My favorite example of localized visual culture: MASKED LUCHADORES!

Yes, I know, this is the sort of article that would have been absolutely groundbreaking fifteen years ago, but it's only in 2009 that I finally set up a blog (and it took a class assignment for me to do that).  Bear with me as I give a very basic introduction to a very broad topic:  the culture of masked wrestlers (luchadores) in Mexico.

(and yes, there will be a tie-in at the end to the concept of teaching art in a non-hegemonic way)

Maybe I'm just an easy mark, but acrobatic displays are much more interesting to me when they're in the context of masked superheroes pretending to beat each other up.

The first masked wrestler to perform in Mexico, El Enmascarado ("The Masked Man"), appeared in 1934 in Mexico City.  Professional wrestling ("lucha libre") had only been introduced to Mexico a year or two earlier, and up until the appearance of El Enmascarado, most of the wrestlers performing there were Americans.  Something about the mask clicked with the audience, and more and more masked Mexican wrestlers appeared on each wrestling event's 'card.'  The masks were simple at first, but even at the beginning featured embellishments which were recognizably Aztec in their aesthetic, and which as such spoke to the majesty of Mexico's past.  There is strong national and racial identity to be found in 20th-Century luchador design - costumes use motifs from jaguars, eagles, Mexican flag colors, Aztec and Mayan hieroglyphs, etc.

El Santo and Blue Demon, from one of Santo's many many action movies.

The first real star of lucha libre was almost indisputably El Santo - "The Saint" - who began wrestling under his trademark silver mask in 1942 (he'd been wrestling under other gimmicks and names since the mid-30s).  Over the course of a forty-year (!) run, El Santo remained a technico (a valiant good guy - the equivalent in the English-speaking wrestling world would be a "babyface" or "face"), won the vast majority of his matches, and became a genuine folk hero, appearing in almost fifty movies, a comic book which ran for 30 years, and, recently, a posthumous TV show which appears on the Latin American version of the Cartoon Network.  Typically, a masked luchador wears his mask in the ring throughout the life of the character - it's most common that a character is retired, that the wrestler moves on to another identity, once he's been unmasked (this happens most often in Mexico as a stipulation to a special match).  Throughout his career, El Santo took this to the extreme; for four decades, he remained in character, and in mask, whenever he was in public.

El Hijo del Santo demonstrates the typical appearance of a luchador when he's in character but not in the ring.   His real-life father, the original Santo, was buried in his mask when he died.

Santo's son, El Hijo del Santo, launched his own career under the same mask when Santo retired in 1982.  He's an interesting example of how things have changed - an early 'heel turn' (switching sides to become a rudo) so enraged the audience in Tijuana that a genuine riot broke out in the arena and spilled out onto the streets (by now, heel turns are much more commonplace in North and South America).  Not only is he a well-established luchador whose lineage is given the utmost respect - he's also an outspoken ecological activist, working with Wildcoast to protest ocean pollution and protect sea turtles.


El Hijo del Santo, Luchador, Ocean Protection Activist from 89.3 KPCC on Vimeo.

El Hijo del Santo isn't the only lucha activist - there's also Superbarrio Gómez, who organizes labor rallies and protests in Mexico City.  He proclaims himself a "real-life superhero" -- and really, isn't that what every babyface/technico is to his fans?

Rudo tag team El Chivos play to the crowd

Up until recently, the characters themselves were pretty broad in lucha libre - a wrestler was either a valiant technico or a dastardly rudo - though that's changed a bit in the past fifteen years due, in part, to a syncretism between the different concepts of "face/heel" in American, Mexican and Japanese wrestling.  In the 90s, American wrestling in particular almost abandoned the traditional faces and heels, pushing 'in-between' characters like "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, whose in-character mannerisms and attitude - from his way of speech to his moves to his willingness to cheat - would have made him a despised heel only a few years earlier.  Mexican lucha libre has reflected this change mainly in its rudos, who are now a bit 'cooler' than they used to be.  The crowd still boos them, but you now see teenagers in the audience wearing the rudos' t-shirts and masks.

Rey Mysterio was born in San Diego, but obviously represents himself as part of Mexican culture (note his tattoos and the cross on his mask, which tends to feature an Aztec sunwheel design on the back.)

 

There's also a lot more awareness of lucha libre in the U.S., mainly due to a few wrestling promoters in the 1990s who recognized that there would be commercial appeal to including highly acrobatic guys who dress like superheroes.  Most notably nowadays, there's Rey Mysterio (formerly "Rey Mysterio, Jr." in Mexico and the American indie wrestling companies, until the WWE signed him and decided that the "Jr." appellation would confuse its audience who didn't know the "Sr.").  Unfortunately, WWE seems to think that one luchador is enough at any given time, or perhaps that another masked high-flyer would dilute the marketability of their star.

"All fine and well," you may ask, "but how would you use this in a classroom as a way to have students create artwork which doesn't take white culture for granted as the default?"

If you do ask that, you're already a pretty tough audience.  Here goes:

It strikes me that lucha masks would be perfect for a middle school (and maybe Grade 5) art class.  I'd start by showing the students some Precolumbian Mesoamerican artwork (Aztec, Maya, Olmec, etc), especially the highly-stylized heiroglyphics.  Then I'd show them examples of lucha masks which intentionally use the same type of shapes and linework, and ask if any of the class knew what they were.  We'd discuss the masks, and the concept and depth of mask culture in Mexico, and then the students would design their own mask for a character that would be based on them - their interests, their culture, their heritage, their identity.   If the students are old enough (i.e. middle school rather than third or fourth grade), I would have each student research the traditional artwork from the culture that they consider to be their 'ancestral home' - be it Mexico, China, or Poland, there are specific aesthetics and motifs to use - and then adapt those images and motifs to be used in their mask.

Sangre Azteca keeps it real.

This would directly tie in to the way that lucha masks were first designed.  Besides teaching students a little bit about costume and character design as a way to represent aspects of a character through visual means, this would both help the students understand the way in which a masked wrestler could be representin' cultural identity as a Mexican AND help them understand the ways in which their own cultural identity can be used as an opportunity for them to represent as well.  Every student in a diverse classroom could produce a mask design based on their interests and their heritage.

I assume that the masks would have to be either drawn or made out of colored/painted paper - we wouldn't be likely to get to assemble them out of sewn fabric, as the patterning would be prohibitive even for me to do on my own, let alone with a few dozen students.    Perhaps the students could collage or paint the masks directly onto photos of themselves? 

Obviously, this sort of project would depend on the school culture, the boy/girl ratio (and type of girls) and probably the ethnic makeup of the class - I wouldn't presume to teach a class composed only (or mainly) of Mexican kids about lucha libre without looking like a clueless asshole.  However, I think that this would be a good way to get students to realize that everyone comes from somewhere, and everyone's heritage is valid, while also connecting ancient and traditional art to contemporary visual culture.

The characters could maybe even be used later as protagonists in a comic-book assignment that I've been thinking about.  I do love having one unit lead into the next...

They're not as comfy to wear as you might expect - like having an oven mitt strapped to your face.