02 March 2007

RBD member comes out of the closet

Rebelde

Anytime one of the members of the Mexican pop sextet RBD makes news - usually for pretty inconsequential stuff, like denying anorexia rumors - traffic to my blog surges. Today, for example, band member Christian - best known for his flamboyant hair colors - came out of the closet, confirming stories that he is, in fact, gay. Rumors also abound that he tied the knot in Canada. Just as expected, traffic to my blog is suddenly brisk.

Here in Mexico RBD is sort of the Latin American answer to S Club 7 - just far more gauche.

RBD came out of the teen telenovela Rebelde, which exited the Televisa airwaves months ago, but lives on in far away places like Romania and Peru. Set in an elite private school, Rebelde in many ways highlighted the unseemly class schisms rife in Mexican society - and the fresa-naco rift. Ironically, Christian played a naco character on the show. (Naco is slang for tacky or lacking class; the newly rich are often branded nacos.) The show, though, was in many ways naco. Rebelde also ran a storyline in which one of the character's father went to the trouble of setting up his son with the father's trophy girlfriend to prove the young man wasn't gay.

Anyway, this isn't exactly newsworthy, but it's all highly amusing. I wrote on Rebelde's Canadian adventure back in 2005 - the photo sent by Tourism Alberta was smoking hot, but also, dare I say, naco?

2 comments:

Speed said...

Someone I know from Mexico City used the term "fresinaco". Could that describe RBD?

David Agren said...

I think "fresinaco" - or "fresinaca" for the female cast members - works well. A former co-worker here once referred to the entire Mexican upper class as naco - people with money but lacking refinement.

Of course, a Mexican friend told me that "it's the style to be naco." If you want to see proof, go to the Lucha Libre in Guadalajara on a Tuesday night.

The Herald Mexico had an interesting article a while back on fresa kids fueling a pulque rival. Pulque is foul and a pulqueria is as naco as a place can get.