• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.23
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• pp.101-126
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• 2011

The principal purpose of this study is to analyse and critique how precisely the representation of women in the film Retrato de Teresa reconstructs the socio-cultural image of the female in the late seventies of Cuban society. The film of Pastor Vega is obviously an outstanding challenge on the new subject of 'women's liberation' against machismo in the context of the Cuban society. Teresa, the female character, as a socio-cultural image of the Cuban society don't focuses on the declarative and iconic images of the women's role as a revolutionary heroin that had appeared frequently in the films of the sixties, but she struggles for getting more realistic and pragmatic values such as women's emancipation to take rights in daily life. Therefore, the declaration of the emancipation of Teresa against machismo of her husband $Ram{\acute{o}}n$ has the special and symbolic meanings of social role and function of the film in the process of Cuban cultural revolution. The film concentrates on inducing the audience to make new perspectives such as women and gender issues in the daily experience of Cuban society where the machista ideologies and practices characteristic of a patriarchal society. Conclusively the female image of this film does not represent a national heroin, but reflects the women's desire, hope, and dreams in the society. Teresa makes the audience think of representations of the true meanings of the revolution in daily life, the machista ideologies in the patriarchal society, and the women's role and fuction in the Cuban society.