A quick glossary of terms:
Aromantic: an adjective describing someone who does not experience romantic attraction. In addition to being a label to describe a level of attraction, it is also a spectrum that encompasses multiple identities.
Asexual: an adjective describing someone who does not experience sexual attraction. In addition to being a label to describe a level of attraction, it is also a spectrum that encompasses multiple identities.
Aro: short for aromantic
Ace: short for asexual
Aroace: someone who is both aromantic and asexual
Allo-: a prefix that describes someone who is not on the aromantic or asexual spectrums (alloromantic, allosexual)
Amatonormativity: the assumption that everyone wants to, and should, partner up in romantic and sexual relationships in order for their lives to be considered complete
There are absolutely spoilers for Los Espookys ahead, but if you haven’t watched it yet, bookmark this page, go watch it, and then come back. It’s a great show!
Horror has long been a haven for people who feel as though they’re outsiders. Los Espookys is a love letter celebrating us weirdos who are drawn to everything ooky and spooky. As the show champions strangeness, the characterizations of the protagonists are treated with love and respect. Every character feels real, even as they exist in the magical realism absurdity of the Espookys universe. There is so much I could say about Los Espookys and how important it is to me, but today I’d like to focus on its importance to me as an aroace Mexican American.
The show centers on four friends: Renaldo (Bernardo Velasco), Andrés (Julio Torres), Úrsula (Cassandra Ciangherotti), and Tati (Ana Fabrega), Úrsula’s sister. They have a passion for the weird and the eerie. As fans of horror director Bianca Nova (Carol Kane), who made a film (La mujer sin ojo / The Woman with One Eye) that they consider to be a masterpiece, they aspire to create horror that inspires others the way she inspired them. They work together to create “scares,” such as staging an exorcism in the pilot (“El exorcismo” / ”The Exorcism”) or creating a sea monster to help the tourism industry of a small seaside town in the third episode (“El monstruo marino” / ”The Sea Monster”).
It’s very clear that Los Espookys is a queer-friendly show, even in-universe. Andrés, heir to a chocolate empire, and his boyfriend Juan Carlos (Jose Pablo Minor) are treated with the same normalcy as any heterosexual couple in most other TV shows would be. Similarly, we are shown that Úrsula is attracted to women with little to no fanfare. This is treated as a mundane fact, just like her having brown hair. But I was surprised to find myself represented as an aroace person, as the show repeatedly shows us that Renaldo is simply not sexually interested in anyone.
The first hint to this is in the second episode (“El espanto de la herencia” / ”The Inheritance Scare”), when Renaldo’s mother (Adela Calderón) says that the pretty neighbor girl has been asking for him, but Renaldo is very clearly not interested in meeting her. His mother pushes a little more, asking if he would share his “little horror hobby” with the neighbor. Renaldo responds by saying that horror is not just a hobby. He asks his mother what her passion in life is. She tells him, in a way that likely feels familiar to many of us Latin American kids watching, that Renaldo, his sister Beatriz (Giannina Fruttero), God, and Frutsi the dog are her passions in life. Renaldo attempts to use his mother’s own language to make her understand him: “Ah, pues el horror para mi es mi yo, Beatriz, Dios, y Frutsi.” / “Well, horror is my me, Beatriz, God, and Frutsi.”
Renaldo’s mother attempting to play wingman is an all too relatable experience for many. I consider myself lucky to have parents who are more than accepting of my choice to remain single, but I know of extended family members who don’t understand and find it odd. Additionally, Renaldo’s mother describing Renaldo’s interest in horror as a “little horror hobby” minimizes Renaldo’s interests and passions in a singular moment. A common experience for aroace people is alloromantic and allosexual people lamenting a lack of love and passion in the aroace person’s life because they simply cannot see or understand that there are other areas where it might be present.
In episode four (“El espejo maldito” / “The Cursed Mirror”), we see that Renaldo’s attempt at communication has fallen flat as this exchange happens in front of his friends:
Mom: “Ah, y te tengo que contar, que la vecina bonita esa vino a preguntar por ti de nuevo. Me dijo que se quería acostar contigo, que no ha tenido la oportunidad. Y se me ocurre que es hora que te acuestes con una chica.” / “Oh, and I have to tell you, the pretty neighbor came looking for you again. She said she wants to sleep with you but hasn’t had the chance yet. I think it’s time for you to sleep with a girl.”
Renaldo: “Ma, de verdad, ya te lo dije, no me interesan las chicas. Lo único que realmente me apasiona es el horror. Cuántas veces te lo voy a repetir? Además, ahora lo que realmente me interesa es resolver es cómo voy a hacer para llegar con Bianca Nova. En buena onda deja de distraerme con eso, si? Porfa.” / “Mom, I already told you, I’m not interested in sex. Horror is my only passion. How many times do I have to say it? Plus, the only thing I care about right now is getting to Bianca Nova. Please stop trying to distract me with that.”
Despite Renaldo’s attempts to make his own passions relatable to his mother by comparing them to her own passions in episode three, she continues to side-step his statements and reiterate a desire for him to connect with the pretty neighbor girl. Renaldo’s frustration is palpable when he says, “How many times do I have to say it?” It’s not an uncommon experience for aroace people to try to come out to others in their lives only to be met with the assumption that they are simply “late bloomers” or that their lack of interest in sex or romance is simply a phase. Because we live in a culture steeped in amatonormativity, this reaction is normalized, and aroace people are othered for their lack of attraction in this regard. As Renaldo fruitlessly attempts to reiterate his own interests, I can’t help but think about how we see this exchange in other stories over and over again, often framed as someone not wanting to follow in the family business footsteps. For many, it is easy to empathize with people who want to venture on their own toward a different occupation, but a desire to do things differently sexually or romantically seems to be more difficult to grasp for an allosexual/alloromantic audience.
Later in the same episode, the neighbor visits Renaldo in his room, saying that his mother let her in. When she bluntly tells him that she would like to have sex with him after presenting him with a teddy bear and singing a song about the Bible, Renaldo declines, saying, “Thanks, but no thanks. It’s really nice of you to offer yourself like this, but you’re trying to tap into a part of me that I’ve locked away and don’t intend to deal with for a very, very long time.” Renaldo’s body language and dull tone of voice convey his utter lack of interest in his neighbor throughout the scene. It’s a clear contrast to the overall enthusiastic and upbeat personality that we’ve seen from him in the series thus far. Renaldo’s discomfort and lack of enthusiasm in this conversation conveys a common experience for aroace people who have to reiterate their boundaries surrounding romance and sex many times over. For some people, it is easier to understand a personal rejection than it is to understand an overall lack of interest. People of other queer identities may find some kinship in this regard when it comes to heterosexual people claiming that they can “turn someone straight.” However, even people within the queer community can be aphobic, making statements such as “but at least I am still into something.” As Renaldo politely reinforces his boundary, viewers may get the sense that this is likely not the first time he has had to decline such an offer despite making himself and his desires clear many times before.
Beyond the explicitly stated lack of interest in sex, other aspects of Renaldo’s characterization lend credence to the interpretation that he is aroace. One of the core messages of the show is that you can be true to yourself and that in and of itself is worthy of acceptance. In episode three, we find the first instance of Renaldo asserting that his name is spelled as such — with no y. At the beginning of the episode, the group is seen going into a patron’s home dressed as strange flesh-colored creatures. The person who hired them is Pepito (Gustavo Rojas), a man we’ve only briefly seen in the previous episode when he was asked to leave immediately as his presence made others uncomfortable. At that time, some viewers may feel that this response from other characters was unfair, but Pepito proves that the characters’ instincts were correct as he starts asking the group uncomfortable questions about whether they hatched from the same egg and whether they would like to sit on each other and wiggle together for warmth. Andrés realizes that Pepito is clearly deriving pleasure from these questions and says, “Ah, que verguenza. Nos acabamos de dar cuenta que eres un pervertido. Nos llamaste porque eres un pervertido./Ah, this is so embarrassing. We just realized you’re a pervert. You called us because you’re a pervert.”
As the group leaves an angry Pepito in his apartment, Pepito lashes out, “Que clase de nombre es ‘Renaldo’? Donde esta tu ‘y’?” / “What kind of name is Renaldo anyways? Where is your ‘y’?” Úrsula has to hold Renaldo back as he instantly reacts to Pepito’s inflammatory comment. In the car, Tati asks why Renaldo got so angry. As coached by Andrés, Renaldo launches into a flashback about his mother forgetting the “y” in his name on his birth certificate, causing him to feel ostracized throughout life as his peers made fun of his missing “y.” It wasn’t until he saw Bianca Nova’s horror cult classic, La mujer sin ojo/The Woman with No Eye, that he understood that his missing “y” made him unique. He finishes his flashback monologue with, “Los niños me hicieron sentir como un monstruo, y desde entonces tuve que aprender a aceptar mi monstruosidad a través del horror.” / “The kids made me feel like a monster, so I embraced my monstrosity through horror.”
People on aromantic and asexual spectrums often feel that they are missing something that society says should exist within them. Lack of attraction is hard to identify, and when you are able to name it, the social messaging is that something is wrong with you. “Sexual and romantic relationships are what make us human,” is a common sentiment amongst allosexual people, even if it is categorically untrue. Asexual people in particular are often assumed to be prudish and frigid when they prioritize other things above sex. Our social structures are created in a way that assumes that you will partner up with someone and share resources with them — an amatonormative ideal that harms aro, ace, and allo people alike.
Intentionally or not, Renaldo’s missing feature, his “y,” carries a double meaning in the context of his asexuality. Yes, it is the thing that would make him “normal” if it were present in his name, but in Spanish, “y” also means “and.” He is not only missing a letter of his name, but an important means of connection. He is missing the “and,” the “plus one,” the other side of an assumed partnership that some people around him are pushing for, but that he would prefer to avoid entirely. Can you make a certain type of connection when you don’t have the necessary connecting part? Should you want to? In Renaldo’s case, he is not even inclined to feign interest. While the continual pushing can be exhausting, it is refreshing to see a character assert his lack of interest plainly. Especially for a Latin American character to do so, as it is common for Latin American people to be hypersexualized in stereotypes. Even outside of stereotypes, it is not uncommon for parents and grandparents to push the younger adult generations towards marriage (and children of their own) in more traditional Latin American households as well.
In episode six (“El sueño falso” / “The Fake Dream”), Renaldo has achieved his dream of working with Bianca Nova, only to find that she is not the easiest director to work with. In a dismissive tone, Bianca calls him “Reynaldo.” Renaldo, who has been submissive and shy with Bianca to this point, says, “Actually, it’s Renaldo.” Bianca, not one who welcomes correction, says, “No, it’s REYnaldo, with a Y.” Rather than backing down from the woman who has been his idol for so many years, Renaldo steps up and says, “My name is RENALDO.” The constant insistence from others that Renaldo’s name is somehow wrong throughout the show is reminiscent of allos’ denial of asexuality and aromanticism as real identities. His forceful assertion that his name does NOT have a “y” felt like an acceptance of his aroaceness: this IS who I am, and I am NOT what you are trying to force me to be based on your own amatonormative expectations.
There is one more piece of Renaldo’s characterization that I absolutely adore: the amount of love that exudes from his wide smile throughout the show. Although he says that horror is his only passion, Renaldo shows the viewer again and again that he harbors a second love: the platonic love that he has for his friends. A common negative stereotype of aromantic and asexual people is that they are cold and loveless. Platonic love is often dismissed as secondary, if it is ever even acknowledged at all. But aro and ace people often have just as much love within them as their allo counterparts. Platonic relationships can and do have a great deal of emotional intimacy, and the bond between friends can be stronger than family or romantic relationships, under the right circumstances.
Compared to his friends, Renaldo is the softest one of the bunch. In episode two, Andrés is making fun of the makeshift base of operations that Renaldo has created for the group, saying, “Good thing you don’t have a framed photo of us — oh, you do have a framed photo of us.” Renaldo takes that same photo to Los Angeles when he goes to work with Bianca Nova, and it is that same photo which reminds him of what he holds close to his heart. Horror in and of itself is not his only love, but the horror he can create with his friends is the dream that he truly holds dear.
I can only hope that Renaldo’s identity as an aroace person can be explicilty confirmed in season two, but given the dearth of representation for aromantic and asexual people in pop culture, I was happy to find even this much evidence supporting my reading of the character in the six episodes of the first season. Even without explicit confirmation, I will continue to see Renaldo as a person who has learned to be confident in knowing what and who he loves, and that those passions don’t have to be romantic or sexual to be valid.
