Still with me? Well then, you've probably already figured out what these three movies have in common even if you haven't seen them all for yourselves. The marketing campaign for Heavenly Creatures was quite open about its homosexual content; but the other two movies were much more coy. Much. In fact, the famously well-kept "secret" of The Crying Game was only spoiled for me when Jaye Davidson was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. I don't think Y Tu Mama Tambien's secret was spoiled for me at all, but it was pretty clear to me from the get-go where the story was heading. I suppose it is for most watchers. The delight is in reaching that destination, and the tragedy in the results.
Honestly, I could write a whole blog entry on Y Tu Mama Tambien alone; but I'm grouping it with these other two movies to explore a sub-issue common to all three: are these characters really gay and in denial (Dil excepted, of course), or is the truth something more complicated?
I first saw The Crying Game and Heavenly Creatures before I knew I was gay, and Y Tu Mama Tambien not too long after finding out. Throughout that whole time span, I was very aware of gay issues and the ability of some homosexuals to be completely in denial (hilarious, eh?). So watching these movies for the first time, I quite naturally assumed that Pauline and Juliet, Tenoch and Julio, and Fergus were all gay (or at least more gay than straight); but their cultural mindsets prevented them from recognizing it until same-sex love smacked them upside the head.
Now, having watched each of these movies again within the last year, I see them a little differently. One reason for the change is that now I know about the Kinsey Scale and the fact that sexuality is a spectrum, with very few people being 100% straight or 100% gay. But a bigger reason is that now I know a lot more about human nature and human relationships: how easily friendship-love can express itself as romantic love under certain circumstances but still be primarily friendship-love the next morning.
For Pauline and Juliet, those circumstances were a combination of extreme unhappiness, a dysfunctional home life (in Juliet's case), the camaraderie of outsiders, and an especially vivid shared fantasy world. Or at least, that's how Peter Jackson presented it in the movie. If you're familiar with the story, you probably know that it was based on real events, and today the women in question deny that anything sexual ever happened between them. Now, that, I'm thinking, might be denial. ;-) But who knows? Anyway, I believe it would be safe to say that Pauline and Juliet had at least some bisexual tendencies - in the movie - and might or might not have been lesbians. But their relationship was an unhealthy, obsessive one; and any sexual activity that resulted from it was just a piece of the larger puzzle.
As for Tenoch and Julio, I think their hookup was a case of friendship-love expressing itself in a new way under the influence of alcohol and a powerfully sexual older woman. The whole movie, when you think about it, is about how immature these guys are, how oblivious to the complexities of the world around them. They coast through most of the movie safe behind the windows their car, and when out of it usually employ another screen of drugs and/or alcohol. But Luisa, who doesn't have any more time to waste on screens, entices them to peek at the real world with her. Unfortunately, what they see scares them shitless, and in the end it kills their friendship. This is especially ironic because they do have a gay friend whom they consider one of their "charolastras." They accept him as homosexual, but they can't accept that they might be less than 100% heterosexual. Still, IMO, this isn't a "gay movie." Tenoch and Julio are oblivious to everything, not just the complexities of sexuality. It's life in general that they never learn to face, and that's what the movie is really about. But that doesn't make me like it any less. Besides, holy crap: that kiss!
Fergus, now, he's a tougher nut to crack. He falls in love with Dil when he thinks Dil is a woman; and though he continues to have strong feelings for him/her afterwards, those feelings never translate into sex. It would be very, very interesting to see what direction their relationship took once Fergus was released from prison; but alas, Neil Jordan deliberately left that question unanswered. I'd like to think Fergus was eventually able to enjoy sex with Dil; but from my own personal experience, I know that it's pretty darn hard to get past your natural orientation, even if you do feel deep affection for your partner (Then again, as my transgendered friends can attest, love begun with a person of one gender can continue when that person changes genders). Anyway, I'll just imagine that Fergus is bisexual enough to keep loving Dil in a romantic way and to appreciate the pleasures Dil has to offer in bed. To hell with Jordan's musings about the mysteries of the human heart! Those two deserve a happy ending, so I'm going to give them one. In my head. ;-)
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