If Only For The Length Of A Lucha: Queer/ing, Mask/ing, Gender/ing And Gesture In Lucha Libre Nina Hoechtl Goldsmiths University of London Practice-based PhD October 2012 Declaration The work presented in this thesis is the candidateʼs own. 2 Acknowledgements Herewith I express my sincere gratitude to Susan Kelly and Ros Gray, my supervisors at the Goldsmiths University of London, for their support, good cheers, and for challenging my thoughts, reading, writing, and art practice; and to Hortensia Moreno, my advisor during my academic residency at the Program of Gender Studies (PUEG) at the Universidad Autónoma de México (Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM), for her support and for collaborating on “Cuerpos atléticos / Athletic Bodies.” Also in Mexico City I would like to thank: Helena López and Rían Lozano for their invitation to present at the programme “Feminismos en Espiral / Feminisms in Spiral” at the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC)); the Asociación Enblanco for the invitation to be part of a panel at the 2012 conference “La Sexualidad Contemporánea / Contemporary sexuality” at the Universidad de Londres (University of London); Rodrigo Parrini for his invitation to present during the Annual Gender Studies Colloquium at the Programa Universitario de Estudios de Género (University Programme of Gender Studies, PUEG); and Lars Ivar Owesen-Lein Borge and Agustin Villalpando for their invitation to present at the 2011 V Queer Studies Easter Symposium. BEEESSSOOOO to Eduardo Thomas whom helped in every way possible to support the continuing work, was never tired of revising my translations from Spanish into English and vice versa, and listened throughout my doubts, worries, wonders, and even withstood my emotional outbursts. My dearest thanks to all the people who agreed to talk to me, for their willingness to share insights, ideas, bibliographies, difficult and good times: Crazy Boy, John Chilver, Raúl Cuesta, Ana Luisa Echeverría, Esther Gabara, Rachel Garfield, Sandra Granados, El Bello Greco, Norma Hernández Huerta, Dhani Ledesma, Jesse Lerner, Jessy, Kamilion, Ascan Luttheroth, Norma 3 Martínez, Dr. Morales, Nygma, Irma Gónzalez, Lola Gónzalez, Carlos Oliver, Zulai Macias Osorno, Rodrigo Parrini, Andrea Phillips, Piero, Michael Ramos- Araizaga, Dorian Roldán, Ruti Talmor, Polvo de Estrellas, Nicole Wolf and Yuriko. I am very, very grateful to Charles Fairbanks whom provided indispensable help in making my writing more legible in the English language! A big thanks as well to all my fellow artists, and friends who helped in every possible way to realize my projects, wrote about my work, and included it in exhibitions and/or publications: Anajo Aldrete, José Arnaud, Best Revenge 2012, Mariana Botey, Jessy Bulbo, Vesna Bukovec, Carla Cruz, Héctor Gava Dávila, Petja Dimitrova, Lina Dokuzović, Larisa Escobedo, Guillermo Fadanelli, Naomi Rincón Gallardo, Can Gülcü, Naomi Hennig, Mike Holeboom, Haydeé Jimenez, Ivan Jurica, Jovana Komnenic, Ross Lippman, Antonio Vega Macotela, Julia Martin, Dejan Markovic, Louise Menzies, Leika Mochán, Marit Münzberg, Yoshua Okón, Elena Pardo, Carla Pataky, Andreas Reiter-Raabe, Andrea Salazar, Octavio Serra, Hito Steyerl, Mirjana Boba Stojadinovic, Katja Sudec, Dafna Talma, Cristina Velasco, Álvaro Villalobos, Angela Wiedermann, Carmen Weingartshofer. Iʼd like to thank the curators and theorists you made it possible for me to work, develop and exhibit my artistic practice, which informs my research and vice- versa: Claudia Arozqueta, Anke Bangma, Marie Canet, Vanessa Desclaux, Andrea Domesle, Frank Eckhardt, Hilde Fraueneder, Yolanda Riquelme Garcia, Yelena Gluzman, Wiebke Gronemeyer, Stefanie Grünangerl, Dagmar Höss, Jens Kastner, Michal Kolecek, Arman Kulasic, Catalina Lozano, Margarethe Makovec, Eva Martischnig, Adriana Marques, Marko Miletic, Arnela Mujkanovic, Mónica Nepote, Amy Pederson, Karin Pernegger, Elisabeth Bettina Spörr, Raimar Stange, Anita Surkic, Lee Weinberg, Sabine Winkler, Matvei Yankelevich, Luisa Ziaja, Antonio Zirión. 4 I am very grateful to Gabriela Fuentes and Phil Denman, Carla Cruz and Andi Studer, Catalina Lozano and José Arnaud, who hosted me whenever I needed a place to stay in London and even cooked for me. A big hug to my mum Susanne, my dad Wolf and my brother Lukas, who always stand behind and support me, my aunts Micha, Kathi and Margit, my cousins Iris, Veronika, Magdalena and Maria, my grandparents Hanna and Waldi and to the familyʼs friends Silvi and Fritzi! Last, but not least, let me thank my sponsors that either directly supported this PhD research or my artistic practice: the Siegfried-Ludwig-Fond, the NÖ Top- Stipendium, the BMUKK Staatsstipendium für bildende Kunst, the Department of Art RSA Award at Goldsmiths. Extra-special thanks to my dear grandfather whom, among many other things throughout his life, made it possible that I could pay the tuition fee of the third year. You are missed! Without all of you this work could have never been realized! THANK YOU VERY MUCH! / MUCHÍSIMAS GRACIAS! / VIELEN HERZLICHEN DANK! 5 Abstract This PhD uses a queer reading strategy to explore the performative sites of lucha libre (wrestling in Mexico). My research inhabits the space behind the scene, the space between the ring and the audience, and the space of being part of the audience itself. My reading of the luchas takes place through the camera, the interview, printed works, theoretical investigation, and through the work of artists who draw on lucha libre – including myself. As lucha libre itself cannot be narrowed down to one specific medium, my subject matter allows me to utilize an interdisciplinary perspective to examine its various encounters, spaces, subjectivities and gestures. As well as attending live events in the arenas, watching lucha libre on television, exploring its circulation in artistic and filmic productions and its appropriation in advertisements and political discourse, I have carried out an intervention in a regular lucha libre programme by inventing a character, promoting, constructing and staging a match in an arena in the north of Mexico City. My methodology therefore makes use of a whole range of strategies including those borrowed from the discipline of anthropology and from practices of documentary making. Through my writing and my practice, I attempt to query and complicate these disciplinary conventions and my own use of them. I place particular emphasis in this PhD upon the possibility and use of a queer reading strategy in relation to lucha libre. Drawing on the works of Gloria Anzaldúa, Judith Butler, Judith ʻJackʼ Halberstam, José Javier Maristany, and José Esteban Muñoz, the thesis argues that a queer reading strategy has the potential to complicate ways of seeing gender and sexuality as well as race, ethnicity, class, time and space in this context. I identify the rich queer legacies within lucha libre, film and popular culture, and focus on the multiple and often conflicting readings made possible by adopting queer theory and reading practices. In doing so, the thesis interrogates the different ways in which popular cultures can go beyond accepted notions of what it means to be Mexican, a woman, macho, gay and so on. Throughout this work, I pay 6 close attention to forms of audience participation, their verbal and gestural acts and how key these are in to the event of the lucha. These verbal and gestural acts, I argue, produce a unique complicity in the arena manifesting a transient trace of queer histories, and suggesting potential utopias. 7 Contents Page I. Introduction i I.I Academic Critique Vs. Practice Based Research viii I.II Positioning Vs. Naming xv I.III My Positions as States of Vulnerability xx I.IV Creating a Space Full of Force and Vulnerability xxvi I.V A Queer Reading Strategy xxxi 1. CHAPTER 1: LA PRIMERA LUCHA (THE FIRST FIGHT) Play of Masks 1 1.1 Section 1: LA PRIMERA CAÍDA – THE FIRST FALL Wrestling over Mexicanidad Vs. Mestizaje Vs. Indigenismo 5 1.1.1 A Variety of Character Categories in Lucha Libre 11 1.1.2 Rudis Vs. Urban Indians as Audience Vs. Técniquis 13 1.2 Section 2: LA SEGUNDA CAíDA – THE SECOND FALL Donning Masks 16 1.2.1 Past and Present: Masks in Performance, Danza and Lucha Libre 19 1.2.2 A Craze for Masks, Masking and Unmasking 22 1.3 Section 3: LA TERCERA CAÍDA – (THE THIRD FALL) Pelado and Naqui as Masks 30 1.3.1 Lucha Libre as Naca: The Re-configuration of the Audience 34 2. CHAPTER 2: LA SEGUNDA LUCHA (THE SECOND FIGHT) Conditions of Power? – Wrestling over Gender Roles 43 2.1 Section 1: LA PRIMERA CAÍDA – THE FIRST FALL The Luchadoresʼ Incoherent Luchas: Machismo Vs. Nationalism Vs. Machismos 45 2.1.1 Gender as Acts of Repetition Vs. Imitation 52 8 2.2 Section 2: LA SEGUNDA CAÍDA – THE SECOND FALL 55 La múltiple lucha (The multiple struggle) of Luchadoras 2.2.1 Tackling the “Againstogether” of the Figures La Malinche and La Virgen de Guadalupe 57 2.2.2 Womanliness As Masquerade Vs. Wrestling Luchadoras Vs. Female Masculinity 63 2.3 Section 3: LA TERCERA CAÍDA – THE THIRD FALL Los Exóticos Enter the Ring 80 2.3.1 Picking Up and Revising the Role of Los Exóticos 81 2.3.2 La Loca and her Representation in Las Ficheras Vs. in the Ring 85 2.3.3 A La Luz (Into The Light) – The Meddlesome Positions of Los Exóticos 92 3. CHAPTER 3: LA TERCERA (THE THIRD) LUCHA In Nepantla: Kisses and Gestures as Transient Traces of Queer Histories, and Possible Utopias 101 3.1 Section 1: LA PRIMERA CAÍDA – THE FIRST FALL The Arena and Its Changing Rooms Facilitating the Luchas 103 3.2 Section 2: LA SEGUNDA CAÍDA – THE SECOND FALL Sports, Albures and Gestures – Different Modes of Participation 107 3.2.1. Lucha Libre Vs. Sports 109 3.2.2 The Luchas as Albures Vs. The Albur as a Trigger for Participation 116 3.2.3.