In a matter of mere centuries, Mexico suffered the Conquest (by the Spanish,) long periods of colonization and exploitation, dictatorship and a rocky revolution. After the Revolution, even more chaos and instability took hold as Mexico attempted to recognize itself both separate from the world and with the larger, universal framework. For many, however, the tumultuous history of Mexico is the necessary predecessor for their intellectual and artistic self-expressions. Prominent among time are the Danzig born Mexican painter, sculptor, and architect Matthias Goeritz and Mexican essayist and critic Octavio Paz. In the painting titled Leviticos XX:18, Goeritzs challenges a biblical error in the understanding of women; Paz raises similar concerns on such taboos and stereotypes that plague even the secular world, in his collection of essays titled The Labyrinth of Solitude.
The painting has two rock-textured darker regions divided roughly in the middle by a jagged gash of some sort. The cut offers no hit or hope of the divisions coming together again. A parallel is found in the Labyrinth, where Paz discusses the meaning of bad words at length, among them he directs special attention to “chingada” which he roughly translates as “the violated mother”. He further explains that the word has a sexual connotation to it but at the same time expresses a sense of violence, of possession, of dominance and violation. Similar words or phrases can be found in many languages across literate cultures that are otherwise very different. To Paz, the very existence of such phrases, like an opening in the language (culture), is evidence of the irreconcilable gap between men and women. This gap exists and is irreconcilable so long as the culture refuses to see women outside of certain stereotypes and stigmas it has assigned them. This misconception of women, as Paz speculates, only proves to be injurious; bad words are not the weapons of a language but the wounds.
In the painting, the gash almost seems as if magma coming forth from the volcano’s mouth and rushing through the rocks. Coincidentally, in another passage, Paz explores the context in which bad words are spoken, in the Mexican social life. He observes that the Mexican (males, especially) is reserved and resigned in manner; only in eruptive outbursts of emotions are bad words uttered. More than this, such disposition, common among the Mexican male, hinders real and complete relationships between men and women and the understanding of women. With this attitude, love that is the total surrender of oneself is rarely achieved and sex is seen as an aggressive act to forcefully gain something from one’s partner.
Overall, the rocky, in fact almost dried paper-mache like texture and neutral, passive colors of the painting creates a sense of something hardened and no longer itself. This is a strikingly vivid visual that corresponds to Paz’s idea of every Mexican being, in one way or another, masked. Furthermore, this masked, defensive characteristic explains why women, in the Mexican culture, are so rigidly confined and forced into a singular identity. Women, generall more inclined to emotional expressions, in other words, must be pressed into an existence that does not threaten to expose the men of their own emotions. Paz explicitly states this with the rhetorical question: “how can we agree to let her express herself when our whole way of life is a mask designed to hide our intimate feelings?”
It may also be interesting to note that Goeritz titled this painting Leviticos XX:18. In this passage from the Bible, penalty is assigned to he who “lies with a woman during her sickness” (that is, menstruation) to be ostracized, along with her, from their community. Paz does not spend time on this particular taboo but investigates similar cultural (universal?) views that see women as dirty or contaminating and not worth of respect especially if they are non-conforming. The mala mujer for example, the “bad woman” is only as such because she is not the traditionally virtuous Mexican woman. While the independence and hardness are valued in men, they are despicable qualities in women. The mala mujer is therefore not a respectable member of society and excluded from many people’s sense of community.
Most of Paz’s concerns on the relationship between men and women and on the condition of women he may have voiced strictly for the Mexican, but problems bearing resemblance to this are in almost every culture. For one, from the gaping wounds of profanity in different languages, one can gain a sense of the cultures these languages are respectively representative of. Many of them, in using profanity, readily insults the female rather than the male; this expresses a wish to suppress, distort or mask who the women really are in each culture. Goeritz’s own German and Mexican background coupled with the fact that his painting echoes the problems Paz writes of is proof that these problems are in a multitude of cultures.
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After reading the labyrinth of solitude, the word chingada has taken such an obscene and vulgar dimension in my eyes for some reason...