First Glimpses of Desire on Chilean TV - Hunky Tops Talk Episode 3

Friday nights in Chile in the early 1980s were a ritual. Television was the event, the centerpiece of family life, and whatever the networks served up, that’s what we watched. For me, those evenings were more than just entertainment—they were the moments when I first caught glimpses of desire on screen. They were confusing, tangled up in comedy, shame, and curiosity. But they stuck with me, shaping how I understood queerness long before I had words for it.

This post accompanies the latest episode of Hunky Tops Talk, which you can watch in full on YouTube. In it, I look back at how imported comedies and Chilean variety shows of the 1980s put queerness on TV—but only as something to laugh at.

Friday Night Rituals: Benny Hill & Tres son Multitud

The lineup that defined my Friday nights was The Benny Hill Show followed by Tres son Multitud, the dubbed version of Three’s Company. They aired back-to-back, one British and bawdy, the other an American sitcom, but both had one thing in common: queerness was never taken seriously.

Benny Hill is often remembered for chase scenes with women in bikinis set to “Yakety Sax.” But for me, what stood out were the male nudity gags. One sketch in particular burned into my memory was called “The Flash”, where a line of men in trench coats marched across the stage, supposedly nude underneath. From the audience’s perspective, women screamed at the shocking reveal; from ours at home, we saw nothing until the very end. It was silly, titillating, and unforgettable. You can still watch the sketch here on YouTube.

Then came Tres son Multitud. The whole premise was that Jack Tripper, played by John Ritter, pretended to be gay so he could live with two women without the landlord objecting. Every week, Jack would “act gay” in front of the landlord, exaggerating his gestures for laughs. The audience laughed, too. It was queerness as a ruse, never as reality.

What’s fascinating is that as a child, I don’t remember the fake-gay storyline as much as I remember the short shorts, the tank tops, and Jack’s friend Larry. Those were the images that stuck. Looking back, I also wonder if the dubbed versions we got in Chile downplayed some of the queerness, softening it for conservative audiences. Even so, the subtext slipped through. Desire found its way in between the jokes.

Hermógenes con H at Viña del Mar 1984

If imported shows gave us queerness through parody, Chilean TV did the same. A striking example came in 1984 at the Festival de Viña del Mar, when comedian Hermógenes con H performed a sketch called Soapisa, playing a flamboyant gay sopaipilla vendor. It was campy, exaggerated, full of stereotypes—and the audience loved it. But the organizers cut it from the broadcast, calling it “gross and in poor taste.”

It wasn’t just about taste. This was during the military government, when censorship was constant and Hermógenes was also known for impersonating public figures, even Pinochet himself. Cutting the sketch may have been as much about preventing political mockery as about silencing queerness. You can see the performance for yourself here on YouTube.

Of course, censoring something in the 80s only gave it more power. Audio cassette recordings of the full routine spread hand to hand. My dad had one. Neighbors had them. Everybody was copying tapes. It became a kind of protest—an underground refusal to let the censors erase what people had already seen and heard. Soapisa didn’t vanish; he lived on in laughter, whispers, and bootlegs.

Eglantina Morrison and Valentino in Jappening con Ja

Another example came from Jappening con Ja, Chile’s long-running sketch comedy show. In the mid-80s, they ran a parody telenovela called Blanca María, and that’s where we met Eglantina Morrison. Played by Patricio Torres in drag, Eglantina started as the villainess: melodramatic, glamorous, always scheming. The gag was obvious—she was a man in a dress. But something unexpected happened: the audience adored her. She became one of the show’s most popular characters, turning parody into camp icon.

And then there was her aide, Valentino, played by Óscar Olavarría. Tall, rugged, with thick hair and a perfect mustache, he was supposed to be her straight-faced foil. But for me as a queer kid, he was magnetic. I wasn’t laughing at him—I was sneaking glances, feeling things I couldn’t yet explain. Once again, queerness was allowed on screen only as parody, but desire slipped through anyway.

Closing Thoughts

Looking back, I see the pattern clearly. On Chilean TV in the early 80s, queerness could appear, but only as comedy. From Benny Hill’s trench coats to Jack Tripper’s fake-gay routine, from Soapisa’s flamboyance to Eglantina Morrison’s drag drama—the audience was always invited to laugh.

But for me, the laughter wasn’t the whole story. In between the gags were sparks of recognition. Those moments were my first glimpses of desire—confusing, shameful, thrilling—and they stayed with me. They remind me today why representation matters, because even when queerness was only allowed as a joke, it still managed to shine through.