Mexico, 1990
Cast: Alfonso Zayas, Lorena Herrera, Cesar Bono, Alfredo Solares, Maribel Fernandez La Pelangocha, Roberto Cañedo, Ivonne Govea, Eva Garbo, Michelle Dubois
Directed by: Victor Manuel Castro

SEX:
VIOLENCE:

THE PLOT:
Luis Estrada (Alfonso Zayas), a homophobic lawyer, reconsiders his sexual preference when he attends the transvestite show of Franckie and Marcelo and is approached by the latter, who offers to teach him the joys of rimming. As it turns out, "Marcelo" is really a chorus girl (Lorena Herrera) pressed into service as a female impersonator when the real Marcelo went AWOL. Rather than tell him the truth, she decides to have some fun with the increasingly nervous lawyer, who turns to his friends, Moncada (Cesar Bono) and Garduño (Alfredo Solares) for help. However, these two don´t prove too helpful, since they have issues of their own.

THE VERDICT:
After nearly 15 years of keeping the Mexican film industry afloat, by the early 90´s sex comedies appeared to be a thing of the past. Since the makers of these movies rarely strayed from the formula, it would seem safe to assume that audiences had simply grown tired of the endless parade of tasteless humor and naked starlets offered by producers.

A closer look reveals that there were other reasons for this decline. In my opinion, the single most important factor in the downfall of popular genres like sex comedies and action films was the sudden lack of distribution faced by the industry as a whole. Traditionally, film distribution in Mexico was handled by the state, meaning every single movie made in this country enjoyed a theatrical run regardless of how dreadful, cheap or incomprehensible (i.e.: "artistic") it turned out. The Salinas administration (1988-1994) put an end to that by selling off the government´s share of the motion picture business.

As a result of this wise decision, the Mexican film industry turned to straight-to-video fare (known as "videohomes") to remain active. The market was soon flooded by increasingly cheap tapes starring many of the same actors who were popular during the previous decade: action stars like Mario Almada and Valentin Trujillo and comedians like Alfonso Zayas and Alberto Rojas.

Unfortunately, the dwindling budgets meant that the sex comedies of the 90´s became a lot tamer than before. Producers could barely afford to hire a half dozen actors for each of their epics and while there was no shortage of curvaceous actresses willing to perform nude (Michelle Meyer, Paty Muñoz and Marisol Barradas spring to mind) their fees probably doubled the money allotted for hiring the talent.

Director Victor Manuel Castro, known as "El Güero" ("Blondie"), was the reigning king of raunchy comedies throughout the 80´s, working side by side with screenwriter Francisco Cavazos on such films as La Pulquería (1980), Las Perfumadas (1983) or El Rey de las Ficheras (1988) mostly starring Alfonso Zayas. It´s kind of pointless to elaborate on the development of Castro´s directorial style during his first decade in the director´s chair since it involved little more than pointing the camera in the general direction of the performers and yelling "action!". He soon earned a well deserved reputation as a hack. His movies lacked any sort of plot, for the most part they were a collection of burlesque skits haphazardly thrown together, careening from one story thread to the next with no rhyme or reason. Film critics who looked for social commentary or well-defined characters accused Castro of being unable to tell a three-act structure from a hole in the ground and they were right.

As it turned out, audiences couldn´t care less about Castro´s shortcomings as an auteur. As long as his movies provided them with the usual quota of skin and cheap laughs, viewers kept coming back for more. Hembra o Macho, made in 1990, would prove to be a turning point of sorts in Castro´s career. Shot on film and shown in theaters, with the usual suspects in front of the camera, it was the first indication that the director could come up with a decent film if he gave it a try.

To be honest, there´s nothing really earth-shattering about Hembra o Macho. The idea of a young man or woman going undercover as a member of the opposite sex is hardly original. It has been around for ages in opera and on stage and it has been used in Mexican movies since 1944 with Me Ha Besado un Hombre ("I´ve Been Kissed by a Man") starring Abel Salazar (from The Brainiac). Other variations on the subject include Pablo y Carolina (1955) with Pedro Infante, Don Juan ´67 (1967 - duh) with Mauricio Garces and Noches de Cabaret (1978) with Jorge Rivero, who would go on to appear in a number of American b-movies including 1995´s Ice, with none other than Traci Lords and Zach Galligan.

Likewise, Mexican comedians routinely appeared in drag. Enrique Herrera, Joaquin Pardave, Manolin and Alberto Rojas, to name a few, were often forced to impersonate women as part of some elaborate scheme to escape the wrath of cuckolded husbands or to avoid wrongful imprisonment. Their sexual preference was never in doubt. Crossdressing was just an easy way to make them suffer any number of indignities, usually involving courtship by another man.

This is not to say that gay characters were absent from Mexican films. After all, filmmakers were well aware that when it comes to undemanding entertainment nothing spells comedy like butt-humping. However, gays were portrayed mostly as flaming queens and played only minor roles in the unfolding of the plot. They were either sources of sage advice, leather-clad horndogs who lusted after the stars of the movie or a combination of both.

While the writer-director team of Cavazos and Castro only meant to rip-off Victor/Victoria, Hembra o Macho was the first mainstream comedy to deal openly with closet gays for the duration of the film and not just as a punchline, as in 1988´s De Todas, Todas, starring Rafael Inclan. I should point out that there were a few earlier movies, especially those of Jaime Humberto Hermosillo (Doña Herlinda y su Hijo, El Cumpleaños del Perro), that dealt with homosexuality. However, since they were aimed at a minuscule, middle-class audience that was already involved in gay rights activism, they remained little-seen and appreciated only by a small coterie of admirers.

Hembra o Macho was also one of the first films in which Victor Manuel Castro finally surpassed his decade-long learning curve and proved he really did know how to put together a comedy. Over the next few years he would show this was no fluke by helming a string of surprisingly adept straight-to-video movies, with a real flair for the kind of lowbrow humor, riddled with risque jokes and somewhat offensive situations, that made him a favorite among the masses that have always supported Mexican cinema. While Hembra o Macho is guilty of some of Castro´s previous flaws, such as not having the most cohesive of plots, at least the skits are focused on a central theme. Granted, some of the material is ancient and the plot´s resolution comes from out of nowhere, but the way Castro handles this is a marked improvement over his previous efforts.

After being cast in similar roles for more than ten years, most of the actors could do their parts in their sleep. Veteran performers like Cesar Bono, Maribel Fernandez and Alfonso Zayas himself get the chance to play against type, to some extent, and are fine in their roles. They seem to relish the opportunity to do something slightly different from their usual schtick. Bono and Fernandez are particularly amusing playing a pussywhipped husband and his domineering wife. It´s the sort of scene that you´ve seen a hundred times before but it´s done with enough enthusiasm to make it funny. It made me laugh, anyway. Zayas also gets to be a little more creative, by impersonating a Cuban and an Arab in a couple of scenes.

The most memorable part is a brief scene where Zayas, Cesar Bono and Alfredo Solares dress up as belly dancers in order to attend a party where they perform a show-stopping ditty called "Yo Soy Jotito" ("I´m a Queer"). It doesn´t matter that the coreography is nonexistent, the sets are hideously cheap, the actors didn´t bother to match their lip-synching to the tune or that the song itself makes no sense at all, it´s hilarious. Sample lyrics: "I´m an old-fasioned queen / the sort that still prefers men / I´m not one of those queers / that hang around with skanky girls". For some reason, this musical interlude ends with Zayas being chased by a huge black guy. Being straight, I can´t tell you if this is an accurate protrayal of gay clubs in Mexico. Not my scene.

Given the budget and the low expectations that are inevitably attached to the genre, Hembra o Macho can be considered one of the most interesting offerings available, but audiences unfamiliar with this style of filmmaking should take into consideration some of the idiosyncracies that come with it.

The producers of Mexican sex comedies have a habit of casting decidedly unattractive comedians as veritable hunks so it comes as no surprise that in Hembra o Macho Alfonso Zayas reprises his role as a stud, which is not unlike addressing the local crack whore as "Your Royal Highness". Perhaps the most surprising thing about the movie is the fact that the writers somehow managed to top themselves and came up with a screenplay that is guaranteed to take your suspension of disbelief behind the bushes to be brutally gang-raped.

This time around the viewer is asked to believe that anyone could mistake Lorena Herrera for a man. A statuesque blonde who can best be described as a Barbie doll come to life, Lorena has made a career out of playing the stereoypical bimbo: stacked like a brickhouse and almost as smart. If you must see her naked you can find the pictorial she did for the Mexican edition of Playboy online provided you look hard enough (no pun intended). These pictures were taken a couple of years before she made it big and when the story broke out Lorena did what any stereotypical blonde would: she blamed it on her evil twin. When you´re done laughing, you can visit her official website and check out the new set of knockers she grew since. You guessed it: she denies they´re implants. A lot of guys I know seem to be in awe of her, but I don´t think she´s that attractive. I prefer brunettes myself, but like every other man on the planet I will bed any female regardless of hair color, or race for that matter. In fact, if you´re one of those Swedish exchange students I read so much about in the Penthouse Forum feel free to contact me if you´re planning on visiting Mexico. I´m sure we´ll work something out.

He may have trouble keeping the plot on track, but Castro certainly knows where his bread is buttered. In order to include the required nudity, since Lorena Herrera has steadfastly refused to take it all off for the camera, he came up with a scene where Zayas goes to a psychiatrist (veteran actor Roberto Cañedo, star of any number of movies from the "Golden Age" of Mexican movies) and tells him about his exploits as a player with the help of footage taken from earlier films (also starring Zayas) where a few nameless actresses undress and climb in bed with him for some undercranked monkey couplings.

Add to this the usual suspect cinematography, not very impressive locations and wildly digressive plot and a lot of viewers not used to the limitations of Mexican movies will dismiss it as cheapjack exploitation. Then again, readers of this site and fans of b-movies in general already know that cheap exploitation can be a lot of fun given half a chance. Like Dave Friedman said: "Most people are making pretentious garbage, I make funny garbage." The same goes for the films of Victor Manuel Castro: it´s highly unlikely you´ll be enlightened, but you will be entertained.

You don´t think so? Let me know: [email protected]

© 2001-2002 Marco Gonzalez