¡Tu, y Tu, y Yo!
How "Challengers" (2024) and "Y Tu Mamá También" (2002) talk to each other.
Stills from Y Mama Tu Tambien (2002), left, and Challengers (2024), right.
My favourite ex-girlfriend once told me that her mother proclaimed summer 2024 to be an “M/M/F summer.” She was, of course, referencing the movie Challengers (2024), directed by Italian auteur Luca Guadagnino, and its remarkable box office success.
Many must have felt a similar way in 2002, when Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón Orozco released his cult classic Y Tu Mamá También, starring Diego Luna alongside Gael García Bernal and Maribel Verdú.
Both films are centered around a sweat-soaked love triangle consisting of two men with homoerotic tension, and one woman whom they both simultaneously desire. Y Tu Mamá También is a road trip film, and Challengers is a saga that dances between distinct chapters.
The thing about Challengers is that it is about unfulfilled, but not unrequited, desire. Y Tu Mamá También is about desire as well, but desire that is known to everyone but you. Art and Patrick are aware of their desires for Tashi, and to an extent, each other. Tenoch and Julio don’t realize the roots of their want for Luisa until they are swapping spit in front of her in a beach hut.
The overt desire in both movies is palpable. Challengers opens with a sweat-soaked tennis game full of grunts and moans, and the opening scene of Y Tu Mamá También is a one-shot sex scene with full nudity. Challengers is more subtle with its desire— we see very little skin; one could probably count the number of kisses exchanged on one hand. The desire in the film simmers directly under the surface.
Y Tu Mamá También is very overt in its sexuality. Full nudity sex scenes, desperate make-out sessions in the back of a car, blowjobs, the beginnings of a bisexual threesome— all are accounted for.
Both films are deeply sexual, but the sexualities of both films, while consisting of similar players, seem to veer in different emotional directions.
Challengers is about adults who can never return to the teenage lust that built the lives that they lead now. Y Tu Mamá También is about teenagers yearning for maturity, and doing so through lust and pomp. Tenoch and Julio want to expedite their maturity and covet Luisa in the idyllic moments they have. Art and Patrick want to go back to that hotel room. Luisa passed away due to a pervasive cancer that she told no one about, living her life the way she wanted to up until the very end. Tashi’s life marches on before her very eyes, and her dreams have long since escaped her.
In my opinion, Luisa is far less nuanced a character than Tashi. She is an object of desire— an older, seemingly unattainable woman for the boys to chase after until she finally makes the decision to let them in. Tashi, while very different, is similar in that regard; she serves as the uniting force and the stabilizing element in the love triangle.
Tenoch and Julio’s influence can be seen in the first chronological chapter of Challengers— Art and Patrick are two horny teenage boys whose banter and physicality teeters the edge between homoerotic and homosocial.
If Luisa survived and things had gone differently, would she have “settled down” with one of the boys? If she didn’t have cancer, would she have returned with them and pursued a life with Tenoch or Julio?
I do not believe that she would have. Luisa is a free spirit, and originally only went on the trip with the boys as a sporadic choice, spawned from her husband’s infidelity. I believe that nothing would have changed between her and the boys’ public-facing relationship. Tenoch and Julio may have gone down the same path, having only reunited once, but I doubt that Luisa would have joined them.
Tashi is different. She had Patrick, then she chose Art— and if she could have tennis, she’d leave everything behind. However, I firmly believe that she loves both men. I believe that she, and both Art and Patrick, are manipulative creatures, trying to toy with each other to earn what they desire. Patrick ignores his best friend’s desire in order to “win the girl.” Art chooses Tashi over his best friend. Tashi and Patrick continue to be lovers, however sporadic, behind Art’s back.
I think in a perfect world, Art, Tashi, and Patrick would all be able to go back to that moment the world stopped in the hotel room. For Tenoch, Luisa, and Julio, I do not believe a perfect world ever existed.
Y Tu Mamá También (2002) can be found on Hulu. Challengers (2024) can be found on Amazon Prime. I can be found scouring my local indie theatre’s screening calendar.