Breathe
By Sabina Berman
A few days ago, Canal Once's Operación Mamut aired a satire in which Jairo Calixto played the role of the SCJN's presiding minister, Norma Lucía Piña.
Several voices were raised on social networks protesting and a few threatened to formulate a petition for Channel Eleven to remove this type of "misogynistic" content.
Was it misogynistic satire? That is the first question that jumps to the understanding.
Quickly said, no.
The farce did not ridicule the minister for being a woman or for how she is a woman. It ridiculed her for the measures that the Judicial Branch has taken since she has presided over it.
Or is mere cross-dressing itself a sexist affront?
Cross-dressing is an ancient theatrical tradition that has come very healthily into our own time. On Saturday Night Live, the most popular comedy show on American TV, routinely brilliant female comedians play politicians and less brilliant male comedians play politicians.
In Operación Mamut itself, transvestism is a weekly occurrence. For example, in each broadcast Nora Huerta plays President Obrador and mocks, among other things, his resemblance to the old man in Chespirito's programs.
And in Mexican commercial TV comedy programs transvestism has been endemic.
Ergo, if transvestism is in itself misogynist, we should try to veto not only the satire of Minister Piña, but all the transvestism that occurs today. On TV, in the theater, at the Gay March and in the daily life of transvestites.
Some anti-Operación Mamut women have argued that they do not object to the cross-dressing, what they object to is that the satire occurred on a public channel. According to the law, they have written, public media paid with taxes must show impartiality, which in their opinion has been violated in Channel 11 for the last 4 years.
Well, there are two falsehoods in this idea.
There is no law that orders Canal Once to do so. What there is is a Code of Ethics that promises "impartiality and neutrality", but for 30 years this code has been understood as a plurality of political positions.
If the criteria of "impartiality and neutrality" were to be strictly applied minute by minute, María Amparo Casar, José Antonio Crespo, Francisco Paoli, Leonardo Curzio and the programs Dinero y Poder and Espiral, biased to the Right, would have to leave the channel's programming; and the programs biased to the Left, which are only 3, El Chamuco, Largo Aliento and Operación Mamut, would also have to leave.
Which leads to the second falsehood. No, the norm of "impartiality and neutrality", now under the criteria of a plurality of voices, has not been violated in the last 4 years at Canal Once either: most of the political commentary on the channel continues to be anti-government. In fact, even today on Canal Once, there are only 2 new programs with political content that were not there 6 years ago.
Almost finished.
I would just like to point out the legitimate concern of many friends that the Judiciary, theoretically a pillar of the State, is being attacked.
I consider this concern legitimate, but I do not share it, because in reality, not in theory, it is the most corrupt power in the country.
In reality, it is the turnstile that secures the hidden system of corruption that underlies the overt system. Every Mexican knows it: in our country Justice is a luxury for the powerful and rich.
That is why I think it is good that judges should also be reviewed and questioned. Although for me, it would be better if they were audited.
Finally, allow me to be candid. What I believe is happening in the case of the satire of Minister Piña is something very human. The satire irritated many. And those many would like to shut the comedian's mouth and, if possible, punish him.
But if the impulse to silence and punish those who think differently is human, this authoritarian impulse must be resisted, because in order to have a Democracy, the opposite is necessary: to defend the right to free expression even of those who irritate us.
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of Opinion 51.
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