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Bad Bunny will be the protagonist of “Cassandro”, a new LGBTQIA+ film.
Quien es Cassandro?
Saúl Armendáriz is a luchador from El Paso, Texas, who rose to prominence in the ’80s as an exótico, which is a type of wrestler (usually male) who performs in drag. Think of Mimi Imfurst heaving India Ferrah into the sky, but it’s on purpose. In the luchador tradition, there is already a lot of pageantry in the way wrestlers present themselves and act, but exóticos embrace femininity at the core of their wrestling identities. Exóticos flip and tackle with the best of them, but they do it wearing eye shadow and lashes. To some, it’s seen as a gimmick, but for people like Armendáriz, it’s not just a way of life but how he got his ticket to success.
He began training to be a luchador when he was 15 in Juárez, Mexico, where his family is from. He fought under a few names, both before and after he became an exótico, but eventually settled on Cassandro. Armendáriz was a wrestler for Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide and the Universal Wrestling Association, but he was also an important figure for queer and Latine people, as he was one of the first openly gay exóticos. Cassandro is no stranger to the limelight and has appeared as the subject of many stories from publications like The New Yorker, and he was the star of the 2018 documentary Cassandro, the Exótico!
An iconic queer luchador and Bad Bunny? Sign us up. On Tuesday, Amazon Prime Video debuted the trailer for Cassandro, a biopic about the Lucha Libre superstar, starring Gael García Bernal as the protagonist and featuring a kissing scene with the Puerto Rican reggaetonero.
The trailer follows the life of Saúl Armendáriz — the queer luchador who used the stage name Cassandro — on his journey to becoming a title-winning Lucha Libre fighter, despite being an “exótico,” a term used for male fighters who take on gay mannerisms during their fights.
The trailer introduces Bad Bunny as one of Bernal’s love interests in the trailer when the Puerto Rican musician walks up to Cassandra and asks him if he’s a luchador. The trailer then follows the fighter as he decides whether he’ll opt to be an exótico in the ring, even though “they don’t let exóticos win.”
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