Abstract

This article explores the “playboy” as a sexual antihero in three of the most representative films of Cuban cinema, Memorias del subdesarrollo (1968), Cecilia (1981), and Fresa y Chocolate (1994). The visual censorship of these antiheroes reflects the moral architecture of a political system that, at least during the 1960s, tried to “dictate” the intimate life of its citizens. Through a detailed analysis of the three films, it seeks to demonstrate that this repression of desire transcends the condemnation of a visual patriarchy, joining Hollywood cinema in the sanction of sexual appetite. The repressions of film protagonists Sergio, Leonardo and Diego represent a conservative and bourgeois morality, despite some legitimate intentions such as the irony over the male desire of the camera or the integration of the homosexuality in revolutionary Cuba.

Keywords: Cuban cinema | sexuality | cinema and ideology