Che, the hero: Gender, photography and Cuban revolution

Abstract

The Cuban Revolution tends to reaffirm the public space as belonging to men, especially to the heroes, who represent the ideal of virile masculinity. Among the heroes of the Cuban Revolution (1956-1959) who determined the internationalization of this revolutionary male ideal in Latin America, there is Ernesto Che Guevara. The birth of Che Guevara myth is part of the construction of narratives about the Cuban Revolution. After his death, in 1967, he became the incarnation of the heterosexual virile revolutionary new man, even beyond the Cuban borders. Therefore, the aim of this article is to analyze the construction of the hero Che in the photographs published in the special edition of the Cuban magazine Bohemia, dedicated to Che, in October 1967. The analysis of Ernesto Che Guevara’s photographic images published in this magazine, based on the gender category, allows us to establish a dialogue with political history, as well as to analyze photographic images as the builders of a biographical narrative, which is constructed by the Cuban state.