Article Review Who is the Macho Who Wants to Kill Me...

The 1960’s and 1970’s were troublesome times for the people of Brazil. They were engulfed in a fiery sea of a military dictatorship, while also being introduced to many new and upcoming countercultures of tradition; with one of the most prevalent subcultures being homosexuality. James N. Green discusses how the resistance movements of the time were dealing with this subculture that opposed the â€Å"normal† masculine and political structures of the leftist guerilla lifestyle. In Green’s article, â€Å"Who is the Macho Who Wants to Kill Me? Male Homosexuality, Revolutionary Masculinity, and the Brazilian Armed Struggle of the 1960s and 1970s,† he discusses the â€Å"tensions between the non-normative sexual desires of members of the†¦show more content†¦How masculine do you have to be, to be a revolutionary? As Green states, female militants were allowed to assume leadership roles in the armed struggle organizations, but this did not mean that male revolutionaries could turn â€Å"feminine.† He states that a male revolutionary has to possess a form of masculinity, not like a effeminate, passive, vacillating, and unreliable homosexual who is also petit bourgeois and a potentially traitor (pg 456). But with the rising popularity of Che Guevara’s long, flowing hair and unkempt beard signaled a different and more rebellious masculinity. In Brazil many people did not know how to react to this onset of Che followers . With their long hair, they were perceived as ‘faggots.’ Because of the gender blending, rock and roll, and the hippie movements, many people, especially dockworkers, became anxious and raged by the sense of homophobia (pg 459). On the other hand, maybe the revolutionary leftists were afraid to confront a culture that they were not used to. Green informs us that in the early 1970’s, the revolutionaries were concentrating on day-to-day survival instead of accumulating arms and mounting guerrilla activities (pg 463). They were trying so hard to stay alive that sometimes they didnt even have the time to think about gender roles or homosexuality. Nor did they have the resources to hear or read about it either due to