Probably my favorite film we watched this term had to to be Mosquita y Mari. The film follows to young girls in high school and their unexpected friendship as they are pretty different people. Mosquita is a shy book nerd with overprotective parents, while Mari is more the rebel kind doing what she can trying to support her family. Mosquita and Mari become friends when Mosquita reaches out and offers to tutor, Mari. During the film you watch their friendship evolve to a point where it leave the viewer questioning whether they are actually friends or are they just lover in denial. This idea of them being lovers is further pushed in the film when Mosquita finds Mari involved with a man and she seems to grown jealous because of this. With this I would argue that Mosquita and Mari are actually friends the entire time and we live in a society that doesn't value platonic relationships, making us the viewer want "more" from them. Our society has a hyper focus on sexual/ romantic relationships, to the point where we see two people who are close we automatically assume there must be a sexual/ romantic bond. And when we see as in the relationship between Mosquita and Mari, there is not sexual/ romantic bond we want there to be one. I found myself while watching the film screaming at my t.v. "just kiss already". But why, why do we expect for relationships to be sexual/ romantic why are they valued more than platonic ones. When you watch the film you can see Mosquita and Mari had a good relationship as friends and when the expectation for them to be sexual/romantic is taken out of it you can value there relationship as friends. They fill each other through there friendship and that should be enough.This reminds of the Caleb Luna piece we read before watching this film, and how we as a society need to learn how to sustain ourselves through self love, platonic love, and love from community not holding all of our value into sexual/romantic love.
