- ‘What the hell is Love ?’
Love was one of those things I used to feel extremely certain about, but it wasn’t until recently that I made myself that question. I have been an Opera fan since a was a young girl. I was immediately captivated by its divine music and vocal virtuosity, however now that I think about it , what fascinated me the most about it was the drama , the intensity of it all. Now years have passed by and I still deeply enjoy opera, yet might vision upon it has drastically change. I admired opera heroines like Norma , Carmen , Violetta… and of course Madama Butterfly, I was captivated by their way of loving : so passionate, so consuming… I wanted to love and “be loved” like them, otherwise, What would be the point of life? Right?
I remained extremely certain about the meaning of love… until I found myself in a emotionally and psychologically abusive “relationship”. I had never been in any sort of romantic relationship before when I met him, he was twenty years older than me, and I was convinced that this relationship was somehow “meant to be”. Despite my friends and family calling me out on it, it took me time and therapy to take consciousness of the abuse. I had slowly become extremely self-conscious about my body and ideas, and I would always justify his behaviour by telling myself things like “he’s acting this way because he actually loves me…” or “he’s been through a lot in the past…”. It was hard to realise that I had become that person I always thought I could never be (I used to think I was a solid feminist) , and that my idea of love was completely damaged… but the hardest realisation of them all was to acknowledge that I actually did not know any better. Whenever I encountered a red flag, I thought that was how “adult” relationships are, that was how mature people were supposed to act: cold & detached. Apart from the opera, my conception of love, sex and relationships was consolidated on the idea that pop culture was trying to sell me, which was either “dramatic love affair” or “hook up culture”. So I endured this toxic relationship firstly, because I thought that was the norm and did not want to be perceived as immature or “too feminine”; and secondly, because I unconsciously connected Love with suffering . Only then I realised that all of my favourite heroines had one thing in common: they all died of /for Love. I suddenly felt so uncertain, so lost, as I asked myself: What the hell is Love ?
Puccini’s Madama Butterfly’s summary is this:
‘In 1904, a U.S. naval officer named Pinkerton rents a house on a hill in Nagasaki, Japan, for himself and his soon-to-be wife, “Butterfly”. Her real name is Cio-Cio-san (from the Japanese word for “butterfly” (蝶々, chōchō, pronounced [tɕoꜜːtɕoː]); -san is a plain honrific). She is a 15-year-old Japanese girl whom he is marrying for convenience, and he intends to leave her once he finds a proper American wife, since Japanese divorce laws are very lax. The wedding is to take place at the house. Butterfly had been so excited to marry an American that she had earlier secretly converted to Christianity.’[1]
A 15 year-old Japanese girl falls in love with an American soldier and marries him, only for him to abandon her to go back to the US without previous notice. Later she realises that she was only an “exotic entertainment” for him and dies of sadness. Reading bell hook’s All About Love has been key in my approaching to love. She believes that society has long mystified the idea of love, and this confusion ‘is the source of our difficulty of loving’[2]. She suggests that our concept of love as feeling rather than action most times acts as justification for loveless acts and behaviours , and she identifies love with will , most specifically ‘the will to extend one’s self to nurture our own and another’s spiritual growth’[3]. Although I am still uncertain about love I have found this definition to be extremely healing in my journey because it makes it impossible for love to coexist with abuse. If we apply this principle Madama Butterfly’s entire plot unfolds not to be passionate love story but one of power imbalance and abuse.
As well, throughout this journey many times I felt like my experiences were undermined and I encountered many people who would tell me that I was over exaggerating things. They would often accompany their speeches with “boys will be boys…” or “now you have learned the lesson…” , but, What exactly are the lessons girls are supposed to learn from these situations? Conforming? Normalization of abuse? I found this extremely problematic because such sayings not only proof to be insensitive but also perpetuate the myth that men and women have a different way of loving, and we must conform to it. These ideas ‘do not demand a change in fixed ways of thinking about gender roles, culture or love’[4], and creates a narrative that identifies “the feminine” with weakness and immaturity. I believe this “demonization of love” is another form of patriarchal tyranny, that becomes unfair for everyone, women, men and anyone in between.
2. Machista’ culture and colonialism in Latin America : ‘Eso que tu haces no es Amor’ (That thing you do isn’t love )
This is a sentence that I love from Lido Pimienta’s song Eso que tu haces https://youtu.be/2azy1D-yyWc , in which she remarks that love and abuse cannot coexist. There is something else I find extremely problematic in Madama Butterfly which is the power dynamics of race and colonialism, which are intertwined with those of love/abuse. She loves him but he only sees her as an exotic entertainment until he finds a “proper American wife”. He gives her an English name to make it easier for himself . She converts into Christianity for him although she knows this will cause her trouble. This is obviously present yet often silenced and justified in the name of Love. I am quite intrigued about the relationship between love and colonialism. Many Nation’s narratives have collectively romanticised colonialism in order to deal with trauma. This proofs that the binary between love and abuse is present not only in individual relationships but actually is embedded in our core value systems. As a Cuban raised in Spain, I have experienced this romantization quite often and, to be honest, I didn’t truly question it until a few years ago. But this takes place in most Latin American nations, as we are often taught to be thankful to the Spanish colonisers for language , religion and culture, as well as for “making us more good-looking” J . As well, many Latin American regions are known to be some of the worst places in the world to be a woman or a queer person, as machista culture is the norm. I can only wonder if the romantization of abuse in the national narrative goes hand by hand with the normalization of abuse in individual relationships and the reinforcement of machista culture. During this reflective practice I often found myself thinking about Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta and her Esculturas Rupestres (Cave Sculptures). It consists on a series of rock carvings, mainly feminine and vulva-like silhouettes, inside the Cueva del Águila at Jaruco Park in Havana. This caves were originally inhabited by the Taino natives, who were exterminated due to colonisation and are known for the importance they gave to nature and femininity , forces which were considered sacred. However, for Mendieta ‘vaginal imagery was not as important a force as her desire to integrate the female body into the land’[5], for what she uses these lost female deities as a medium to stablish a connection between women and nature , patriarchy and colonialism. In her personal writings Mendieta stated: “to establish its empire over nature, it has been necessary for man to dominate other men, and to treat part of humanity like objects”[6] , thus her direct association of nature to Latin America , and the colonial presence (reinforced by the patriarchal system) as an abuse of power and violence against the continent . This way she equates the violence of colonialism to the violence against women, who have long been erased from history like the indigenous culture was erased from Cuba. I love this art piece because is not only personal to her experience as a Latin American woman but also attempts to deconstruct categories of privilege, whiteness and colonisation. I believe these works demonstrate how intrinsic is our individual relationship with love/ loving with broader power structures. It even inspired me to write a short poem :
‘Itiba Cahubaba
Old Bloody Mother
–
The silence of the stones
never resounded so much in my throat.’
Sadly enough Ana Mendieta had a premature death, the number one suspect being her own husband, fellow artist Carl Andre. Again, female heroines seem to always die at the hands of Love.
My question now is:
How does our idea of Love shape our reality and our society’s power dynamics ?
How can we make structural change?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madama_Butterfly
[2] bell hooks , All About Love (William Morrow edition , 2000 ), p.3
[3] hooks, p.6
[4] hooks , p.11
[5] Desiree Gonzalez, Essentialism and performativity in Ana Mendieta , (Emory University , Atlanta ), p.38
[6] Ana Mendieta, Personal Writings , p. 200