Reframing the figure of the sexual child/teen in Argentine cinema: Affect, sexuality and agency

Abstract

Drawing on a detailed analysis of a corpus of three key Argentine post-2000 films in which the figure of the child as a sexual/gendered being is central, this article explores three core affective dimensions of the processes of queer child/teenage relational subjectivation. Firstly, it discusses the queer shameful or injured selves of LGBTIQ children/teens as nevertheless being able to open up new spaces of affective performativity that can potentially challenge gender/sexuality norms and boundaries. Secondly, it addresses early queer antagonism associated with the configurative role of the ‘closet space’. Thirdly, emerging processes of peer solidarity and alliances arising from queerness, and non-heteronormative sexualities more generally, are identified and subjected to a political reading in terms of different forms of relationality, mobility and agency. By examining the verbal as well as the visual dimensions of the referential and affective messages inscribed in these films, the analysis attends to both their articulated and non-articulated meanings.