Speaking Like Violence: Rewatching Perras (2011)

Rewatching Perras (2011), Guillermo Ríos’s Mexican psychological-drama, I realized the film is not just about ten girls locked in a classroom--it’s about the world that put them there. The first

time I watched it, I remember the noise more than anything--the yelling, the insults, the tension

that never seemed to settle. It felt chaotic.

Having grown up within the Mexican education system myself, watching Perras now feels

familiar--not identical, but recognizable. It doesn’t feel like an attack--it feels like a recognition.

At first glance, the film feels contained: ten students, one classroom, one incident. But that

containment is misleading. What unfolds inside that classroom reflects pressures beyond it--

family, class, authority, and how young women are watched and judged.

Each girl reflects a different relationship to the world. Sofía moves with a sense of control tied toprivilege and access. La Tora comes from a more modest background, holding onto the

importance of her quinceañera even when others dismiss it. María del Mar exists in a fragile

space defined by silence and fear. Andrea is shaped by distance and longing for her mother. Iris

insists on truth, but uses it in ways that isolate her. Diana observes and reads others carefully,

almost uncomfortably so. Frida leans into sexuality as both expression and defense. Alejandra

tries to maintain normalcy. Patricia exists on the margins until she is forced into visibility.

Together, they refuse a single narrative.

The classroom itself begins to feel less like a neutral space and more like an extension of larger structures--places where authority exists, but understanding doesn't always follow. When

something serious happens, the response is not centered on clarity, but on control. What matters

is restoring order, even if that means settling on an “official version” rather than the full truth.

This is most visible through María del Mar’s storyline. What begins as rumor shifts into

something much heavier--an attempted abortion using a “ganchito” (metal hanger). When she

dies from bleeding out in the school bathroom, the weight of everything the girls have been

saying changes. The moment is devastating not only because of what happens, but because of

how unprepared everyone is to respond.

Language drives everything. The girls speak in insults, jokes, rumors, and confessions,

constantly shaping each other through words. This becomes especially clear in the scene where

Andrea breaks down. When she’s asked why she’s crying, she snaps back--“¿Qué te importa?”--

trying to hold her ground. But the moment quickly shifts when it’s revealed that her mother is in

a mental institution. What follows is not concern, but mockery. The girls begin to twist the

situation, correcting each other, exaggerating details, and turning Andrea’s vulnerability into

something to laugh at. They suggest she confess to the incident in exchange for money to visit

her mother, then escalate into cruel jokes about electroshocks and lobotomies. At one point, they

chant, “te cortan un pedacito del cerebro para que te alivianes” (they cut a small piece of your

brain to calm you down), repeating it until it becomes rhythmic. The line is extreme, but it’s

delivered casually, even playfully. That’s what makes it unsettling. It reflects how ideas of

control--over behavior, over the body, over emotion--can become normalized in everyday

language, especially when filtered through group dynamics that reward and celebrate cruelty.

Even moments that feel lighter carry that same tension. I must confess: I still sing “Las Super

Ponedoras” occasionally. It’s playful, exaggerated, almost absurd. But within the film, it

becomes something else--a performance. The girls step into it, repeat it, embody it. It reflects a

version of femininity that feels learned as much as it is expressed.

Perras ultimately moves beyond the question of who is responsible. It asks something more

difficult: what conditions make this possible? Instead, it leaves you with fragments--

conversations, contradictions, and the uneasy sense that what happens in that classroom is not as

contained as it first appears.

The classroom is not just a room--it reflects something larger. And the girls are not just reacting

to each other--they are responding to a world that is already shaping them in ways they are still

trying to understand.

Still curious to find out who did it? You can watch the full film online--with subtitles--and

decide for yourself.