Julio is has a little less money that Tenoch and is darker-skinned. Tenoch is wealthier and more fair-skinned than Julio. This anger and resentment reveal itself as they learn that each one has sex with one another’s girlfriends.

The beauty in Wanderlust

There’s this thing movie buffs talk about when it comes to cinema: atmosphere. It’s the quality of tone created in an environment. Throughout the movie, director Alfonso Cuarón creates an atmosphere through great cinematography and by allowing the camera to wander off the main protagonists and into mini-universes: a political protest in the streets, a quinceañera, working-class people sharing lunch in the parking lot of a very high-profile wedding. I often find myself replaying scenes in my mind over and over again, because of the atmosphere.

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Like narratives about African Americans struggling under gang violence, injustice, or poverty (a.k.a. 'struggle movies') these movies don't allow Latino people to just be. Where are the middle class, educated, pot head kids who like comics, screwing, incessantly masturbating, and questioning their adulthoods?

And in the wake of #OscarsSoWhite from the last couple of years, I want to present this movie as another example of how arguing for more people of color to be celebrated at the Academy Awards undermines itself by primarily bringing up examples of black performers or directors, or selectively memorizing our most recent past. By conflating “black people” with “people of color (PoC)” doesn’t really take into account other PoC’s experiences (and doesn’t allow us to dissect how the umbrella term “people of color” privileges different groups of color). And by only highlighting the past two years conveniently ignores just a few years prior (Alfonso Cuarón and his brother Carlos Cuarón were nominated for Best Original Screenplay for Y tu mamá también in 2003, and Alfonso Cuarón eventually won an Oscar for Best Director at the 2014 Academy Awards for Gravity).

If anything, this shows that Hollywood has the capacity to recognize talented people of color. They need to be reminded of that. Maybe we do too.

Diversity Without Pity is a blog series from IDSL, highlighting media that uses smart design, and considers the diversity of it’s casting without selling the viewer or consumer, short. Images courtesy of Criterion.com, DorkShelf.com, and Imgur.com.