Blackouts

Nene’s golden crucifix necklace, which he believes to have been Juan’s, represents both conscious and subconscious concerns. In the present, Nene notices the crucifix’s absence: After 10 years of wearing it, he cannot remember when it disappeared. He doesn’t remember acquiring the crucifix, either, having found it in his effects after leaving the psychiatric hospital. The crucifix reappears days after Nene escapes a mugging, reinforcing it as a religious symbol that casts Juan as a guardian: The crucifix appears when Juan is no longer present to look out for Nene, but disappears when Juan reenters his life.

Juan frames the crucifix as a “fetish”—which can either denote an object of reverence or a specific sexual preference—reinforcing it as a symbol of Nene’s conflicted feelings about his sexuality. He recalls staring at a crucifix in a moment of sexual awakening, while he was inconveniently among extended family. The crucifix—associated with the desexualized body of Jesus Christ—serves as a distraction from a new arrival, a “beautiful” man whom Nene “should not” stare at. Nene’s loss of the crucifix as he reunites with Juan and learns about queer history thus represents a shedding of this shame.