Inferiority and Rancor: The Fearful Mestizo

Abstract

In this chapter I focus on three figures: the revolutionary leftist in Los días terrenales (1949) by José Revueltas, the president in various texts such as Amor perdido (1977) by Carlos Monsiváis and El ogro filantrópico (1979) by Octavio Paz, and the intrinsic relationship between homoeroticism and machismo in some plays by Hugo Argüelles. In these works the internal contradictions that make the macho a melancholic and violent character are disclosed. Mexican machismo is rooted in coloniality, which does not mean that it reproduces the European masculinity model, in its rationality and dominance. Rather, the condition of cultural and economic dependency produces a rancorous and insecure character that is readable in the types of political leadership, namely the orthodoxy of leftists and the protective dominance of the presidents. My main objective is to show that coloniality is not a continuity of the Western culture, but a resistance that is expressed in the nationalist patriarchy, in hypocritical morality, and in an undefined sexuality that places machismo beyond heterosexuality.