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Thinking politics and fashion in 1960s Cuba: How not to judge a book by its cover

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Abstract

This article presents fashion as a mechanism of domination and political legitimacy, focusing on Soviet-type state socialist regimes. In particular, it documents some dynamics shaping the politics of fashion in the socio-political context of 1960s Cuba arguing that the consolidation of a radically new political order in the country was based, in part, on the production of denotative logistics that associated clothes with political values. The article concludes that denotative logistics are activated as mechanisms of impersonal rule in periods of political transition or regime change, such as after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. In those moments, they articulate processes of social engineering oriented toward producing a new society and a new man.

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Notes

  1. See, in http://cubamaterial.com, entries under the tag “fashion” and the categories Socialism and Revolution.

  2. Ismael Sarmiento Ramírez, Facebook message to the author, February 16, 2016.

  3. Juventud Rebelde, founded in 1965, is the national newspaper of the Cuban communist youth.

  4. People called "accatone" a hairstyle inspired in the Italian film Accatone, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1961 (Castellanos 2008).

  5. Elisabeth Wilson (1985) observes that in nineteenth century England, sandals were also associated with homosexuality because the libertarian socialist, gay, and feminist advocate Edward Carpenter wore them as a symbol of political protest. Nineteenth century Cuban intellectual José de la Luz y Caballero also associated the exaggerated interest in the fashion typical of the petimetre (a tropical “dandy”) with a lack of “masculinity” and “confusion” in terms of sexual preferences (Goldgel 2013).

  6. Pitusa was a Cuban brand of denim pants that disappeared with the nationalizations of the 1960s, but the word continued to designate jean pants that, initially, were skinny, in the style of Elvis Presley, and later all blue jeans made with denim fabric. Historian Abel Sierra Madero (2016) claims that the name pitusa comes from the popular association between the brand “Pit” and USA, country where it was produced, but literary scholar María L. García Moreno (2014) suggests that the word might have come from pituso(a), Spanish for “cute.” This “cute girl” etymology seems more related to the brand’s logo, which interviewees remember as a cowgirl throwing a rope in the air (María L. Pérez, communication to author, October 20, 2013, Weehawken, New Jersey).

  7. This tabloid was announced as the first issue of a new, supposedly nationalized magazine that replaced a former tabloid called El lumpen (in Veltfort 2010), yet I have found no evidence of the original publication, assuming that, being a satire magazine, the whole story was a forgery.

  8. Created in 1965 and active through 1968, the Cuban regime sent homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses, among other outsiders to the UMAP camps, arguably to reeducate them through labor in the fields. Many prisoners committed suicide or died due to the horrendous conditions and punishments received. For a historical analysis of the UMAP, see Sierra Madero (2016) and Tahbaz (2013).

  9. Communist Party members were not allowed to have contact with émigré relatives.

  10. Oscar Lewis was conducting research on the transformations to the culture of poverty after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, authorized by the Cuban government.

  11. “La enfermedad” means, in Spanish, “the illness” and “tremenda enfermedad,” “a severe illness.”

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  1. King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, New York University, 53 Washington Square S., Ste. 212, New York, NY, 10012, USA

    María A. Cabrera Arús

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Cabrera Arús, M.A. Thinking politics and fashion in 1960s Cuba: How not to judge a book by its cover. Theor Soc 46, 411–428 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-017-9299-x

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