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 Zona Rosa Visitors to foreign gay bars are often fascinated by the exotic entertainers on stage. A combination of culture shock and holiday-buzz conjures up all kinds of romanticized imaginings of what goes on behind the scenes, and what one imagines to be the glamourous lifetsyles of the performers. But for the majority of drag queens and go-go dancers that perform nightly in gay bars in Thailand, Mexico and so on, off-stage life is more often than not a tale of six-to-a-bedroom tenement building life and a vague hope that someday via some miracle things might click into a liveable place.
The power station of the excellent Zona Rosa is its subtle evocation of the earnest yet pathetic ambitions of the hard-working strippers that entertain the mainly gay clientele of Mexico City's notorious red light district, the Zona Rosa. The guys work hard, and take their work seriously. They do their work well, and are gifted erotic dancers who've carved themselves knockout bodies through precise and punishing gym workouts. It's heartbreaking to see them, gurgling baby in their lap and ex-wife chewing gum on the couch opposite, talking of their career plans when we know their potential for success is so close to zero. It's also unsettling to hear the dancers talk of their comfort for performing in front of gay audiences, despite the social stigma they encounter when they tell people what they do for a living. Though ostensibly straight, the strippers give off the occasional blip on the gaydar, but since Latin practices of homosexuality are so different to Western ones, we aren't ever really able to take the dancers at their word. Given that they take it all off and masturbate with full hard-ons in front of rooms full of homos, then chat at length about their strident heterosexuality, we may assume a Lady Macbeth situation but then, the intricate workings of classic Latin machismo evades the obsessively-compartmentalising Western understanding of its self-created homo-hetero dichotomy, and so we really must take things at face value. Christian Miranda, the chief narrator, has an ex-wife and a child, and speaks mainly of his desire to create meaningful dancing and prove that stripping isn't prosititution (see also: Showgirls). Christian lives at home with his libertarian mother, Mily, who seems to collect lots ad lots of dolls. The film doesn't delve that deeply into the lives of the other strippers, who tell us mainly about the planning that's gone into their successful acts and their worries that using cock rings may cause long-term physical damage. The superficiality of the interviews, though, allows the viewer to read between the lines of the interviewees' enigmatic personae. The talking-heads sequences, made especially easy to watch as the guys tend to be filmed sitting around after their shows with no shirts on chatting about their bodies, are broken up with interesting footage of the dancers at work. Interspersed with the strippers are interviews with club owner Willy and gay activist Tito, older royale queens who happily show off their lavish costumes and talk about the struggles of being gay in Mexico. I've never been to Mexico but I never had the impression that homosesuality was taboo and endlessly pursued by police raids and general public disapproval. Zona Rosa is subject to regular raids and club closures - El Antro, the main club featured in the film, is itself closed down, throwing everyone out of work. Perhaps things are different in Puerto Vallarta or Zipolite, where tourist cash generates a healthier economy, but the life of male erotic dancers in Mexico City is, sadly for the dancers, nowhere near as sexy and deserving of reward as they are. Related Reading: Macho Dancer Review by Mark Adnum
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