a protecting hand
by
Douglas Messerli
Adriana
González-Vega (screenwriter and director) Junito / 2017 [13 minutes]
A
caring and loving Puerto Rican father José (Gabriel Leyva) notices that his son
Luisito (Ydiel Cruz) is being dismissed as “effeminate” not only by his grandmother
and older brother Juanma (Alex Cruz), but by his own wife. And he perceives how
the young boy is not at all interested in the basketball activities of his
older brother, and is mocked by the others around him as well.
José is a welder, who formerly hung out
with the local toughs at a nearby bar, but is now working hard to support and
protect his family. The relationship he has with his children, particularly
with Luisito, is palpable, and the child, in return, adores his father as opposed
to his constantly correcting and impatient mother, who only sees his behavior
as something flawed which needs to be opposed.
He is offered a job in Boston, but it
would mean completely uprooting his family, and his wife is clearly opposed to
a move to the cold north of the USA. He puts off the offer as long as he can.
But when he notices how suddenly, in the
very midst of a pool game, his friends suddenly go after a local man, Junito
(Nelson Javier Rivera), whom they describe as the “butterfly,” he is appalled.
As they begin to beat the effeminate,
well-groomed older Junito, José attempts to break it up, but even his friends describe
him as wanting to bed the “butterfly” and protecting him for his own interests.
As he helps the harmless man to his feet, José realizes just how absurd their
hate is.
In disgust, he returns home, finally
determined to make the move where things might be more open and where he own
son might grow up without being, as is Junito, harassed and assaulted by the macho
culture in which he exists.
The film ends with his sending his own
family off to live with relatives while he plans to travel to Boston and find a
home before he calls for them to join him.
As José establishes right from the
beginning in the narration: “"First of all, I'm a man, a real man. You
know, just to be clear." But he quickly realizes that that very attitude
is behind the hate and dismissal that men like Junito, and perhaps in the
future his own beloved son, have to endure.
Without shouting out any credos, Puerto
Rican director and writer Adriana González-Vega establishes that love cuts
through all the differences, as this young father grows quickly to perceive the
need to protect his son, along with his wife and older son, from the prejudices
of a patriarchal culture.
The child is not necessarily gay, at
least not yet, but is clearly just different from the others, and José clearly
wants to protect his child to discover what those differences might mean in his
life. Judgment is held in abeyance, as unlimited love is proffered in its
place.
Whereas Luisito’s mother is constantly
slapping his hands as he reaches out to explore the world in ways she cannot
comprehend, José is, metaphorically speaking, a protective hand, willing to
help the boy openly explore the world into which he was born.
Los
Angeles, June 24, 2026
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema blog (June 2026).
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