As part of Digital Spy's 25th anniversary and to celebrate Pride Month, we're looking back over some of the most significant LGBTQ+ movies of the past 25 years.
Next up, David Opie reflects on the horny bisexual legacy of Y Tu Mamá También.
When you reach the end of Y Tu Mamá También, everything leading up to that point is suddenly and irrevocably changed forever. It's one of those movies that you can never watch the same way twice.
But looking back, 23 years later, the enduring power of this bisexual masterpiece hasn't changed at all. If anything, it's become even more impressive now that we can see how it's become the blueprint for lusty three-ways in newer movies like Challengers.
Yet even then, Y Tu Mamá También is still so much more than just the story of two horny teens competing for a gorgeous older woman on a road trip through Mexico.
Long before he was freeing prisoners from Azkaban or defying Gravity with Sandra Bullock, director Alfonso Cuarón and his brother Carlos wrote a seemingly simple road movie that veered off the beaten track to encompass everything from sex and sexuality to the beauty of Mexico (along with glimpses of the political unrest that lies just beneath).
More French New Wave than American Pie, the Oscar-nominated screenplay nonetheless opens with Julio (Gael García Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna) having sex with their girlfriends one last time before the girls head off to Italy.
Cue my lifelong obsession with both men, but I digress.
Unwilling to live in a world where they can't readily have sex whenever they please, the pair soon convince a new friend named Luisa (Maribel Verdú) to visit a secluded beach with them called Boca del Cielo ("Heaven's Mouth"). The journey to this (fictitious) destination will take days, which should be more than enough time for Julio and Tenoch to seduce Luisa and get their respective freaks on.
What the boys seem to be forgetting though is how hot they both are as well. Like, ridiculously hot. In fact, Julio and Tenoch are both so sexy that they might just even be into each other...
The vibe to begin with is very much "no homo" though. Even before the main road trip begins, the boys shower next to each other and wrestle and even masturbate in each other's company, but they also make fun of each other's penises and call each other gay slurs as if to establish that all the bantz is just bantz, that there's no way they could actually be into each other.
Endless talk of women and sex bond them together with a bromance that belies an intimacy only Luisa – and a hopeful version of me watching at home – seems to notice.
In fact, the boys are so straight that it circles back around to become a bit gay again. Or bisexual, I should say, because it's clear that both Julio and Tenoch are extremely into Luisa too. There's no showboating or denial going on there.
As the road trip progresses, Luisa inevitably ends up banging them both because she just found out her husband had been cheating on her, and what better way to seek vengeance than have sex with hot men? Revenge has never been so sweaty.
But it's not perfect. Not by any means. Despite all their sexual bravado, the boys have only had sex with their recent girlfriends and not the string of endless women they claim to have conquered. And so it shouldn't come as a surprise when Julio cums too quick or when Tenoch says "Mamma" as he finishes.
Although the boys do have more experience than we previously thought because they actually had sex with each other's girlfriends before the trip. The fight that follows this revelation is a doozy, escalating more and more until Luisa is the one who explodes instead with what turns out to be one game-changing line for everyone involved:
"Typical men! Fighting like dogs and marking your territory when all you really want to do is f**k each other."
Yep, Luisa really went there.
Not long later, the trip continues as planned. Except, something has shifted. With the fight now over, the boys instead bond over their shared conquests, laughing that, "I've been stirring your cream!".
Despite what they've done to each other and the women involved, Julio and Tenoch are still more focused on each other in light of what's happened. If anything, learning they've "stirred" each other's "cream" has actually pulled them even closer together.
Fellas, is it gay if you both put your penis inside the same person and ejaculate?
The unspoken intimacy that underscores everything the two teens do comes to a head, so to speak, after the trio finally reach "Heaven's Mouth", which actually does exist, after all, despite the boys making it up.
It seems like fate, discovering this celestial place together, especially as they're all about to enjoy a brief heaven of their own as a trio later that night.
A few shots and countless beers in, a sensual three-way dance becomes an actual threesome as Julio and Tenoch both undress and kiss Luisa. It's unbearably hot, the culmination of endless throbbing tension across these hazy summer nights. And not just between the boys and Luisa either.
After she goes down on them both, Julio and Tenoch face each other, naked and hard, as alcohol tugs and pulls at what's left of their inhibitions. A lifetime of bonding and love and unspoken intimacy combines with teen horniness and tequila to become a kiss that's slow and loving with tongue and all.
Cuarón cuts away so we don't get to see what comes next – coward! – but when we jump to the next morning, we watch as Luisa eats breakfast while the boys lie naked in bed together. It's sweet and sexy and exactly what you'd hope to see the following day, but then Tenoch wakes up and runs outside to vomit as Julio quickly gets dressed.
The movie doesn't play the kiss itself off as gay panic. It's beautiful and tender and a natural extension of the bond they share. Unfortunately, the boys themselves don't feel the same way. With the morning sun and that inevitable hangover also comes the uncomfortable truth of what's happened. Because their feelings are real, as is their queerness, but that doesn't help them navigate the shame and fear that ensues.
With their bond redefined forever and neither of them mature enough to reconcile their feelings with the truth, Tenoch and Julio leave their friendship behind on that fateful road trip.
Many months later, the pair meet one last time in a café where they act like strangers. They skirt around the truth with small talk, as if the heat that once erupted between them could burn them still if touched or even looked at directly. It's telling that both men look unhappy and that they've traded in a hopeful future for new paths they don't even want instead.
They'd rather give into patriarchal pressure and internalised homophobia than fight for their friendship and what could be more. So instead of finding happiness, be that as friends or lovers, Julio sits alone at the end, teary-eyed, as Tenoch leaves and walks out of his life for good.
"They will never meet again," the narrator tells us in one brief, yet wholly devastating, line that ends the movie with a different kind of tragedy than queer viewers might be used to seeing. Unlike other queer classics from that era like Brokeback Mountain, Y Tu Mamá También only lets the romance last for one brief night which turns into a lifetime of regrets rather than death.
As bisexual men, or however they would perhaps define themselves in a more accepting environment, Tenoch and Julio choose to ignore that queer part of their identity to make life easier, although a sequel would have clearly proven that to be wrong, if such a thing did ever exist.
Even now, I can't help but feel sorry for my future husbands, yet watching them contend with fractured concepts of masculinity was extremely eye-opening and very important to sixteen year old me back in 2001.
At a time when even cis white gay romances were few and far between in the media, seeing the nuances of sexuality and the spectrum of queerness explored with such delicate, loving respect here undoubtedly helped me on my own journey.
And now, if you decide to revisit Y Tu Mamá También now in between endless rewatches of Challengers and that churro scene, it might just do the same for you as well.
Y Tu Mamá También is not currently available to stream in the UK.
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After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.
