“On the weekends,” Lucah relates, “you see vergas everywhere; at every street corner, behind every lamp post, pissing on everything.” Phallic references abound in Guatemalan slang, but verga is by far the most common. Someone who is “bien a verga” is excessively drunk. In a word, shitfaced. The triptych Bien a Verga depicts this vulgar idiom literally, reimagining the alcoholic character from the Mexican Lotería, El Borracho, as a walking verga who in the first scene defies gravity, in the second dips, and in the third sags beneath his own weight.
This piece offers commentary on the prevalence of alcohol abuse in Quetzaltenango and its negative impacts on society. It is fitting that Guatemalans use a phallic idiom to describe inebriation. Drinking plays a central role in toxic expressions of masculinity. Men compete over who can get the drunkest in efforts to demonstrate manliness. Binge drinking contributes to anti-social and self-destructive behaviors. “To use an English word, alcohol makes men act like dickheads,” Lucah says. This relationship between alcohol abuse and toxic masculinity manifests itself in a variety of ways, including public indecency, drunk driving, harassment, brawls, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and gun violence.
The progression of the three scenes simultaneously represents the effects of alcohol abuse over the course of a night as well as over the course of a lifetime. In the third scene, an incapacitated drunk verga symbolizes the devitalizing effects alcohol has on the body. Excessive drinking leads to impotence, sexual and otherwise. It compromises the nervous system and degrades the integrity of vital organs. Acute ethanol intoxication can induce comas. It can even kill.
Lucah suggests Bien a Verga should also be read against the original Lotería character El Borracho, who wears the sartorial diacritics of a racially and economically marginalized figure. Although the culture of drinking transcends distinctions of social class, abject alcoholism in Guatemala is frequently associated with images of poverty and indigeneity. Lucah subverts this triply stigmatizing frame, adjusting the drunk verga’s wardrobe to represent a broader spectrum of society.
“On the weekends,” Lucah relates, “you see vergas everywhere; at every street corner, behind every lamp post, pissing on everything.” Phallic references abound in Guatemalan slang, but verga is by far the most common. Someone who is “bien a verga” is excessively drunk. In a word, shitfaced. The triptych Bien a Verga depicts this vulgar idiom literally, reimagining the alcoholic character from the Mexican Lotería, El Borracho, as a walking verga who in the first scene defies gravity, in the second dips, and in the third sags beneath his own weight.
This piece offers commentary on the prevalence of alcohol abuse in Quetzaltenango and its negative impacts on society. It is fitting that Guatemalans use a phallic idiom to describe inebriation. Drinking plays a central role in toxic expressions of masculinity. Men compete over who can get the drunkest in efforts to demonstrate manliness. Binge drinking contributes to anti-social and self-destructive behaviors. “To use an English word, alcohol makes men act like dickheads,” Lucah says. This relationship between alcohol abuse and toxic masculinity manifests itself in a variety of ways, including public indecency, drunk driving, harassment, brawls, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and gun violence.
The progression of the three scenes simultaneously represents the effects of alcohol abuse over the course of a night as well as over the course of a lifetime. In the third scene, an incapacitated drunk verga symbolizes the devitalizing effects alcohol has on the body. Excessive drinking leads to impotence, sexual and otherwise. It compromises the nervous system and degrades the integrity of vital organs. Acute ethanol intoxication can induce comas. It can even kill.
Lucah suggests Bien a Verga should also be read against the original Lotería character El Borracho, who wears the sartorial diacritics of a racially and economically marginalized figure. Although the culture of drinking transcends distinctions of social class, abject alcoholism in Guatemala is frequently associated with images of poverty and indigeneity. Lucah subverts this triply stigmatizing frame, adjusting the drunk verga’s wardrobe to represent a broader spectrum of society.