I really don’t know what to make of this story.
Video via Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing.
32 Responses to “Anti-Emo rioting in Mexico”
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Woah
I think they could all learn something from these Chilean kids http://www.newsweek.com/id/124098/output/print
You could read this as a sublimated form of homophobic violence. If anti-emo sentiment in Mexico is anything like it is in the Anglophone world, then there is a strong undercurrent of homophobia in it. Large-scale clashes between different subcultural groups have a long history, I just can’t shake the feeling that there is more to this anti-emo thing.
Well, it was a while coming, but it finally cought on eh?
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2006/06/06/punch-an-emo-for-satan/
I’d say it was more broadly xenophobic rather than homophobic.
How so, silkworm? Are punks and rockabillies not also imported?
I’m not sure we know the answer to that - because we don’t (I assume) know anything about the history of music and subcultures in Mexico.
I’ve got a feeling it probably does related to privileging certain forms of masculinity.
You mean to say it’s not just that they’re so annoying?
It’s enough to make an emo stop cutting.
I think they’re cute!
/apologies for patronising remark
“I’ve got a feeling it probably does related to privileging certain forms of masculinity.”
That’s interesting. To be an emo in a machismo country must be a trial.
Elmo is much cuter than an emo.
“To be an emo in a machismo country must be a trial.”
Now this really is taking a leap into the realm of stereotype: why define Mexico as a ‘machismo country’?
Been there, Klaus? Sometimes stereotypes have a basis in reasonable broad generalisation.
Some Mexican speculation as to the causes here:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/letter-from-mexico-city/more-on-the-emo-attacks-in-mex/index.php
By xenophobic, I mean fear of those who are different, not fear of foreigners. I should have made that clear. Emos dress differently from most of us, but there is nothing in that dress to suggest that they are practising a gay lifestyle. Perhaps it is a new phenomenon altogether deserving of its own name - emophobia, or misoemoism.
Take your point, Klaus, but would anyone object if I said that Australian working class culture has traditionally been (and still largely is) machismo?
dk.au links to this about Chilean kids;
Sounds like St Ives or maybe Pymble. It take it the “strollers” are “passers-by” - not those little perambulators that toddlers sit in. In which case, it would be just like St Ives or maybe Pymble.
What happens when you beat up an Emo? Do they get happy?
Darlene and Klaus, in the Spanish and Latin American context the term ‘macho’ carries significantly greater connotations than simply hypermasculinity, and it’s really a concept of its own. Machismo isn’t necessarily homophobic—in fact in modern Spain at least same-sex male relationships, especially before marriage, are winked at even by the most macho—but it is intensely tribal and chauvinistic.
As Kim’s link suggests, there’s likely more to it than just youth cultures in conflict.
“Been there, Klaus? Sometimes stereotypes have a basis in reasonable broad generalisation.”
Yes, lets dredge up the category of experience as a realistic way of assessing the character of a whole nation. My objection was to attributing ‘machismo’ to an entire country, more than suggesting that machismo does not exist in Latin America. My partner is Salvadoran, so I’m not naive about the reality of the phenomenon.
It wasn’t a hostile comment, Klaus.
I am, however, suggesting that you can perceive something meaningful about a culture from experience of it.
I’d agree that it’s misleading to attribute it to an entire country.
The Mexican sources seem to suggest it is about a broader conservatism rather than narrow homophobia, but they weren’t very specific. I think I need a better grounding in contemporary Mexican politics to assess the claims being made about links to other political conflicts. From my admittedly superficial reading of those sources - my Spanish is weak, and I don’t want to go through it with the dictionary - it seems like sections of the left media area trying to claim these attacks as evidence in support of their political assumptions. I’m not sure about that, but it’s quite possible that the phenomena are related.
It is hard to judge this sort of thing at a distance.
Indeed it is. My bare Spanish comprehension did turn out to be useful though: the google translator seems to occasionally throw up the polar opposite of what is meant by particular phrases. From what I understand, I have to put aside my homophobia thesis in favour of your more general point about forms of masculinity, and beyond that it may actually be related to the broader political situation.
Yes, I’d be interested in hearing more about that - this is an example where “translation” goes beyond “translation” - as in even if you have some Spanish, a lot of political and cultural context is still missing… in translation. With any luck some of the people following this story might write something more informative in time!
I’m hoping that a particular friend of mine will have something to say as she is up to speed with Mexican politics, and just returned from a trip there, but I’m not going to bug her for an opinion because she’s trying to finish a thesis.
From what I do understand of the media in Mexico, there is less of a ‘depoliticising’ of these kinds of situations with crude psyschologisation or moral panic. But then, maybe my view is skewed by the media I’ve been exposed to!
Be interested to hear her take, Klaus, given those caveats about her thesis commitments!
In conservative countries ( GB Today!) dominated by authoritarian religion the ‘other’ - however defined - is sometimes outrageously scapegoated. Therfore it follows that we ( democratic and libertarian socialists acting in good faith) must act. And the best way now is through the net with preditcion markets. Sear
‘ James Bell assassination politics’.
It ain’t brain surgery. It’s the economy stupid. We can sure as ell minimize it by making a small positive contribution.
( Just my 2 pesos)
British teenagers hunt and kill goth girl.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/27/ngoth127.xmlBikies vs straights, bodgies and widgies vs beatniks, Jazzers vs rockers, rockers vs mods, blackburn sharpies vs everyone, hippies vs broadie boys, jocks vs goths, punks vs disco, ……….. inner city new agers vs suburban working families, bloggers vs MSM…………
Ahhhhh Tamagothi.
If you feed your goth too much speed they turn into a raver.
That’s the nasty one.
Can we have some anti-Homeboy Gangsta Dickhead Wannabe rioting here please. Just one day a year. It’s not murder, it’s responsible managment of the species.
im all for peace. i think we may still have a chance.
violence solves nothing
this remonds me of the holocaust.
Strongconsideration for other poeple.
Reading sublimecowgirl’s link (url) I’d rather be an emo/goth/pokemone in macho Mexico than in bovver-boy UK.