ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how, even in a show with groundbreaking LGBTQ+ representations as Sense8, popular culture in the US continues to rely on one-dimensional portraits of Mexico and its people, particularly in relation to sexuality. The premise for Sense8 revolves around eight individuals scattered across the globe who come to discover that they are all psychically linked to one another as "sensates." The questions surrounding homosexuality in Mexico revolve around issues of masculinity, effeminacy, passivity, and dominance. The chapter analyses how Lito Rodríguez fits into the characterization of Mexican masculinity and how he is further exoticized due to his Spanish heritage, leaving him to play both the Mexican macho, and the Spanish Latin lover. In Sense8, Lito is doubly exoticized, first among American audiences as a Latin American heartthrob and sex figure, and secondly within the world of the show as a half-Spanish actor working in the Mexican film industry.
