Gender, Sexuality, Beauty, and Chicano/Latino Men 1
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Notes Introduction 1. As quoted by Michael Musto in his “La Dolce Musto” column of The Village Voice, June 8, 2004. 2. Alexander Doty, Flaming Classics: Queering the Film Canon (New York: Routledge, 2000), 8. 3. David William Foster, El ambiente nuestro: Chicano/Latino Homoerotic Writing (Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 2006), 7. 4. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Tendencies (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), xii. 5. Alexander Doty, Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 12 (italics mine). 6. Doty, Flaming Classics, 4. 7. Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books: 1987), 79. 1. Queer Machos: Gender, Sexuality, Beauty, and Chicano/Latino Men 1. Ilán Stavans, “The Latin Phallus,” in Muy Macho: Latino Men Confront Their Manhood, ed. Ray González (New York: Doubleday, 1996), 156. 2. J.F. Cross and J. Cross, “Age, Sex, Race, and the Perception of Facial Beauty,” Developmental Psychology 5, no. 3 (1971): 433–39; D.M. Jones and K. Hill, “Criteria of Facial Attractiveness in Five Populations,” Human Nature 4, no. 3 (1993): 271–96 ; V.S. Johnston and M. Franklin, “Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder?” Ethology and Sociobiology 14, no. 3 (1993): 183–99. 3. Lesley Higgins, The Modernist Cult of Ugliness (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 24. 4. David William Foster, El ambiente nuestro: Chicano/Latino Homoerotic Writing (Tempe: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 2006), 8. 5. Alfredo Mirandé, Hombres y machos: Masculinity and Latino Culture (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), 66. 6. Jaime Manrique, Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999), 112. 178 Notes 7. José Piedra, “Nationalizing Sissies,” in ¿Entiendes?: Queer Readings, Hispanic Writings, ed. Emilie L. Bergmann and Paul Julian Smith (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), 375. 8. Michael P. Levine, Gay Macho: The Life and Death of the Homosexual Clone (New York: New York University Press, 1998); Michelangelo Signorile, Life Outside: The Signorile Report on Gay Men: Sex, Drugs, Muscles, and the Passages of Life (New York: HarperPerennial, 1997). 9. Susan Bordo, “Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body,” in Beauty Matters, ed. Peg Zeglin Brand (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 122. 10. Mick LaSalle, Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002); André Soares, Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002). 11. Levine, Gay Macho, 29. 12. Signorile, Life Outside, xix. 13. Although Rechy’s father was of Scottish descent, both his parents were born in Mexico. 14. For an analysis of the way John Rechy and the protagonists of several of his novels are one and the same, see Daniel Enrique Pérez, “Masculinity (Re)Defined: Masculinity, Internalized Homophobia, and the Gay Macho Clone in the Works of John Rechy,” in Beginning a New Millennium of Chicana and Chicano Scholarship, ed. Jaime H. García (Berkeley: Inkworks Press, 2006), 241–55. An extended version of the research is available as an M.A. thesis under the same title at Arizona State University (2000). 15. The term mano is short for hermano, meaning “brother.” It is used pri- marily among Chicano/Latino men to greet one another informally while highlighting their kinship. 16. Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (New York: Routledge, 1993), 170. 17. Pérez, “Masculinity (Re)Defined,” 241–55. 18. For an analysis of the role masculinity plays in the legal profession, see Jennifer Pierce, “Rambo Litigators: Emotional Labor in a Male- Dominated Occupation,” in Gender and Work in Today’s World: A Reader, ed. Nancy E. Sacks and Catherine Marrone (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004), 65–86. 19. Foster, El ambiente nuestro, 81. 20. He makes similar moves throughout the series. 21. Tomás Almaguer, “Chicano Men: A Cartography of Homosexual Identity and Behavior,” Differences 3, no. 2 (1993): 78. 22. Luis Alfaro, “Cuerpo Politizado,” in Uncontrollable Bodies: Testimonies of Identity and Culture, ed. Rodney Sappington and Tyler Stallings (Seattle: Bay Press, 1994), 219. 23. Foster, El ambiente nuestro, 153. Notes 179 24. Guillermo Reyes, Deporting the Divas, Gestos: Teoría y práctica del teatro hispánico 27 (1999): 115. 25. Ibid., 116. 26. Butler, Bodies That Matter, 170. 27. Jeanne Carstensen, “Alex Donis, Visual Artist: A Kiss Is Not a Kiss,” The Gate (1997), http://sfgate.com/eguide/profile/arc97/1031donis- profile.shtml. 28. Ibid. 29. Richard T. Rodríguez, “Queering the Homeboy Aesthetic,” Aztlán 31, no. 2 (2006): 127. 30. A combination of reggae, Latin American, and hip-hop musical styles that has become popular in the United States and abroad. 31. Obregón is a common last name, the name of a former general and pres- ident of Mexico, Álvaro Obregón, and a city in northern Mexico. 32. Especially their plays A Bowl of Beings, The Mission, and Radio Mambo. 33. Especially his performance pieces Mambo Mouth, Spic-O-Rama, Freak, and Sexaholix. 34. Especially his pieces “El mandilón,” “El valiente,” and “Toma tiempo.” 2. (Re)Examining the Latin Lover: Screening Chicano/Latino Sexualities 1. As quoted in Victoria Thomas’s, Hollywood’s Latin Lovers: Latino, Italian and French Men Who Make the Screen Smolder (Santa Monica, CA: Angel City Press, 1998), 34. 2. Although Valentino and Novarro are often considered the first Latin lovers in film, Antonio Moreno made his debut in 1912, thereby predat- ing the two. See Thomas, Hollywood’s Latin Lovers, 37. I must also note that the Latin lover has roots in the infamous Don Juan character, which can be traced all the way back to seventeenth-century Spain; the Italian counterparts are Romeo and Casanova. 3. Ibid., 9. 4. Susan Bordo, “Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body,” in Beauty Matters, ed. Peg Zeglin Brand (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 122–23. 5. John Leguizamo, Mambo Mouth, directed by Thomas Schlamme (New York: Island Visual Arts, 1992). 6. The expression “lavender marriage” came into use during the 1920s when Hollywood began imposing morality contracts. It refers to mar- riages of convenience orchestrated to protect an actor’s reputation and career. The legendary William Hames is largely associated with the pro- liferation of lavender marriages after his career was destroyed for trying to live openly as a gay man; Rock Hudson is perhaps one of the most cited examples of a gay male actor who participated in a lavender marriage. 180 Notes 7. In his biography, Arnaz quotes Ball as saying: “Too Many Girls was not only the title of your first show, it is the story of your life” (A Book [New York: William Morrow, 1976], 93). 8. In its original form, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were to play them- selves—two successful and busy artists trying to make their marriage work. In an effort to make a show with which more people could iden- tify, they created the second format, which ended up working success- fully. See Arnaz, A Book, 199. 9. Alexander Doty, Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting Mass Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 45–48. 10. “Carlos Slam,” Mind of Mencia, Comedy Central, season 3, episode. no. 304. First aired April 15, 2007. 11. Ibid. 12. The Latin lover’s body and looks have been used in this way for almost a century in U.S. popular culture. López’s identity as a sex object is not much different from that of Ramón Novarro, with the exception that López’s look has become more mainstream than ethnic. He is not viewed as being exotic, but as the purveyor of a beauty standard for all men. 13. Bryan Alexander, “Mario Lopez: No More Going Shirtless,” People online (September 15, 2008), http://www.people.com/people/article/ 0,,20225738,00.html. This statement created a mini scandal that was labeled Chesthairgate. Pictures surfaced of him with chest hair. Why was this a scandal? Well, just a few weeks earlier when asked in People if he “manscaped” (shaved parts of his body), he responded, “Not at all. That’s the Latin Indian blood in me. My dad has a hairy chest, but I don’t” (Antoinette Coulton and Monica Rizzo, “Mario Lopez Bares All!” People 69, no. 25 [June 30, 2008], 62). 14. López was asked to reprise his role as Dr. Mike Hamoui in Nip/Tuck. Although they will probably not repeat his famous shower scene, his body will inevitably be on erotic display in some way. 15. Coulton and Rizzo, “Mario Lopez Bares All!” 60. 16. For an analysis of the gay macho clone, see Michael P. Levine, Gay Macho: The Life and Death of the Homosexual Clone (New York: New York University Press, 1998); Michelangelo Signorile, Life Outside: The Signorile Report on Gay Men: Sex, Drugs, Muscles, and the Passages of Life (New York: HarperPerennial, 1997). 17. Notice the erasure of his Latino identity. Once again the Latin lover becomes countryless. My best guess is that the producers assigned him Middle Eastern markings in order to make his character more believ- able. Who ever heard of a Latino doctor, right? 18. This role reversal is especially interesting if one considers that Ramón Novarro’s leading role in the original Ben-Hur (1925) was replaced by Charlton Heston in 1959. 19. Coulton and Rizzo, “Mario Lopez Bares All!” 57. 20. Ibid., 68–69. Notes 181 3. (Re)Reading the Chicano Literary Canon 1. José Antonio Villarreal, Pocho (New York: Anchor Books, 1989), 95. 2. Alexander Doty, Flaming Classics: Queering the Film Canon (New York: Routledge, 2000), 2. 3. Ibid, 3. 4. See Timothy S. Sedore’s interview with the author: “ ‘Everything I Wrote Was Truth’: An Interview with José Antonio Villarreal,” Northwest Review 39, no.