My family and I are road trippers, and while its good fun, music in the car is a constant point of contention. Although my parents pass around the aux just enough to convince my sisters and I of democracy, the principle of seniority takes over for most of the trip most times. Endless miles of New Mexican desert will forever be paired in my mind with vallenato, a musical genre from the Colombian Caribbean coast where my mother was born. As my sisters slept these miles away, I always stayed awake to listen to my parents reminisce on the many concerts and music festivals they attended to hear their favorite artists. These nostalgia trips were often prompted by one particular song: “Se Le Moja La Canoa” by Los Embajadores Vallenatos. Los Embajadores had a number of popular vallenato singles in the mid to late 90’s, a period I generally understand to have been a golden age in my parents’ adult life. Part of this understanding is the way that they talk about “Se Le Moja La Canoa” and its musical contemporaries: the hours they waited for this song to be played on many different occasions (it’s common practice to leave the 2 or 3 most popular songs for the end of a set in vallenato festivals), and the euphoria when they finally heard it. And even if you couldn’t stand to wait for it to come up, you could always go to another club or another party and hear it, because it was popular to the point of inescapability. My mother loves the way the lyrics make my grandmother laugh.

Diccionario Libre lists the following definition for the phrase “se le moja la canoa”:

Expresión utilizada para referirse a una conducta excesivamente afeminada en un hombre, o a un comportamiento que sugiere homosexualidad

Phrase used to refer to excessively effeminate conduct in a man, or a behavior that suggests homosexuality

As the name may suggest, the song details the particularly embarrassing affliction of a young man: when he gets a little drunk, he starts acting gay. The song begins with the performers affirming the listener of this person’s otherwise unquestionable masculinity. He’s usually “very serious and well presented”, he’s always in love with some woman or another. But alas, when he downs a few drinks he has a tendency “to sit on his male friends’ laps” and act in a particularly feminine way. It comes to a point where this fictional man’s fictional lady takes it upon herself to “take care of/be watchful” of her man when he gets drunk, so that he doesn’t get “fregado“: this can mean anything from bothered to beat up. The music video comedically details this mans inebriated gay tendencies: strategic zooming into the bare chests of men with their shirts unbuttoned, a “fruity” dance sequence, lip bites, feathers, roses, etc.

The music video for the song and the lighthearted lyrics send a very interesting message: as long as suspected queerness/femininity in men is not a permanent fixture of their usual persona/performed self, it is not threatening, and it can be laughed at. As long as the individual’s repression is apparent, he may still be respected. He can keep a girlfriend, and his friends, and the limp wrist after a few drinks can be politely ignored because we all know he tries and succeeds in his daily life to uphold his masculine persona.

Being a laughing stock is often a best case scenario for feminine men in Latin America, and this song is just one example of this: I’m reminded of Charly Mata, a character on a popular Venezuelan sketch comedy show called Radio Rochela played by respected comedian Alexandro Noguera. Charly is the quintessential effeminate man in his viewers eyes: he talks with his hands, he over enunciates certain words for stress in a way that is usually attributed to women’s speech patterns, and he wears tight pants and a silken button up shirt. His most popular segment was lovingly dubbed “Consejos de Charly”, or “Charly’s Advice”, where his viewers sent him a list of certain suspicious characteristics about themselves and finished off with “seré o no seré?”, “am I, or am I not?”. It is generally understood that Charly is using these vague descriptions to tell his presumably male viewers whether they’re gay or not, yes this is real and I’ll share a link so you can see for yourself. Much like “Canoa”, Charly represents a form of marginalized masculinity that the culture loves to laugh at and not really otherwise appreciate or protect. Many latino comedians play on this effeminacy for their viewership, knowing full well that any of this behavior in the wild, specifically when it is exhibited by actual queer people, can subject a person to ridicule at best (as we’ve discussed), or violence and murder at worst.

As is already widely known and obvious, a general demonization of queerness and any other femininity outside of the “correct” body is prominent in many aspects of Latin American culture. It is in our slang, our music, our film and television, and it looms over almost every social interaction. However, these feminine and/or queer cues being performed by straight men absolve them of their sin, and the public can take the liberty to laugh at them rather than defend some sick sort of moral standard through harm of the person. Recent discussions we’ve had in class about queerness, its relation to misogyny, and masculinity have given me a new lens through which to analyze things that my culture has tried to teach me. As awareness of violence against queer people and non-men in Latin America gains traction through widely publicized news stories, it becomes clear to me that the endangerment of queer latinx lives takes root in all of us through years of instruction with these kinds of media. Opposing the standards of hegemonic masculinity brings up the risk of death for some bodies, parodying this opposition brings notoriety, respect, and profit for others.

Growing up in the diaspora makes reckoning with these aspects of my culture very difficult. I’ve never gotten a chance to experience first hand the ways that this kind of thinking in Latin America has begun to change with younger generations. Most of my cultural knowledge comes from my parents who are happily and vehemently grounded in a past where misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia are givens. When my understanding of my cultural identity is imbued with these values that I stand against so strongly, it causes an internal conflict in me that I’m still handling today. I don’t like it when my older cousins call me gringa, but I also refuse to use the colloquial homophobic slurs in my daily language that might prove to them that I’m not as American as they think I am.

The good thing about the internet in all of this is that I’ve been able to learn about new latinx artists that break these cultural molds in their own way. Art and music, in my opinion, is the most accessible way to observe how minds are changing with time, and it makes me happier and more comfortable in my own identity to view this cross cultural shift towards more open thinking. I’ll leave you with a list of some cool queer dembow & reggeaton artists that I found recently, in case you want new things to listen to.

-Veronica Aguilar

References:

DiccionarioLibre LLC. “Diccionario Libre: Definicion: Se Le Moja La Canoa – Diccionario De Urbanismos.” DiccionarioLibre LLC, diccionariolibre.com/definicion/se-le-moja-la-canoa.

DISCOSFUENTESS. Se Le Moja La Canoa -Los Embajadores Vallenatos ( Video Oficial ) / Discos Fuentes. YouTube, YouTube, 8 Sept. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLRzQGglv78.

Performance by Alexandro Noguera, Los Consejos De Charlie Mata, YouTube, 24 Aug. 2008, www.youtube.com/watch?v=42Ugm7xK6nM.

“Primer Caso De Homicidio De Una Mujer Trans Que Es Reconocido Como Feminicidio En Colombia.” Colombia Diversa, 4 May 2021, colombiadiversa.org/blogs/primer-caso-de-homicidio-de-una-mujer-trans-que-es-reconocido-como-feminicidio-en-colombia/.

Ramírez, Daniela Blandón. “Una Mujer Es Asesinada Cada Dos Horas En América Latina Por El Hecho De Ser Mujer.” France 24, France 24, 3 Mar. 2020, www.france24.com/es/20200303-dia-de-la-mujer-feminicidios-latinoamericano-violencia-genero.

Villegas, Richard. “11 Queer & Trans Artists Making Reggaeton and Dembow More Inclusive.” Remezcla, Remezcla, 23 Jan. 2019, remezcla.com/lists/music/queer-trans-reggaeton-dembow-artists/.