Nothing sells in show business as well as sex and violence.
Back when I was up to my waist in the horror business, I wandered into an LA movie house one afternoon to catch the latest sequel of a long running scarlet cinema franchise. At some point the actors paused the gore-fest to emote 30 seconds of character development.
The crowd was having none of it with one aficionado in the back screaming out their mantra, “C’mon! Fuck or Fight!”.
We love our sex and violence –- or as it is known in Mexico, “Sexo y Violencia”.
One of the cultural touchstones of Mexican S&V is Lucha Libre (Freestyle wrestling) which also has a long film tradition in which its masked heroes confront buxom female villains or rescue damsels in distress from strip joints and discos.
A dozen years ago, that meme evolved into a Los Angeles theatre attraction known as “Lucha VaVoom”.
It’s hard to describe “Lucha VaVoom”. But it features Luchadors (wrestlers) both Rudos (bad guys) and Technicos (the good ones), who go by such names as Chupacabra and Dirty Sanchez.
It’s also one of the few places where you can still see the politically incorrect art of midget wrestling (Los Minis).
Sharing the stage (ring) with the wrestlers are exotic ladies known as Buxoticas (Strippers), as well as comedians, dancing chickens, melees in the audience and much, much more.
If you’d like to attend a performance of “Lucha VaVoom” the next time you’re in LA, you can buy tickets (and merchandise) here. Or you might catch the company on one of its national/international tours.
Many scholars have written essays and doctoral theses on our enjoyment of sex and violence or our recent affinity for post-apocalyptic and zombie apocalypse worlds.
I think the motivation is as simple as our need to get away from the rules, regulations and restrictions of real life, to be part of something where the regular borders of behavior don’t apply.
“Lucha VaVoom” epitomizes all of that. It’s a hugely entertaining evening. And as the show’s MC emphasizes at its beginning: “This shit’s gonna get weird. So fasten your Holy Fuck belts…”
And Enjoy Your Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment