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To date, no lengthy study has examined queer sexualities and space in Latin American film. In three chapters organized around different spatial scales, I theorize how spatiality reflects and affects the development and expression of queer sexuality in eight films from throughout Latin America.
In the first chapter, I explore public and private spaces in relation to queer sexuality in Francisco J. Lombardi's No se lo digas a nadie (Peru 1998), Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío's Fresa y chocolate (Cuba 1993), and Jorge Fons's El callejón de los milagros (Mexico 1994). I argue that despite their attempts to carve out private spaces—with varying degrees of success—the queer characters in these films are not able to escape the influence of the public sphere and heteronormativity.
In Chapter Two, I examine the relationship between queer sexualities and city space. I argue that in Enrique Bochichio's El cuarto de Leo (Uruguay 2009) Montevideo is presented as a sort of utopia, a liberating space for individuals who may choose to come out of the closet. By conflating homosexuality with criminality, Marcelo Piñeyro's Plata quemada (Argentina 2000), on the other hand, depicts the traditionally oppressive, unsustainable relationship between the city and homosexuals.
In Chapter Three, I explore the use of the body as a space for working through issues of queer sexuality. In the films that I analyze, there is an increasing degree of materialization of the body as space. In Javier Fuentes-León's Contracorriente (Peru 2009), the ghost of the protagonist's dead lover serves as a sort of mirror that helps the protagonist cope with his sexuality. In Karim Ainouz's Madame Satã (Brazil 2002), issues of sexual identity, gender, race, and class are consolidated in the body of a cross-dressing performer. In Lucía Puenzo's XXY (Argentina 2007), the concern for the body as space is materialized to the greatest extent. The protagonist is an intersexed adolescent whose body serves as a space that represents not only her internal struggles, but also those of her parents and the society within which she does not neatly fit.