Comparing Elephant (2003) and Y tu mama Tambien (2001) in relation to the theme 'outsiders'

In what ways do the films Elephant and Y tu mama Tambien present the idea of 'outsiders'?

-comparison, analysis, and auteur's intentions

As great examples of Independent filmmaking, Gus Van Sant's 'Elephant' and Alfonso Cuaron's 'Y tu mama Tambien' are able to showcase great character dynamics, narrative, and powerful societal messages with their distinctive - largely documentary-style - cinematography, casual mise-en-scene, and largely impromptu performances. With this freedom in filmmaking, both respective auteurs are able to explore the foundational theme of 'outsiders' - acting as a stimulus for a lot of the narrative arcs within characters - in unique, sincere, and unambiguous ways, making the issues explored impactful and thought-provoking to the audience. 'Elephant' presents 'outsiders' in a more direct way than Y tu mama Tambien, with the director Van Sant having acknowledged his intentions to present various character archetypes of American high school, in which there are various social hierarchies and thus social exclusions of the unpopular characters, such as Michelle, and a wider study on the alienation of highs school students within an unresponsive society, represented by the adult figures. Yet this is not told to the audience, and unlike Y tu mama Tambien, there is no omniscient voiceover to help us understand the contexts of character intentions, motivations, or actions; instead, we are left powerless watching through the constantly unmanipulated camerawork, often tracking characters as they go about their school day. Therefore the spectator must decode their own conclusions from the director's choices, perhaps in relation to their own background, acting as an active spectator in relation to Stuart Hall's theory. Y tu mama Tambien, in contrast, is more ambiguous with its presentation of 'outsiders', having less distinct social hierarchies in its protagonists - although of course, there are political ones - and social isolation, favouring a general societal critique on sexuality, gender, and politics in which the spectator is included to confront. In terms of characters, the three protagonists Julio, Tenoch, and Luisa, each have their own outsider perspective and placement within the immediate narrative and wider society of mostly gender expectations against the backdrop of their (2000s) Mexican culture. Both films present their outsider figures sympathetically, often hinting to the spectator, or offering, potential reasons for their alienation in relation to the contextual environments of their film's creation.

Both films have their teenage characters confined by social expectations or are prohibited from expressing their true feelings. Based on the events of the 1999 Columbine school shooting, Van Sant's Elephant explores this through the most prominent character, John. For example, when blamed for being late for school even though it was his drunken father unable to drive him, he secludes himself away in an empty classroom, the camera taking a high angle position as he cries, making him seem weaker from our positioning as he hides his face, the wide framing emphasising his aloneness in the room. His friend Acadia comes and kisses him on the cheek, asking what's wrong, yet when he deflects, she pursues no further, accepting his grief rather than exploring it with him, much like how the adult figures do and therefore society; acknowledging there is something wrong within American youth, but failing to act. Perhaps Van Sant makes this distinction between the real events of the Columbine shooting, with high schoolers feeling outsiders from those adult figures they are supposed to be protected by. Most potently this is exampled as John stands outside while people run and scream from the school as it is being attacked by the two shooters; his dad stands awkwardly next to him, unafraid and apathetic to the situation, briefly patting him on the shoulder as an attempt to bridge the emotional distance between the two age groups. Similarly, within the 'gay-straight alliance group', a student is shot in the doorway, and all the teacher does is pull his fallen body away to see what happened, a line of blood staining the floor; even at this alarming image, the teacher is apathetic and unsure of how to approach the situation. Even the two outsider figures, Alex and Eric, who end up shooting the school have disconnected adult figures, such as when they eat breakfast, (assumedly) Alex's mother is always cut mostly out of the frame, not put to our focus, reflecting how they are ignored or disconnected from their lives despite Alex plausibly having mental health problems, evidenced as he roams the cafeteria, the sound becoming loud yet vague and muffled, diegetic to his experience as he blocks it out with his hands. Thus, no teenage character is void of this adult alienation, making them outsiders from the adult experience and interest. Y tu mama Tambien tackles this same concept through its parental figures, particularly in Tenoch's life. For example, his father is emotionally unavailable, a representation of the Mexican machismo domestic roles that both boys become outsiders to and the adult life they represent; the life they become almost forced into once the road trip ends, and Luisa dies, symbolically marking the end of their sexual exploration and adolescence.  When there is an absence of adult authority, the boys are immature, taking drugs, carefree and unrestrained. When viewing Tenoch's mother from the balcony, she is framed from a high angle, the boys largely unresponsive. It is interesting to see how she moves between stone squares, avoiding the grass below, as she talks, perhaps a metaphorical suggestion of how she is purposefully distanced from the real world, aided by the superficial communication with her son. This maternal distance is also supported by the fact, via the voiceover, we learn how Tenoch had called his immigrant nanny mother until he was four. Relating to his family's upper-class status, when Tenoch and Julio road trip with Luisa, they come across an indigenous, lower-class family whose family dynamics are humble and close, always framed together. Therefore this comparison distinguishes how Tenoch is an outsider figure from his own family as a result, perhaps, of his privileged upbringing. The narrator points out details largely irrelevant to the character's story, meaning they don't control our attention, and the camera moves away from them to focus on an external event, or event that will happen in the future, so we have an objective gaze on the characters, in much the same way to how Elephant approaches its characters. For example, while the two boys drive in the car, the camera moves away to focus on an immigrant who had been run over trying to safely get to work, Cuaron highlighting this class disparity in Mexico, making us forget the two naive, privileged teenagers through the interrupting voiceover, which adds another layer to their alienation from the real world in relation to their societal status. So: while the American youth in Elephant are subjected to the apathy of their adult society, the boys in Y tu mama Tambien are outsiders to the adult world around them also in conjunction with their social position; they see the world through their inexperienced, adolescent lens, out of touch with the underprivileged people constantly around them. 

Gender coincides with the social archetypes of high school in Elephant. The represented teenagers become so tied to their social presentations relative to their gender and archetype that they appear as vague concepts rather than real people, making them outsiders to the spectator, and thus we are outsiders to them as characters. For example, in a literal sense, the characters are confined within the two walls of the corridors as we track them walking through the school, metaphorically communicating how they are confined to the basic blueprint of their high school archetypes. Nathan and Benny represent the masculine jocks - these types of boys jostling with each other though noticeably separate from sentimental attachment. We track Nathan from the football pitch inside where we see three bulimic, socialite 'it-girls' (conscious of their appearance, gossiping and competing with each other)swoon over him, establishing these extremes of masculinity, femininity, and later heterosexuality as Nathan kisses his girlfriend, the angle close and the lighting dark and intimate. This is where the two school shooters, Alex and Eric subvert this establishment of gender. Van Sant introduces them in the same minimal preliminary as everyone else: we follow John outside where we see them both walking inside, geared up in militant clothing and carrying large duffel bags. This disrupts what we've seen in the introductory characters, yet there is no non-diegetic music to guide our emotional response or foreshadow this danger; we simply experience it as John does. Because their entrance is so outside what we've seen at the school, their clothing connotes violence rather than protection, and they are pushed as the new outsider figures to the spectator. Unlike Michelle, who has been presented as the outside figure from her lack of conformity to fashion, attitude, and social behaviour, Alex and Eric disturb the mundanity while simultaneously contributing to it from the lack of emotional guidance the film has given when introducing them. Relating to gender expectations, Alex and Eric don't conform to the same type of jock masculinity as their male peers, instead employing hyper-masculine violence. During the gay-straight-alliance meeting, the camera is placed in the centre of the conversation, moving in a slow 360-degree pan. The absence of reaction shots doesn't immerse us into this conversation but we are at the same time made the centre of it enough to make connections with their assumptions about LGBT people, relating it to how their descriptions don't fit in with Alex or Eric despite them sharing a kiss in the shower. Similarly, in Y tu mama Tambien, the two male leads are confined within their gender expectations in relation to their machismo Mexican culture. They are driven by sex, viewing women as sexual exploits and achievements. While the film is presented from a male perspective, unlike Elephant's objective, distanced view of the characters, the spectator realises that most of the shots are told from Luisa's point of view, and her objectification is only exploited by the boys' gaze, while through the documentary-style cinematography she is shown empathy and respect; she is allowed the space to cry alone and grieve for herself and relationships rather than just function as an object for the boys to gain maturity from. This is most poignant when her sadness is contrasted with the boys' juvenile behaviour, such as when she cries in a phone box to her husband, while the boys play Foosball in the glass reflection - she is literally presented as an outsider through imagery, separated in the composition as she is through emotion. She, through her sexual maturity and coming to terms with her terminal illness, allows the boys to slowly come out of their outsider positioning within their gendered culture. The beach (imagined by the boys in order to take advantage of Luisa's offer in travelling with them, therefore taking advantage of her potential offering of female sexuality) acts as a physical metaphor for each character's self-discovery. For the boys, this discovery was never realised before embarking on the journey, so when they arrive at the first beach they come across, they are disappointed because they never had a real intention other than gaining sex from Luisa during the journey to 'Heavens Mouth'- they hadn't anticipated a realistic fracturing of their masculinity brought about by Luisa's sexual experience, nor a confrontation at their repressed homosexual desires. Thus, they feel lost once they reach this destination as it acts as a metaphor for their coming-of-age story where they are faced with the harsh realities of adulthood rather than their perceived expectations of macho manhood in sexually conquering an older woman. On the other hand, Luisa feels at peace once she sees the beach, with the camera lingering on her reaction and embarking on the water, finally feeling free from both her gendered expectations of sexuality when with the boys, and her own sense of mortality from her illness. Her single shots inside the water make the spectator finalise her character as an outsider, feeling at peace with herself rather than confined to her expectations.

Luisa in Y tu mama Tambien represents the parental figure the two boys needed in order for them to explore their identity, both in terms of maturity and sexuality. This is because, unlike Elephant, I believe she is the most prominent outsider figure. When she is introduced at a wedding, it is in a (dirty) single shot, positioned on the far left on the balcony overlooking the bull-fighting ring, alone from seeking company, and therefore separate from the socialites around her. The two boys approach her, slowly hounding in, the camera getting closer as we feel Luisa becoming smaller and more confined by the boy's expectations of macho manhood in sexually conquering an older woman. It is interesting to consider Luisa's positioning again during the final scene; when she was present in the boys' lives, a transformation was occurring within them, yet when she exits, they turn back to how their life would have been anyway despite her interference; they have entered a new equilibrium as their lives have changed since the road-trip, yet nothing about their individual character's have fundamentally altered even though they were confronted with culturally transgressive change - instead, they choose to reject it in favour of continuing their expected paths constructed by social/cultural normalities. In comparison, Elephant also finishes its unconventional narrative unexpectedly, perhaps more realistic as the camera simply retreats from the final shot of Alex threatening to shoot Nathan and his girlfriend before transitioning to a blue sky; a repetition of the film's opening; we are not invited to feel the difference between this horrific shooting and the life that existed before it. Thus this connection shows how the world continues despite this great, horrific change within the characters' lives, much like how the boys in Y tu mama Tambien enter a type of adulthood unsuited to them once Luisa has died. 

independent films are generally more realistic, so these endings while unsatisfying - depending on each spectator - for the spectator they are realistic representations of real-life respective to each film's contexts: Tambien - Cuaron is showing Mexico then, in a place where gender (machismo)and expectations (tenoch economic status) and politics (class disparity) are as they are shown in the film; Cuaron is not attempting to solve the issues but he is showcasing them to an audience, the ungratifying conclusion provoking us to engage with the issues. similarly, in elephant, the horror of the shooting is presented to an audience without any sensationalised camerawork, editing, or sound,

contexts of each film is represented by its outsider figures 

elephant - Alex and eric are most prominent, alienated by peers, but on a wider level all high schoolers shown are alienated by adult authority - a critique on how American youth feel isolated, furthered by the event of columbine and the continuous issue of school shootings. 

Tambien - tenoch and julio are restricted in machismo roles, emotional absence from adult/parental figures and adolescence fear of expected adult paths - this is why they are so childish and immature, a complete juxtaposition at the end. Luisa is restricted in her social settings (middle/upper class Spain)- introductory shot and voiceover details, as well as gender. male gaze, sexual exploit.