The ¡VAMOS! ‘Superman’ image was taken by Gemma Bailey (¡gracias!) not on Krypton but in the Atacama Desert, Chile.
Superhero costumes have been adopted in Latin America by very real fighters for social justice, most famously by Superbarrio (superneighbourhood), street vendor champion of the working class, the poor and the homeless in Mexico City. The use of the wrestling mask (modelled on the lucha libre wrestling legend El Santo, star of numerous movies and comic books) not only disguises the individual, it allows for identification with the group struggle. Audiences at last year’s concert at the Sage Gateshead by Mexican ska-punk group, Los de Abajo were treated to a variety of masks (from Zapatista styled balaclavas to Gene Simmons from Kiss!).
Click here to read an essay on Superbarrio Gómez and his ‘politics of the possible’, an alternative political imaginary constituted via popular culture and the construction of a national and transnational social movement. This site also features the Superbarrio cumbia.
