Pelo Malo and Generational Trauma

 

    In Pelo Malo, Junior has curly hair, but wants to straighten it. Unfortunately, his mother believes that him wanting to straighten his hair signifies that he is gay, and throughout the entire movie, she tries to prevent him from behaving like anything other than a heteronormative child (whatever that actually means). Even though he's not aware of the connotations behind his behaviors, his mother expects him to just suddenly stop doing the things he enjoys doing like dancing, singing, playing with his hair, etc. 

    While watching this movie, it was extremely hard for me to not be angry with the mother whenever she did something "unacceptable" (e.g., having sex in front of her son, being so cold to him, but warm to her baby, etc.). There were discussions about how other classmates felt towards the mother and while I can understand that the mother's successes with work was a good thing for the kids, it did not seem to relate to Junior. From what I noticed, she was rarely kind to Junior, compared to her baby, who might I add, did not have the ability to show any performativity of gender and sexuality. 

    Towards the end, one of the many scenes that upset me was when he was at school, not singing the national anthem, and still completely shaven. Relating to earlier discussions about innocence in queer children, Junior has demonstrated many instances of his innocence being stripped away. An incredibly unfortunate examples os when his mother tries to "erase" the "possible" gayness out of him by having him watch her have sex with her boss. Normally, parents would avoid the chances of their child seeing them have sex, but for some reason, Junior's mother thought it would be a good idea to have him watch, as if watching would suddenly make him stop dancing, singing, and wanting to straighten his hair. 

    My last comment about the movie would be that Junior never once said he is gay, so the obsession that his mother has with trying to stop him from doing stereotypically queer things had to stem from something, possibly due to generational trauma or the unknown experiences shared with Junior's father. There were hints about his father "suffering" (the word "suffering" has had correlations with being gay), but it wasn't exactly identified. 

    In Kathryn Bond's article, the idea that historical and generational traumas (e.g., racism, slavery) are largely a part of what make children of color queer, thereby tainting their childhood innocence. As a person of color, as well as a first generation child, I have had to witness the results of my parents moving from Thailand to America, and seeing the consequences of that move. An example of me being deprived of an innocent childhood was that whenever my Dad would talk about trust, he'd always add in how I can't depend on anyone, especially Americans because they're not like us (Thai people, Asian people). After these conversations, I would feel very confused and sad because I didn't understand why my Dad also talked poorly about American people, as well as the idea of depending on others. Now that I'm older, I understand that my Dad, and many other Thai immigrant friends has this mindset of survival, which was probably adopted when they came to America. While they may not have meant to strip away pieces of my innocence, their trauma and experiences have shaped the way I experience the world now.