Revisionism and Its Discontents: Queer Cinema and Contracorriente (“Undertow”)

Abstract

Revisionism and its metaphors seem to be a sign of the times. All throughout contemporary cultural production certain approaches are all too present: homages, pastiches, bricolages, parodies, appropriations, rewrites, among others. Not surprisingly, revisionist cultural genres have gain predominance, and specifically in cinema, the revisionist western-genre film has been much cultivated and discussed. It is, then, equally pertinent to ask whether there is a revisionist queer cinema in general, and by extension, whether there is a revisionist queer cinema in Latin America in particular. If there is indeed a revisionist queer cinema in general, it is likely, and such is our reading, that it will be revising the “in-and-out” logic of queer cinema’s sub-genre par excellence, the “coming-out” story. If there is a revisionist queer cinema in Latin America, it will undoubtedly be more complex, as evinced in the film Contracorriente (“Undertow”: 2009) by Javier Fuentes León. As such, this film prompts a reinterpretation, and not a rejection, of the “traditional”, the “communal”, or “the sacred”, contrary to the generalized logic of so many “coming-out” narratives. A political “negotiation” of terms (Jesus Martín-Barbero), or “ transculturating” (Fernando Ortiz) agencement, is the strategy of use, according to our reading, an operation undoubtedly enabled by the theoretical approaches of Latin America’s Third Feminism (Karina Bidaseca ), the epistemologies of the South (Boaventura de Sousa Santos), and, equally important, Latin America’s Cultural Studies and its beginning of the 20th century’s cultural criticism.