Gay Futurity in Melodrama (1982) by Luis Zapata

Although Melodrama (1982) pays homage to the cinematographic melodramas in Mexico’s Golden Age, its stylistic play on visual, theatrical, and literary form, as well as its portrayal of queer (homo)sexual desire, destabilizes the dominant ideological inscriptions that propelled the melodrama. Thus, I suggest that Melodrama is not only a tribute and parody of its own genre but also that it eradicates the fixed notions of gender and sexuality inherent within it. Melodrama affects not only the understanding of what it is to be “straight” but also how a gay body, identity, and desire is understood.