ABSTRACT
For many scholars concerned with queer issues, the title of this essay may sound like a sacrilege to queer politics, since “queer” and “parenthood” are not supposed to belong in the same sentence. Discussions of the meaning of parenthood for non-heterosexual subjects in Spain and elsewhere have typically pivoted around the issue of homonormativity; that is, the perception that the pursuit of legal advances such as marriage and adoption rights by same-sex couples has resulted in an assimilation of LGBT populations into normative society and, thereby, in an unfortunate weakening of their queer potential.1 In this essay, I want to show how recent Spanish cinema challenges these assumptions about gay parenthood by focusing on Cachorro/ Bear Cub (Miguel Albaladejo, 2004) and Spinnin’ (Eusebio Pastrana, 2008). What I nd compelling about these two lms is that they present how gay male parenthood can redene social relations by creating alternative, not necessarily blood-related family units, without omitting to offer nonmainstream modalities of masculinity and erotic practices. My main argument is that these two Spanish lms show that gay parenthood does not inevitably lead to the end of the queer potential of the LGBT community to disrupt conventional social models such as the nuclear family, hegemonic masculinity, and vanilla sexuality. In fact, it transforms the conventional understandings and cinematic treatments of parenthood and masculinity. But before I embark on analyzing these two lms, I will outline and interrogate the main theoretical disagreements that queer theory has posed to queers’ concern with family kinship and social attachments in general.
