Author Topic: Puto!  (Read 2114 times)

hubag bohol

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Puto!
« on: June 20, 2018, 03:14:03 PM »
'Homophobic and not very clever': why puto chants haunt Mexican football
El Tri’s victory over Germany on Sunday was marred by alleged homophobic chanting. It’s a common trend across stadiums in the Americas


Victor Balta
Mon 18 Jun 2018 17.34 BST Last modified on Tue 19 Jun 2018 12.57 BST



Mexico fans saw their team record a famous victory against Germany on Sunday. Photograph: Dave Shopland/BPI/REX/Shutterstock


You can say this for Mexican soccer fans: they’ve managed to turn one of football’s least dramatic moments into one of its more controversial and offensive. The pattern is familiar. The opponent’s goalkeeper lines up a goalkick and the chant begins: “Ehhhh…” Then Mexican fans’ voices rise in unison until the kick prompts a cry of “puto!”

The term is homophobic slang for a male sex worker. And its use by fans at matches from Mexico City to California and now Russia continues to give Fifa and the Mexican federation headaches. On Monday, Fifa announced it has opened a disciplinary procedure against Mexico after the chants were heard during El Tri’s victory over Germany.

Homophobia and homophobic chants are not exclusive to Mexico fans. Fifa issued 51 disciplinary actions over homophobia during 2018 World Cup qualifiers. Of these, 11 were handed to the Mexican federation, with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama and Peru also receiving multiple fines. Fifa additionally cited Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay, Greece, Hungary and Serbia once each for homophobic chants.

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hubag bohol

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Re: Puto!
« Reply #1 on: June 20, 2018, 03:14:37 PM »
But there is no doubt the chant is most prominent among Mexico fans. “To call your opponent homosexual is definitely along a spectrum of machismo, whereby your opponent is weaker – less masculine,” says Joshua Nadel, author of Fútbol!: Why Soccer Matters in Latin America.

During the World Cup, Fifa will have observers at all 64 matches and will work with security to remove fans engaging in discriminatory behavior, a spokesperson for the world governing body told the Guardian.

“I think that a lot of the hand-wringing is for show,” says Nadel, an assistant professor of Latin American and Caribbean history at North Carolina Central University. “If Fifa and/or the [Mexican federation] can plausibly say, ‘Look, we’re trying to stop it,’ then they can quiet critics without imposing some form of sanction that has real teeth. I’m not saying that they don’t care, but it isn’t among the top priorities of any federation or confederation.”

On Sunday, the chant made its first appearance in the 25th minute when Manuel Neuer lined up a kick. Quickly taken German goalkicks later in the game seemed to soften its presence.

Lamenting Fifa’s perceived inaction on the issue in 2014, Slate’s Juliana Jiménez Jaramillo wrote: “They can abstractly consider what the word means, but they don’t understand the visceral gut punch you feel when you hear a slur in your native language. The Mexican team’s officials, on the other hand, know exactly what puto means. At the very least, they could give a symbolic statement denouncing it, even if it still takes decades for the fans to catch up.”

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Re: Puto!
« Reply #2 on: June 20, 2018, 03:15:05 PM »
In recent years, the federation and players have made their case. Campaigns including public-service announcements from Mexico players have encouraged fans to put a stop to the chants. The Mexican federation this month tweeted – along with a link to rules of civility for the tournament – a direct plea that fans refrain from the chant. But the response suggests fans have no intention of complying.

Added attention has arguably only served to increase its use in MLS and USL stadiums, where Latino support is strong. In recent weeks, “Pride Night” matches at LA Galaxy and New York City FC were tarnished by the chants. Meanwhile, the new USL club Fresno FC, just months into it existence, has already been forced to denounce the fans’ chants and launch its own anti-discrimination and anti-homophobia campaign.

“It always seemed like a very abstract thing, something we were saying to the opponent in this euphoric, collective way. It was part of the game that was completely unquestioned,” says Romeo Guzman, a first-generation Mexican-American who acknowledged participating in the chant as a teenager and is now an assistant professor of history focusing on Mexican migration at Fresno State University. “As an adult, things have changed. I look at it and I obviously don’t do it, and I wish that we could find ways to change it. It’s homophobic, and it’s not very clever.”

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Re: Puto!
« Reply #3 on: June 20, 2018, 03:15:24 PM »
Many fans shrug off accusations of homophobia and insist the chant is just a joke. “We do not scream at the goalkeeper because of his sexual preference, we don’t even care about it,” a YouTube commenter on a 2016 public-service video denouncing the chant wrote. “We shout to create chaos, because it is part of the atmosphere of a stadium in Mexico.”

For some, the chant merely illustrates wider homophobia in society. “Mexico is not alone in this. It is the most visible because the chant accompanies the national team,” Nadel said. “The problem of homophobia in fútbol, both men’s and women’s – among fans, teams, and federations – is global. It is very hard to root out. Until societies cease seeing homosexuality through the lens of deviance and transgression, we will see homophobia in fútbol.”


https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/18/puto-chants-mexico-football-world-cup

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Re: Puto!
« Reply #4 on: June 20, 2018, 03:17:26 PM »
What's the Puto Problem?
By Juliana Jiménez Jaramillo



Mexican fans celebrate after the Mexico vs. Croatia FIFA World Cup match.
Photo by Pedro PARDO/AFP/Getty Images



If you listened closely during Mexico’s match against Croatia on Monday, you might have heard fans of El Tri shouting the Spanish word puto during goal kicks. Despite how it sounds, puto does not mean point or punt. In fact, the word is a clear, if somewhat semantically sophisticated, anti-gay slur, which is why its use by Mexican fans has been so controversial during this World Cup. Still, FIFA has cleared Mexico of improper conduct charges in the wake of official complaints, and despite promises to the contrary, ESPN did not mute the slur during its broadcast on Monday.

FIFA is undoubtedly in the wrong here, but then again, regulating chants is tricky business. Fans yell puto, which roughly means gay prostitute, at the opposing team’s goalkeeper as a tactic to distract him from his task, a common enough practice in all sports. In this case, the chant is a very specific, homophobic double-entendre, playing on the concept of letting someone “score a goal on you.” In Spanish, to score a goal is meter un gol. That translates literally as to put a goal in, so when a goalie fails at his job, he dejó que se la metieran, or allowed someone to stick it in. You see where this is going: The embarrassment of allowing a goal in your net is akin to being on the receiving end of anal sex—you know, like a gay guy.

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hubag bohol

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Re: Puto!
« Reply #5 on: June 20, 2018, 03:18:17 PM »
FIFA is shrugging its shoulders here because the Mexican chant, while clearly offensive, is not an explicit faggot (or maricón in this case). I am certain that if fans were chanting that, Mexican coach Miguel Herrera couldn’t get away with saying, “FIFA should be worried about more serious things.” Apparently, faggot and gay whore are not quite the same, though the malice of their intent seems difficult to separate.

It’s also worth noting that puto is the masculine form of p**t, a clear misogynistic slur. A simple solution would be to ban all forms of the p-word. But language bans are never that simple. The English equivalent for p**t is also f***, since you can conjugate it in similarly versatile ways. “It was f***** hard”: putamente difícil. “This f***** cold”: este puto frío. “He was fucked up”: estaba putiado. Forbidding p**t, like forbidding f***, is insane. I would riot for my right to use f*** in the same way I would riot for my right to conjugate p**t in all its forms.

Obviously, we are not going to erase either p**t or puto from common parlance. The problem here is that a gay slur is being sanctioned on the world stage by an international organization, a national soccer team, and an entire culture.

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hubag bohol

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Re: Puto!
« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2018, 03:18:48 PM »
Part of me wants to believe something got lost in translation, and that if FIFA really understood and felt the insult, it might act differently. They can abstractly consider what the word means, but they don’t understand the visceral gut punch you feel when you hear a slur in your native language. The Mexican team’s officials, on the other hand, know exactly what puto means. At the very least, they could give a symbolic statement denouncing it, even if it still takes decades for the fans to catch up.

As we’ve seen with the way the NBA handled the Clippers’ Donald Sterling controversy or the growing outcry over the name of a certain Washington NFL team, sports can be a vehicle for the kinds of social conversations that lead to change. Mexico, Latin America, their sports industries, and their societies could’ve taken the puto ordeal as a moment to reckon with their homophobia. Instead, they chose to embrace the slur as part of their tradition. We shouldn’t have to depend on a FIFA ruling to know this is wrong, but it sure would have been a step in the right direction.


http://www.slate.com/human-interest/2018/05/danny-and-nicole-discuss-a-letter-from-a-very-angry-wedding-guest.html

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Re: Puto!
« Reply #7 on: June 20, 2018, 03:20:06 PM »
FIFA is undoubtedly in the wrong here, but then again, regulating chants is tricky business. Fans yell puto, which roughly means gay prostitute, at the opposing team’s goalkeeper as a tactic to distract him from his task, a common enough practice in all sports. In this case, the chant is a very specific, homophobic double-entendre, playing on the concept of letting someone “score a goal on you.” In Spanish, to score a goal is meter un gol. That translates literally as to put a goal in, so when a goalie fails at his job, he dejó que se la metieran, or allowed someone to stick it in. You see where this is going: The embarrassment of allowing a goal in your net is akin to being on the receiving end of anal sex—you know, like a gay guy.





;D

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