**3. Mexican Melodrama and Otherness: masculinity and Queer Identities**

Andrea Noble [7] establishes that it is necessary to understand Mexican melodrama in terms of the social, the representation of masculinity and patriarchal values. This is paired with a specific cultural context that is determined by three master narratives: religion, nationalism and modernization. For her, "the kinds of narrative structure that define melodrama are similarly to be found as central components in the rituals of the Catholic religion that arrived in the 'New World' with the Spanish invasion and revolve around sin, suffering, abnegation and punishment" (p.100). In the same way, Carlos Monsiváis links Catholic guilt with violence and suggests that "from the second half of the 19th century, the ecclesiastical power has been one of the guides of the content of the melodrama to warn people about moral indecency and to turn personal experiences into a deterministic view of events" (p. 1, my translation). He further argues that:

*Violence is our cross, and thanks to the lack of rights, we are Christ to scale: mugged, beaten, murdered for the sins of society or our lack of foresight or our reluctance to exercise complaint. On a rudimentary level, the formulation of melodramatic violence is deeply indebted to theology; on another, the Catholic melodrama influences*  *the styles of movies and soap operas, and on a third level, melodrama is the "exorcism" that turns violence, unfortunately real, in the discharge of woes and resignations that disables or mediates the will to act. ([8], p.2, my translation).*

Evaristo's dream sequence in *Sueño en otro idioma* shows these Mexican melodrama features. Evaristo arrives to the monastery looking for Isauro, who is taking his Spanish class with the priest. Through the chapel window, he sees Isauro and calls him. Suddenly, he looks at the big figure of Christ on the cross high above the chapel's altar and feels guilty. He steps back from the figure and notices a river of blood flowing under his feet. He screams and wakes up all flustered. The protagonist experiences a powerful feeling of guilt for loving Isauro because he knows that by doing so, he is breaking the moral codes of Christian society and, consequently, the laws of God. His private feelings are symbolically revealed, as well as his awareness of the heteronormative discourse defended by the church. Evaristo is fighting an inner battle between his personal desire and his social obligations. His love for Isauro becomes an evil that he must resist. Soon after having this dream, he proposes to María and shuns Isauro. This decision will mark him for life, as he will carry his forbidden love until they arrive at *El Encanto*. The modest chair that he carries everywhere is the metaphor for this forbidden love that will be with him beyond death.

These aspects are reinforced by the esthetics of the scene. The emotional state of Evaristo is shown through heightened expressions in close-ups during the dream sequence and also after he wakes up. During the dream, the church is presented with low-key lighting, high contrast and gentle dolly-in movements. The colors on screen are very saturated, giving the blood a surreal texture. The rhythm of the scene speeds up when Evaristo sees blood Christ's face too. Music and fast-cut editing add tension to the sequence.

In Mexican melodrama, masculinity and patriarchal values are directly related to the opposition between the female and male figures and the construction of a macho identity. Machillot establishes that the term "macho" arises between 1910 and 1915 (in [9], p. 254) and was used to turn vulgar *mestizos* into heroes of the revolution, placing them as subjects that contributed to the building of the Nation. For De la Mora [10], the macho is the quintessential virile image (p. 2) associated with being "violent, rude, irritable, dangerous, impulsive, boastful, superficial, distrustful, unstable and false" (Machillot in [9], p. 255, my translation) and was seen as the means by which the Mexican male "recovered" his manhood and revitalized the nation (Domínguez in [10], p. 5). De la Mora [10] suggests a macho is aggressive and fearless, are capable of inflicting violence on others and "must limit their sexual desire to women, at least in public" (p. 122). At the same time, this stereotype generates its opposite, the homosexual, without which the former cannot function.

De la Mora [10] determines that "homosexuality is thus the other side of the coin shaping and complementing the social construction of Mexican male heterosexuality, the other side without which, Mexican masculinities would lose their cultural distinctiveness" (p. 18). For him, homosexuality fights desires and anxieties about masculinity. For Michael Schuessler [11], the homosexual was always depicted as "the other", a stereotypical image that endured for more than a century. The origins of this discriminated figure can be traced back to the Spanish conquest, where these two worlds, pre-Hispanic and European, were "considered diametrically opposed: civilization vs. barbarism, polytheism vs monotheism" (p. 135), culture vs. ignorance. Even the chronicles of Bernal Díaz del Castillo and Fray Bernadino de Sahagún claimed that the sexuality of the Mesoamerican people displayed the abhorrent nature of the effeminate male and the persecution of the "*pecado nefando*" (p. 135).

### *Sueño en Otro Idioma: Queer Identities in Contemporary Mexican Melodrama DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.105162*

However, Gerardo González [12] demonstrates that different ethnic groups in Mexico believed in a dual deity in which the principles of the masculine and the feminine functioned in correspondence and complementarity. Sexuality was a source of joy and creative potential. Homosexuality was visibly present in different rituals and festivities. Thus, the relationship with the feminine principle of the cosmos was fundamental. The Spanish Conquest imposed the Christian doctrine where sexuality is perceived as sin and homosexuality as guilt. The subsequent control of indigenous identity laid the foundations for the construction of modern Mexican identity. Mexico is a virile nation that struggles with the legacy colonialism and the development of a predominantly macho identity.

The systems of representations that configure a culture across time make it difficult to recognize "sexuality in different indigenous groups and the perception of homosexuality within their communities" ([2], p. 100, my translation). Just like stereotypes and their relationship with otherness, patriarchal gender prescriptions are deeply entrenched and reject anything that is not "the natural", "the normal", and "the moral" (p. 101). Accordingly, Bautista claims that there is a tendency to infantilize indigenous people because it is assumed that "they do not know what they want or what is good for them" ([2], p. 101, my translation), associating them with simplistic characteristics. For the author, it is very important to conceive them as sexual subjects, and more importantly, as queer sexual subjects (p. 101). For Benshoff [13], "human sexuality is multiple, varying and diverse", and he further establishes that "[…] nor is it choice between two singular things (either heterosexuality or homosexuality" (p. 29.) In fact, he acknowledges that there are a multiplicity of sexualities, a continuum from straight to gay, covering the vast areas between them "as well as the sexualities that might lie beyond them" with the term queer (p. 2). He also recognizes the importance of film representation so "films are cultural artifacts that are intricately connected to our understanding of among other things) gender, sexuality, history, and identity" (p. 2). The conception of sexuality has been presented as a dual model and the representations of it in cinema have responded to dominant social norms. However, the recognition of queer identities is increasingly more common, the sexual imaginary is being transformed and reconfiguring the "fixed" identities.

According to Schuessler [11], the characterization of homosexuality in Mexican cinema has evolved from "the caricaturized and very secondary 'sissy', into a character with truly human dimensions" (p. 133). The first Mexican film with a homosexual character was *La casa del ogro* (1938), but it was until *El lugar sin límites* (1978) that the figure of the homosexual acquires human dimensions. The film "explores and deconstructs the myth of the Mexican macho within the context of rural Jalisco, home of the charro, tequila and the mariachi" ([11], p. 140). The movie is a critique of traditional heterosexuality and deconstructs the impervious macho ideal that was prevalent until then. With this film, director Arturo Ripstein challenges the ideological conventions of national melodrama and of the macho Nation too:

*He uses the structures of melodrama to confront audiences with everything that should not be said or shown, explicitly question and expose family values and religious morals, gender expectations, sexual norms, as well as vernacular forms and practices intimately associated with Mexican national identity. They desecrate holy spaces and institutions and thereby often alienate and enrage Mexican audiences. His films do not have happy endings. Ripstein sees the family as a "nucleus of destruction and horror" [...] Demolish the basic values of certain bourgeoise who believe that religion, family and country are the most important factors one has. His films take an enterally different route in terms of narrative, visual style, and ideology. ([11], p. 133).*

In *Sueño en otro idioma*, the main conflict also addresses these two issues: homosexuality and an indigenous identity confronted by the *mestizaje* process in which theology is the guide for morality. Evaristo and Isauro fell in love, but Catholic prescriptions imposed by the Church make Evaristo feel guilty and therefore reject Isauro. In order to follow the religious doctrine, Evaristo married María, against his desire. For more than fifty years, he stayed away from Isauro, until Martín forced them to speak with each other again. This encounter makes it clear that they still love each other, but for Evaristo this only represents regret and suffering. He always depicts a macho identity in order to neglect his real desire: he is aggressive, controlling, and overprotecting the integrity of his daughter Lluvia.

One of the scenes that better addresses this inner repression is when, after meeting again, Evaristo and Isauro go to the beach they used to go when they were young. In the same place, Isauro touches Evaristo's knee saying a few words to him in *Zikril,* to which Evaristo reacts violently, the same way he did years ago. Non-diegetic music adds tension to the scene, and the montage sequence cross-cuts between the present and the past, revealing the fight they had fifty years ago. The shots are parallel with close-ups disclosing Evaristo's repression and anger, as well as Isauro's grief. Evaristo hits Isauro with the chair he always carries with him, as a metaphor for the guilt, the anger and the sadness that he has carried all this time.

For De la Mora [11], "the hold that the stereotype of the Mexican macho exerts does not mean that notions of manhood and manliness are ahistorical, unchanging, monolithic and uncontested" (p. 9). In the 1970s, the films start to depict another idea of mexicaness in relation with gender and sexuality, where the Mexican man was less authoritarian and more sensitive and women were more active and independent. De la Mora [11] claims that the films from that period frequently functioned as allegories about the crisis of the patriarchal state, just as the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (or PRI, its acronym in Spanish) was unable to manage the economy and dominate national politics. These larger social changes were related with the politically uncertain years leading up and following the student massacre at Tlatelolco Plaza in 196. These changes were "shaped by growing social disparities, the government authorities' lack of respect for civil liberties, the impact of Mexican feminism and the women's movement, and the homosexual liberation movement" (p. 109).

In the 1990s, the film industry was affected by the economic crisis in the country; however, this was one of the most productive decades and several melodramatic films received national and international awards: *La mujer de Benjamin* (1991) and *Como agua para chocolate* (1992). These movies showed stories related with identity issues, such as violence, family crisis, gender identities, migration. Also, these films demonstrated a novel production management. This cinema offered alternative inscriptions of sexual/cultural identity during the consolidation of neoliberalism in Mexico.
