"The Secret of the Greco Family": Lesbian Text, Gay/Bi Subtexts in a Kidnapping Family in 1980s Mexico

 In the promo to Mexican series The Secret of the Greco Family, a middle-aged man in a ritzy kitchen puts on a ski mask and takes a tray of food down a secret staircase.  I think "100 to 1 he's got a girl tied up down there."  Surprise!  It's a guy! 

 There's no big mystery -- the guy is being held for ransom -- but just having a Man in Distress instead of a Damsel incites my interest.  

Problem: this tv series is based on a real kidnapping family in Argentina in the 1980s, so there will doubtless be no gay characters.  Maybe some daring boy-on-boy rescues, though.

Scene 1: Tribune of Justice, Jalisco, Mexico, 1985.  Andres Greco (Manuel Masalva, top photo), a  bearded young man,  is interrogated by the police.  He claims that he had no choice: his father forced him. The interrogator: "Gustavo Balbuena tells us that you were in charge of the gate, so you could have helped Gael escape at any time."  

As Andres is led out of the interrogation room, he runs away, jumps from a second-story gallery, and crashes into a glass display case below.  He's still alive, but severely injured.

Scene 2:  Flashback.  Andres playing polo, the Sport of Kings.  He and his teammates frolick naked in the showers (bare butts, no cocks), then get dressed and head into a small party at the country club.  

He kisses his girlfriend and shakes hands with Gael Espinoza, the future kidnapping victim.  Gael (Junior Pisanu) seems a bit feminine, dressed all in pink, with a sweater wrapped around his neck.   Maybe he's gay-coded?  Nope, he compliments Andres on having "pretty sisters."  

He offers to give Andres and his girlfriend a ride home. They have no car?  I thought they were rich.

Scene 3:  The upper-middle class Greco house.  Mom and a daughter are cooking, and another daughter, Abril, is roller-skating.  Andres and his girlfriend enter, and get grabbed by brother Dario (Alejandro de Hojos, bottom two photos), on a surprise visit home (he lives in Baja California).  

Scene 4: Andres wonders why Dad (Fernando Calunga, left, old photo) is hiding out in the bathroom, smoking and drinking but not...you know.  He explains: "In the life of every man, there is a moment of lucidity where you can choose your destiny or remain a nobody forever."   That doesn't explain the bathroom, dude.  After several epigrams of a similar nature, Andres asks why Dad sent brother Dario a letter saying he was in bad health, when he's fine.

Scene 5: Apparently Dad didn't answer (except in epigram): Dario and Andres are discussing the mystery.  Andres tells a story of the epigrams Dad delivered back when he went to the Open with Prince Charles (whew, this guy is gliterati). Sister Abril comes in and complains that Andres is always being featured in teen magazines.  They frolick.

Meanwhile, Dad gets ready for bed.  A closeup of his bare foot.  He steps on a cockroach, then decides to let it go and says "Goodnight, Beautiful"  Is he talking to the cockroach or his wife? 

Scene 6: In the morning, they sit down to breakfast. Dad compliments Abril on how beautiful she is (creepy, dude!).  

A young nun arrives for older sister Sabrina; Mom sends her upstairs to wake her up.  Whoa, and she does: the two girls caress each other's faces.  They are secret forbidden lovers!   

Scene 7: Dad takes daughter Abril into the basement bathroom and instructs her to scream, while older daughter Sabrina listens upstairs in the kitchen.  Very creepy!  Andres, still in his underwear (bulge shot), wants to know what's going on.  Dad won't say.

Scene 8: Dad in his office.  He has just told son Dario about The Project, but he won't tell Andres until the right moment: "When the boy is playing polo, he's something, but off the horse, he's nothing,  But you're ok.  You understand."

Scene 9: A party at Andres' house, the women in skimpy bikinis, the men fully clothed except Gael, the rich kid, wears his shirt open.  He and Andres discuss business ideas, then dance, snort cocaine, and make plans to go on go-karts.  Weirdly childish, but apparently Gael has a dedicated go-kart track on his estate.  

Scene 10: Andres awakens in his bedroom.  Dad sits at the foot of his bed, giving himself a foot rub. That's the second close-up of Dad's bare feet in 17 minutes.  Does someone have a fetish?   

He circumambulates about the Project: "I have a lot of debt, and people are threatening to hurt your sisters. Do terrible things to them.  When I was a cop, I arrested a lot of kidnappers, but they were clumsy and did a bad job.  We won't make mistakes."   

Next he justifies the kidnapping by pointing out that the rich got that way by exploiting the poor.  It's only just to take some of their money.  I'm confused.  Isn't Dad rich?  He lives in a mansion, and his son plays polo with Prince Charles.  Finally he asks Andres to choose one of his rich friends to become the victim.

Scene 11: Church.  The Nun and Older Sister Sabrina are sitting together. Dad and brother Dario take the consecrated host in their hands instead of their mouths.  I'm not sure why this is significant.   

Afterwards, Andres, Sabrina, and their romantic partners flirt in the town square.  Dad's friends offers to set him up in business, but he refuses.  That's two people who have offered to help the family financially.  I think Dad and Dario just like the idea of committing a crime.

Scene 12: Dad discussing logistics of The Project with Dario and two older guys.  Andres has the job of luring Gael to the pickup spot.  

Meanwhile, Mom and her friend Lupe are taking tennis lessons and discussing how handsome their instructor is.   Andres arrives just as they leave, enters the country club, sees Gael, and feels guilty.  He goes home, where the gang is preparing the victim's cell and the van, and lies down on his bed, feeling guilty.

Scene 13: Morning.  Dad criticizes younger daughter Abril for wearing her skirt too short.  Andres goes to a party at Gael's house, and runs into his Uncle Hugo, Dad's partner from when he was a cop.  Five parties so far, and this is the first where Gael is shown with a girl.   

Andres asks Gael "Are you busy?", and he responds: "No.  Shall we all head upstairs?"  Flashing signficant looks, Andres, Gael, and the Girl head upstairs -- for a three way?  So Andres and Gael are bi?

Meanwhile, Dad and the gang argue over how to split the money.  Dad wants a larger portion, since his sons are involved, too.

Scene 14:  Older sister Sabrina and her nun-girlfriend are doing girl stuff when Andres stops by the room with his shirt off, to see if he turns on the nun.  He does.  Then Mom drags Sabrina off to a massage session, in spite of her protest that she wants to stay home...in an empty house...with her girlfriend.  

While the women get massages, Dad and Andres start the kidnapping.  "He won't be a good victim.  He knows Uncle Hugo, your old cop partner."  Dad is upset, but it's too late to choose another victim now.

Everyone waits in their separate cars and van for Gael to drive by and see Andres on the street.  He explains that he's waiting for his girlfriend to get out of class.  Gael offers him a ride.  Suddenly the guys put a bag on Gael's head, punch him, and drag him into the van, where they use chloroform to knock him out.  But won't he wonder why Andres didn't intervene?  

Andres runs home and opens the gate so they can drag Gael in, then starts crying.  Dad orders him to go to the club for polo training, like usual.

Scene 15:  Polo training, followed by nude-butt showering.  Dad and Dario are back home, watching tv. The women return from their day-long massage and begin preparing dinner.  Andres returns from practice, glances at the hidden door, and feels guilty.  They sit down to dinner, and say the Lord's Prayer.  The end.

I fast-forwarded through the rest of the series.

Beefcake: Mostly Andres, showering, in underwear, and having sex with two women in various positions.  

Foot Fetish: One or more closeups of a man's bare feet in most episodes.

Gay Characters:  Older daughter and nun have a canonical gay relationship, complete with kissing.  

No more hints that Andres is bisexual, at least none that I could see by fast-forwarding.

Dario is never shown interacting with women, and seems to be falling in love with kidnapping victim Gael:   "We talked all day.  When I wake up in the morning, the only thing I can think of is seeing him again."  He also flirts with the second kidnapping victim (and tickles his bare feet, of course).  It remains subtext, although the scene where he practices oral sex on a banana comes close to text.