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June 12, 2009
Homosexuality in Medellin's Underworld
I just had a conversation with a friend of mine, whom I will refer to as Pepe for security reasons, about the word 'parcero'. It is a slang word loosely translatable as 'friend' which was originally common in poor neighborhoods in Medellin and spread to many other areas of Colombia in the 1990's. He asked what it meant in the United States, and I started to tell him that, not only did it obviously have no meaning in American English, but I had no idea the word existed until I watched La Virgen de los Sicarios, a movie based on a book about young hitmen in early 90's Medellin. I left Colombia in 1996, well before the use of parcero had become widespread in my home town of Bogota, and I saw the movie probably around 2003. I recently read the book for a Spanish class at Brown.
According to Pepe, the filming of the movie was under constant threat from local sicario gangs. When they got word that their subculture was being associated with homosexuality, sicarios moved immediately to correct the 'mistake' and eventually got the lead actor to quit the project. According to Pepe, the actor playing the protagonist changes at some point in the movie, but they look too alike for anyone to notice.
Colombian culture is very hostile to homosexuality and it makes sense to me that homophobia would be even more acute in the subculture of sicarios. Nevertheless, I had read somewhere that the book, written by Fernando Vallejo, was a semi-autobiographical account of his return to an urban, gritty and brutally violent Medellin after decades living in Europe and that, during this period, he actually developed romantic relationships with some sicarios.
Pepe, who is from a neighborhood with a history of violence, told me that if any sicario came out of the closet, his own gang would kill him to avoid seeming weak. He told me that some paramilitaries from his neighborhood immediately kicked out a loyal soldier after they discovered he had a boyfriend. In fact, after their unit had taken control of the neighborhood, this discovery was pretty much their most severe emergency. Pepe himself was the one who alerted the local commander that he had a homosexual in his unit, probably in full knowledge that the information could lead to the man's death.
In the two weeks that I have been in Medellin, I have seen for the very first time evidence that Colombian society is dealing with homophobia, which has really surprised me. Since I moved to the United States, I have seen Colombia slowly make changes that Americans pioneered years earlier: organized public transportation, a somewhat enforced drinking age, a gradual rejection of cigarette smoking, etc. While I don't necessarily agree that all these changes are good, they are symptoms or side effects of Colombia's development into a slightly more organized society. Nevertheless, I really never thought that, in 2009, Colombians would even treat homophobia as that, as a social ill.
Homophobia is extremely widespread and acute in Colombia. Latin America in general and, in my opinion, Colombia in particular, has a very strong macho culture and a very strict, old-fashioned definition of manhood. On multiple occasions, family friends who have visited us in the United States have had trouble dealing with the way some American media outlets and the very liberal D.C. area in general have gladly accepted homosexuality. Interestingly, most of these family friends have been mainstream, upper-middle-class, relatively open-minded Colombia. Yesterday, at the soccer game, most of the many curse words launched at the referee and the Peruvian players were homophobic in nature.
On that note, while Latin Americans are quick to criticize the political, cultural and military influence of the United States throughout the region, it is clear that the spread of American mass media has positively transformed Colombian culture and forced it to rethink attitudes that, for many generations, have been treated as entirely normal. If I am quick to attribute Colombia's new awareness of homophobia to American influence, it is because I simply do not think that this is a change that could have come from within, at least not as soon as it did. Colombian society would be very reluctant to deal with homophobia without the knowledge that the United States, the world's wealthiest country and political and cultural superpower, has taken steps to do so for years.
The U.S. serves as a great cultural and social mirror for Colombia, whose relationship to the Superpower and the paradoxical things it represents is equally confusing and paradoxical. On the one hand, we know there is much to learn from the United States and admire its great wealth; on the other, we are very proud of our own culture and are increasingly aware of supposed flaws in the American lifestyle. While we complain about supposed breaches on our sovereignty through military aid, bases, etc., most Colombians (not including myself) strongly support President Uribe's security policies, which could not exist in the form that they do without Plan Colombia, an anti-drug aid program started under President Clinton.
So, at a time when Colombia-U.S. political relationships may be entering an era of change and, consequently, my mind is frequently how destructive that relationship has often been for Colombia, I wanted to express my gratitude for America's capacity to effect positive cultural change worldwide. In addition, I also want to recommend La Virgen de los Sicarios. While I preferred the pace and tone of the book, whose power really was in the satirical narration which got lost in the film version, the movie does a great job of realistically explaining sicario culture, showing one dimension of 1990's Medellin and challenging the city's violent macho culture by juxtaposing urban warfare with homosexual romance.
Posted by Pablo Rojas at June 12, 2009 11:04 AM
