The June-July issue of Sports Illustrated Latino has two different covers depending on where you buy it.States in which the predominant immigrant population is from the Caribbean (read: the Eastern coast) can oggle at Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees because residents in these latitudes like baseball a lot, or so tell us the editors. Residents in states where the predominant immigrant population is from Central America, South America and Mexico (read: the rest of the states) get a cover story on Copa America, the soccer tournament taking place right now in Venezuela in which Uruguay and Brazil will duke it out for the championship this coming Sunday, because they like soccer a lot (thanks SI Latino editors! Now I really know my peoples!).
Not happy to pander to two different Latino populations, the editors have sneakily targeted a third: Los marico... ehem... da gays!
In a photo gallery featuring fourteen of the "most colorful" Mexican lucha libre fighters (that's wrestling to you muchachos) they include Maximo (pictured above):
"This exotic [character] (a wrestler who interprets a homosexual) causes confusion in his rivals by flirting with them. He's been a professional [wrestler] for five years" says the caption.
Considering the machismo in Latino sports, it's good to see SI Latino promote tolerance in it's pages. Not that the US-based WWE hasn't been just as inclusive in the past.
Posts
3 comments:
What a lack of creativity. In one episode of Futurama (the cartoon series created by Matt Groening), Bender the robot is a wrestling star but when his ratings fall they change him into exactly that, a pink tutu wrestler.
Tolerance, or stereotypes? I mean the guy is wearing a pink quasi-shift-like garment and mincing....
Just wondering.
Hey John! My tongue was firmly in cheek when I wrote this post. Then again, it IS a widespread phenomenon in Mexican wrestling - I mean, the use of demeaning stereotypes as comedy - which, as I said, it´s not something that Unites States wrestling hasn´t tried in the past either.
Post a Comment