The World of Lucha Libre

Levi begins with an introductory chapter emphasizing lucha libre to be a practice of staging contradictions.[2] In this section, Levi argues that lucha libre “occupies a space somewhere between sport, ritual, and theater and is thus capable of drawing its power from all of those genres.”[3] The chapter offers a simple view of lucha libre; two or more wrestlers enter a boxing ring to put on a fighting show that ends only when one of them is pinned down or surrenders.[3] Levi, however, expands lucha libre to be a “complex performance that integrates a range of ideas about agency, power, modernity, gender, and national culture.”[3]

live match

In this chapter, Levi explains that by immersing herself in the practice of lucha libre the secrecy of how a luchador is made was revealed to her.[2] In this section she observes that everyone seems to know that outcomes of lucha libre matches are predetermined, yet emphasizes a secretive element that is said to be unplanned.[2] In her practice as a luchadora, she continues the discussion of lucha libre being fixed, while expressing that she felt the wrestling was real. In the end of the chapter, Levi explains that “secrecy itself is a structuring feature of lucha libre,”[3] and concluded that it is not the secrets, but the secrecy itself that is important in the sport.[2]

This chapter looks at the perspectives of lucha libre as both an athletic sport and as a spectacle of good vs. evil, or tecnicos (good guys) vs. rudos (bad guys).[2] Levi addresses that lucha libre is a complex cultural performance consisting of three levels: the life world, the performance, and the played out "socially marked characters."[3] The chapter proceeds to discuss the life of lucha libre within the context of the body and self-representation of a luchador/a. The aspects of the performance involve play-roles that range from socially marked characters to animals (e.g. jaguars) and elemental forces (Tinieblas or Darkness), but also mass media cultural images, such as El Zorro.[3]

Lucha libre ring

In this chapter Levi presents the mask as a national culture embodiment and contributor to the idea of culture and nation.[2] The mask, Levi explains, offers a liberty for the luchador/a to “embody a critical role” of empowerment.[3] Without the mask the luchador/a would be unable to “convert to a national or regional” symbol.[3] The empowerment of the mask reflects a “political theater” for the social wrestler, termed the “lucha social”. The idea is that the social wrestler acts as an agency for a lucha, or struggle within Mexican politics, in secrecy, and behind a hidden mask.[3]

This chapter discusses machismo and “marianismo” as forms of gendered representation that are contested in the ring.[2] Levi critiques the idea of traditional roles that depict “ a romantic notion of the macho as the real, earthly Mexican, indifferent to risk, indifferent to death.”[3] In lucha libre male representation is extended to homosexuality, and women fought for acceptance as "luchadoras."[3] The chapter discusses one distinction between Mexican professional wrestling and wrestling in the U.S.; females are less sexualized and are more often regarded as professional athletes.[4]

In this chapter Levi addresses what it means for "professional wrestling to be vulgarized" as a televised sport.[2] Televised matches were short lived after they reached the courts and were banned to protect underaged viewers.[3] Levi implies that there may have been other reasons for the banning, but the ban expanded luche libre into cinema.[3] Once luche libre reentered the televised spectrum it entered a popular tradition that conflicted with "neoliberal economics or cultural authenticity" and opposed the once vulgar and corrupt aspects luche libre had among a less mass audience.[3]