Evo, Chicken and Gays
Some things the Bolivian president says linger long after he has stopped speaking. You may have read in the news last month about Morales's comment about chicken and gay men. It basically went something like this, "the chicken that we eat is full of female hormones. Because of this, when men eat chicken, they experience deviations from being men." (El pollo que comemos está cargado de hormonas femeninas. Por eso, cuando los hombres comen esos pollos, tienen desviaciones en su ser como hombres.) Of course, there was outrage from the gay community, and he has since had to apologize publicly for his comments several times. However, the more interesting thing is how this faux-pas has been adopted in the Bolivian vernacular. "Oh, I don't think you should eat that chicken," say my male colleagues to each other at work. "I think you may have had too much chicken lately," if you want to really annoy a macho Bolivian. "I'm going to stick to beef, thank you." And so forth.
The more shocking (but I guess not really surprising) reaction came from my colleagues one day. We were celebrating someone's birthday at work with the habitual mid-morning salteñas* and everyone was gathered around the table. The chicken joke came up as some people reached for the chicken salteñas. One of the directors (a woman) said to the guy making the joke, "Well, what about if someone among us is homosexual? How do you think these jokes would make him or her feel?" There was a very brief silence, and then people burst out laughing. The thoughts behind the laughter: Someone among us, homosexual? What is this, a joke? And so it goes. Instead of discussing such topics openly, people just hide their insecurity on the issue behind their laughter.
Evo sure knows how to stir things up.
3 comments:
Any idea how the attitudes are in Brazil? Someone I know, who "has had too much chicken", say, just came up with the rather hair-brained scheme of suddenly moving to Brazil, buying land there and setting up a tile/ceramics business...
Cultural considerations are perhaps the least of his worries as he has no money, doesn't speak a word of Portuguese, or even Spanish, and doesn't have the faintest inkling of visa procedures...but still *I'd* be curious...
H.
P.S. See if you can guess who!
Hi :) It's Mariko
Gay jokes are everywhere in Bolivia and no one ever seems to get tired of them. Like your director, I was never quite sure how to respond in a way that expressed the idea that some people are hurt and even repressed by such comments.
Mariko, nice to hear from you. Where are you these days? Yes, you are right about all of that. It's a topic best not to bring up unless you want to start feeling angry about people's narrowmindedness on that issue.
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