This week I'd like to do something a little different on here. Since Mosquita y Mari hit so close to home for me, I'm going to talk a bit about how it impacted me to watch a friendship like this depicted on the big screen. This film took me back to my early high school days, back when I was in a very similar situation with a female friend.
Seeing Yoli and Mari doing schoolwork, hanging out at the car garage, and sharing their hopes and dreams with each other made me almost nostalgic for my old friendship that I adamantly insisted was strictly platonic for the longest time. In class, someone had mentioned that physical affection is much more accepted in female friendships vs male ones, and this definitely opens up space for young queer girls to explore their sexual and romantic feelings for other girls. Yoli and Mari touched each other and got close to each other but never in an explicitly sexual way, which was something I appreciated. In high school, my friend and I showed similar forms of physical affection towards each other, although sometimes we pushed a little further than the characters in this film. We never actually had sex and didn't even kiss, but I still consider her an integral part of my sexual awakening.
The scene that really got me was when Yoli and Mari were cuddling on the couch. Almost the exact same moment had happened to me one day when my friend came over after school. Instead of the couch, we were hanging out in my room on my bed, and somehow we found ourselves in the same position as the girls in the film. The only difference was that no one burst into the room unexpectedly like the parents who caused Yoli and Mari to jump to opposite sides of the sofa. I can't really remember what else happened that day, but the feeling of lying there next to my friend has been seared permanently into my memory. Interestingly, I don't think we ever discussed the event after the fact just as we never had the talk about what exactly our relationship was. Hopefully I haven't overshared; I just wanted to take the opportunity to reflect on my own past based on the memories this film brought back.
I've also had this film hit a little close to home. It's made me think about my youth and the friendships I developed. Thank you for sharing and giving your own personal spin on the film.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your experience! I think it is so interesting to look back on these experiences and unearth some gay-coded interactions. Having male friends in middle school, there was a lot suggestive interactions that some of my friends would make towards me that were played of as "jokes", but some of them seemed somewhat genuine. This film and your story has made me realize that maybe I wasn't the only gay one in my friend group...
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