Pelo Malo, or Bad Hair, was a heartbreaking film. A young Venezuelan boy, Junior, wants to straighten his hair, but his struggling single mother doesn’t approve. As the movie progresses, the friction between Junior and his mother increases as her worries mount that he is gay. She even goes to his doctor to ask what she should do. When the doctor tells her to show Junior a strong male-female relationship, she responds outrageously by having sex with her boss in front of him. Throughout the film, the mother seems to be trying to do what she thinks is right, but ends up traumatizing Junior. When she visited the doctor, she asked if Junior would suffer as a result being gay; she wants Junior to have what she believes is a “normal” life, and not be othered and discriminated against for his sexuality along with his mixed-race. However, in the end she does much more harm than good with her failed attempts to “help” Junior, and ends up herself othering him.
It was surprising that Junior didn’t want to live with his grandmother, as she was much nicer and more supportive. She would have helped teach him to straighten his hair, and let him sing and dress how he wanted. It may be because his mother ingrained into him that those things were wrong. You can see these conflicted thoughts and feelings come to a head when he tries on the singer’s outfit his grandmother made at his request; he freaks out saying it’s a dress. I do wonder how different things would have been if he had gone to stay with his grandmother. Instead, he offers to cut his hair in order stay with his mom. In probably the saddest scene, we watch as he shaves his head, all the while his mother stares coldly at him as he does it. Even though he says he doesn’t love her, I don’t think he really means it. Ultimately, she is still his mother, and he continues to seek her love and approval even after everything she has done to hurt him. It’s therefore so much harsher when his mother says she does not love him either, because she’s an adult and knows the weight those words truly have.
I think your stance on him not wanting to live with his grandma is interesting. When Junior was asked who feeds the baby he says, "The neighbor". Though the mom emphasizes the fact that she touches the baby, but doesn't touch Junior to the doctor, she lacks certain capabilities which are considered motherly. Junior analyzes her like crazy and though he is not paralyzed by fear as shown by his defiant glare, he is paralyzed by his urge to be accepted by his mother. Furthermore, Junior helps his mother out in multifarious ways when it comes to caring for the baby. I think he felt a certain urge to stay by his brothers side. To help raise him.
ReplyDeleteI think that his relationship with his grandmother was also not the best, to me it seemed like she was pressuring him to be a certain way also, as well as explicitly stating that she wanted to take him/buy him from the mother for her own reasons.
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