Year in Review, pt. 2: Wedded bliss in Mexico City, TG blood on Peruvian Flag, Lisa M. comes out

Continuing a look at the Blabbeando year in review:

Wedded bliss in Mexico City: In March, a marriage equality law approved by the Mexico City legislature in December finally went into effect, making it the first region in all of Latin America to allow same-sex couples to marry.

The law would survive a constitutional challenge filed at the behest of Mexican president Felipe Calderón when the country's Supreme Court ruled in August that it was constitutionally solid. The court would also rule that granting adoption rights to same-sex couples was constitutional and that all Mexican states were required to legally recognize any and all same-sex marriages recognized by the Mexico City (not all states are happy about it).

In October, La Jornada reported 417 same-sex couples had married in Mexico since the law went into effect.

Washing trans blood from the Peruvian flag: In March, I also wrote about an unusual transgender rights protest in the northern Peruvian city of Tumbes in which, in front of cameras, participants called for the church and state to stop discriminating against them and urged those in power to create  a better employment environment for them. What made the protest unusual and striking was that the women pulled out a Peruvian flag they said had been stained with their blood and, using a bucket of water and soap, they proceeded to wash the flag to call attention to all the hate crimes committed against the transgender community throughout Peru.

Hiram, a friend no more: Locally, disgraced former New York City Councilmember and New York State Senator Hiram Monserrate lost a last-ditch attempt at remaining in politics by embracing homophobia. Once a marriage equality ally, Monserrate was one of the few Democratic State Senators who a marriage equality bill and helped to sink it.  To think I once called Hiram a personal friend.

Ricky: Oh, and Ricky Martin came out.

A Cardinal talks, the authorities follow: In April, I wrote about Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodriguez of the Dominican Republic and his latest pet peeve: The public behavior he'd observed at Duarte Park, a popular public gathering spot for members of the LGBT community of Santo Domingo.  Aparently, he used a Sunday sermon to blast the "abhorrent" behavior he'd seen.  His work carries power and, for the next week, local media parroted his calls for authorities to clean up the park.  Within days the police department was telling media that they had linked illicit drug sales in the park to a group of homosexuals and giving a vow to shut down any park vendor activity that attempted against "morals and good behavior." It's a sign of how much sway the Cardinal holds over the local authorities. Scary for a man of the cloth who has been known to describe gays as "faggots".



KFC turns men gay: Bolivian president Evo Morales momentarily became the world's laughing stock - and torpedoed any serious coverage of an important international environmental conference being held in his country - when he used his key note address to argue, among other things, that feminine hormones injected into chicken from non-organic farms could cause "deviations in a man's being".

How that could be interpreted as anything but saying eating non-organic chicken could make some men gay escapes me, but the Bolivian government's defense later argued that Morales had said no such thing - and that the charge of homophobia had been a ploy by imperialists nations to overshadow coverage of the environmental summit.

Local Bolivian LGBT organizations begged to differ and sent a letter asking for clarification.  The government responded by saying the wished to affirm their support for the LGBT community in Bolivia --- and stating, once again, that Morales "under no circumstance" had been referring to homosexuality in his speech. Watch the video and see if you agree.

Bad, bad, Vatican: Also in April, responding to a call for action by the International LGBTI Association (ILGA), advocates in Venezuela,  Argentina and Peru held rallies against the Vatican to reject links the Vatican hierarchy were making between pedophilia and homosexuality.

Soccer players in love: I also found what must be one of the hottest gay scenes to play in a Latin America telenovela.  It's from "Botineras" and, in it, two men who play soccer players and have fallen in love have sex for the first time. Doing some follow-up, I also found scenes from a shoot one of the actors - who says he's straight - did for a gay webportal. Meet Cristian Sancho.



Hey ladies! Oh, and Puerto Rican salsa/reggaeton singer Lisa M. came out (it's a video from VEVO, which means it might not be available to watch in your region).

Actor Jaime Camil says kissing scenes with male co-star are being edited out from telenovela

This is unusual:

Jaime Camil, the leading actor in a new telenovela being broadcast in Mexico, has expressed frustration and disappointment with Televisa, the parent company, for editing out scenes in which he is shown kissing male co-star Jose Rohn.

"Los Existosos Pérez" ["The Successful Perez Family"], an adaptation from an original Argentinian series, is a half-hour comedy of mistaken identity and intrigue set in and around a television news studio.

Camil plays Gonzalo González, a man hired by the station owners to impersonate top rated news anchorman Martín Pérez, after the star anchor has an accident and falls into a coma (Camil plays both parts).

Unbeknownst to the impostor, a very public marriage between the anchorman and his female news co-host is a sham, and is a cover for a long term relationship between the anchorman and another man.

The impostor suddenly finds himself trying to deflect the anchorman's male lover's advances without letting the lover know he is someone else, while secretly falling in love with the female co-host. Hilarity ensues [preview here].

I've checked out a few of the episodes that have been posted on YouTube and haven't been too impressed. It's not a bad show in particular, but it's not a good one either. Using the gay storyline to elicit laughs seems a bit retro, even though it's been described as a huge step forward for Mexican television. It doesn't help that the actors who play gay men camp it up a bit to project 'gayness' - and that includes Jose Ron as the anchorman's lover and an actor playing a gay network assistant. It's not in itself a bad thing, but it's a tired old stereotype nevertheless.

All of this would be par for the course and might not even merit a mention except that Camil spoke up last weekend.

Interviewed by a gossip show correspondent in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where the telenovela is being shot, Camil said he was perplexed about several kissing scenes that had been shot between him and Jose Rhon which were either edited out or shortened when televised [see YouTube video below].

"They are editing them for a reason [and] I still fail to comprehend why it is," he says on camera, and ads that "it's a bit frustrating, as an actor, to undertake a creative process [to create] a character and, suddenly, to have it cut off based on false morals or double standards that sometimes exist in Mexico."

He does admit that it's up to the producers to decide what makes it on air or what doesn't and says that he is happy with the way that the show and his character have been developing in the two months since it was launched.

Mexican gossip show NX, which captured Camil's seemingly unguarded comments, ran the interview with commentary. Highlighting how homophobic Mexican media can be, a member of the show jokes that Camil is just angry because he had to shoot the kissing scenes several times and had to kiss a man over and over.

Still, this IS Mexico, where these huge media conglomerates closely guard their product and content and where these increasingly multi-national telenovelas are produced to be sold later to the lucrative international syndication market. To a higher degree than Hollywood, stars who are part of Mexican show-business rarely speak up or criticize producers or companies, particularly if you are currently part of the show you are criticizing.

In that light, I think it's huge that a well-known telenovela star like Camil, who is actually playing the show's lead, is willing to go on record about his criticism and willing to question whether there is homophobia at play.

It'll be interesting to see if Camil's comments lead to Televisa reviewing what it shows and doesn't show in a telenovela that is supposed to embrace gay characters. It will also be interesting to see if Univision, which is scheduled to air the series possibly on prime time here in the Unites States, will also cut the kissing scenes or let them stand.

An aside: The show does mark the return of legendary telenovela star Veronica Castro to Mexican television. You might remember, in a somewhat related vein, that she refused to play a lesbian role on a Mexican TV special because she did not want to kiss another woman.

• Related: OMG. Charytin doesn't want the gay kisses to air! (via Guanabee)

Farandula: Soap opera diva says she will not go lesbo for "Assassin Women"

I have to admit that when I first heard of it last week, I was a little disturbed and felt somewhat nauseous: Two of the all-time most popular television soap divas in Spanish language television - both way past their glory years and victims of several rounds of cosmetic surgery - had allegedly signed up to play a lesbian couple in the Mexican version of an Argentinian television series called "Assassin Women".

Don't get me wrong! It would be great to see Mexican television portray the lives of older lesbian couples but Lucia Mendez shaking up with her real-life showbiz nemesis Veronica Castro? OMfG!!! I feel queasy all over again just writing that sentence!

Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself: On Wednesday, the Mexican newspaper Milenio broke the story ("It is expected that Veronica Castro and Lucia Mendez will play a gay couple").

The two actresses had already appeared at a news conference (above) to announce that they would be part of "Assassin Women." Carlos Pascual, a writer for the show, revealed that they would be playing a lesbian couple: "The storyline is stupendous, it's about a gay couple made up of two women who dedicate themselves to the theater, one is a costume designer and the other an architect. A huge problem surfaces, a rape, but I cannot say anything else."

I can see Lucia Mendez (right) truly sink her teeth into such a role (full disclosure: I've always had a fond heart for La Mendez ever since I saw her in "Tu o Nadie" with Andres Garcia and the amazingly crap-tastic - in a good way - "The Strange Return of Diana Salazar" in the late 80's).

Her gay fans are legion - I dare say that she was probably more popular than even Madonna at the heights of her career - and it's no surprise that just a few months ago she was touring some of the Latino gay bars in the United States singing some of her hits (in Mexico you cannot be a soap opera star without having a recording career to go along with it and they gays always love you even if your career is on the downturn).

My queasiness, to be sincere, was all about the other side of the equation: The cougar-rific Veronica Castro (left) who used to be as big a star as Mendez (full disclosure: I never got her appeal but have to admit that her role in "Rosa Salvaje" - perhaps her biggest hit - was just hilarious and not in an intentional way - I dare you to YouTube it).

I mean, this is the woman who called someone a faggot back in July defending her son Cristian (long rumored himself to be gay despite a recent and scandalous divorce that has filled pages and pages of gossip magazines in Mexico).

Well, I do have to say, La Vero does not disappoint! Here's her reaction to the possibility of playing a lesbian character, according to yesterday's El Universal ("Veronica Castro rules out playing a lesbian"):

"[To be an actress today] you are asked to let go of your disgust for anything - sucking, sticking, pulling out - and then you have to allow your body to be shown without inhibitions, in other words, a type of prostitution, and if you end up acting, well, you are welcome. But how!"

OK, that was a bit tough to translate but even if El Universal says she said this in good humor, who exactly is asking La Vero to suck, stick or withdraw anything from Lucia Mendez, much less in the nude?

Probably feeling concious that she might come off a tad lesbophobic she then went on another tangent saying she had always felt some sense of disgust when asked to kiss male actors in the past: "Other [actors] can tell you, like [Guillermo] Capetillo with whom we always tried to eat the same thing, or we'd say to each other 'look, I brought gum' or a new breath-mint, because I am disgusted [by it], anyway she is not my type."

Oops. Ended up coming off worse.

And now I've written way more about Mexican soap operas than I should be allowed - ever! And exposed how much useless information resides in my brain! But, I swear! There were other benefits of having watched soaps like "Tu o Nadie". Perfect example:

Hm, Andres Garcia is is the original McSteamy! Even if he's stuck selling male-enhancement treatments nowadays (and yes, that's the younger Lucia Mendez next to him).