Stills, Speed and Silence: Movement, Mexican-ness and Nation-State Masculinity as told by Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Y Tu Mama También’

Roughly translating to “And your mother too,” Alfonso Cuarón’s fourth feature film and first independent film, “Y Tu Mama También” apotheosizes conceptions of sex in the postcolonial context: indigenous, rough and juvenile. To imitate the Anglo conception by the semblance of a universal, de-individualized anthology of a threesome as frank as humanly possible, “Y Tu Mama También” becomes a film about sex and having sex, all while being indifferent to sex. Cuarón film sparks the concern of sex as physical consumption of a physical being, and how we can consume worldviews and perspectives of ethnicity, imperialism and class through a lens of sexual appeal. 

From the surface, a sex-class boundary does not exist. Since the film is framed as a commentary on connection as needed for coming-of-age encounters, it requires passing takes and reflective contrast to grasp the thematic conditions of Cuarón’s piece to interpret how these conditions are conveyed outside of the body and inside of a being. Early critics have dubbed the film a new title, “And your motherland too,” as the universal theme on the surface “revises models of national identity” when repositioning the typical to the postcolonial. Unfolding on the road — in motel rooms and backseats of cars — moments of stillness further ground Cuarón’s narrative in the impermanent, reintroducing the world to a new Mexico’s history.

Relating to the teen buddy/smash genres of “Superbad” or “La Haine,” “Y Tu Mama También” follows the innocuous friendship between the wealthy Tenoch and working-class Julio as they travel alongside Luisa, a Spanish woman in her late 20s, to a secluded beach. Cuarón employs the film’s narrative as a representative for wealth gaps in the nation’s capital in a juvenile, racialized and fluid manner. The film displays an unconsciousness within Julio and Tenoch, juvenile and fragmented, creating a mythification of heterosexualized brotherhood that represents a sort of coming back to the branches of Mexico before, or perhaps outside, a characterization by a machismo that does not warrant permission or advice.   

Tenoch goes first. He and Luisa “do it” for approximately two minutes, on a motel bed with patterned red sheets, a potential reference to Mexico’s working class wearing red bandanas in protest for labor reform in the early 2000s. Narratively, this parallels Tenoch’s father, a government official who is consistently accused of unjust labor policies in the film. 

Tenoch’s original name is Hernan. It is after his father entered politics and received a “surge of nationalism” that he was given the Aztec name Tenoch as a bounce-back of what was once his honesty, as his involvement with corruption is viewed as the ultimate portrayal of his people. In the sex scene, Tenoch constantly moves towards Luisa, who is sitting quietly on one of the beds, first teasing him then directing his actions; a sequence that portrays her as the established, ruling figure to parentalize and control her immature and insecure lover. It is this immaturity within Tenoch regarding his intimacy with Luisa that provides the metacolonial parameters and semantics of how a wealthy Mexican, both within and outside of his own privilege, is figured as a stranger to his heritage.

In contrast, Luisa’s time with Julio happens directly on the road in the backseat of Tenoch’s car while the latter is attempting to find a remote beach. This scene is much shorter, just over a minute, with a start that is more immediate whilst being led by directions more pragmatic than Tenoch’s. The metacolonial powers previously held by Luisa in the semi-permanence of the motel are replaced with an impermanence: having quick sex in a car neither one of them owns in an area neither one of them knows. Thus neither party can claim intimacy as a standalone act, serving as a reminder of the unfamiliarity and vulnerability of Julio’s distance from an upper class that enables him to be sexually involved with Luisa independent of his friendship with Tenoch. When the sex scene begins, Tenoch sees them almost immediately after leaving the car and tries to jump against a nearby tree to get higher to watch them. Every attempt at this, Tenoch fails. Although his status as an “indigenous” Mexican is palliated by his wealth, this presence in the upper class will never get him “high enough” to the level of Luisa or the settler-colonial powers she holds. This inability to “own” his sex with Luisa is played on by Julio in the famous fight scene, referring to him as a “yuppie” whenever the validity of his masculinity, decolonial viability and “Mexican-ness” are questioned by Tenoch, implying Julio’s awareness of a perceived distance from “Mexican-ness” within Tenoch’s family.

The inability to “own” his sexual encounter with Luisa directly threatens Julio’s national masculinity, as these aspects change between the boys and their respective time with Luisa, involving a pseudo-fantastical component. Two boys, their heritage, and their sex granting them the ability to physically consume a figure of the settler-colonialist state that questions this very ‘Mexican-ness’ which is inherently grounded in land, labor, and consumption. Tenoch and Julio do most of the “work” in their relations with Luisa, as the pleasure both boys provide and receive is always secondary to labor which sex allegorically demonstrates — a co-option of Spanish colonialism of which was then imitated by wealthy Mexicans.

Although “Y Tu Mama También” is somewhat domestic in nature, the dominant interpretations of Cuarón’s artistic and thematic decisions are anchored to a postnational understanding in the case of globalized cinema as a window into the status of a Mexican state. Opposite to what Cuarón film actually does, “Y Tu Mama También” problematizes relativist narratives of masculinity with the excuse of a transnational artistic climate. 

While sex is what sells “Y Tu Mama También” as a transnational, de-racialized masterpiece, it is a film about relational intimacy in an era of relativity and erasure. Towards the end of the film, we receive insight from Tenoch and Julio’s journey of what it means to become new men amongst a new nation, and how this changes their race-class understandings as a “New Mexico” dawns. 

Regions: Boston