Innocence Interrupted

Abstract

The emergence of a major cinema trope within a national tradition is, at times, traceable to a memorable scene. The end of childhood through sexual initiation acquired a front-and-center position in contemporary Mexican cinema in one of those cinematic moments: the kiss and the suggested sexual encounter between Julio (Gael García Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna) at the end of Alfonso Cuarón’s Y tu mamá también (2001). The film’s success in redefining the terms of Mexican national cinema (Baer and Long; Saldaña Portillo), along with the failed attempts at censoring the film via a C rating (the Mexican equivalent of an NC-17), had an important outcome: the development of narratives representing the end of childhood, teenage sexuality, and the perils and pressures faced by young Mexicans on the verge of their integration into society. In what follows, I will explore one of the themes central to these narratives: the use of sexuality as a threshold between the innocence of childhood and adults as citizens. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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