Machismo and Politics in Ecuador

Abstract

This article explores the political uses of machismo and dominant notions of masculinity as tools for constructing agendas for popular redemption in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The focus is on the life and work of Pancho Jaime (1946-1989), the most controversial and widely known independent journalist in Guayaquil. Between 1984 and his assassination in 1989, Jaime illegally produced political magazines using gossip, pornographic caricatures, and obscene language to comment on the corruption of politicians and oligarchs. Jaime's strategy was to make connections between the conduct of powerful figures in public office and the “deviant” sexuality of these same individuals. This large body of cultural material is interpreted as part of a politics of masculinity historically linked to both everyday life and local populist traditions. Analyzing images and audience responses to Jaime's grotesque visual and aggressive textual discourses, ethnographic findings are discussed in relation to concepts of vulgarity, the performance of masculinity in the public sphere and carnivalesque inversions of power.