Bridges between the divide: The female body in Y tu Mam tambin and Machuca

Abstract

Mama tambien/And Your Mother Too (Cuaron, 2001) and Machuca (Wood, 2004), two successful films that broke box office records in their respec- tive countries, Mexico and Chile, are both coming-of-age stories that narrate unlikely male friendships that cross traditional Latin American social boundaries. Additionally, the female characters in both films function as catalysts of the unlikely male friendships and serve as bridges to the utopian spaces represented by the idyllic beach at the end of the long political tenure of the Partido Revolu- cionario Institucional (PRI) in Y tu Mama, and the integrated catholic school during the brief but socially promising government of Salvador Allende in Machuca. At first glance, it appears as though the realism of each film rests on the injurious use of women as signs demarcating the boundaries of a patriarchal social space inhabited by men, and narrated by men to men. We argue, however, that the narratives also provide critiques of traditional sexualities and thus can be understood as relatively progressive texts that confirm the emergence of new mas- culinities in Mexico and Chile.

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