Rosario Central 0 Argentinos Juniors 1
I couldn’t tell you exactly how many beauty parlours, hairdressing salons, tanning shops, gyms and plastic surgeries I pass on the journey from my house to the ground but it’s a lot. They’re all over Buenos Aires, a city where many claim that they’re the most beautiful people in South America, perhaps the world.
And there are days, when strolling along the sun-baked streets downtown, I have to admit that, although I’m a happily married man getting on in years, my head is turned more often than a tennis spectator on speed.
No Beauty Contest
I think it’s fair to say that the people of Buenos Aires, both men and women, straight and gay, pride themselves on their appearance. Not surprising perhaps when you consider that they’ve got a mix of Italian and Spanish style with a touch of French panache and a lick of debonair British polo-player thrown in for good measure.
In one of those ridiculous surveys commissioned by the cosmetics industry that has no scientific basis whatsoever but which I’m going to quote anyway to prove my point, it was found that 69 percent of Argentine women thought that their boyfriends and husbands spent far too much time and money on their appearance.
They enjoy ridiculously long holidays on the beaches of Punta del Este in Uruguay or the Argentine Atlantic coast where it’s important to look your bronzed best. They’ll spend all year getting there if necessary.
The plastic surgery industry is one of the most highly developed in the world. Teenage girls are given breast implant operations for their birthdays and last year disco’s were offering boob jobs as lottery prizes. I read about one fellow who bought up all the tickets he could in the hope of passing the winning number on to his girlfriend. But he only ended up with the third prize – a bottle of non-alcoholic pineapple fizz. The first prize went to a bus driver from Mendoza who shortly after the operation left his job to pursue a new career in cabaret.
Style in Buenos Aires is important. I see them on the bus casting furtive glances at my slightly too short jeans and faded and fraying replica 1960s West Ham shirt. They can giggle all they like. I can handle it.
But the more common reaction to this intense pressure from society to conform, to look good is a growth in eating disorders and tens of thousands of young people who simply don’t go out.
In the wealthier Buenos Aires suburbs, there is a breed of middle-aged to elderly woman which is incredibly well-dressed but frighteningly over-groomed. They usually have rasping voices since they smoke incessantly, under the impression that it keeps them thin. And thin they are, with brown leathery skin and hair frizzled to straw after half a lifetime in the hairdressers. They were almost certainly beautiful in their youth and beyond but have not matured gracefully. The plastic surgery shows. They often look like they’ve been taken apart and reassembled but using the wrong instructions. Mieuow!!
It should also be taken into account that the weekend nights out in Buenos Aires don’t get going until after midnight. And if you’re not looking your best after four or five hours of preparation in front of the mirror, then forget it. Go to the football instead.
For that is where Argentina’s ugly people go. The ugly, the overweight, the underweight, the under-prepared and the couldn’t care lesses. There are fellows in their sixties sporting hairstyles that were in fashion at the same time as high-waisters, platform shoes and Showaddywaddy. And even then, they were crap.
Bellies flop freely over too-tight jeans, barely covered by nylon replica Argentinos Juniors shirts. No-one cares.
Ortalora - Ugly but Proud
A couple of years ago I interviewed Gonzalo Ortalora who had written a book called Feo or Ugly. He was a pretty ordinary looking chap but said that as a teenager he’d been a real eye-sore, with greasy hair, prominent teeth and spots. He was proposing a tax on the beautiful people since he said they had all the advantages in life. They got better jobs, better girlfriends and boyfriends and were not discriminated against in public. He wanted Carlos Tevez to sponsor him but I don’t think anything ever came of that.
Pretty much every other club in the Argentine first division has got a better-looking ground than Argentinos Juniors. And a fancier team bus and swishier changing rooms. I’ve been in the Argentinos Juniors changing rooms and they’re not much better than the ones at my old school. The graffiti is in Spanish, obviously, and a little wittier.
But the football that the Red Bugs are playing at the moment is a sight to behold. It’s beautiful. A few more goals and it’ll be winning beauty contests.
This game against second-from-bottom Rosario Central was not one of the prettiest, but it was enough. Fresh from a victory over Boca Juniors at the weekend, the home side had the edge in the first half, hitting the crossbar and having a goal disallowed for offside.
But Argentinos Juniors put on their best face after the break and wrapped up the three points with a well-worked goal slotted home by Ismael Sosa. With just six games to go, the Red Bugs are just two points behind the leaders, Independiente. River Plate lost yesterday and Boca Juniors were beaten 3-0 by Colon. Who’d have thought it?!
Tags: gonzalo ortalora, ismael sosa, plastic surgery, rosario central
I don’t quite see how Boca’s weekly humiliating loss is relevant here. There’s enough pain in the world already.
An interesting question: how much money in advertising is lost by TV now that both Boca and River are in the dumps? Doesn’t this imply the federal government, who owns the TV rights, needs to help Boca and River to reduce the public debt?