Wokół kategorii macho. O kryzysie mężczyzny i kryzysie męskości w Bitwie w niebie Carlosa Reygadasa

Abstrakt

The aim of this article is to analyze the main character of the Carlos Reygadas’ movie Battle in Heaven contextualizing it in a critical reflection on the image of masculinity in Latin America. The author is placing Marcos’ character in three contexts. First is the machismo ideology, which the author links with the sociological reflection by Erving Goffman about the meaning of appearance and forms of expression in social life. Second is an intersexual relation of domination-subordination. The author juxtaposes behavior and bodies of Marcos and his lover Ana to show that traditional women and men roles are reversed here. The third context refers to the problem of banalization of life, which the main character suddenly started to feel. In reference to this three phenomena unfolds existential crisis of Reygadas’ character. But it can be read both as an individual perspective of a moment of recognition of one’s condition and also in larger perspective as a metaphor of collapse of the paradigm of masculinity which was in force until recently in Latin American culture. The author recounts opinions of researchers of this area about the crisis of the male identity and shows that Marcos’ existential situation can be interpreted as a metaphor of men’s situation in Latin America. Masculinity and the category of machismo are there in a process of redefinition mainly because of the women’s emancipation and transformations of feminine identity. This situation causes imbalance in social-cultural life and the model of reaction frequently chosen by men is passivity. But then it causes decomposition of social order, because inactivity is traditionally assigned to women. Not able to take action Marcos can be seen as a figure of male identity in contemporary Latin America.