tu futuro en libertad o el libro del sexo...¡gratuito!

i'd never set foot in the museo de historia natural, a natural history museum ensconced in the second sector of chapultepec park in mexico city, until one sunday afternoon earlier this month. i went there to attend a special event/performance for children/youth by jesusa rodríguez, which was to take place in the museum's sala del universo that, i should mention, has not changed at all since the museum opened in 1964, during the adolfo lópez mateos sexenio; its loveliness resides in its unintentional retro feel. as most, if not all of her performances, rodríguez's show, "el libro del sexo gratuito," used political satire to make a comment on the recently released book by mexico city mayor, marcelo ebrard, tu futuro en libertad: por una sexualidad y salud reproductiva con responsabilidad. this book, which has caused much controversy, was published by the government of mexico city and is to be or is being distributed to third year secundaria students, as well as those attending preparatoria (i.e. high school-aged youth). get yours free here or here:



in typical rodríguez fashion, the performance, even from its very title, offers up that witticism that has marked her political cabaret performances for over twenty years. that is, "el libro del sexo gratuito" can be read two ways, "the free book about sex" or "the book about gratuitous sex"...jejejejesusa! it's a one-woman show where rodríguez impersonates (i know, wrong word), i should say parodies elba ester gordillo; her character, elba estéril, stands in front of her class in the appropriately semi-lit room to (mis-)educate the children of mexico city about all things related to sexuality. here's a snippet, where, as you'll see/hear, rodríguez doesn't skip a beat and makes a comment regarding the much-discussed proposal ("reform") that would begin to privatize pemex.


[i apologize for the quality of the video, i have an old camera w/no lights, plus the room was very dark, something that rodríguez used to her advantage by saying that sex and discussions about sexuality in the mexican context are most often kept in the dark.]


p.s.a few weeks ago mexican journalist patricia vega published an essay in emeequis about the controversy of tu futuro en libertad that included an interview with guillermo bustamante manilla. in this interview the leader of the UNPF (unión nacional de padres de familia), a very conservative catholic right-wing organization, states that tu futuro en libertad basically promotes "a culture of death." what would jejejesusa say in regard to this? i'm sure she's integrated the controversy that came about after the book's release in her subsequent performances of "el libro del sexo gratuito."



p.s. #2 updated on sept. 3

i wonder if ms. palin reads spanish. probably not, huh? it may be worthwhile to translate tu futuro en libertad for her and her loved ones. or not, it may be too late; from indexed.

in santa's chimalistac: a photoblog essay

i've often wondered if MYTH is an appropriate descriptor for santa, the fictional character that emerged in novelistic fashion from the mind and pen of federico gamboa. the novel, published in 1903 and considered the first bestseller in mexican literary history, has also 'inspired' one song* and four film adaptations, all of which also carry the title of santa, as the novel. but more importantly, santa is the mold by which the paradigmatic figure of the "noble prostitute," a fixture in mexico's cultural imaginary, was cast.

[fig 1. one of the most prevalent visual and aural images in mexico is of the female prostitute beneath a street lamp; see andrea palma's character in la mujer del puerto. this is my 'take' of santa under the 'farol'. in chimalistac, santa has a street named after her. click to enlarge this and all images included here.]

santa was engendered by gamboa from his memories of having lived in chimalistac, once a small sleepy town south of mexico city, but because of the mega-growth thing that happened around the middle of the twentieth century, now lies in the southern part of the megalopolis, adjacent to (or in the outer limits of) san ángel.

[fig 2. a shot of a tiled depiction in the paseo del río of what el río magdalena in chimalistac might have looked during santa's life...now the river's dried up.]

i won't get into plot details, but suffice it to say that it was from chimalistac that santa was expelled by her family after a soldier, who had 'dishonored' her, also shun her (or refused to marry her). santa then traveled to mexico's capital city where her only "option" to make a living was to become a prostitute.

[fig 3. one of the bridges that went over the now dried-up river magdalena, where santa was dishonored by the soldier. can you see the couple making out? things never change.]

because of santa's literary success--blows the mind in a country that was mostly illiterate then!--gamboa was not only honored with a street named after him, but also got his own plaza in chimalistac, around the parish of san sebastián.

[fig 4. cross streets by the plaza federico gamboa.]

of the four film adaptations, the most famous and best regarded is the 1932 version directed by antonio moreno and starring lupita tovar as santa. the grandmother of those boys that brought you american pie, but that's another story. as i was saying: moreno's version also holds the honor of being the first talkie in mexican film history...hearing santa speak in melodramatic tone probably added more than one brick in the construction project to build this 20th century myth.

[fig 5. the plaque that gamboa read to tovar when they met, before the filming of moreno's version of santa.]

tovar herself traveled to mexico--she had already immigrated to hollywood and was working in the relatively short-lived spanish language film industry there--to meet with gamboa in the very plaza that carries the writer's name. and even went to meet the woman that inspired the character santa, emeteria, who was in her 70's by then. for more on this meeting go here. and to hear a relatively recent interview with tovar click here.**

[fig 6. the iconic franciscan cross that stands in the plaza a few feet in front of the very quaint parroquia de san sebastián where my favorite scene of the 1932 version was shot.]

* a few verses of the agustín lara composition inspired by santa.

Santa, santa mía
mujer que brilla
en mi existencia
Santa, sé mi guía
en el triste calvario del vivir.

Aparta de mi senda
todas las espinas;
calienta con tus besos
mi desilusión.
Santa, sé mi guía
alumbra con tu luz
mi corazón.

**picture of lupita tovar, "mexico's sultry screen 'sweetheart'" at 97 holding an original santa film poster (photo by stephen shugerman)

queering el taller mecánico, 'down argentine way'

"chica de calendario." i first heard this song by kumbia queers when somehow i stumbled on their myspace page, let's call it research. somehow these punkrockeras-turned-cumbiamberas are connected to me through those six degrees of queer separation. i donwloaded the song "chica de calendario" (oh and "la isla con chicas") to my ipod and have been listening to it (on and off) for a few months.



then i saw that the "chica de calendario" video was posted on youtube. i watched with similar delight as i had listened. fascinated by the way that this all-girl self-defined 'punk tropical' band had re-signified the hyper-masculine working class space of the mechanic shop, particularly its penchant for semi-nude calendar girls, and, oh yes, grease, lots of grease. and i laughed, of course, but always being conscious of these dykes's own level of consciousness. even their name's playing on the tejano kumbia kings group. have a look/listen:



this band of mostly former (and current) queer punk rockers is also, to my surprise, mostly made up of argentines (save one of the lead singers, whose mexican and sings in "chica de calendario"). but what throws me off is listening to the afore-mentioned "la isla con chicas," which sounds alot like "la isla bonita"...all the "yo's" become "sho's" and you hear "sheno" and "sha"...i confess, not used to argentine's digging cumbia, then i came across this podcast one day when i was cruising by the fine colectivo la tribu. which led me to this one; turns out that during the argentine 'dirty war' cumbia was used to ease the pain. so this is a post on re-thinking 'cumbia' and 'argentina.' so argentine cumbia has a bit more nuances than i was aware of...

racial DIS-comforts

the afro-mexican historieta (or comic book, or simply, cómic) character memín pinguín runs for president and he pisses people off. in a texas walmart, no less. and the webs of signification begin to spin. [btw, the tome was actually published in mexico during the presidential elections there, remember 2006? but what's interesting is the context in which it's being "read" w/out translation or with bad translation (transnationalism, sigh!!)] in today's la jornada newspaper, the editorial director that publishes the comic, and son to Memín's creator Yolanda Vargas Dulché, said in a comuniqué:

“Es increíble que protesten contra Memín Pinguín, personaje que lucha contra la discriminación y que resalta la belleza espiritual por encima del aspecto físico, pero no dicen nada contra algunas de las películas de Eddie Murphy que se venden también en Wal-Mart y que, ésas sí, ridiculizan a los afroestadunidenses con personajes que se convierten en mujeres de más de 400 kilogramos de peso. Tenemos tres años de vender las historietas de Memín Pinguín en Estados Unidos y nunca habíamos tenido problemas. Pero, al parecer, algunos tienen sus motivos políticos y se empeñan en ver racismo donde no lo hay”.

read the full jornada story here.

p.s. the coverage in the u.s. press pretty much looks likes this guanabee post, but they have a video that's interesting.

homoeroticism in mexican pop culture

those of you familiar with the hays code may also know that a similar code was put in place by the mexican film industry.

the very conservative legión mexicana de la decencia, a religious right organization whose aim was to monitor 'good morals,' helped to establish the código (moral) de producción cinematográfica in mexico during the avila camacho sexenio [his wife, btw, was a member of the legión]. it stipulated the following in regard to cinematic representations of "los pervertidos":

"Tanto en hombres como en mujeres, es en sí un tema prohibido, aun cuando no se muestre al pervertido y solamente se hable de él o se hagan alusiones vagas, inclusive en tono de comedia. A los efectos de cuanto establece este inciso, se considerará como homosexual la conducta de dos personas del mismo sexo que muestre exceso de caricias o mimos, o con celos, un sentimiento que la historia no justifique plenamente con carácter elevado."

while it may be a considered a relic, or even a symbol of mexico's folkloric past, i'd argue that the code's vestiges are still very much present in contemporary mass culture, albeit in contradictory and even hypocritical ways. anne rubenstein's book opens with one such contemporary case: pop star gloria trevi's controversial calendario. the introduction to her cultural history of historietas help solidify my argument:



so why am i writing about what could be easily googled? well, it's just that during this summer, on and off, i've been tuning into the latest successful televisa telenovela production being shown in univisión at 8pm, fuego en la sangre. i won't get into the details of the recycled narrative and formulaic plot structure. for that you can go here.

but i do have to say that i'm completely fascinated by the level of visible homoerotic content in this novela. there is a gay character in fuego, but for the homoerotic content we'd need to look elsewhere, not the open (to the televisual spectator) relationship of this character (whose name i can't remember) with another man. that is, he does pronounce his love to his male partner, but always with a few feet of distance between them. the titillating same-sex homoerotic visual content takes place between the protagonist and his two brothers (and the camera, of course). fuego en la sangre is not necessarily groundbreaking in its depiction of coded same-sex desire, during the height of the código (1940s-1950s) the buddy movies featuring actors like pedro infante and jorge negrete were particularly prevalent; case and point dos tipos de cuidado. for more on this see sergio de la mora's book:



but with fuego televisa does push the very boundaries that had helped to contain it for decades. check out the scene of the three reyes brothers swimming:



btw, when this episode was aired on univisión the naked butts of the reyes were blurred.

"noches árabes al pastor" in tepoztlán

during the summer of 2006 the folks gathered at the annual meeting of the tepoztlán institute for the transnational history of the americas were treated, for one night, to a political cabaret performance piece by jesusa rodríguez and company. noches árabes al pastor is, according to la jornada newspaper, a theatrical-musical spectacle about the "awkward" [my word] relationship between mexicans and their body, as well as discussing HIV prevention. inspired by the one thousand and one nights collection of stories, rodríguez et. al. spin the story of how princess reshazada tells stories to sultan charriar and aids him in feeling comfortable with his own body and finding sexual identity. this is all done in the form of political satirical sketches, interspersed with musical and dance numbers. check out the parody of the 'dance of the seven veils' below:



while most of the public appreciated and applauded jesusa rodríguez and co. for coming to tepoztlán in the middle of a busy week, they also caused a bit of apprehension among us-based and trained scholars too aware of racism against african americans in their context. [an aside: jesusa had been working unrelentlessly in mexico city, organizing politico-theatrical protests and aiding the efforts in trying to get the votes recounted during the presidential elections of 2006.] however, among this crowd, who was delighted at sexuality being deconstructed before their ("our") eyes, 'discomfort' did occur. one such moment occured when jesusa rodriguez pulled out a memín pinguín doll out of a box and made him dance while regina orozco sang a francisco gabilondo soler (aka cri-cri) children's classic, "negrito bailarín." see video below:



in the following days of conversations among the scholars present at that summer's institute, minstrelsy and blackface were words often used to describe what they saw. while some knew who memín pinguín was, because they had grown up reading his historietas ("comic books") or because of the "stamp controversy" a year before, some were unfamiliar with his 'stamp' in mexican cultural production. still one of the operative words to describe what had happened was "stereotype." this entry is but a signal to a much-needed intervention and is but a work in progress. and here i'd want to join the ranks of dr. nericcio, and would like to attempt to unpack the intricacies of doing transnational academic work on cultural and racial stereotypes. it's one of my tasks at hand for the upcoming months, if not years.

posdata: i should have said something about smugudrú's dance...

unsettling comforts

bienvenidas y bienvenidos

on the right is political cabaretera astrid hadad. she is singing the chucho monge ranchera classic, "pa' qué me sirve la vida" ("what's life good for?"). she is donning typical china poblana garb, but, the rebel that she is, in untypical fashion. the color of choice here is black...the color of mourning.

NAFTA has passed and brought with it GMOs, including transgenic maize...

she is, as i write in Unsettling Comforts, my forthcoming book, a transtortillera.

thanks to billy "memo" nericcio for providing me with such a fab picture and, while your at it, visit his digs tex[t]-mex gallery blog.