A Private Matter

Naturalist Rurality and Juvenile Intersexuality in Julia Solomonoff’s El último verano de la Boyita (2009)

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21726904
AutoresAnna Castillo (0000-0002-8740-853X, Vanderbilt University), A Sanjuan Castillo (Vanderbilt University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2023
Volumen100
Número2
Páginas239-258
Fecha de publicación2023-02-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaBulletin of Hispanic Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1475-3839 • E-ISSN: 1478-3398
EditorialLiverpool University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3828/bhs.2023.17
OpenAlexW4321202088
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas14

It is sometimes said that children see things differently from adults. Childlike and naturalist perspectives in Julia Solomonoff’s film El último verano de la Boyita (2009) create spectatorial experiences that approximate this difference. The film revolves around Mario, an intersex farmhand who befriends the landowner’s young daughter, Jorgelina. As the camera portrays Jorgelina’s curiosity towards Mario and her unfailing acceptance of him, adult forms of perceiving and categorizing Mario atrophy. The film’s visual structure of wide-angle shots interspersed with seemingly insignificant close-ups of farm life evokes more juvenile ways of coming to recognize intersexuality and, consequently, discourages an adult audience from tapping into more medicalized understandings of adolescence. Through naturalist camerawork and parallel narrative techniques, El último verano de la Boyita provides access to the mentality of children and the rural poor, those existentially furthest from medicalized understandings of health. The resulting saber (knowledge set) is a counter-discourse to more invasive ways of ascribing sex and gender

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