I want to start off by giving my reactions to the movie - and when I tell you I could not stop eating my chips and watching this movie I'm not kidding. Once in a while, I would have to pause the movie to make sure what I heard was what was said.
But let me tell you a little bit about the title. It's interesting to see how Pelo Malo is used in the movie. From the very beginning, we get a sense of what hair means to Jr, more importantly, what "good" and "bad" hair are. Although we are never explicitly told how jr gets these opinions, we see him fight with the social context behind pelo "bueno" o pelo "malo".
When jr first goes to see the photographer we see an immediate correlation between how a child is seen based on their skin tone and hair type. Jr wants to live a different life than the one already coded for him.
Jr's grandma is who really allows him to experiment with who he truly is. For the first time in the movie, we see Jr act his age and have fun. He is able to dance, sing and fully express himself with no judgment from his grandmother. At this point in the movie, I was happy for Jr.
And this next scene, where he stares at himself with straight hair, shows both of his lives. The person he wants to become and the person he is. However this then creates the question, "would he have been better off with his grandma?" In some scenes with his grandmother, I felt bad for Jr. He feels attacked with the coat she made and overwhelmed with the idea of expressing himself. I felt like he was being pushed into something he wasn't fully ready to accept or even interpret. There is so much more I could talk about when it comes to this movie but I wanted to stick to one topic.
Before signing off. I am interested in seeing what y'all think. Jr's mother never says that he has pelo malo, in fact, when he says it she reassures him that he doesn't. And tells him to not put products in his hair. Was it more damaging to just be told once that his hair wasn't "malo" or that his grandmother straightened his hair (almost reinforcing that he has to change his hair)?
Thank you for this post! I also found it interesting how Pelo Malo was not emphasized verbally. I came to interpret this as what phrase constantly on his mind when he looks in a mirror or plays with his hair. His brain is just repeating pelo malo pelo malo pelo malo as he trys to make it change. The image with Junior's half and half hair gives me the chills. At this point, I imagine Junior is conflicted with which side is the pelo malo as he stairs. It is almost like the straight side represents his queer self that he sees himself to be and the curly side is the person his mother is trying to force him to be. Just typing this made me shiver.
ReplyDeleteI personally think that more encouragement and reassurance would have done a lot for Junior when it comes to his hair. On one hand I think reassuring him that his hair looks fine and that he doesn't need to change it is great. On the other, I think not allowing him to experiment with it is also a bit restricting because kids to enjoy experimenting and learning things. So I think that both could have been achieved, his mother was just too worried about him being gay but his grandmother may have pushed him too far out of his comfort zone instead of easing him into it. There was just too much pressure on Junior to conform and be a certain way and they weren't really letting him be a kid.
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