Abstract
Pixote, a lei do mais fraco (1980) is a Brazilian film set in a juvenile detention center, often analyzed for its critique of authoritarianism and police brutality. By contrast, the film's exploration of gender and sexuality has received little scholarly attention. In this article, I examine how the central characters form an alternative family that subverts dominant Western bourgeois ideals of childhood and motherhood. Drawing on gender studies and queer theory-particularly the concepts of queer temporalities and alternative kinship-I analyze the development of the queer character Lilica, arguing that she embodies and disrupts the Christian figure of the Pietà. By analyzing her mourning of a lover's death and her performance of Caetano Veloso's "Força estranha," I suggest that Lilica emerges as a nonnormative maternal figure for the protagonist. As such, this article contributes to a deeper understanding of the film's social dimensions. country's military dictatorship, it provided a raw depiction of the conditions faced by children living in the streets. The actor Fernando Ramos da Silva was only twelve years old when Babenco cast him in the lead role. Da Silva lived in Diadema, on the outskirts of São Paulo, and was not a professional actor. His real life closely mirrored that of the titular character, as both were children from the periphery who faced poverty and social inequality. Based on José Louzeiro's book Infância dos mortos (1977) , the film follows young offenders imprisoned in a juvenile detention center in São Paulo. After the children escape, the story shifts to their struggles to survive through theft and drug dealing. Tragically, just a few years after portraying Pixote, Da Silva himself became a victim of the violent world depicted in the film, killed by the police on August 25, 1987 (Barcellos 252 ). In the film, Da Silva starred alongside Jorge Julião, who played Lilica-a character with a fluid gender identity, at times appearing to be a homosexual cisgender man, at other times presenting more as a heterosexual transgender woman. At seventeen, Lilica commands respect from the younger children in the detention center, positioning herself as a figure of authority. Assigned male at birth, Lilica gradually embraces a female identity over the course of the film. I do not seek to impose an identity category on this character, particularly given the way terminology used by queer and trans people has developed since the film was made in the early 1980s. 1 What is most significant for my purposes is Lilica's subversive performance of gender and sexuality, as she emerges as a maternal figure protecting Pixote. In this article, I argue that Babenco's film presents a counterhegemonic representation of motherhood, assigning the role of a nurturing mother to Lilica, thereby disrupting heteronormative expectations and queering the structures of the bourgeois family. My analysis focuses on two pivotal moments in the narrative: Lilica's mourning of her lover's death in a pose reminiscent of the Christian Pietà, 1 In Nossos corpos também mudam (2011), Jorge Leite Jr. examines the origin and development of the concepts of "travesti" and "transexual," arguing that throughout history definitions of bodies and sexual identities have not been fixed and definitive; rather, they vary according to the groups and discourses within the domains of medicine, religion, and politics. This analysis helps us understand that, in many cases, there are no clear boundaries among the self-identifications of individuals who define themselves as travestis, transexuais, gay men, drag queens, cross-dressers, or transformistas, among others. In Brazil, the term "travesti" embodies this fluidity of categories and has been historically associated with the stigmas of marginality and sex work. For a detailed study of this concept in the Brazilian context, see Don Kulick's Travesti. and her performance of Caetano Veloso's song "Força estranha" for Pixote, which symbolizes maternal protection. To develop my argument, I first provide a literature review of the film, along with a theoretical overview of the concepts of childhood and motherhood from the perspective of gender and sexuality studies. I then explore how the film challenges traditional representations of childhood as a time of safety and innocence. Finally, I examine the Christian image of the Pietà to highlight Lilica's nonnormative maternal presence, using Veloso's lyrics as a lens to interpret her role in the plot.
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