As I prepare to cheer on all the Mexican athletes competing in this year’s Paralympics, I can’t help but hope that this event focuses more on the actual athletics than on the nonsense and drama, as was the case with the Olympics last month. It baffled me how an event that is supposed to highlight the best of humanity and bring us all together served as the breeding ground for controversy around inclusion (people had no issue showing their homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and general stupidity) and how religion was once again used to point fingers at so-called “sinners.” It was a plot line straight out of a bad satirical movie, if you ask me.
First, there was the general outrage and figurative clutching of pearls over the colorful opening ceremony, which showed drag queens in all shapes, colors, and sizes “recreating and mocking the Last Supper” (the connection to the Last Supper has since been denied by the opening ceremony’s creative director, but people still ran with the misinformation; as they tend to do online) and was followed by the bullying of Algerian boxer Iman Khelif (who ended up winning a gold medal!) after claims that she was “a man competing in female sports” went viral on Twitter – again, claims that have been denied by the IOC. Still, the harassment of the athlete continues to this day. And I’m here just hoping no one at the Paralympics faces the same sort of bullying.
All the chaos reminded me of the short film Peccadillo, by Mexican-American genre-bending filmmaker Sofía Garza-Barba. Peccadillo is a beautiful coming-of-age fantasy drama that follows 18-year-old Lorenzo (played by Huitzili Espinosa). He’s a young man growing up surrounded by the many powerful women in his family – his grandmother, sister, and mother – and is no stranger to the appeals of feminine energy. He wants to explore his feminine side but feels pressured to hide those desires due to his family’s religious views and the idea that “secrets belong to the devil.”
After a drag queen comes into the restaurant where Lorenzo’s family works, his internal battle kicks into high gear – the Devil quite literally follows him around throughout the story, reminding both Lorenzo and the audience of the shame that comes from these deep-rooted religious beliefs, where not fitting into the Christian-centric mold makes us “sinners.” The 25-minute film allows us to peek into Lorenzo’s internal debate between keeping his queerness a secret or coming out and killing his secret (and the devil himself).
A Monterrey, México native director with a love for mixing genres (magical realism, fantasy, and horror mostly), Garza-Barba moved to California at 16 to pursue her dream. Since then she’s felt stuck between two lives constantly fighting inside her. She described her stories to LatinaMedia.Co as, “grounded with reality but floating with fantasy.”
As a child, Garza-Barba used to think TVs were windows to other realities, allowing us small peeks into the lives of other people. Through her work, she has achieved just that: allowing the audience to peek into her and Lorenzo’s mind and heart, into a reality different than our own.
“We live in a period in time when we’re embracing who we are and that’s something I want to do with my work: create a safe space for people to find a place for blended identities,” she shares. Her love of mixing genres comes precisely from her own blended and mixed culture, “Life isn’t just rainbows and roses; there’s always a dark side. I try to balance it out and find the beauty in the dark and the color.” In Peccadillo, Garza-Barba crafts a love letter for the LGBTQ+ community, showing people that, “It’s ok to be different, you’re beautiful the way you are,” as Garza-Barba puts it. “You can be the person who gives the OK – all we need is one single person to accept us as we are and give us strength to be who we’re meant to be.”
The film was heavily inspired by her own experiences growing up. “Years ago it wasn’t quite as easy to come out, not that it’s easy now, but things were even harder before, especially in a culture such as Latinx culture where machismo, misogyny, and religion are so prevalent,” she asserts. So Garza-Barba was the so-called “devil” on her queer friends’ shoulders, protecting them and pushing them to embrace their true selves. Peccadillo is a reflection of that, a story for everyone and anyone who needs it: for those who experience what Lorenzo does and the people who helped queer folks in the journey to their authentic selves.
The short film has been nominated for an Imagen award in the Best Student/Short Film category, a great closing to the film’s very successful award season. On the nomination, Garza-Barba says, “We’re giving our community the importance it deserves. Winning awards isn’t just for me – it’s for everyone who worked in it, even if I’m the face of the film as director and screenwriter. It’s like a hug of acceptance. Being nominated for awards is great on its own, but it also means the story gets seen by more people and reaches more people.”
Just like Lorenzo, the feeling of hiding one’s true nature is one that I know a little too well, as I’ve hidden my bisexuality from some of my family members for a long time (actually, some of them still have no idea). I hid parts of myself not because I believed I’d be succumbing to the devil, but rather because I don’t want the hatred they’ve always been all too comfortable openly showing directed at me.
People are trans. People are bisexual. People like other people of the same gender. Those are undeniable facts – whether others like it or not, they just have to deal with that reality – be it in our families, our student films, or the Olympics. So here’s hoping the conversation around this week’s Paralympics values athletes as whole people and doesn’t make a devil out of anyone for just being themselves.
