Chola Chabuca: A Case Study in Fashion, Performance and Popular Culture in Peru

Susana Aguirre Dress, Bodies and Borders Dr. Francesca Granata Final Paper

Chola Chabuca: A Case Study in Fashion, Performance and Popular Culture in Peru

Figure 1: Chola Chabuca in front of her fans. (Source: Peru.com)

Introduction

Coming back to the U.S. after spending Christmas with our family in Lima, Peru last

year, my mother and I made a pit stop in Chicago, IL to indulge in some retail therapy. The

British retailer Topshop had just a few months before opened its doors on The Magnificent Mile

and it was one of our first destinations. Platform heels were the new trend to follow that season

(thanks in no small measure to the popularity of the Jeffrey Campbell “Lita” platform bootie)

and the styles at Topshop entertained exaggerated heights, extreme colors and excess

adornments. Not being the kind of shoe one encounters every day, my mother was in awe of the

sky-high heels and their flashy appearance. “They look like Chola Chabuca shoes!” she said

matter-of-factly. And they certainly did. Since mid-1990s, the Peruvian TV personality known as

La Chola Chabuca has reigned over popular culture, becoming one of the most identifiable

characters in the country’s entertainment business, thanks in large part to her over-the-top


ensembles that include iterations of the Andean pollera, or skirt, and her signature 70s-style

platform heels.

Chola Chabuca was conceived and is performed in drag by Peruvian entertainer Ernesto

Pimentel. In this paper, I wish to argue that fashion has been a key tool with which Pimentel has

constructed this character. Attributing fashionability to Chola Chabuca became a mechanism by

which the character could transgress her constructed reality of being a woman of Indigenous

decent and migrant from the (racialized and deemed “backwards”) highland region of Peru to the

metropolitan capital of Lima – placing her in an inferior position within the historic, socio-

economic and racial parameters of the country.

Peruvian scholar Victor Vich has argued that performative street discourse, defined as

urban and popular forms of culture, are:

Practices whose function is to articulate different forms of subjectivity through

reproduction or critique of hegemonic ideolog(ies) in society, [and to] open new channels

of circulation of popular imaginary(ies).1

Accepting the performance of Chola Chabuca as such, this paper aims to understand how

Pimentel applies certain mechanisms, fashion being one of them, in the production of alternative

discourses. Because the character’s wardrobe encapsulates themes of race, class, and gender,

Chola Chabuca as an entertainer implicitly redefines gender and racial notions, communicating

these to her audience largely made up of underrepresented, working class urban communities.

Through her variety-style show, Chola Chabuca has created a space in which popular artists and

individuals are able to articulate their marginalized realities and artistic expressions. Indeed, her

1 Victor Vich, El discurso de la calle: los cómicos ambulantes y las tensiones de la modernidad en el Perú (Lima: Red para el Desarrollo de las Ciencias Sociales en el Perú, 2001). This and all subsequent translations from Spanish to English are my own.


website states that her show is charged with “excitement/spirit and solidarity with Peruvian

artists.”2 The case of Chola Chabuca begs the question: within this comedic performance, how

successful is the artist in subverting the stereotypes exalted through the character?

Methodology, Conceptual Framework and Background

To achieve the research goal, this paper will analyze specific examples of Chola

Chabuca’s ensembles, primarily through video and photography. In The Study of Dress History,

Lou Taylor mentions “the wealth of untapped interpretative possibilities that lie within what

might seem the most banal home or holiday snapshots and movies.”3 This is certainly a challenge

to engage with responsibility and diligence, for Taylor also warns, “Deciphering the coded

signals behind the creation of all these images […] is highly complex.”4 For this paper, the

moving image, in particular YouTube videos, provides a lens through which to view how Chola

Chabuca’s various fashionable ensembles aid/contribute to her performance.

In the article Looking American: Louise Dahl-Wolfe’s Fashion Photographs of the 1930s

and 1940s, Rebecca Arnold argues, “Images provide narratives of a culture, clues and revelations

of the way a social group or indeed a nation envisions itself, particular to time and space.”5 In

analyzing the fashion of Chola Chabuca through images, and understanding its importance

within the construction of her identity, we are also given a glimpse of articulations of

“Peruvianness” in this specific time and context. It is important to contextualize the images

2 “La Chola Chabuca,” accessed November 2012, http://www.cholachabuca.com/cholachabuca.php. 3 Lou Taylor, The Study of Dress History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 181. 4 Ibid., 181. 5 Rebecca Arnold, “Looking American: Louise Dahl-Wolfe's Fashion Photographs of the 1930s and 1940s,” Fashion Theory 6:1 (2002): 46.


geographically, historically and socially.6 Photographs, then, illuminate the variety and

fashionability of her ensembles, and what aspects of Indigenous dress and modern fashion are

highlighted or repressed in her dress for certain shows and events. Additionally, taking a closer

look at Chabuca’s other ventures can illuminate how the character is constructed and marketed.

This methodology, I believe, can shed light on how Chola Chabuca by way of certain

kinds of fashions is able to seemingly transgress stigmatization, appropriate dominant

social/cultural/racial narratives, and enter popular culture.

It is also important to clarify some of the concepts used. The Spanish term cholo/a is a

conflictive one that emerges around racial tensions (and tensions in the construction of race

theory in Peru), and continues to be engrained in Peruvian vocabulary. “Mestizos started where

decency ended; they were called “cholo” and were considered immoral and corrupt,”7 states

Anthropologist Marisol de la Cadena. She points out that in the first half of the twentieth century,

as a product of public and scholarly debates around mestizaje, Peruvian intellectuals developed

“a peculiar definition of race” which she argues helps explain “the current denial of racist

practices in Peru.”8 No longer based on biological notions of race, prejudices and hierarchies

were kept in place through a culturalist definition of race in which the “Indian” subject and

practices were seen as pure and primitive, tainted under the processes mestizaje. “Being mestizo

in Peru was a racialized class fact, where class was not only judged in terms of income but on

education and origin,”9 states de la Cadena. This “room for discrimination” expresses itself in

6 Ibid., 47. 7 Marisol de la Cadena, Indigenous Mestizos: The Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, Peru, 1919–1991 (Durham N.C.: Duke University Press, 2000). 8 Marisol de la Cadena, “The Racial Politics of Culture and Silent Racism in Peru” (paper presented at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) Conference on Racism and Public Policy, Durban, South Africa, September, 2001), 3. 9 Ibid., 8.


different ways in modern-day Peru. Yet, mestizaje or “being cholo,” as de la Cadena’s

ethnographic research in the Cusco region proves, “had more than one trajectory, and more than

one meaning.”10 In modern-day Peru, cholo is largely used to belittle and categorize recent

Andean migrants to urban cities.11 But, through different acts and platforms, it has been

appropriated by many and imbued with notions of empowerment and ownership.

The act of being Chola Chabuca can be considered an act of defiance, while at the same

time reproducing problematic and stereotypical notions of what it means to be cholo/a. In Bodies

that Matter, Judith Butler addresses the idea of ‘ambivalent drag,’ arguing that, “There is no

necessary relation between drag and subversion,”12 meaning one must consider acts of drag

which can very well subvert prevailing gender (in this case also racial) norms, and acts of drag

that reinforce them. To fully engage the character of Chola Chabuca with Butler’s arguments is

beyond the scope of this paper but it is safe to say that Pimentel by way of Chola Chabuca seems

to engage in practices of subversion, though their intended purposes and success (vis-à-vis the

audience’s perception) needs to be further examined.

The Andean migrant, as an identity and lived experience, represents the character and

reality of modernity in Peru.13 Vich suggests that different forms of popular culture (his study

focuses specifically on comedic street performers, comicos ambulantes in Spanish) take

advantage of public spaces to create new forms of representation and subjectivity. Performance,

then, is a space for the “construction and deconstruction of social stereotypes and popular

opinions profoundly related to conflictive debates on social class, race, gender, culture, and

10 Ibid., 10. 11 A similar definition is given by scholar Tanya Golash-Boza: “In Peru, cholo refers to a person of indigenous descent who does not live the peasant lifestyle associated with indigeneity in Peru.” 12 Judith Butler, Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of Sex (New York, NY: Routledge, 2011), 125. 13 Vich, El discurso de la calle, 3.


orality in Peru.”14 Chola Chabuca is an example of a character formulated out of this culture of

informal and public comedic performances that emerged in the 1990s in Peru. Few have been

successful and popular enough to make it to television, even less have managed to stay on air for

almost twenty years, as has Chola Chabuca.

A fundamental characteristic of these performances lays in the concept of economy of

humor: the exchange of ironic presentations of social realities for cash.15 As mentioned before,

the origins of Chola Chabuca lie in this basic exchange of comedic relief for money, which

allows for contradictory yet authentic and revelatory dialogues on the realities lived by both the

performers and audience.

Who is La Chola Chabuca?

Ernesto Pimentel, a migrant himself from the southern Andean region of Arequipa,

studied in the School of Dramatic Arts in Peru in Lima and created an early version of this

character, simply called chola, to perform out in the streets and at bachelorette parties. It proved

to be a popular character, encouraging him to further develop it by gradually exaggerating the

character’s Andean accent, embellishing the traditional female Andean ensemble and

intensifying the make-up. Pimentel took the now very extravagant character Chola Chabuca to

national television as a side act to one of the country’s most popular daytime talk shows of the

1990s, Gisela. The character subsequently appeared in one of Peru’s most viewed late night

comedy shows, Risas y Salsa (Laughter and Salsa). Chabuca now hosts her own show, Super

Sábado (Super Saturday).

14 Ibid., 2. 15 Ibid., 2.


Frequently considered “the most successful character” in Peruvian television, Chola

Chabuca’s website states, “staying with force for so many years in Peruvian television is

something difficult to achieve, but La Chola Chabuca has accomplished this based on artistic

quality and her proximity to the public.”16 Indeed, this closeness is in no small part due to the

construction of a performative identity that speaks to similar struggles/aspirations of a working-

and marginalized class that relates to her Andean migrant stories. Her solidarity with a specific

‘Peruvian experience’ goes beyond the entertainment aspect of her character. Chola Chabuca in

character and Pimentel as himself participate in many events and activities in solidarity with

these communities.

“Fashion has disrupted prevailing codes of dress/orders of representation,” concludes

Barbara Vinken. Furthermore, Elizabeth Wilson states, “Fashion, in a sense is change […];

fashion sets the terms of all sartorial behavior.” 17 In light of these arguments, I argue that it is

fashion, and not costume, which defines the garments of Chola Chabuca. Over the years, her

ensembles have evolved, disrupting along the way prevailing notions of what is “traditional”

Andean dress and, importantly, what constitutes (Western notions of) fashionability by

combining both Indigenous and modern dress forms. Rare is the occasion in which she wears the

same ensemble twice, and they only grow bigger in their splendor.

There is a certain conceptualization of fashion, however, that can help illuminate the

significance of her wardrobe. “A constant transgression, merging and exceeding of borders

16 “La Chola Chabuca,” accessed November, 2012, http://www.cholachabuca.com/cholachabuca.php. 17 Elizabeth Wilson, Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2003), 3.


constitutes one of the central attributes of the Bakhtinian grotesque,”18 which Dr. Francesca

Granata applies to fashion. The grotesque is intimately bound to the carnivalesque, which is

“characterized by an element of play, humor, and parody.”19 The present examination of the

fashions used by Chola Chabuca can benefit from this conceptualization.

The construction of her identity as migrant, therefore in progress/not-quite, extends to all

aspects of the making of Chola Chabuca. This can very much be seen in the case of her website.

The home page that includes the navigating menu is displayed in the form of popular chicha

posters. Chicha is Peruvian cumbia music and culture, which mixes rock-styles with huayno

beats from the Andean region and music styles from the Amazon region. The posters, which are

used to publicize concerts and other events, stand out for their big and bold block letters in neon

colors and have become a symbol of the chicha culture in general. Further evidence that her

identity formation embraces the in-between/not-quite can be seen in the section where a

biography of Chola Chabuca is presented: an image of her and a description is placed against the

backdrop of a photograph showing a muddy cobblestone passage that is typical of a rural town in

the highlands, which can be seen as a nod to her origins.

18 Francesca Granata, “Fashion Studies In-between: A Methodological Case Study and an Inquiry into the State of Fashion Studies,” Fashion Theory 16: 1 (2012), 69. 19 Ibid., 69.


Figure 2, 3 and 4: The various styles worn by Chola Chabuca. (Source: Chola Chabuca Facebook Page)

Chola Chabuca’s identity is based on the refashioning of the common image of what a

woman of Andean and Quechua origins has been thought to look like. By retaining Andean

cultural and dress codes, and fashioning them with modern styles, Chabuca is undoubtedly in-

between. She characterizes a different chola, a modernized serrana20 who puts on jewelry,

glitter, high heels, and other accessories. What makes her different and ultimately divorces her

from the typical image of a serrana is indeed fashion. From the photographs above, we can

visualize the continuous themes in her wardrobe: iterations of the pollera skirt, platform heels,

blouse, shawl and, importantly, her pigtail braids. As will be seen below with the analysis of

videos, there are certain events and situations in which Chola Chabuca emphasizes either the

traditional traits or the modern traits in her wardrobe. Take for example Figure 2 above. In this

image, Chabuca makes use of the typical pollera silhouette: knee-length, embroidered with

20 A Spanish term used to describe a person or thing from the rural, Andean sierra or highlands.


colorful floral motifs, with lace as a decorative touch. This ensemble contrasts with Figure 4, in

which Chola Chabuca has emphasized the modern with the materials used and the color scheme

of her outfit. What remains a constant, regardless of how modernized her ensemble, and indeed

what positions her in-between, are her pigtail braids that are associated with the serrana,

Quechua woman.

In one video that dates from the 1990s, Chola Chabuca highlights her fashionable

wardrobe in Álo, Chabuca, her segment on the show Risas y Salsa:

In this opportunity I’ve gone [above and beyond] with my make-up […] look at these

earrings; people will say, “what great shells she has” [audience laughs]. I’ve chosen this

green [skirt] color of hope that goes with this morning fuchsia [top] and these lunar-silver

[shoes].21

Chabuca twirls and models for the camera, highlighting with joyful body movements

how pleased she is with her fashionable choices. The camera zooms in for detail shots as she

describes her earrings, clothing and, of course, her infamous sky-high platform shoes. As

previously mentioned, Chola Chabuca’s fashion has evolved over the years. In this particular

video, where she is in the beginning stages of her television career, her ensembles and

mannerisms consists of exaggerated parodies of what an Indigenous woman is thought as. The

colors of her pollera, for example, resemble that of traditional-style polleras, unlike the very

bright and embellished ones she now uses more frequently. Comparing the same video with

those of recent performances, one can also notice that her Andean accent was much thicker back

then.

21 “Risas Y Salsa [La Chola Chabuca Micky Rospigliosi],” YouTube video, 13:53, posted by “orlanditotv9,” January 25, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfuQE-OS5hA.


Chola Chabuca’s carnivalesque versions of the Andean pollera consist of re-fashioning

the Andean textile garment by combining it with modern colors and embellishments. Take for

example the butterfly-themed outfit she wore to participate in another Peruvian entertainment

show, El show de los sueños, in 2009.22

Figure 5: Valcarcel (left) and Chola Chabuca (right) in El show de los sueños in 2009

The neon-colored ensemble [Figure 5] includes a pollera-style skirt supported by a

crinoline cage and embellished with butterflies all over, along with a corseted top and an extra-

large bow in the back, all of which reminisce Victorian-era dress. While this ensemble can be

considered old-fashioned in any other setting, in this case it is a sign of the chola modernizing,

becoming fashionable. In this particular case, Chabuca’s ensemble is put into contrast by what

the host of the entertainment show, Gisela Valcarcel (another popular TV personality), is

wearing. Known for her style and fashionability, Valcarcel wears custom-made, figure-hugging,

22 “El Baileton de la 6ta Gala con la Chola Chabuca,” YouTube video, 8:08, posted by “Reyes del Show Peru,” December 20, 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lIpF58onaA.


skin-bearing evening gowns; the scene plays out as a sort of fashion face-off. Valcarcel here

represents the Western, modern women of Lima: the counter image (opposite) of the chola, as

Valcarcel is indisputably “white,” of European descent, upon which no trace of Indigenous

Peruvian ethnicity is bequeathed. Their encounter represents a meeting of two worlds: the world

of the chola and that of the cosmopolitan Limeña woman, played out in fashion dialogue:

Valcarcel: Only our Chola Chabuca can pull off this type of thing! [Referring to Chola

Chabuca’s ensemble].

Chabuca: I dressed as simply as I could, I didn’t have anything to wear!

V: [Coming closer to Chabuca’s ensemble]. You’re a butterfly, it’s a crazy thing!

C: I’m really a nativity that walks [as she struts like a serious runway model and the

camera pans in for a close-up of her dress].

V: Chola, this is incredible. Turn around so the people can see the bow.

C: What I like the most is when Jose puts a flower [in my hair] so here is a flower for

you.

V: Oh, thank you. Tell me one thing, Chola, and this is serious: how long can it take to

make this dress?

C: The truth is that, what really takes a while is to save up the money to make it. I’m not

going to lie! [Everyone laughs.] The nicest thing is that my work gives back to me, a

feedback, how do you like that word? [Laughs as she mispronounces the word ‘feedback’

in English].23

23 “El Baileton de la 6ta Gala con la Chola Chabuca,” YouTube video, 8:08, posted by “Reyes del Show Peru,” December 20, 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lIpF58onaA.


What is interesting about this exchange is Valcarcel’s fascination with Chola Chabuca’s

ensemble, exaggerated as it is. Within the context of humor, Valcarcel imparts style-envy, giving

Chola Chabuca the upper hand in this fashion face-off.

The contradictions of Chola Chabuca’s crafted identity and the fusion of Andean dress

with Western notions of fashion can no better be expressed in her performance for the HBO

Latin America show, Septimo Sentido (Seventh Sense), where she interprets the original

composition “Mama Ocllo” (lyrics by Pimentel, music by Miguel Reategui). Mama Ocllo

(Mama = Mother, Ocllo = Woman/Dame in Quechua) is a fertility goddess found in Inca

legends. Dressed with an extra large feathered headdress, a cape (an interpretation of the cape

Mama Ocllo is depicted wearing in Baroque-era paintings and illustrations), and of course the

pollera and blouse, all fashioned and exoticized, for this specific musical number, to resemble a

more “traditional” Andean ensemble.

Figure 6 and 7: Screencaps of Youtube video of performance

The video of the performance begins with a voice-over as Chola Chabuca models and

dances (Voguing) around the stage to techno/house beats that one quickly realizes sounds like

performer Madonna’s song, Vogue.


Voice-Over: Many generations have passed since that time. And today we have with us,

the heir of the lineage of our ancestors, the not-so-Virgin of the Sun, fabulous and one-of-

a-kind, La Chola Chabuca!24

The lyrics of the song are as follows:

In a time long ago in this land

When everything was to live for war

To face the other

It was law to kill or die

Today things aren’t so good

But [you] want for me to return

You should, together, fight

And a new destiny construct

[Musical interlude as Chola Chabuca mimics Madonna’s hand gestures/routine in the

video for Vogue]

24 “Chola Chabuca en Septimo Sentido – HBO,” YouTube video, 2:45, posted by “Mike Reategui,” May 29, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYOd2XE5gU0.


Figure 8: Screencap of Youtube video of performance

Mama Ocllo

From the hands of Manco Capac25

I emerged from the waters of Titicaca26

With love, compassion, and much pride

To be the diva of the Tawantinsuyo27

[What follows is the rap section of Vogue, in which Madonna names historic stars of

Hollywood and famous names in American pop culture, now with the names changed by

Chabuca].

Manco Capac, Sinchi Roca

Lloque Ypanqui, Mayta Capac

Capac Yupanqui, Vogue.

Inca Roca, Yahuar Huacac

Viracocha, Pachacutec

Tupac Inca, Vogue.

Huayna Capac, Huascar

Atahaulpa

Vladimiro, Fujimori

Ama sua [Do not steal]

Ama quella [Do not be lazy]

Ama llulla [Do not lie] 25 The first Sapa Inca of the Inca Empire. 26 Lake Titica. This is how the established legend of Mama Ocllo goes. 27 Tawantinsuyo is the Quechua name for the Inca Empire; translated to Spanish it means the four regions or corners.


Amame [Love me]

This performance transfers the ‘star power’ of Madonna’s list to the list of the kings of the Inca

Empire, which Chola Chabuca lists in chronological order of their rule. This song parody gives

these protagonists of Inca history the designation of being in vogue, of having popular currency

in present-day cultural narratives.

Always cheeky, Chola Chabuca adds to the end of this list of Inca Kings (ultimately

considered Peruvian leaders) the country’s two most controversial contemporary political

figures: ex-president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) and his adviser and head of intelligence

services Vladimiro Montesinos, both imprisoned for violations of human rights and corruption.

This addition inevitably creates an almost linear connection between the Inca Empire and

contemporary politics, making Fujimori and Montesinos the (rotten) successors of the Incas.

Rotten because of Chola Chabuca’s pronunciation in the song that, “Today things aren’t so

good.” Making this connection more evident, and sarcastic, she ends her performance by

addressing the audience saying, “Obviously, out of all the Incas I have mentioned, the only one

that you know is Fujimori.”28

What we can also see in this performance is that the “naturalized” gender roles are

inverted, since it is she, Chola Chabuca, the mother and the female embodiment of the Incas,

who has returned as a leader to bring back forgotten values with the aim to “teach them again.”

Other videos also illuminate how the realities of the actor and the performance are fused.

Chola Chabuca gives her own opinion, in character, about issues that are part of Pimentel’s

reality, for example his very public self-identification as a gay man who is HIV positive. In line

28 “7mo Sentido CHOLA CHABUCA 2 de 4,” YouTube video, 14:21, posted by “Charlito,” May 10, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihbq6u5X5rQ.


with the satirical repertoire of the character, Chola Chabuca has pronounced, when asked the

question of what she thinks of Pimentel’s decision to have a child and raise it in an

unconventional gay household: “It’s silly, because a child should be with [his/her] mother and

father. What [will he do] alone raising a child? Repent!” says Chabuca in between her laughs and

that of the filming crew.29 Certainly, Pimentel’s declaration via Chola Chabuca is a parody of the

pervasive homophobic way of thinking he has dealt with (as he, now as himself, declares in the

same documentary). This back and forth between the actor and the character blurs the lines

between reality and performance. Performance studies theorist Richard Schechner is quoted in

‘Fashion Studies In-Between’:

Accepting the performative as a category of theory makes it increasingly difficult to

sustain a distinction between appearances and reality, facts and make-believe, surfaces

and depths. Appearances are actualities – neither more nor less so than what lies behind

or beneath appearances. Social reality is constructed through and through. […] the

relationship between depths and surfaces is fluid; the relationship is dynamically

convective.30

In another interview, Chola Chabuca is asked as “a leader” (as the interviewer defines Chabuca

to be) to opine about Peru’s Miss Universe, Cindy Mejia, pronouncing that she doesn’t see

herself being in the situation of having a gay child.31 Chola Chabuca replied, interchanging

between a comedic and honest voice:

29 “PUNTO FINAL: Las Confesiones de Ernesto Pimentel (3/4),” YouTube video, 7:32, posted by “Canal de puroperuvision2011,” August 10, 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoHiKYTUtnI. 30 Francesca Granata, “Fashion Studies In-between,” 74. 31 Mejia declared to the Peruvian newspaper Peru21 that a child/person becomes gay when there’s an absence of the father, or when one is raped; when the child is raised by women, “that’s when the mannerisms begin,” she declared. Her child, she continued, would be raise with both parents, and will be given up to God, and will have a good upbringing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grMSrNHjq2g.


I think there are people who need a crown to have something [in] their head. I think a

more intelligent answer would have been to, according to her religious convictions, and if

she lived by them: […] we have to respect other people’s opinions. I don’t think it’s that

girl’s responsibility. Ignorance is not the responsibility of one but of the environment, the

context, and I think in this case the organization should have backed her up, prepared her,

and in any case accept that her response was in function to her religious beliefs, which

are respectable. What should have been her answer: “I refuse to answer”, “I don’t know”;

not knowing makes you look better. If you ask me something that I don’t know, about

macroeconomics or whatever: “Sorry, miss, I didn’t take that course,” and that’s the end

of the story. You want to talk about everything: it’ll turn out bad.32

What is particularly intriguing about Chabuca is her marked difference from other

popular performers in Peru. This is a character in drag that performs, through body and dress,

contradictory notions of gender and race/ethnicity. Her success and popularity has reached not

only a population that shares her constructed migrant experience (which encompasses a group

that extends from the geographically marginalized and impoverished urban peripheries, to

working class and rural communities), but also a middle and upper class audience (to this sector

of the population we must add many of Pimentel’s colleagues in the entertainment business).

Considering the prejudices placed upon homosexual, transgender and drag communities within a

very machista/patriarchal culture, Pimentel has constructed a popular drag character that has

been able to transgress boundaries within a very racialized and conservative country. One

important way in which La Chola Chabuca is constructed, I have argued, is through the use of

32 “Emotiva entrevista a Ernesto Pimentel y su personaje la Chola Chabuca,” YouTube video, 19:58, posted by “Entre Tu y Yo con Lorena,” July 24, 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFWFVDFZkXI.


carnivalesque fashion, which has directly influenced the dramatization and reproduction of

allegiances33 with an audience, while at the same time perhaps reinforcing the very notions it

wishes to subvert. This last argument should be further elaborated upon. What has been proven is

that a closer analysis of La Chola Chabuca allows for a discussion on various issues such as race,

gender, and sexuality within contemporary Peru.

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Chola Chabuca: A Case Study in Fashion, Performance and Popular Culture in Peru

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