To examine the various manifestations of masculinities in the compositional corpus of the new Cuban trova, professor and researcher Yosvel Hernández Alén (Havana, 1975) dedicates an essay volume. It is a more than pertinent topic, since there are studies in our area that explore this same object from various angles, an expression that in Cuba, since the beginning of the 1959 rebellion, a readjustment has been taking place in the expressions of the traditional masculine and its perception at the level of society and academia.
In the portico of his essay, titled Masculinities in Nueva TrovaYosvel clarifies, assuming as his own the words of Ramón Rivera Pino and Oscar Herrera Ulloa, that the term masculinities must be understood as “the meanings, symbolizations and their respective practices associated with what it means to be men, constructed by men and women in all their diversity.” (Reviews of Cuban studies of masculinities).
La Nueva Trova, as the singing voice of the Revolution, assumed as its own many of the precepts that came along with the structural earthquake that an event of such magnitude and depth entails. The “new man”, an unfulfilled utopia, had to be sung, even before its verifiable appearance. From there a powerful epic charge emerged, with songs that became anthems inflamed with recognizable aesthetic values. And in all of them the man—vigor, loyalty, conviction, courage and vocation for sacrifice against any test—was the center, from which the new reality was sung and morally codified.
We must hasten to say that songs do not create ideologies, that in any case they transmit them, since these are the result of complex social frameworks. And the Nueva Trova reflected what was being operated and discussed within the nation: an unprecedented attitude towards romantic love, the recognition of women under conditions of equality on all fronts, the establishment of moral precepts that departed, by denial, from bourgeois morality, of Judeo-Christian descent… In short, the denial of everything that smacked of patriarchal normativity began.
It is Yosvel’s book, an enjoyable read. It is written from closeness to an aesthetic movement in which his generation was formed. It does not criticize, but reveals. Provides the tools for systematic analysis. And he points out the highest moments where these masculinities are expressed.
Thus, for example, the work of Vicente Feliú appears as the epitome of “tough revolutionary masculinity.” The man who is scared by love, because it gets in the way of his sacred duties with the country; the one who is happy digging a trench, putting his chest to the bullets, even at the cost of leaving the family behind. A bit taking Martí’s precept of “everything to the fire, even art, to feed the bonfire.”
He scrutinizes the songwriting of Amaury, a “delicate and emotional” singer, according to Josvel, who has compositions that lend themselves to ambiguous interpretations, such as “Amor difficult”, “I have a friend”, which have led him on more than one occasion to affirm that he is not homosexual. Rather, it would be said that he exercises “an unorthodox manliness” in his songs.
A chapter of particular interest is the one dedicated to Sara González, who, contrary to what society understood as permissible, wrote, sang and installed epic themes of great artistic solvency in the collective consciousness. Sara, from a feminine or lesbian masculinity (Judith Halberstam’s terms, female masculinity), expressions openly rejected by the officials, defended his membership, with full right, to the avant-garde singers of the moment. He had something to say, and he said it “on time and smiling.” Only one of its numbers serves as proof of the song: “Girón, la victoria.”
In this hasty comment, I am skipping over the author’s subtleties and findings. Mine is a mere incitement to read a valuable text that sheds light on a significant corpus of songs, among the best of our popular music. He points out in established names numbers that define an essentially human position towards homosexuality—not acceptance, but assimilation—or the appearance of such “anathematized” themes as self-satisfaction, presented here as a trait of self-love.
Reviewing the culture of the past in the light of a new moral perception does not mean devaluing it or encouraging people to stop consuming it. These gender studies serve to warn us about what we were like decades ago and how much we have advanced in understanding gender expressions that, even without being named, have always existed. In this purpose we are not even halfway there, since generic binarism and phallocentric culture continues to govern a considerable part of our lives.
Studies like Masculinities in Nueva Trova (111 pg.), they are clearing brush, machete in hand, —is the metaphor too masculine?— he path towards a fuller life, to which we all aspire.
