Xuxa

I´ve been aware for some time now about Xuxa (pronounced Shoe-shah), who is known in Brazil as the "Queen of Children". She´s a blond, blue-eyed woman who has built an empire here hosting a children´s program, making CD´s and DVD´s and even giving concerts where she sings and dances to adoring Brazilian children (and adults!) everywhere. What I didn´t know until this past Saturday night is that she´s also a gay icon. Imagine if Cher did children´s programming as a full time job, and that would be the equivalent of what Xuxa is.

On Saturday I went to a party where Vilma and I were the only women, everyone else was a gay man. The theme of the party was Xuxa and that is when I was informed that "all the gays" love Xuxa. There were various Xuxa inspired activities, my favorite being a big white posterboard on the wall with "Xuxa", written at the top where everyone had to put on lipstick, leave a kiss mark on the poster, and then write their name below with the first letter of the name being replaced by an "X". So I kissed the poster and wrote "Xheryl". There was also a "show" where three guys came out all dressed up in crazy outfits and lipsynched to some of Xuxa´s music. And all night long there was a laptop with old Xuxa videos from the 80´s playing, with guys gathered around and singing along. Hilarity at its best.

I was pretty disturbed by one video in particular, which I´ve posted below. The name of the song is "Indios", which means "Indians" and as you can see, there are some genuine Indians from the Amazon here in the video looking pretty bummed out. I asked Vilma and my friend if the song and video are prejudiced against Indians and they swore that they´re not, but I´m not so sure. Especially since when I looked at some of the comments listed on the Youtube page. But you can see for yourself what I´m talking about.