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Daniel Balderston Excluded Middle? Bisexuality in Doha Herlinda y su hijo In lat e 199 4 I gav e a pape r o n th e cinem a o f Jaime Humbert o Hermosillo at the queer studies conference at the University of Iowa, and in it use d th e wor d bisexual t o describ e th e characte r Rodolfo , th e so n i n Dona Herlinda y su hijo (Don a Herlind a an d he r son). 1 In on e o f thos e comments fro m th e audienc e fo r whic h on e i s forever grateful , someon e (still unknown t o me ) asked where the bisexuality was in Rodolfo an d i n the film. I had thought th e answer was transparent becaus e by the end of the film he is married and the father of a son and also still involved in a passionate relationship with the musician Ramon. But several more viewings of the film—and a reading of the contentious but not overly persuasive boo k by Marjorie Garber, Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Eroticism of Everyday Life—have returned me to the question from the audience, for Hermosillo's 1984 film, like the more recent Wedding Banquet, posit s the gay male relationship as primary an d the heterosexual marriage as a screen created as a response to parental pressure. The late 1970s and early 1980 s were a moment o f effervescenc e fo r th e 190 * 12 Excluded Middle? * 19 1 nascent ga y liberation movemen t i n Mexico, with th e emergenc e o f smal l but vibran t groups , th e Frent e Homosexua l d e Accio n Revolucionari a (FHAR) i n Mexico Cit y an d Grup o Orgull o Homosexua l d e Liberatio n (GHOL) i n Guadalajara , an d th e forgin g o f internationa l connection s between th e Mexican activist s an d thei r U.S . counterparts, particularly i n San Francisco.2 Luis Zapata had published El vampiro de la Colonia Roma in 197 9 (later translated a s Adonis Garcia), Jose Joaquin Blanco publishe d his important essa y "Ojo s qu e da panico sofiar " i n 1981 , and the FHA R was publishin g Politica sexual: Cuadernos del Frente Homosexual de Accion Revolucionaria, th e first (undated) issue of which circulated in three thousand copies. Before 198 4 Hermosill o ha d mad e a t leas t on e implicitl y homoeroti c film, the 1974 El cumpleanos delperro (Th e dog's birthday). It concerns the murder of a young wife by her athlete husband and the protection grante d him by a former employer, who eventually murders his own wife when she protests too loudly that her husband has become an accomplice to the first crime. There is nothing overtly sexual about the relation between the tw o men, and some quite explicitly sexual situations between the young athlete and hi s ne w wife . Yet the emotiona l cor e o f th e fil m i s clearly th e bon d between the athlete and the singularly unattractive older man. As Francisco Sanchez notes in his essay on Hermosillo, at the time the film came out he and other critics were uncertain what to call that bond. He quote s from a review that he himself wrote at the time: "Hay una posibilidad d e que los protagonistas d e El cumpleanos del perro este n seiialado s po r un a incli nation homosexual, pero tambien hay otras muchas posibilidades: relation padre-hijo, sentimient o fraterno , camaraderi a viri l o , simpl e y sencilla mente , afinidad electiv a de dos machos mexicanos" (It is possible that th e protagonists o f The Dog's Birthday ar e marked b y a homosexual inclina tion , but other possibilities als o exist: a father-son relationship , a fraterna l feeling, virile camaraderie or , simply, the electiv e affinity o f tw o Mexica n machos),3 a comment that Sanchez immediately qualifies a s "Tontenas, yo solo le estaba dando vuelta s a la simulation, n o queriend o acepta r l o qu e era por dema s evidente , que Hermosillo no s habi a obsequiado l a primera pelicula gay de nuestro cine" (Pure foolishness: I was just going round and...

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