This week the documentary about Locomía was released on Movistar, that authentic gay benchmark.
To my heterosexual colleagues, with whom I am working on a script about a stunning
show business star
, they were amazed that the group was forced to sign a contract where they were forbidden to wear make-up offstage and act in an openly gay way.
To their astonishment, they include the fact that something like this was not expected so recently, much less in the recording industry.
Back then there was not such widespread knowledge of homophobia as today and that the two industries that practiced it the most were the record company and Hollywood.
You couldn't be a gay teen idol or a successful queer star, because homosexuality was procrastinated and could never be a positive reference, an example of anything.
Much less to have and sweat success.
Or happiness.
One of my luck in life has been to be able to express myself as gay and as a loved, happy and successful person in my work, thanks to a program like
The Martian Chronicles.
and a director like Xavier Sardà.
This Tuesday I watched him attentively talking about us on
La Noche D,
explaining how he didn't gauge the scope of our dynamic to establish normalcy and commonality between straight and gay until the success of the show made it clear to him.
Actually, neither do I.
It was fun for me that Xavier played along with me.
It made me very happy to see him laugh and enjoy himself during my interventions.
And in one of them I included Locomía.
Remembering a performance of theirs during an election of Miss Venezuela, the mythical beauty pageant in my distant country of origin.
They were at the height of their career, at the height of their splendor in Latin America.
Performing during Miss Venezuela was like performing during intermission at the Super Bowl for many Venezuelans.
The audience was millionaire in number.
And right during that performance, my brothers and I were paralyzed in front of the television,
The members of Locomía couldn't say they were gay but their audience could yell at them and, furthermore, protected by a sudden darkness, overwhelmed, threatened, insulted them with their own sexuality.
I think about those things now that I am who I am and I have traveled what I have traveled.
That night of Miss Venezuela I felt very ashamed and also worried that they would take a bad memory of the visit.
And I also asked my private gods to avoid something similar if I were to get on a stage like that.
The transmission went black, someone on the television network took pity on Locomía who, without knowing it or understanding it, had just carried out the first LGTBIQ + act of a South American television.
Locomía was always a
very brave
boy band , as an organization and as a style.
Crazy, messy, with its velvety hints of
thunda
thunda post
bakalaero prior to the sexy singers of the
Big Brother
soundtrack .
And despite having made so much noise and wiggle, they never knew how to crown their success with more solid success.
Now taking advantage of the documentary, I want to share that many times, throughout many parties after the eighties, my friends, my sister and I improvised
tributes
Locomía, wearing toilet paper rolls as shoulder pads and holding souvenir fans, as we paraded through the narrow corridors of our family homes or among the living room furniture.
Without those dances, without those parades, I probably wouldn't have made it to
The Martian Chronicles.
It is never too late, dear ones, to tell you: Thank you.
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