The Political Economy of Puto: Soccer, Masculinities, and Neoliberal Transformation in Mexico

Abstract

Since the 2014 World Cup, “eh puto,” a soccer chant used by Mexican fans, has received an enormous amount of international attention. Critics condemn it as a homophobic epithet equivalent to “fag,” while defenders maintain it is comparable to calling someone stupid or cowardly. Media coverage and scholarly discussion almost exclusively centers on this limited framing of the debate, reinforcing the stereotype that Mexican culture is more anti-gay than the United States and other Western nations. This article takes a different approach and uses the chant as an opportunity to explore the influence of political economy on gender arrangements and social hierarchies, including sexualities as sites of situated meaning in Mexico. We theorize the masculinist and homophobic valences of “eh puto” as a reaction to and relational dimension of men’s experiences of neoliberalism in Mexico. The Mexican band Molotov provided one of the best-known responses to post-NAFTA inequality with their hit, “Puto.” In 2003, working-class male soccer fans, who embodied a masculinity we describe as “desmadre,” created the “eh puto” chant, directing it at the beneficiaries of the neoliberal economic order. But by the middle of the decade, new performers of the chant appeared. Those same beneficiaries, who we describe as embodying “neo-macho” masculinity, seized “eh puto” as a way of affirming a sense of national superiority and demonstrating their aligning values with elite global counterparts. As we show, not all men use the chant in the same way; they hail distinct masculine subjectivities for various purposes.