In a story that at first reads like news straight from The Onion, punks and metal heads (read: Rockers) have attacked public gatherings of emos (read: Mods) in at least two cities in Mexico. There appears to be a calm in the storm as the battle between the urban “tribes” (as some groups identified themselves) has for now been relegated to the blog realm. More violence is expected in the future from the young adults who are disgusted by and violently opposed to a burgeoning cultural movement identified as emo. According to Cox Newspaper correspondent Jeremy Schwartz in Mexico City, this includes soccer fans. Warnings have been issued to any emos planning to attend an upcoming town fair in Tijuana.
Don’t even think we’re making this up. There is coverage on this story on the Time Magazine website as well as a typically panicked, alarmist angle about the threat the U.S. faces, from an ABC TV affiliate in Salt Lake City.
The violence took place in early March in Querétaro, a city roughly the size of Boston. A week later another attack took place 160 miles away in Mexico City. There were apparently three injuries in the first attack and no reports of any serious physical injuries in the second.
Gustavo Arellano, who writes the syndicated column for the Orange County Weekly, “Ask a Mexican”, was predictably obtuse in his commentary. He said–and one can only assume this is an attempt at some kind of ironic sarcasm–that the coverage of this conflict might help build a new image of Mexico for outsiders who, until these illuminating events, saw the country as “a bunch of Cactuses and sombreros.”
From most reports and anti-emo blogging, it seems the toughs in Mexico perceive the emos as too effeminate, and associate them with homosexuality. The “h”s are silent in Spanish, hence, “emosexual” slides right off the tongue. Further, in a gesture of support of the emo cause, a gay rights group in Mexico City–feeling that much of the hatred towards emos is in fact based in gay-bashing–organized a silent demonstration on March 15 as a show of solidarity.
Arellano summarizes Mexican society the same way ex-Southerners living in the north talk about their little hometowns back in Alabama and Mississippi; he said, “What do you do when you are confronted with a question mark about sexuality in Mexico? You beat it up.”
From the YouTube footage it is difficult to discern just how these varying “tribes” distinguish themselves and their brethren-in-hate from the dreaded targets, the emos.
Further reading:
Anti-emo en español:
http://emosexualesenaccion.blogspot.com/
Emo riots in Wired:
http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/anti-emo-riots.html