Sexuality & Culture (2010) 14:217233 DOI 10.

1007/s12119-010-9071-0 ORIGINAL PAPER

Gay Mexican Pornography at the Intersection of Ethnic and National Identity in Jorge Diestras La Putiza
Gustavo Subero

Published online: 9 May 2010 Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2010

Abstract This article aims to offer an analysis of the way that issues of national and ethnic self identity are structured and constructed in Mexican gay pornography. Unlike theorists who regard pornography as a matter of sex discrimination and argue that it simply undermines any positive attitudes towards homosexuality, this article argues that Mexican gay male pornography has served as a point of self reference for homosexual men in the country, while it has also helped to foster a degree of visibility for the gay community in mainstream culture. Through an analysis of the lm La Putiza (2006), made by the emerging porn house Mecos Films, it will be demonstrated that Mexican male homosexuals do not regard pornography as a cultural product intended to the objectication of the gay community and its members. This lm clearly stresses ethnic and national identity as the basis to contest the hegemony of Anglo-European gay pornography in which notions of Latin(o) identity have been caricaturised and heavily troped. This lm borrows elements that are pertinent to the specicity of the national gay imagery, as well as lm genres that are regarded as quintessentially Mexican. Therefore, the combination of Aztec heritage narrative and wrestling subtexts permit to posit this lm as an alternative to the kind of images of Latin(o) homosexuality that are portrayed in Western pornography, while it also stresses national identity by using themes that circulate in the national imaginary as exclusively Mexican. In short, the emerging Mexican gay pornographic industry and the lm that it produces prove to be a site of contestation of the hegemony of Latinised images that have been offered in foreign pornographic accounts, while they also become a site of validation for gay men whose physicality or ethnic heritage has been rejected within the politics of the erotic.

G. Subero (&) Coventry University, George Eliot Building, Priory Street, West Midlands CV1 5WL, UK e-mail: g.subero@coventry.ac.uk

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Keywords Mexico Pornography Homosexuality Mestizo Wrestling Melodrama

Gay male pornography has long been criticised by certain theorists who consider it as a site for the objectication of women and passive, that is effeminised, men (Dworkin 1981; Stoltenberg 1992). Similarly, others argue that the content of the fantasy situations recreated in gay porn promotes violence, cruelty, degradation, dehumanization, and exploitation (Kendall and Funk 2003: 100). On the other hand, other researchers criticise gay male pornography for creating anxiety and frustration amongst the gay population by depicting super-muscular and suprasexualised bodies that are unattainable, as well as sexual situations that are impossible to recreate for the average viewer (Harris 1997; Signorile 1997). Finally, and a point that closely concerns this article, is the view that gay male pornography promotes distorted visions of racial groups outside the Caucasian ideal type promoted by most Western porn features. The work of British-born director Kristen Bjorn becomes of key importance, since his lms have been largely characterised by a predilection to show black and Latin(o) models engaged in sexual acts. It could be argued that the work of this director has been groundbreaking for offering the rst interracial images of gay male pornography and as Joe A. Thomas writes, the success of Bjorns videos proved that there is a market for racially integrated gay pornography (2000: 55). However, Bjorn has opted for offering such ethnic males not only as erotic, but also as exotic Others in which the stars dark skin promotes the same type of anxieties and desires that Fran Fanon (1993) describes in his work. The black, and by extension mestizo,1 men in Bjorn lms, like Fanons Negro represents the sexual instinct (in its raw state). The Negro is the incarnation of a genital potency beyond all moralities and prohibitions [] the Negro [acts] as the keeper of the impalpable gate that opens into the realm of orgies, of bacchanals, of delirious sexual sensations (177). Similarly, Joao Carlos Rodrigues asserts that Bjorns apresenta exemplos tpicos do Negao enquanto smbolo homossexual, com penis de dimensoes enormes e apetites equivalentes2(2001: 41). The director presents male characters that conform to a sexual and erotic order in which their bodies convey a hyper-masculinisation of the individual, an individual who acquires supra-human characteristics, exudes raw sexuality, and whose libido seems insatiable. It is clear that this director has marketed the idea of a racial sexual Other as a product of mass-consumption for Anglo-European markets more accustomed to the troping of racial groups in mainstream media. The exoticism of such men is also presented within contexts that are both foreign but also familiar to the intended audience, since as Clare N. Westcott observes Bjorns lmic creations, while still being exotic, are not, on a relative scale, all that different from what his viewers target know [] Bjorn has endeavoured to create something
1 2

Mixed race.

Presents typical examples of black men as homosexual symbols, with penises of huge dimensions and equivalent sexual appetites.

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different, but not too different, for his mainstream North American [and by extension Anglo-European] audience (2004: 194). It is undeniable that, for a long time, gay male pornography was the only means for self-representation within a community that had been marginalised by mainstream hetero-hegemonic society. As John Robert Burger argues, video pornography works in two ways. First, it serves to validate and legitimate homosexuality to the viewer. Second, by documenting the sexual and erotic trends and practices of gay men, pornography serves as a form of historiography (1995: 21). Gay male pornography has served as a form of validation and self-identication of practices that had been deemed as subversive within the socio-sexual order procured by heteronormative societies. Here well-known arguments by Dyer (1985, 1989, 2002, 2002a, 2003) help understand the role that pornography has played in shaping gay mens understanding of sex and sexuality in most contemporary societies. Dyer asserts that gay porn, on the surface, has the ultimate libidinal function of arousing spectators, but he is quick to acknowledge that this level of arousal may be derived by both the idea of possession, as well as submission of/to the men on screen. In short, gay pornography permits the realignment, as well as emergence, of new paradigms of same-sex desire within the gay (sub)culture in which patterns of sexual(ised) behaviour are reworked to offer broader and more pluri-racial depictions of male same-sex desire. As a result, whether the kind of representations of racial sexual Others that have been presented by directors such as Bjorn, or others who have followed the same trend, are completely inaccurate, it is impossible to deny that gay male pornography must also be considered as a site for self-representation and self-reference of homosexual men of colour (following Jose Esteban Munoz 1999), due to the lack of positive images of coloured male homosexuality in mainstream culture until very recently. However, it is important to point out that such images may also run the risk of fostering a false idea, within the coloured gay community, of how their sexuality and sexual behaviour must be acted upon. Nonetheless, the pre-existing model of the white(r)-skinned porn star that prevailed in most pornographic productions up to the mid nineties has been challenged and replaced by images of inter-racial gay sex in which, as it was previously suggested, the coloured porn star was usually depicted as hypermasculine and also as the inserter, rarely the insertee. Interestingly, and in stark opposition to arguments about the objectication of the insertee star in heterosexual porn, the idea of the coloured porn star as the active partner in sex could be seen to respond to the anxieties of a post-colonial subject that feels curious, and excited, about the empowerment of the repressed Other. This idea chimes with that of Richard Fung who observes that the spectators (assumed as Caucasian Anglo-European) reaction to porn representation is open and in ux as long as the stars are all white; yet race introduces another dimension that may serve to close down some of this mobility (2005: 241). In this light, this article is interested in analysing the lm La Putiza (2004) made by the company Mecos Films in Mexico, and that offers, as they advertise on their website, 100% natural chilli!. What is striking about this lm is that it sets out to challenge notions of Latin(o) masculinity and male-to-male sexuality as they circulate through gay pornographic representations in the West. The production

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companys ethos is clearly to offer an alternative to existing pornographic images of gay sex by selecting and depicting models that do not adhere to the racial types privileged by Western pornography. At the same time, this lm borrows elements of Mexican folklore, as well as Mexican popular culture, to create a pornographic video that has a strong appeal to the Mexican, and by extension Latin(o), audience it is intended for. The lm revolves around two common themes in Mexican popular culture, which are the countrys ancestral Aztec heritage, as well as the national fascination with the world of professional wrestling. Already La Putizas tag lines introduce the national themes that will be paramount in the lm: Diamante es un joven inexperto luchador que desea convertirse en un heroe del rin. El Master ofrece darle la mascara del poderoso Verga Azteca, llena de poderosos e inumerables poderes eroticos que lo convertira en leyenda a cambio de que pase por varias pruebas sexuales de las cuales tendra que salir sin derramar una sola gota de semen. >Lograra Diamante salir ileso de los enfrentamientos? >Que misterio oculta la Mascara de Verga Azteca? >Podra Diamante convertirse en el heroe sexual que todo el mundo espera?3 (Mecos Films 2009). It is important to make a point of clarication in the way this lm will be read and analysed throughout this article. La Putiza should not be understood only in terms of gay pornography per se (although it is created to be consumed as such), but it could also be regarded as more mainstream gay erotica (in spite of the explicitness of the sex images in the lm) since there are clear themes and stories that are developed alongside the instances of fucking.4 It has been extensively theorised (Dyer 1985, 1994, Aydemir 2007) that in this kind of lmic texts, the relationship lm/spectator works at a completely different level, since most gay men will not watch a full feature as a solid unit. The main characteristic of pornography is the immediateness of the experience, since it is designed to create arousal with the ultimate intention of helping induce orgasm, and once this has been achieved the lm is usually paused or stopped until it is needed again. It is not been suggested that viewers of La Putiza will either watch the entire lm as a whole unit, or will watch it beyond the point at which they reach their own climax, but at least the lm provides a logical chain of events that follows a denite storyline. It could be argued that La Putiza not only offers graphic and explicit scenes of gay sex, but also a parodic criticism of the very elements constitutive of machismo and Mexican identity as they circulate in contemporary Mexican society. This does not mean that either the lm has a political agenda, or it intends to raise awareness about
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Diamante is an unskilled wrestler who wishes to become a pro in the ring. The Master offers to give the mask of the powerful Verga Azteca (Aztec Cock) that provides powerful and endless erotic powers and will transform him into a legend. However, in exchange, he must full a number of sexual tasks without pouring a single drop of semen. Will Diamante come out unharmed from his battles? What mysteries does the Verga Azteca mask hide? Will Diamante become the sexual hero that everybody awaits? Furthermore, any interpretation of artistic creation (any cultural product such as pornography) is arbitrary, and other interpretations may be possible according to the cultural, social, political, sexual, amongst others backgrounds of the viewer.

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homosexuality in Mexico, as it may be the case with some porn lms such as Bruce La Bruces bisexual feature The Raspberry Reich (2004). Nonetheless, it is clear that every sex sequence provides a snippet of the way the homosexuality operates within Mexican society, as lived and experienced by gay men within their subculture. For instance, the guration of masculinity and same-sex sex amongst men embodied by the gure of the mayate (a man who regards himself as heterosexual in spite of engaging in sex with other men), is enacted through the villains in the lm whose remarks questioning the heros masculinity renders them with a high degree of machismo. On the other hand, same-sex desire as experienced by modernos (homosexual men who embrace gay as an identity) is clearly depicted by Diamante (Kankun Garca), as he embraces his gay masculinity throughout the lm. As a result, and as Richard Dyer has famously argued, the narrative structures of gay porn is analogous to aspects of the social construction of both male sexuality in general and gay male sexual practice in particular (1985: 27). La Putiza, winner of the Best Film and Best Screenplay award in the Festival Heatwave Barcelona in 2004, uses a fantasy scenario that has remained unexplored in other pornographic features, and that relies heavily on notions of masculinity as understood within the popular Mexican imaginary. Unlike lms such as Bjorns, this lm does not try to eroticise supposedly heterosexual, Latin(o) men by presenting them as ideal, quasi-unattainable individuals who must be gently coerced into engaging in homosexual sex. In this way, the lm avoids an alterity of the protagonists sexual orientation (following Westcott 2004), since he is depicted from the very beginning as gay, and it is his desire to be a master of the ring that becomes the driver of the story. Westcott argues that the presentation of the ethnic Other in Bjorns lms produces an alterity of profession, class, location and sexual orientation (191) that relies on the production of falsied images of the degree of otherness depicted by the star but that, nonetheless, remains somewhat familiar to the idea of the Other that his Western audiences possess. La Putiza challenges this supposedly otherness by presenting a scenario that is very familiar to the Mexican viewer in the form of a wrestling lm (in spite of its pornographic nature). Lucha libre5 has been for a long time one of the most popular sports in Mexico. Unlike foreign versions of the sport, Mexican lucha libre developed its of Mexican identity by incorporating masks to cover the face of the wrestlers, and as Heather Levi points out the wrestling mask became a common feature of costuming by the 1950s, eventually coming to symbolise the sport itself (2001: 334). The mask has the ultimate function of transforming the luchador6 into an iconic gure that symbolises justice, and it makes his struggle more universal by masking his real persona and presenting him as a gure that can be re/appropriated by all segments of society. As Doyle Green observes, the mask [] serves to make the luchador a public symbol of social, cultural, and political modes of conduct rather than a mere private individual with moral weaknesses (2005: 66). The sport also became very popular amongst the emerging working class of the country, and its appeal resided in the fact that it shortened the distance between luchadores and audiences,
5 6

Free wrestling. Wrestler.

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constituting both as participants. In most matches, there is a luchador (or team of luchadores) who plays the role of goodie(s) and another one that plays the baddie(s), and their roles are both explicitly obvious (starting with their choice of stage name) and almost never interchangeable. Audiences are asked to identify with the hero wrestler through a display of a spectacle of suffering, defeat and justice. In most matches the hero will suffer at the hands of a clearly identiable villain who will use cowardice, treachery and excessive violence to win over his opponent, but in the end the heros perseverance and his adherence to the statutory rules of wrestling will allow him to claim a nal victory. As Jorge Cadena-Roa argues, wrestling is a dramatic representation of the endless struggle between good and evil and, depending on who wins the bout, between justice and injustice (2005: 76). The way each character7 is represented is based around notions of male aesthetics (in most cases hyper masculine) and beauty revolving around notions of machismo as they circulate in contemporary Mexican society. Following from Cadena-Roa he argues that wrestlers are actors representing clear-cut characters, in one corner of the ring is the hero who ghts clean and fairthe babyface in the jargon of the trade. Across the ring is the villain, the cruel and cowardly bastard the heel (76). La Putiza makes use of these archetypes to portray the characters in the lm. Diamante is a very muscular man, he is very handsome and he is also blondish with fair(er) skin. It is clear that he is portrayed along the same lines as the hero of most soap operas who tend to reject the mestizo phenotypic traits of the majority of the Mexican population. He also wears white or shiny (silver, gold) wrestling tights and although he pursues the mask of Verga Azteca (that will give him wrestling as well as super-sexual powers), he never gets to cover his face and conceal his handsomeness to the viewer. Unlike his villain counterparts, who are all masked, Diamante uses his face as both the signier of male beauty within the lm, and also as the object that awakens the viewers anxieties about power and submission (an action that challenges the nature of the mask in Mexican wrestling). It is this handsome face that will be the receptacle of many cum shots in the lm which will allow the character to be read as a hero that must overcome the wickedness of his opponents. However, the cum shot should not be regarded as an instrument to objectify and degrade the male protagonist, or as Murat Aydemir argues implicate[s] the establishment of masculinity as a putative triumph, accomplishment or goal (2007: 94). Since for the male protagonist not coming diegetically8 suggests his own personal triumph, the lack of cum becomes a metonymic way to assert his own masculinity, while it also further stresses his heroism, as he makes the ultimate sexual sacrice. For instance, the rst scene between Diamante and The Master culminates with the latter profusely ejaculating on the protagonists face, and the protagonist (although obviously aroused) denying himself of the pleasure of coming. In fact, cum in the lm becomes associated with bravery as the protagonists main goal is to pass all the different sexual tasks imposed by The
7

Wrestlers do not play themselves in the matches, but instead play a character that has been invented by himself or his manager/promoter and that is morally coded. Pertinent to the diegesis (storyline) of the lm.

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Master sin derramar una sola gota de semen9. Unlike the analysis of cum in most heterosexual porn, in this gay feature it gures as the symbolic uid that provides its bearer with rewards beyond human nature, and that further highlights the heroic nature of the lms protagonists. Since Diamante cannot enjoy the ultimate goal of his sexual engagements, that is to come after he has been fucked by his many opponents, he suffers a sexual martyrdom that, at the level of the diegesis, constructs him as the ultimate hero, one which also parallels the hero in the wrestling ring. The kind of sexual sacrice that Diamante must endure at the hands of his abusers parallels the one described by Murat Aydemir in his analysis of the cum shot when he argues that the signicant discharge of proper pornographic coming entangles worth with waiting, value with postponement, meaning with the sense of an ending, in close association with the establishment of masculinity as a form of control (2007: 101). On the other hand, the cum shot reverts the kind of relationship that is established in lucha libre between wrestlers and audience. La Putizas viewer will no doubt (inter)actively participate with the lm by using an agency of visual narrative (the cum shot) that is established by both the star on screen and the viewer coming at the same time. However, by coming at the same time as the stars who are diegetically presented as villains, the viewer must not only reposition himself in terms of characters identication and empathy (he knows his orgasm is induced by the villains therefore he sees himself as an element that truncates the possibility of fullment for the hero), but also reafrms the viewers masculinity as the cum shot (and his own) will narrativise the idea of oppressive machismo, as it circulates in the popular imaginary. As it has already been suggested, the protagonists misadventures follow the type of narrative usually associated with the wrestling action genre in Mexican cinema in which the body of the lms protagonist is subjected to a series of tasks that will test its limits and will reinforced, by the end of the lm, the (hyper)masculinity of its owner. Diamantes own body both contests the kind of cinematic narratives that have been associated with the wrestling genre, in which the masked protagonist played the role of hero, but at the same time reinforces the existing archetype of the cnico10 who, in the lucha libre esta lleno de fuerza, valenta, de luchador te n palabra, sin temores, de fsico atractivo, seguro de su actuacio buena, comprometido con la gente y consigo11(Satamara LLerandi 2006). For the gay Mexican viewer, it would be almost impossible to avoid the associations between Diamante and El Santo (Roberto Guzman Huerta) or any of the other wrestlers who starred in the lms that made this genre so popular since the 1950s. Such characters came to represent and embody the idea of a Mexicanness that the popular classes could easily relate to, as these superheroes never seemed to lose their Mexican identity and forget their own humble origins (Cadena-Roa 2005: 79). There is a sequence in the lm entitled Verga Azteca Jr. contra los Enmascarados

9 10 11

Without wasting a single drop of semen. Technical wrestler.

Is full of strength, valour, honour, fearless, very muscular, condent in his good deeds, compromised with both people and himself.

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ComeVergas12 in which our hero seems to pay direct homage to El Santo by wearing a costume that looks almost exactly like the ones worn by the lm hero (apart from the leather chaps and cock ring). This follows Cadena-Roas description of El Santo as a character always dressed in a silver mask, with immaculate white boots, tight, briefs and a cape over his naked torso (79). The intrinsically homoerotic nature of the lucha libre makes this sport, as well as the lm genre, a great vehicle to narrate stories of same-sex desire. It is easy to see how this image of the semi-naked Mexican ghter has been incorporated into Mexican gay imagery, since many of the elements that surround the character have a strong appeal to gay audiences. As Sharon Mazer points out in her analysis of wrestling, the conventional signs of femininity and masculinity are both medium and message in the wrestlers closet, visibly encoded into everything from the wrestlers name and costumes to their bodies and signature moves (1998: 100). Wrestling becomes the ultimate gay male fantasy, since the sport provides the opportunity to establish a permissible space in which male-to-male physical interaction becomes both permissible and a means to stress a mans own (hyper)masculinity. As Henry Jenkins III explains, wrestling more generally operatescreating a realm of male action which is primarily an excuse for the display of masculine emotions (and even for homoerotic contact) while ensuring that nothing that occurs there can raise any questions about the participants manhood (2005: 56). It would be reductive, and rather hetero-phallocentric, to view the sex on La Putiza in terms of a penetrator versus penetrated relationship, in which the penetrated subject is regarded as inferior or submissive towards the other. At no point in this lm the masculinity of the stars is questioned, and certainly the fact that he may be penetrated by another man does not imply a feminisation or even objectication of the star. It could be argued that the lms appeal, to a greater extent, resides in the fact that Jorge Diestra, the lms director, offers an all-roundmasculine men sexual fantasy in which Diamante is both fucked by and fucker to his many partners. Regardless of the role he plays during sex, he is always presented as victorious, and by default enhances his masculinity, because he manages to succeed in the sexual task at hand. This in itself disavows the notions of machines13 and tortilleras14 that Annick Prieur regards as paramount in the construction of identity amongst homosexual men (straight-acting, effeminate and transvestites) in Mexico (1996: 101102). What the lm achieves though is to offer a protagonist who is happy, and willing, to play the inserter and insertee role in sex without feeling that his own (gay) masculinity is at stake or that it may be questioned by the people around him. The lm also challenges stereotypical gay pornographic scenarios in which other features suggest that what spectators are witnessing is a fortuitous encounter between supposedly heterosexual men, as already suggested by Westcott (2004) in her analysis of Bjorns gay pornography. Although the characters in the lm do not express openly their gay identity, the kind of scenarios that are built around the sexual encounter leave no doubt that the men involved nd each other
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Verga Azteca Jr. versus the masked Cock Suckers. Very macho-acting homosexual men who only take the active role during sex. More androgynous homosexual men who take both an active and a passive role during sex.

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sexually attractive and do not regard themselves as heterosexual. For instance, the rst sex scene is in itself a gay fantasy (both diegetically and extra-diegetically) as Diamante resorts to bite a hole off his opponents wrestling tights and rims him, as he is losing the wrestling match. Diamantes actions are justied, and by default his own homosexuality, by the matchs commentator (in an voice-off) who indicates that this is a strategy to overpower Goloso Insaciable.15 However, what is interesting here is that his opponent does not seem to mind the anal invasion, and seems happy for Diamante, and even the referee, to engage sexually with him. After the match, Diamante hits the showers and here he is again approached by the referee who, in a porn cliche fashion, proceeds to masturbate while the protagonist showers. He then approaches Diamante and gropes his buttocks, as he announces that the luchador has a visitor waiting for him. This sequence already challenges the kind of sexual paradigms on which gay sexuality is understood in the social imaginary. The idea of a distinctive male and female-acting homosexual (Murray 1995; Carrier 1995; Prieur 1996, 1998; Carrillo 2002), in which the male-acting homosexual has an intrinsic sexually active preference is challenged by this lm, as Diamante always portrays a hyper-masculine presentations of the self, but will not miss the opportunity to be fucked by other men. In fact, the different instances of homosexual desire are never questioned by any of the lms characters, suggesting they all adhere to a homosexual identity. A quick look at the type of images of Latin(o) and black men that are produced by some porn companies in the US and Europe show them scenarios that reinforce the idea of them as second-class citizens in some type of host country. Such lms try to entice the viewer with the fantasy of watching easily recognisable men of colour having sex, and as Christopher Ortiz asserts the text, then, is structured so that the fantasy is not only that of watching men perform specic sexual acts with each other, but that the spectator watches racially coded men (2006: 84). Conversely, the kind of pornographic situations that are recreated in La Putiza are not necessarily produced for the pleasure(s) of an Anglo-European viewer for whom Latin(o) men operate in specically coded environments. There is very little in the lm that will allow international audiences to see it as a text that could further support stereotypical views on gay men of colour. Apart from the language (Spanish) and the fact that some of the stars are not necessarily Caucasian, there is nothing in this lm that tries to offer an exoticised view of racially coded sex where gay men of colour respond to the racial fantasies of an Anglo-European viewer. As a result, the lm is presented as quintessentially Mexican in that it rinde homenaje a las viejas pelculas de luchadores y que satiriza algunos elementos de la n, sicos iconografa popular de la nacio desde las barajas de la lotera hasta los cla sica y los calendarios de barrio pasando por las telenovelas, las historietas, la mu juegos infantiles16(Cueva 2005). Diestra is not only trying to make a lm with the sole intention of providing a sexual fantasy to the viewer, but also a lm that
15 16

Insatiable greedy man.

Pays homage to old wrestling lms while it also satirises certain elements of the nations popular iconography: from lottery cards to the classic neighbourhood calendars, as well as soap operas, comic books, music and childrens games.

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borrows elements of Mexican popular culture and satirises them in a kind of gay homage to gay Mexican subculture. There are moments of clear intertextuality in the lm that serve as direct references to those texts that have been incorporated into the realm of gay subculture. For instance, in one earlier scene in La Putiza, the viewer can clearly see posters of El Santo lms as well as some of his own comics on the walls of the protagonists room. By the same token, most of the transition scenes between the different sex sequences are presented as comic strips that resemble the ones found in El Santos comics. Similar moments of intertextuality ` abound in the lms mise-en-scene, for example the different rooms where Diamante must full his sexual tasks, the control room from where The Master observes Diamantes performance and even the Frankenstein-like gure from which The Master can shoot cum. Perhaps one of the most recognisable moments of Mexicaness in the lm (for both national and international audiences) occurs when the hero must face Los Mariachis Insaciables.17 This scene works at two distinctive levels: on the one hand, it plays with international audiences expectations of the sort of masculinity they believe operates in mainstream heterohegemonic Mexican culture. On the other, it contests the stereotypical images associated with such a gure, as Mexicans regard mariachis as an expression and symbol of their own Mexicanness. As MaryLee Mulholland points out images of moustached mariachi musicians wearing sombreros and silver-studded cowboy outts while strumming guitars and drinking tequila have long penetrated the production of an authentic national type in Mexico and, at the same time, been criticised for producing an image of a false Mexicanism (2007: 249). Regardless of how accurate images of mariachi men may be in the formation and promotion of a national masculine type, it is undeniable that such images are heavily embedded in both the national and international imaginary as the Mexican masculine type per excellence. It could be argued that Diestra confronts Mexican gender imagery to both contest and parody the idea of machismo that is embedded in the countrys socio-sexual imaginary. This scene relies heavily on a pastiche of the elements constitutive of the charro18 imagery in which the sombrero and tequila play an important part in constructing the subjects masculinity. It is not surprising that this scene takes place in a bar where Diamante encounters two charros who decide to test if the hero is as much of a man as they are, a test that is hyperbolically executed by trying to get him to drink loads of tequila shots, and then proceed to fuck one another. However, since these charros are playing the part of the baddies (if only because they are in stark opposition to the lms protagonist), the social signicance of their type of masculinity is questioned, as they no longer represent potent symbols of Mexican machismo and masculinity, embodying many personal traits such as honor, virtue and valor (Najera-Ramirez 2004: 129). In spite of this scene being the least accurate in terms of the mise-en` scene, for instance the supposed bar looks more like a cheap kitchen, it also contests heavily the idea of the notion of mexicanidad19 that is embedded in such a gure
17 18 19

The Insatiable Mariachis. Mexican cowboy. Mexican identity.

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because it allows for a moment of self-mockery in which the director openly ridicules an image that is, in itself, distorted in terms of real depiction of Mexican masculinity. It could be easily argued that this one scene permits the entire lm to be read within the Mexican national context by international audiences who, without it, would only see a kind of parodic gay porn lm that has no specic national location. The lm challenges the kind of national self-reexivity that is present in most Mexican melodramas, as it openly mocks national symbols that are believed to construct and constitute the notion of mexicanidad. For instance, Diamantes last test, the one against the masked wrestlers (with their very suggestive names), allows for a criticism of the idea of masculinity that is present in lucha libre while it also satirises it as a sport that is heavily constructed around notions of homoerotic performativity. Alvaro Fernandez Reyes reads the lucha libre as el teatro popular s xico, un melodrama lu dico [que] involucra elementos ma importante de Me sicos como la ma scara, el vestuario y los personajes que escenican teatrales ba nico siempre con un guio especco y con una n dramas donde existe un montaje esce n mplices20(2004: 89). All muy peculiar relacio con los asistentes convertidos en co the different elements present in this scene have as their ultimate function to satirise and further homosexualise a practice that is, already, heavily homoerotic. To begin with, Diamantes task is to fuck and be fucked by four different wrestlers: Maniaco n n. Eyaculatorio II, Abismo Profundo y Negro, Pitos Locos and Volca en Ereccio 21 Although these names may appear to be too far-fetched and highly cliche, they are not too dissimilar to the ones chosen by real-life wrestlers and whose latest exponent was Superbarrio (a wrestler that took upon himself to be a kind of defender of the lower classes by making the idea of shantytown culture part of his star persona). In the lm, there is no wrestling match between the ve wrestlers, but there is a gay sex match instead in which, once again, our hero must survive without ejaculating. In lucha libre, the name of the wrestler comes to symbolise and represent the wrestler himself, and is usually chosen and utilised as an economic means to present the person within a clear-cut discourse of national or regional pride, social and gender identity as well as sexuality. Such names are heavily coded and establish a performance of identity that precedes the performer himself, in other words, the wrestlers name awakens a series of social and gender expectations just by itself in much the same way that the mask pursued by the lms hero, that is the mask of Verga Azteca, already plays with notions of Aztec heritage and of super-natural endowment and prowess. Similarly, the names of his opponents all connote negative aspects of social or gender (even genital) identity, that remind the viewer of the idea of the tropes of empire that Ella Shohat and Robert Stam (1994) discuss at length in their work, as they view the trope as repressive, a defence mechanism that against literal meaning, they also constitute an arena of contestation; each is open to perpetuation, rejection or subversion (137). As a result, Diamantes opponents are
It is the most important popular theatre in Mexico, a playful melodrama that involves basic theatrical elements such as the mask, costumes and characters that act out dramatic scenes. Such scenes have a very specic setting, with a very specic script and with a very peculiar relationship with that audience as they become accomplices to the performance.
21 20

Ejaculatory Maniac II, Deep and Black Abyss, Crazy Cocks and Erecting Volcano.

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genitalised to give the impression that their genitalia is both a source of identity and a site of libidinous subliminality. The trope here still has the function of othering the subjects by offering them as hyper sexual and hyper masculine; however they are not presented in a derogatory manner or inferior towards the protagonist or the audience of the feature. The troping of these characters further reinforces the stereotype of Latino men who are regarded as lustful, passionate, virile and hyper sexual (Berg 2002), but without the spectacle of ethnicity that has come to be a common-place of narratives in Western porn. The last element of Mexican culture the lm heavily relies on is that of the melodrama, this in turn supports the previous idea that this lm should not be regarded only as a gay pornographic feature, but also as a cinematic product in its own rights, as it follows a tradition of lms well established in the country. As Lisa Shaw and Stephanie Dennison explain most melodramas use music for dramatic and emotional emphasis, usually resort to the device of plot reversal, and rely heavily on fatalism and human powerlessness in the face of implacable destiny (2005: 272). Besides the sex scenes, the rest of La Putiza makes use of all the elements that have characterised melodrama in Mexican cinema, for instance Diamantes internal conicts are externalised through his impossibility to ejaculate in order to obtain Verga Aztecas mask, and therefore his moral and physical struggle are made visible and are enunciated as indisputable forces. The kind of soundtrack found in the lm also helps stress key moments of melodramatic impact, whilst they also convey characters internal conicts, as well as the mood of the scenes. Conversely from Western gay porn that have shown a preference for house music during the sex scenes (Shepherd 2003) one of the particularities of La Putiza is that is uses folk music as soundtrack for many of such scenes, while the preamble to most sex scenes is also highlighted by some folk music that serves as introduction to the theme of the scene. Incidental music is also used to stress key moment in certain scenes as a way to further stress the characters feelings. For instance, the moment when Diamante learns that The Master is The Penetrator (who is responsible for Verga Aztecas death) is highlighted by a very macabre soundtrack which further melodramatises the whole scene. If as Jesus Martn-Barbero asserts melodrama is the drama of recognition: son by father, father by son. What moves the plot along is always the awareness of identities, the struggle against which bewitching spells and false appearance, trying to cut through all the hides and disguises (1993: 225), then it is clear that La Putiza goes beyond the normal narratives offered by mainstream gay porn and offers an alternative to such commonplace stories. The lm presents a kind of homo-Oedipal conict that is established between Diamante and The Master who acts as both guidance and nemesis gure to the hero. This homosexual complex works at two different levels within the lm. On the one hand, there is the drama of the repressive father gure (The Master) who objecties and also become obsessed with Diamante. He shows a desire to help Diamante obtain Verga Aztecas mask (after sodomising him with his toe during their rst encounter and drugging him with his own cum) to only, by the end of the lm, show a kind of sexual envy fostered by the hero succeeding on his tasks. On the other hand, the kind of repression of desire that is forced upon the lms hero invokes the idea of the repression of the sexual object-

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identication that is paramount in conventional narrative constructions of homosexuality. This homo-Oedipal relationship is further highlighted by The Masters nal revelation, when he confesses to murdering Verga Azteca (which in turn becomes the plot hanger for the lms sequel La Verganza). It must be noticed that such homo-Oedipal drama is also structured within geographical spaces that are clearly demarcated as hypermasculine, and in such porn environments (as ctitious as they may be) there is an utilisation of gender imagery to create very distinctive sexually coded terrains. All, these spaces work, as Andrea Noble has argued in relation to cantinas and homes in Mexican melodrama, as a space of xed co-ordinates of gender relationships and their constitutive spatial registers (2005: 117). The relationship gendered body and gendered space is clearly demarcated in this lm, as all the different scenarios in which the sex encounters occur are clearly depicted as (hyper)masculine, such as the wrestling ring, the cantina and even The Masters mansion (with its phallic statues, paintings and devices). Like any melodramatic lm, La Putiza depicts situations in which the xity of gender and sexuality are clearly established not only through the actions of the different actor, but also by the different spaces in which such interactions take place. However, La Putiza cannot be regarded as a melodrama in the hetero-hegemonic sense of the traditional lm genre, that which has characterised Mexican cinema since the advent of the golden era. The homo-Oedipal slippage in the storyline, especially at the end of the lm with The Masters ultimate revelation, helps inscribe the lm within the family melodrama, while it also subverts gender and sexual roles within the melodrama genre. It is clear that the very nature of the lm, not only as a pornographic lm but also as a gay lm, contests the notion that sexuality and gender are monolithic and are expressions of genetically-determined physical sex traits (as it would be in traditional melodramas). On the other hand, it challenges the dominant and normative role assigned to heterosexuality at the expense of the marginalisation of other sexualities. As already suggested, La Putiza cannot be regarded as a solely melodramatic lm; however it clearly borrows elements inherent to the genre such as the transformation of conict from the social into the psychic, the presence of ruptures and discontinuities, as well as the different sexual conicts. La Putiza operates in ways that chime with Marcia Landys analysis of Italian family melodrama when she suggests the lm[s] explore the breakdown of social relations, using the family romance to encode the weakness of authority, the dominance of obsessional behaviour, competition, the manipulative aspects of petit-bourgeois life, the decadence of the upper classes, and the imsiness and hypocrisy of male relationships (1991: 570). The pursue of the mask, at all costs and at the expense of the protagonists own sexual pleasure, plays with the anxieties of a mestizo audience that has traditionally, and cinematically, viewed gures of power, as portrayed by The Master as repressive subjects in society. For the lms protagonist succeeding in his different tasks is not only a sign of valour and a reafrmation of his gay masculinity, but also a representation of social and class struggle in contemporary Mexican society. It could be suggested that Diamante embodies a type of masculinity that seeks to challenge existing models of masculinity as they circulate in mainstream society. What is interesting in the lm is the homosexualisation of macho archetypes

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(the mariachis, wrestlers) that constitute the very idea of masculinity in Mexican culture. Although it has already been suggested that lucha libre has become part of a national gay iconography, other elements of macho identity (that are not necessarily regarded as gay or camp) become subjected to gender and sexual scrutiny. Diamantes willingness to fuck and, more importantly, be fucked by the different men he encounters during the lm disavows the idea of gay as a cultural model in which to be gay is regarded as to be effeminised through means of anal penetration. As Andrea Noble suggests, the representation of a closed, sealed and violent male body gradually gives way to an albeit ambiguously congured, open male body (2005: 122). Diamante becomes both chingon and chingado,22 and displaces the kind of racial Other narratives that are present in other pornographic features in which Latin(o) men star. The sexual distinctions, in terms of sexual roles and preference, which have been paramount in the formation and establishment of male sexuality in macho societies (Murray 1995; Bufngton 1997) are contested by the fact that he does not oppose any kind of sexual advances. Finally, the last type of sexual challenge that the lm promotes is that of the ethnic superior Other, usually white or fair-skinned, who exercises power and sexual oppression using his skin colour as visual marker of his supposedly inherent superiority. The idea of whiteness as a social attribute that provides a degree of superiority to its bearer is challenged as the main protagonist, who in melodramatic terms must endure a constant testing of his own masculinity, is white but not necessarily regarded as superior since his main quest is to obtain the mask that will transform him into a sexual and wrestling superhuman (characteristics that he lacks in his current white state). By pursuing the mask of Verga Azteca, an object that hyperbolically represents the Indian Aztec ancestry that has been long denied in the popular cultural imaginary, the protagonist obliterates the notion of white ethnic absolutism as intrinsically superior. If, as Guillermo Bonl Batalla asserts, the clear and undeniable evidence of our Indian ancestry is a mirror in which we do not wish to see our own reection (1996: 18), it is possible to argue that Mexican gay pornography, by heavily focusing on aspects of national aboriginal heritage and portraying non-white bodies as objects of desire, permits to posit this lm as a text in which new forms of desire are circulated, at least amongst gay men.

Conclusion The study of pornography, as a cultural product with very specic codes rather than merely an object for sex gratication, should not detract from the fact that such lmic products are not intended to be consumed or regarded in the same way as other lms are. Nowadays, porn lms are not screened in theatres or cinemas so the whole experience has become a matter of personal consumption in which the individual, or a rather reduced number or people, as it may well be, enjoy the feature. It is crucial to remember that the whole process of watching porn differs
22 The vulgar mainstream terms to refer to male sexuality in terms of a penetrator versus penetrated dichotomy.

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from that of non-porn cinema, as the lms are never intended to be watched as whole units, but as separate sequences that produced an immediate reaction on its public, in other words to promote sexual arousal and induce orgasm. Even though Brian McNair argues that pornography is not produced with the conscious intention of achieving artistic effect (1996: 137), it would be quite reductionist to believe that some porn directors do not have the capacity to incorporate artistry or social commentaries in their own features. By the same token, this article does not intend to suggest that lms that offer more than just sexual tantalisation should be regarded as erotic rather than pornographic (Steinem 1980, 1995; Dyer 1989), or that they offer a different portrayal of sex and sexuality. Clearly La Putiza is a pornographic lm and the very explicit sex scenes and situations depicted on it corroborate this; however beyond the different moments of sexual intercourse, the lm offers a reading of the idea of gay Mexican identity that is yet to be found in other non-pornographic gay lms in the country (perhaps, with the sole exception of the work of Julian Hernandez). Although notions of gay mestizo identity, as well as the sexualisation of the racial Other, are clearly raised by other lm directors, La Putiza makes use of many elements of Mexican gay iconography so as to offer a product that has a strong appeal to the Mexican national viewer. Since gay sex, as depicted in other gay ` pornographic features, is universal, the lm makes use of elements of mise-en-scene as well as the storyline outside the moments of fucking to promote the circulation of aspects of national identity. Rather than offering the kind of pornographic transnationalism that Rich C. Cante and Angelo Restivo (2004) described as characteristic of gay Anglo-European pornography from the 1990s onwards, and in which pornographic narratives are orchestrated around multi-racial casts who only serve to reafrm sexual stereotypes in relation to race and ethnicity, La Putiza offers a new kind of libidinal space in which the narrative does not revolve around a spectacle of ethnicity as exotic. What makes La Putiza a different kind of pornographic lm is the fact that it recodes the existing dominant codes of race and sexuality as depicted in western gay pornography, and by doing so it promotes a process of identication between the indo-mestizo23 viewer and the stars on the screen. As a result, the lm challenges the idea that the idea of the sexuality of the Other as a spectacle or display is a common trope in the discourse of colonialism and imperialism, with the ethnic and racial specity of the Other reduced to pure unbridled sexuality (Ortiz 1994: 86). It is undeniable that the lms main goal is to portray, in extremely graphic details, the sexual encounters between the different stars, and that the actual sex offers very little in relation to notions of Mexican identity. However, rather than placing the notion of mexicanidad, or even latinidad,24 as a property of the body, a strategy that other gay porn directors have been quick to deploy (Westcott 2004; Cante and Restivo 2004; Ortiz 1994), La Putiza uses aspects of Mexican popular culture, as depicted in both the storyline and ` the mise-en-scene, to highlight its national roots. In other words, the lm (and its sequel La Verganza as well as the other productions by Mecos Films) are gay
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Mixed raced. Latin american identity.

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pornographic features that intend to challenge stereotypical representations of Latin(o) homosexuality as they commonly circulate in the West. As such, they rearticulate the way the indo-mestizo gay porn spectator regards himself in relation to others, as depicted in such features, while it also guarantees the circulation of new phantasmatic spaces of desire that will shape peoples understanding of coloured gay sexuality.

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Filmography
La Bruce, B. (2004). The Raspberry Reich. Germany and Canada: Jurgen Bruning Filmproduktion. Diestra, J. (2004). La Putiza. Mexico: Mecos Films.

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