Lucha Libre Research Articles

Contesting hegemonic masculinity with a kiss: exploring exótico interventions in Mexican lucha libre*

ABSTRACT This article examines the gender performances of Mexican lucha libre wrestlers, focusing on the impact of wrestlers who play stereotypically gay characters called ‘exóticos.’ Exóticos often use words like ‘glamor,’ ‘elegance,’ ‘toughness,’ and ‘homosexuality,’ to describe themselves, while also rejecting the labels of ‘weak,’ ‘submissive,’ and ‘passive.’ One of the most recognizable traits of the exótico, however, is a move called ‘el beso del exótico,’ (‘the exótico’s kiss’), during which exóticos use the beso as a strategy for distracting (or even attacking) their opponent. Exóticos therefore position themselves in a way that contests their opponents’ performances of a heterosexual, hegemonic masculinity, while also refusing to reinscribe themselves within the traditional bounds of femininity. Exóticos thus blur the boundaries between heterosexuality and homosexuality, as well as the hierarchical relationship between femininity and masculinity, illustrating the potentials of their modes of performance to undermine hegemonic gender relations.

National Santos and Mariachi Machos: Liberatory Ethics and Aesthetics of Pleasure in Mecos Films’ La putiza and La verganza

In the aftermath of the democratisation of Mexico in 2000 and the progressive neoliberalisation of cultural spheres, gay pornography appears as a medium where national identities and the racial/ethnic tensions of the mestizo construction of Mexico have been resituated, challenged, and redefined through a liberatory ethics and aesthetics. Mecos Films’ first two films La putiza and La verganza mobilise popular stereotypes such as the luchador wrestler and sexualise national heroes such as mariachis. By narrating the sexual adventures of a lucha libre wrestler heavily mediated with ethnic markers, the films engage with, de-structure, and finally reassemble stereotypes of sexual(ised) citizenship. The sexual(ised) men on screen reformulate a sexual politics where mutual pleasure is the starting point to developing a sexual citizenship liberated from structurally violent gender norms. Comparing the historical arc of Mexican pornographic production from the 1920s (Colección Callado), this article highlights the use of popular subjects (charros, mariachis, chinas poblanas, etc.) as visible representations of queer and non-normative sexual subjects within the space of the nation. The films foreground role-play as a strategic tool to subvert and redefine Mexican masculine sexualities, and ultimately mobilise an aesthetics of pleasure, particularly anal pleasure, that deconstructs and reconstructs liberated Mexican masculinities.

Tumble by Celia C. Pérez

Reviewed by: Tumble by Celia C. Pérez Elizabeth Bush Pérez, Celia C. Tumble. Kokila, 2022 [368p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780593325179 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780593325193 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 5-8 In Adela's corner of New Mexico, lucha libre is a big deal, and she bonds with her stepfather, Alex, over the spectator sport. When Alex and Mom bring up the welcome possibility of Alex formally adopting Adelita, it also opens the door for the seventh grader to press for answers about her biological father, who has for years remained an off-limits topic of discussion. After ransacking Mom's room for clues and searching both online and through the local historical society, Adela discovers her father is a member of the Bravo family of noted regional luchadors. With that skeleton now out of the closet, Mom agrees her daughter may as well meet him and see for herself why Mom and Manny parted ways soon after her birth. A surprisingly warm welcome from the Bravo clan and the novelty of involvement in lucha history and tradition delights Adela, but her father is too busy angling for a comeback to be the reliable parent Adela fantasized. A subplot involving a school production of The Nutcracker that annually features a creative twist (this year, a planned wrestling match between the Nutcracker and the Mouse King) adds shape to the domestic drama. While treating Adela's experience with patience and respect, Pérez (Strange Birds, BCCB 10/19) considers the impact of the reunion on adult members of both families, as Adela does not have exclusive claim to the joy, regret, and uncertainty that this new family configuration brings. Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Susana Distancia: memes and popular culture during the COVID-19 pandemic

Between the end of March and June 2020, COVID-19 quickly spread in Mexico. As a response, the Mexican government announced its national prevention campaign, called ‘Susana Distancia,’ a set of measures, recommendations, conferences, educational resources, and a chatbot. At the centre of the campaign was Susana Distancia’s character, a young woman designed in a comic-book-style, echoing the Mexican lucha libre heroes, who recommended keeping 1.5 m (6 feet) of physical distance to prevent contagion. In the following visual essay, we analyse Susana Distancia’s role, from its institutional origins to its later transformation as a popular culture meme. Based on the Latin American theory of the popular, we argue that the Susana Distancia, as a meme, used various mechanisms to support and challenge the institutional discourse. In this sense, Susana Distancia can be considered a meme that embraces the popular: a cultural artefact that travels across different languages, spaces, and rituals, from cyberspace to the streets, from governmental intentions to everyday performativity. When we use lo popular as a category, we refer to the possibility of enacting subaltern narratives in aesthetic and ethical terms. Multiple readings and manifestations of Susana Distancia demonstrate popular culture as a means of travelling through diverse semantic appropriations. Various forms of popular culture: the politised, the artistic, the erotic, the authentic, the mainstream, and the political, converge in the translation of meaning, from the institutional discourse to the lived experiences of the Mexican population.

Discursive (Re)Contruction of Mexican American Identity in J. Gonzo's La Mano del Destino

Written and illustrated entirely by artist Jason Gonzalez, J. Gonzo’s La Mano del Destino (2011-2019; collected edition 2021) is a 6-issue comic book series revolving around the resurgence of its eponymous protagonist, a luchador previously stripped of his mask. La Mano struggles to make his comeback abiding by his own ethos and focusing on reclaiming the place usurped by his antagonists, facing choices and shadows from the past that will make him self-doubt and falter. Playing with symbolism, careful detailing, and defined artistic choices, the Chicano author delves into his own passion for both lucha libre and Silver Age comics; he also tackles matters related with the quest for identity, as well as the imposed subject positions intrinsic to the belonging to a minority group in the United States. Building a fantastic world in which the clash between técnicos and rudos embodies the conflicts peculiar to modern life, Jason Gonzalez’s vision is markedly personal and hybrid, channeling a powerful Mexican American voice that goes beyond Chicanx paradigms. From a critical discourse analysis standpoint, the article proposes a study of the power relations depicted by Gonzalez, interpreting the comic as an allegory for the struggles of the subordinate subject, both in the Mexican and the Mexican American context.

Discursive (Re)Contruction of Mexican American Identity in J. Gonzo's La Mano del Destino

Written and illustrated entirely by artist Jason Gonzalez, J. Gonzo’s La Mano del Destino (2011-2019; collected edition 2021) is a 6-issue comic book series revolving around the resurgence of its eponymous protagonist, a luchador previously stripped of his mask. La Mano struggles to make his comeback abiding by his own ethos and focusing on reclaiming the place usurped by his antagonists, facing choices and shadows from the past that will make him self-doubt and falter. Playing with symbolism, careful detailing, and defined artistic choices, the Chicano author delves into his own passion for both lucha libre and Silver Age comics; he also tackles matters related with the quest for identity, as well as the imposed subject positions intrinsic to the belonging to a minority group in the United States. Building a fantastic world in which the clash between técnicos and rudos embodies the conflicts peculiar to modern life, Jason Gonzalez’s vision is markedly personal and hybrid, channeling a powerful Mexican American voice that goes beyond Chicanx paradigms. From a critical discourse analysis standpoint, the article proposes a study of the power relations depicted by Gonzalez, interpreting the comic as an allegory for the struggles of the subordinate subject, both in the Mexican and the Mexican American context.

Morbo, lucha libre, and Television: The Ban of Women Wrestlers from Mexico City in the 1950s

This article examines the emergence of the ban on women wrestlers from the sporting spectacle of lucha libre in Mexico City in the 1950s. Set against broader moral preoccupations about the growing popularity and visibility of lucha libre in Mexican society as a result of its broadcasting on television, luchadoras were seen as examples of transgressive femininity, which rendered attempts to make them invisible necessary. This work joins the efforts of scholars who write the history of women’s participation and exclusion from sporting activities and contributes to the growing fields of sports studies and studies of mass culture within Mexico.

El Santo vs. Mystery Science Theater 3000: Lucha Libre’s Transnational Journey into American Popular Culture

Foreign cinemas have often been positioned as higher-brow alternatives to Hollywood fare, yet every national cinema has some manner of skeleton in the closet. For Mexico, the mass-produced Santo films—starring masked luchador El Santo, who fought off a bevy of monsters in over fifty films throughout the fifties, sixties, and seventies—epitomized the divide between beloved popular culture artifact and shameful counterpoint to national cinematic narrative. Due to the films’ lowbrow status in Mexico, they traveled easily into new, similarly lowbrow international spaces, including American drive-ins, late-night television, and Mystery Science Theater 3000. Yet, while the films appeared in these new formats with their nationality largely deemphasized, their Mexicanness was in fact an essential component of the infantilization through which most audiences in the United States and Canada approached them. Drawing on Jeffrey Sconce’s work on paracinema; Ella Shohat’s and Dolores Tierney’s notions of racial and colonialist cinematic readings; and Heather Levi’s, Andrew Syder’s, and Tierney’s histories of El Santo, this article identifies the imperialist attitudes that characterized initial transnational encounters between North Americans and the Santo films, as well as how those frameworks influenced later depictions of lucha libre outside of Mexico even decades later.

Kiss with a fist

Lucha libre, a form of exhibition wrestling, has recently gained popularity in Bolivia, thanks to mixed-gender matches featuring traditionally-dressed women known as thecholitas luchadoras. Within their matches, the act of kissing is often used as a form of humiliating an opponent. This article explores the convergence of eroticism and humiliation in these kisses as an entry point for a broader understanding of the deployment of power in the Bolivian context. Taking both the symbolic language of bodies in the ring and audience discourses about that action, I explore how associations between humiliation and demasculinization may reinforce the potency of masculinity as a position of power. Further, seeing thecholaas representative of the Bolivian nation helps us to understand the ways that humiliation works as a recognizable trope for Bolivian audiences, lending import to these seemingly superficial performances.

Children’s Literature Reviews: Biliteracy and Children’s Literature

This children's literature review column features books with characters in contexts where multiple languages are spoken, books written in multiple languages (about culturally specific topics such as lucha libre and salsa that meaningfully connect to the language), and books in which a second language is naturally interspersed throughout the text.

Rudas: Niño’s Horrendous Hermanitas by Yuyi Morales

Reviewed by: Rudas: Niño’s Horrendous Hermanitas by Yuyi Morales Elizabeth Bush Morales, Yuyi Rudas: Niño’s Horrendous Hermanitas; written and illus. by Yuyi Morales. Porter/Roaring Brook, 2016 [34p] ISBN 978-1-62672-240-8 $17.99 R 4-7 yrs Kids who met the invincible Niño—red lucha hood, sneakers, and briefs—in Niño Wrestles the World (BCCB 9/13) realized that despite his prowess in the face of Mexican folkloric monsters, he barely held his own against his adorable, terrifying little twin sisters. Now the sisters feature in their own bout as a tag team of rudas, the baddies of lucha libre. Facing off against El Extraterrestre, the girls release a “Poopy Bomb Blowout” that sends him running to his spaceship for cover. The girls escape from Cabeza Olmeca in a slick break, leaving him stunned and holding a diaper. Tattling, biting, and tantrums bring other opponents to their knees, and incessant wailing promises to deliver their ultimate victory. But wait! Niño has a last desperate trick: he’s written a book about the twins’ exploits, and they settle right down to listen, cuddling close to big brother (“Las Hermanitas’ strong hold is inescapable! They are RUDAS!”) Morales’ artwork is, if possible, even more over the top than in Niño’s first outing, filling page space with hot-hued spikes and zigzags and stars as backdrop for the wildly tumbling toddlers. Add Niño’s own naïve artwork, which is a key to the parallel lucha universe in his imagination, and you have another round of bilingual uproar (partial glossary incorporated into the endpapers) that’s as warm as it is wacky. Copyright © 2016 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

From Superhero to National Hero: The Populist Myth of El Santo

This article analyzes several films from Mexican masked wrestler El Santo’s lucha libre series (1958–82) and explains their popularity and social function within mid-twentieth-century Mexican society. The analysis takes into account specific factors such as the role of the production system, the Mexican national film industry, and the social, political, and economic circumstances that contributed to the emergence of the lucha libre genre, as well as to the figure of El Santo as a mass-mediated phenomenon. It ultimately argues that these films created a populist mythological system that functioned to fill the social and political void that emerged as a result of the Mexican government’s transition from an inclusive discourse of agrarian populism after the Revolution (in the 1930s and 1940s) to one of industrial capitalism in the 1950s, which, by foregrounding modern ideals such as science, technology, and progress, was perceived as a threat to the stability and identity of the country’s masses. The existence of this discourse within the realm of the fantastical, I argue, allows for the recasting of the dominant historical narrative within the context of myth itself, thus creating a metaphorical sense of participation in the drama of history, for which the struggle inherent in lucha libre is the perfect metaphorical vehicle.

Performing mexicanidad: Criminality and lucha libre

Juana Barraza Samperio, a wrestler known as la Dama del Silencio (the Lady of Silence), has been declared the first female serial killer in Mexico. In January 2006, Barraza was arrested as the alleged Mataviejitas (the little old lady killer), a serial killer of elderly women in Mexico City whom police had struggled for two years to apprehend. La Dama del Silencio became la Mataviejitas , and vice versa, more than Juana Barraza became la Mataviejitas. I argue that discourses of criminality and the spectacle of lucha libre intersect within Mexican culture to police and perform the parameters of mexicanidad, reinforcing but also revealing the limits of Mexican masculinity and femininity. This article focuses on this intersection as a potent site for denaturalizing and destabilizing Mexican masculinity and femininity and redressing the raced, classed, gendered and sexualized limits of mexicanidad and criminality that have served to exclude so many from the rights of full citizenship in Mexico.

The World of Lucha Libre: Secrets, Revelations, and Mexican National Identity. HEATHER LEVI: Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008

Lucha libre, or professional wrestling, is a tremendously popular sport and spectacle in Mexico. In May of 1997, Heather Levi began what would be a year of anthropological fieldwork investigating the world of lucha libre, training with other wrestlers (men and women), attending live matches, viewing televised matches, and interviewing both male and female wrestlers. Luis Jaramillo, a trainer retired from the wrestling ring and his masked identity as Águila Blanca, or White Eagle, agreed to take on Levi as an apprentice only if she understood that he dealt in the true lucha libre, not the spectacle for television viewers. Clearly Levi operates on the participant-observer model common to anthropological research. But she is not content to simply report on her field work. She wants to study lucha libre as "performance ... subculture...and symbol" in Mexican culture and politics.

The world of lucha libre: secrets, revelations, and Mexican national identity - By Heather Levi

The world of lucha libre: secrets, revelations, and Mexican national identity - By Heather Levi

Mask and Masculinity: Culture, Modernity, and Gender Identity in the Mexican <I>Lucha Libre</I> films of El Santo

Though ignored or reviled by critics of the Mexican cinema because of their folkloric character, the films of lucha libre star El Santo are important texts for understanding the transitions taking place in Mexican culture in the 1960s and 1970s. The Santo film's representations of technology, modernity, and most significantly gender relations mark a decisive shift away from traditional formulations to point towards a contemporary engagement of these issues that, contrary to the claims of most scholars, acutely reflect the social dynamics of this turbulent period in Mexico's development.

Of Lady-killers and ‘Men Dressed As Women’: Soap Opera, Scapegoats and the Mexico City Police Department

Over two days in October 2005, police in Mexico City conducted a series of raids on male-to-female transgender (travesti) prostitutes working in the streets. The motive of the investigation was not related to sex work at all, but rather, the hunt for a serial killer responsible for the deaths of elderly women between 2003 and 2005. With few leads apart from reports by a couple of eyewitnesses that they had seen ‘a man dressed as a woman’ enter the houses of the victims, the Chief Public Prosecutor announced that the killer could be a travesti. 
 
 On January 25, 2006, the ‘lady-killer’ was finally discovered to be neither a ‘man dressed as a woman’, nor a travesti. The suspect, a female former lucha libre wrestler, Juana Barraza, was taken into custody. 
 
 In the period leading up to the October raids, Mexico’s chief television channel, Televisa, finished up the season of its popular soap, La Madrastra, with a plot line that features a man who dresses as a woman to disguise his usual male identity and kill his female victims.
 
 This paper examines the case, looking at the influence of the soap opera narrative in the profiling of travestis as suspect ‘men dressed as women’. It draws on studies of soap opera and mass media forms in Mexican society, as well as the work of transgender theory in understanding how crossgender identities are circumscribed by discourse.

Lucha Libre: The Man in the Silver Mask: A Bilingual Cuento (review)

Reviewed by: Lucha Libre: The Man in the Silver Mask: A Bilingual Cuento Elizabeth Bush Garza, Xavier Lucha Libre: The Man in the Silver Mask: A Bilingual Cuento; written and illus. by Xavier Garza. Cinco Puntos, 2005 [40p] ISBN 0-938317-92-X$17.95 Reviewed from galleys R 5-9 yrs Papá Lupe and grandson Carlitos have just arrived at the arena in Mexico City to watch the lucha libre (Mexican-style wrestling) match, but Tío Vicente, who was supposed to be there too, hasn't shown up. Carlitos picks out a souvenir mask and decides to root for The Man in the Silver Mask, who, the vendor assures him, is "the greatest luchador of all time!" As three masked rudos (bad guys) enter the ring, Papá Lupe explains why the crowd erupts in derision, and when the trio of técnicos follows, Carlitos recognizes his newfound hero in the silver boots, tights, and mask. Tío Vicente shows up after the match, and, although Garza never explicitly gives away the family secret, readers understand that Carlitos' uncle is in fact the flashy wrestler who vanquished the rudos, to his nephew's delight. Carlitos' story, told in English and Spanish on facing pages, is a completely dispensable framework for the real appeal of the brawny comix-like paintings in vivid Mexican folkloric colors of hyper-muscular wrestlers in their superhero (and supervillain) garb and the cogent explanations of arena traditions and ritualized fighting style. A lengthy endnote offers background on lucha libre history, extending the interest of this title to readers who are too sophisticated to enjoy the paper-thin family story. [End Page 89] Children familiar with the sport will welcome the vibrant visual paean, while fans of wrestling, comic-book superheroes, and all things pugilistic will wonder where lucha libre has been all their lives. Copyright © 2005 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Fragments of a Golden Age: The Politics of Culture in Mexico since 1940

Fragments of a Golden Age: The Politics of Culture in Mexico since 1940

Sport and Melodrama: The Case of Mexican Professional Wrestling

When I tell people that I work on professional wrestling in Mexico, they Heather Levi often respond by asking me if it's totally corrupt there like it is here. Their reaction simultaneously foregrounds and misrecognizes some of the central features of this genre. Yes, Mexican lucha libre (free fighting) is a variant of the transnational entertainment genre known in the Anglophone world as professional, all-in, or all-star wrestling. basic conventions (which may be familiar to many readers) are as follows: It is a contest between two or more wrestlers who compete not as themselves but as characters that they (or their promoters) invent. characters are morally coded, so that normally each match features one good guy (or team of good guys) and one bad guy (or team of bad guys). A wrestler enacting the role of bad guy cheats, uses unnecessary roughness, and displays cowardice and trickery. There are referees but, because of corruption and/or incompetence, they are unwilling or unable to enforce the rules against the bad guys. When people ask about corruption, they refer to a widespread understanding that the fighting is staged and the outcome of each contest is decided in advance. To say that it is corrupt, though, indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the genre. It is not corrupt. Instead, it is a drama about corruption and, as such, its relationship to other sports is problematic. ambiguous relationship of all-star wrestling to other sports has led interested scholars in several national settings to ask why fans enjoy watching a seemingly fixed contest. For the most part these scholars categorize wrestling either as sport or as theater. I argue, however, that the fundamental difference between professional wrestling and, say, soccer is not that one is drama and the other sport, but that as sports they represent different types of drama. In this reading, professional wrestling represents sport in the mode of melodrama. foundational statement analyzing professional wrestling as a social phenomenon is Roland Barthes's The World of Wrestling (1972). In the introduction to Mythologies, the collection of essays in which it appears, Barthes identifies his agenda as treating 'collective representations' as sign systems [by which] one might hope to go further than the pious show of unmasking them and account in detail for the mystification which transforms petite-bourgeois culture into a universal nature (9). In this context, Barthes suggests that appreciating the genre requires recog-