Supporters of the Spanish far-right party Vox disrupted the Video Games and Cómics Convention of Alicante, Spain, on the night of Oct. 26. IFA (Institución de la Feria Alicantina, or Alicante's Convention Center) had booked the Vox rally and the Video Games and Comic Book Convention at the same time but in different areas of the center. When the rally ended, a group of men draped in the Spanish flag crashed Comic Book Convention through one of the corridors that connected both areas without purchasing the 7€ entry ticket (approximately $10 USD.)
When one young attendant confronted the group about their irruption, the situation escalated quickly to screams and insults, mostly from the Vox voters to the Comic Book convention attendants. Some of the invectives that they shouted across the hall included "If you don't like Spain, you can move to France, f-ggot!" and "How's your shin doing now?!" a question that suggested that one of the Vox supporters had kicked the convention attendant on the leg when he confronted them. They peppered their insults with chants of "Long live Spain!" The security team hired for the event did not intervene. According to a witness, the rally attendants continued to disrupt the convention pavilions even after their closure, blocking the vehicle exits and demanding that "their people" were let out first.
Although the VGC is relatively small compared to larger international conventions, Saturday featured a full house at that hour because some of their best programming was taking place or ending at that time -- including activities aimed at kids and teenagers, like a workshop to create Star Wars memorabilia, a Naruto Run and a Q&A panel about Voice Dubbing in Video Games and Movies starring Rafael de Azcárraga, who is the Spanish voice of God of War's Kratos and the new voice actor for Star Wars' Emperor Palpatine.
Although Spain legalized same-sex marriage in 2005, a law that was re-confirmed in 2012 under a conservative government, far-right Vox espouses "traditional catholic values" and their candidates across every province have expressed their dislike of same-sex couple adoptions and the public display of LGBTQIA+ symbols. Their leader, Santiago Abascal, pledged to curtail gay pride parades (Madrid's Pride is one of the largest of the world,) has derided diversity lessons, which one of his colleagues described as "lessons that impose gender ideology on children," and compared homosexuality to beastiality. The first act of Vox's one senator was to block a motion against homophobia in sports. As Reuters observed, this places them closer to the political ideologies of the Eastern European far right than to the French or German far right, who wants to attract the LGBTQIA+ collective with promises of protecting their rights against the threat of Islam.
Ironically, Santiago Abascal, the current party leader, has involuntarily become a gay icon in Spain --Â mostly because of the many pictures that he posts of himself exercising in tiny shorts and t-shirts two sizes too small. In fact, Vox's actions against the LGBTQIA+ collective in social media tend to backfire: one great example was a picture that they posted during the last general elections, that featured a scene from Lord of the Rings where Aragorn charged against the orcs. The Vox logo appeared on top of Aragorn, and above the orcs floated the symbols of feminism, communism, the Spanish Republican flag, some media logos and a ghost emoji colored with the LGBTQIA+ flag.
Warner reacted swiftly, sending a copyright notice to Twitter and commenting under the image that they hadn't authorized their use for any political campaign, but from the ashes of that failed meme emerged a new icon: Gaysper, the rainbow ghost that was quickly appropriated by the LGBQTIA+ community as their new mascot. Gaysper even has a Twitter and a Snapchat account, and Netflix Spain used him to promote the series Hill House on social media (Their tweet says "Whoops, we'd missed this Hill House ghost before! Not scary at all.")
(via Diario Información and La Opinión de Murcia)