Unlearning el m(u)chismo cubano: How Grotesque Imagery Reveals the Paradoxes of Post-

Revolution Masculinities in Pedro Juan Gutiérrez’s El rey de la Habana and Tomás Alea’s
Fresa y chocolate

As the title indicates with the word mucho, machismo is associated with exaggerated

masculinity: a lot of bravado and stoicism. Psychoanalytically, machismo is interpreted as “a

reaction to deep-seated fears of inadequacy and latent homosexuality,” which results in the

exaggeration of physical and personality traits traditionally thought to be masculine (Basham

127). In Latin America, this behavior has been reinforced because governmental policy “has

been more socially punitive toward deviations from traditional male appearance and manners

than towards homosexual behavior in itself” (Lumsden 30). During the Cuban Revolution, Fidel

Castro’s politics idealized the “New Cuban Man,” a virile revolutionary who prioritized socialist

principles before self-interests (Leiner 34). Physically, this vision of acceptable masculinity

could include a strong jaw, a furrowed brow, a beard, and a buzzed head, accompanied with the

deep-voiced and stoic mannerisms of a guerrilla fighter. Evidently, public figures like Che

Guevara and Castro himself complied with these criteria.

Into the 1990’s, referred to as the “Special Period,” Cuban citizens suffered from Castro’s

oppressive social programs and extreme poverty due to the U.S. economic embargo and the

disintegration of the Soviet block (Marrero 235). As famine ravaged Cuba, Castro’s masculine

ideal became a hypocritical mockery of the population’s suffering. As Guillermina De Ferrari

points out, the strength and self-sacrificing nature of Castro’s New Man starkly contrasted “the

extreme degradation that the new political conditions (had) provoked” (190). Despite the

hollowness of Castro’s propaganda, Cubans were still vulnerable to psychological manipulation

and political radicalization.

1
 This essay analyzes Pedro Juan Gutiérrez’s novel El rey de la Habana and Tomás Alea’s

film Fresa y chocolate to show post-revolution masculinities that subvert the rigid standards set

by Fidel Castro and demonstrate that education and literacy are key to unlearning toxic social

tendencies. In El rey de la Habana, the protagonist Reinaldo (Rey) outwardly tries to embody

Castro’s New Man with excessive shows of sexual prowess and aggressive physical behavior

towards others. Despite the sexual relations that he has with other men, Rey does not consider

himself a homosexual because he is a bugarrón, who assumes the active role in these encounters.

On the other hand, Fresa y chocolate depicts Diego, an effeminate artist and critic of Castro, as

an intellectual mentor to David, a homophobic university student. Since both works take place in

the 1990’s, they reveal how Castro’s regime dictated the perception of masculinity in the decades

following the Cuban Revolution. In Alea’s film, however, David unlearns his original prejudices

and becomes a writer, which suggests that exposure to international literature and art can free the

public from social and political oppression.

Gutiérrez and Alea both subvert the idea that macho men need to be excessively sexual.

For example, in Gutierrez’s novel, death and sexuality are described in darkly comic terms. As

Rey and his brother ogle a neighbor, their mother confronts them, leading to her accidental death,

the suicide of Rey’s brother, and fatal heart attack of Rey’s grandmother in the span of minutes.

This chain reaction concludes that Rey must wait for his erection to abate before calling for help.

This scene mocks the importance of exhibitionist heterosexual lust by implying that masturbation

can have dire consequences. Despite the comic tone of the scene, there is also a tragic element

included when the police confirm that Rey will be sent to a home for boys and hint at what tends

to occur in those places (17). This reminds the reader of the extreme poverty in Cuba, leaving

them unsure of whether to laugh at the scene’s absurdity or cringe at its brutality.

2
 In Fresa y chocolate, David’s aggressive heterosexuality is key to his treatment of others.

For example, when he tries to seduce Vivian, she changes her mind, cries, and locks herself in

the bathroom. Left alone, David watches another couple through a hole in the wall. Here, the

grotesque is three-fold. First, the woman that he sees through the wall has a buxom, Venus-like

physique, showing the exaggerated female body as the male gaze perverts it. Second, David

contradicts himself because, after having told Vivian that he only desires her out of love, he

seeks satisfaction from strangers. Third, David’s body is grotesque in its hypersexuality,

contrasted with Vivian’s, which is closed off and unavailable. This scene is a playful mix of

comical and serious themes, given the comedy of David’s desperation, and the dichotomic

representation of promiscuity and prudence. Ultimately, this reveals the mixed cultural messages

being received in Cuba at the time, which promoted Catholic values of peace and conservatism,

as well as the aggression and hypocrisy of Macho behavior.

Although the post-revolution masculinities are questioned in both works, Gutiérrez’s

message is more pessimistic than Alea’s. When Rey’s machismo culminates in brutally

murdering his love interest, Magdalena, it shows that he is incapable of unlearning Castro’s

masculinity and, resultingly, unable to distinguish between expressing love and inflicting pain.

This implies that masculine identities continued developing according to the prejudices of the

Cuban Revolution in a vicious cycle of ignorance and poverty, even decades after Castro’s coup.

Additionally, since machismo has appeared throughout Latin American cultures, Gutiérrez’s

novel suggests that the perpetuation of toxic masculinity is not exclusive to Cuba.

On the other hand, Alea demonstrates that Diego’s advances toward David constitute not

a seduction of the body, but one of the mind. Throughout the film, Diego makes literary

references to John Donne, Mario Vargas Llosa, and to censored Cuban writers like Lezama Lima

3
and Severo Sarduy, all of which make David realize his vocation as a writer. Ultimately, Diego

demonstrates that the values of a machismo, in which art is for the effeminate, do not have to

formulate his identity.

Approaching machismo from a comedic standpoint emphasizes the absurdity of extreme

masculinity and shows how easily individuals can be led to political and social extremism. This

can be seen in both works, in which radicalization and oppression are linked to illiteracy, and

sociopolitical freedom is rooted in education. By emphasizing that education and political doubt

maintain the checks and balances of power, my approach to machismo demonstrates that

unlearning toxic social patterns is impossible without cultural intervention. Ultimately, such

studies help the academic community understand the social and psychological condition of

Cubans in the present day.

4
 Works Cited

Basham, Richard. “Machismo.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, University
of Nebraska Press, 1976, pp. 126–43, https://doi.org/10.2307/3346074.

Bakhtin, Mikhael. Rabelais and his World. Translated by Helene Iswolsky. MIT Press, 1968.

De Ferrari, Guillermina, and A. James Arnold. Vulnerable States: Bodies of Memory in

Contemporary Caribbean Fiction. University of Virginia Press, 2007.

Fresa y chocolate. Directed by Tomás Alea, performances by Vladimir Cruz and Jorge
Perugorría. The Cuban Insitute of Art and Cinematographic Industry, 1995.

Gutiérrez, Pedro Juan. El rey de la Habana. Editorial Anagrama, 1999.

Leiner, Marvin. Sexual Politics in Cuba: Machismo, Homosexuality, and AIDS. Routledge, 1994.

Lumsden, Ian. “Machismo and Homosexuality before the Revolution.” Machos Maricones &
Gays: Cuba and Homosexuality, Temple University Press, 1996, pp. 28–54.

Marrero, Teresa. “Scripting Sexual Tourism: Fusco and Bustamante’s ‘Stuff’, Prostitution and
Cuba’s Special Period.” Theatre Journal, vol. 55, no. 2, Johns Hopkins University Press,
2003, pp. 235–49.