Censorship

The regime’s first step was a cultural apagón, or blackout: an immediate seizure of the media, in which all print, visual, and audio outlets were strictly controlled.⁷ Blacklisting and intimidation of actors, filmmakers, producers, technicians, and writers shut down the media and entertainment industries. An important part of that intimidation was its ambiguity and randomness: artists and writers were stymied, as they could never be certain if an act or word would incur punishment, or whether their penalty would be incarceration or death. In fact, there was never a clear indication of what exactly was allowed and what was banned. As a consequence, self-censorship developed rapidly. Many librarians, teachers, editors, publishers, artists, writers, booksellers, and musicians opted to silence themselves or each other. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in a rapid decline in publication, even of material that was not officially censored. For example, as Table 1 shows, the number of books published declined from 21.4 million the year before the Proceso began, down to only 2.7 million just five years later.

For Argentina, an educated country with a literacy rate of 97 percent, this constituted a rapid cultural impoverishment. One could argue that the dropoff might in part be attributed to the economic recession felt in those years. It is common for the sale of relatively high-priced books to fall during an economic downturn. On the other hand, in such times, as book sales fall off, sales of the less costly magazines usually rise, but as shown in Table 2, this was not the case during the Proceso years.

There was a nearly 40 percent decrease in the publication of magazines during this period. The fact that low-priced, quick-circulation periodicals also showed such a summary decline in the years following the coup indicates reasons other than economic ones: extreme government control caused cultural stagnation.

Media Onslaught

The regime’s second step was to inundate the country with specious nationalistic rhetoric. Daily proclamations were couched in a discourse of logic and reason that emphasized strong values, a national “family,” and a wholesome lifestyle.⁸ The violent military takeover was described as the “result of serene meditation.” In these pronouncements, the junta pledged to “fully observe the ethical and moral principles of justice [and to act in] respect of human rights and dignity.” The generals and admiral were painted as principled men who would be “devoted to the most sacred interests of the Nation and its inhabitants.”⁹ Yet whereas official language was self-described as rational, any statements from the opposition were discounted as irrational or hysterical. In one speech, junta member Emilio Massera warned his audience to beware of words. They are “unfaithful,” he said. “The only safe words are our words.”¹⁰

Survivors of the Proceso explain that the terribly maddening thing about the regime’s discourse was that it constructed a language of nationalism that was almost believable, yet in so many ways conflicted with what one saw with one’s own eyes.¹¹ The national language constantly emphasized rationality and life—while the regime’s own tactics included the senseless destruction of life. News reports made no mention of the growing number of disappearances that happened daily throughout the country, even as bodies washed up on shore in Buenos Aires. The official version of reality that was transmitted through the media seemed like fiction.¹² But it was also inescapable: the rhetoric was notable not just for its unreality but for its sheer volume. The airwaves were inundated with speeches, proclamations, interviews, and other messages from the junta.¹³ It simply could not be blocked out. Yet with its own internal logic, the official rhetoric of the dictatorship was at the same time as comprehensible as it was incongruous, and the result was simply disorienting.

Vilification of Youth

The regime’s third step in its ideological cleansing was a media war against youth culture, which it saw as decadent and subversive. The barrage of official pronouncements carefully painted a portrait of “suspect youth” as sickly and twisted. Massera in another speech described how young people were lured into the world of rock music, then “initiated into a secret society” of drugs and free love. Inevitably, he said, some of them “traded their hallucinogenic drugs” and “spineless pacifism” for the “thrill of terrorism.”¹⁴ This association of youth with subversion assured that the “war against subversion” that the military government was waging would essentially be a war on youth. In fact, the majority of desaparecidos were in their teens or twenties.¹⁵

Not only were they physically removed from society through kidnapping, they were rhetorically disappeared from the media as well. The absence of young people was quite apparent in many different areas of public life, as if they had been proclaimed not to exist. Even advertising agencies, fearing that the image of the youth was problematic, did not include teens in their ads: they pictured only very young children, shown as smiling, neat, and obedient.¹⁶ This figurative disappearance was another way in which teenagers were made into unpersons. The social space occupied by the young was “an absence, a negation, a no-place.”¹⁷ The combination of physical and rhetorical nullification constituted “a double negation, as it is a negation not only of life, but also of death.”¹⁸

A New Language through Rock Music

As Marguerite Feitlowitz asks, what can we say when language itself has been tainted? What must we do in order to speak?²² Artists no doubt asked themselves the same question. They were excluded by definition from the state language that defined them as subversive. Furthermore, there was very little that was artistic in the tortured redefinitions of the regime’s rational discourse. As a result, some musicians, left literally speechless, stopped writing altogether; others, such as the folk singers Mercedes Sosa and Horacio Guarany, as well as the political troubadour Piero de Benedictis, fled the country. Many musicians, like Luis Alberto Spinetta, at first embraced instrumental music as a solution; but the eponymous debut album of Charly García’s band “Serú Girán” short-circuited the problem of censorship with a unique new proposal: “Invent a language.”²³ The 1978 album forges a completely new language, as evident in the following song:

Cosmigonón gisofanía serú girán— seminare paralía. Narcisolón solidaría serú girán; serú girán paralía. Eiti leda luminería caracó eiti leda luminería caracó. Ah … lirán marino … ah … lirán ivino. Parastaría necesari eri desi oia! Seminare narcisolesa desi oia! Serilerilán … Eiti leda luminería caracó.²⁴

The song’s lyrics obviously challenge interpretation, but even so, the use of an invented language on the album stood as a piquant protest to the linguistic impoverishment that musicians faced under the Proceso.

Setting aside the options of silence, exile, instrumentalism, and nonsense lyrics, artists who wanted to express themselves had to find other ways to deal with censorship. Some prominent songwriters gradually developed an increasingly oblique metaphorical style in their lyrics in order to avoid trouble with the regime; most notable among them were León Gieco, Luis Alberto Spinetta, and Charly García. The new lyrical language developed not by design, but by trial and error: quite often songs were rejected by the COMFER censorship board (Comité Federal de Radiofusión), and had to be either changed or removed from an album.²⁵ Artists then often rewrote their lyrics, perhaps more than once. This interaction with censors showed them that many times meaning was not policed, just word choice; so as long as certain proscribed “hot” words were avoided, such as pueblo or libertad, a songwriter could avoid reformulation.²⁶ This process of writing and rewriting within the parameters of certain requirements taught artists increasingly to refine their system of signification. Trial and error led songwriters’ lyrics away from the rational discourse that was appropriated by the regime, and toward the creation of a poetic discourse of highly refined metaphor.²⁷ With sufficient creativity, clever writers could express themselves with relative impunity. The resulting lyrics took various forms. Luis Alberto Spinetta avoided the description of Argentine political reality in his lyrics, and instead offered solace to his listeners in mythical worlds.²⁸ Charly García’s songs remained highly political, but were expressed in a language of allegory containing many layers of meaning that required active listening on the part of the audience, as well as perhaps a trained reception.²⁹

A clear example is García’s “Canción de Alicia en el país,” a musical take on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.³⁰ In the song, the lyric voice informs Alice that her dream has ended, and that she is back in hard-knocks reality now; though oddly, the nightmarish place she has come back to is more oneiric and surreal than any dreamscape. The song suggests that the odd place is Argentina: “We are in No-man’s Land—but it’s mine” (Estamos en la tierra de nadie—pero es mía). This is certainly not a wonderland, but rather a hard land where “the tongue-twister twists your tongue” (el trabalenguas traba lenguas), and “the murderer murders you” (el asesino te asesina). Playing on popular nicknames for former presidents Illía (the “turtle”) and Onganía (the “walrus”), the song evokes Argentina’s less bloody past and contrasts it with the current state of affairs: “The dream has ended: there are no more walruses or turtles” (el sueño acabó; ya no hay morsas ni tortugas). Instead, ominously, “the witchdoctors want to return” (los brujos piensan en volver), suggesting the bloody former police commissioner José “Witchdoctor” López Rega, responsible for the first disappearances. A gruesome image stands in as a representation of the current regime: “A river of heads, crushed by a single foot” (un río de cabezas aplastadas por el mismo pie). Yet in this unreality, those responsible are not punished but rather enjoy the life of the oligarchy and “play cricket in the moonlight” (juegan cricket bajo la luna). Victims have no recourse to justice: “You will have no power, neither lawyers nor witnesses” (no tendrás poder, ni abogados, ni testigos). Instead they are perversely cast—mirroring the doubletalk of the official media—as the victimizers and as criminals: “the innocent are the guilty, proclaims His Majesty, the King of Clubs” (los inocentes son los culpables dice su Señoría, el Rey de Espadas). Though the lyrics do not criticize anything clearly or directly, it is not difficult to read into them a message: the past, which was far from perfect, seems idyllic compared to current reality—a society ruled by a violent military government, the King of Clubs (literally, the king of swords—which is so cruel that it approximates the unreal. The lyric language in songs such as this allowed rock musicians to regain their voices, while their poetic discourse itself stood as an inherent criticism of the bankrupt, purportedly rational discourse of the regime.

Community through Rock Fanzine Readership

Rock listeners, meanwhile, were also searching for ways to express themselves, and many found it in the pages of rock magazines and underground fanzines. The best-known was the rock magazine Expreso Imaginario. According to Jorge Pistocchi, editor of Expreso, the most important part of the magazine was the “Letters from Our Readers” section, which ran to many pages because it generated so much response. It was a “communication phenomenon,” in that messages were constantly passed from readers to editors, from editors to readers, and from readers to readers.³¹ In reality, the letters section became a social space that partially compensated for the inability of young people to gather publicly in clubs. In that space, a community was created, based on rock nacional as medium for youth resistance.

Examples from Expreso show how interpretations developed of what rock was “about.” One can also see concrete examples of how beliefs and attitudes spread to others. On the one hand, the editors and writers of the journal themselves associated a certain ideology with rock, and these ideas came across in their articles (to the extent that censorship allowed). Jorge Pistocchi, editor of Expreso, states in retrospect his beliefs about the period: “The idea of Expreso was to create a medium for communication between different groups, to strengthen ourselves and to support musicians, and to promote festivals and concerts as meeting places. We did what we could to form a kind of resistance.”³²

However, this positionality of resistance vis-à-vis the regime is perhaps most strongly reflected in the statements of readers at the time. Readers such as “Ernesto” stated in their letters that “the magazine stores up the monthly expectations of many people who aspire to change the established order of things.”³³ Another belief that developed and was often expressed by readers was the concept of rock nacional culture as an alternative discourse, a way to combat negation and silence. Daniel says, “Expreso helps to stop the fear, to destroy the crazy lies.”³⁴ Most importantly, perhaps, the letters section gave the readers hope that they were not alone: “I think we all formed a little underworld where we all lived separately until you arrived, Expreso, and gave us a way to talk together,” says Guillermo.³⁵ Juan says, “Letters like this one help me realize that there are a lot of us in this together.”³⁶

Rock fanzines and magazines like Expreso Imaginario were a forum in which silenced social actors could share their voices. Moreover, in that forum a community was built surrounding rock music that featured a culture based on solidarity and an attitude of resistance and opposition to the official order. In this regard, the regime’s prohibitions on speech and assembly stimulated exactly the attitudes it wished to quell.

Education through Listening Groups

As shown above, the rock nacional phenomenon was not only about the music itself, but also about interactions based upon it that created, disseminated, and reinforced certain beliefs and interpretations. This is an important characteristic of music: it expresses meaning not only through sound and lyrics, but also through what is said about it. Part of listening to music is learning how to “place” it, since “we can only hear music as having value … when we know what to listen to and how to listen for it.”³⁷ Learning how to “place” or “listen to” texts is an important part of acculturation or becoming part of a community; this process is clearly visible in another element of rock nacional that could be called the “listening group.”

In order to circumvent the prohibition on public meetings, many groups of friends began to get together in private places, particularly to share music. As one listener remembers:

Those were the days when people started to listen to records together. Like my friends and I—about ten or twelve of us—would all get together at this one guy’s house and listen to records all together. Because it was the only way to … to repeat the atmosphere of the concerts, you know? Nobody kept their records at their house because we had them all collected at the one kid’s house. It was like a collective, a community. The music was the only thing that made us a community … It was the only community we had!³⁸

It is significant that young people listened to albums together, rather than each buying separate albums and listening alone, as this act was a further embodiment of the youth solidarity that the regime so despised. Though the listening groups were not the result of a conscious or organized effort, there are many reports of their existence, indicating that these spontaneous gatherings were common.

These groups became an important part of the creation of meanings related to rock nacional. As in the fanzines, interpretations were constructed and shared. However, the immediate nature of the experience allowed music to be heard, then discussed right away. Furthermore, extended face-to-face conversations would naturally allow interpretations, attitudes, and beliefs regarding the songs to become much more developed than they could be in a written forum such as a magazine. Finally, in such events one listener could initiate or acquaint a newer member with accepted ways to listen to a text. As one listener recalled, “You know the song about Alicia? It was my buddy Piancatelli who explained to me what that song was about … it talks about the generals. That part about ‘the witches will come back’? That’s about ‘Witchdoctor’ López Rega.”³⁹ An allegorical song such as “Alicia en el país” can be appreciated at a number of levels, even without fully engaging the lyrics, but peers in listening groups taught others to appreciate lyrics and to read them in a certain way. Guille remembers: “When Charly sang ‘The Walrus is gone, the Turtle is gone’ he was talking about Onganía and Illía, ya know? We all knew that.”⁴⁰ Moreover, the transmission of “correct” ways to interpret specific texts and general cultural codes did not take place only between peers of the same age: as younger brothers and sisters accompanied their older siblings, the younger generation was also socialized into the group. In the context of media censorship and limited access to recordings, this function was highly significant. The case of “fourteen- and fifteen year-olds chorusing songs made popular a decade before, many of them banned and withdrawn from the record shops”⁴¹ makes very clear that listening groups were more than simply a way for kids to identify with each other; their musical training was a challenge to the regime.

Resistance through Live Concerts

All of these covert responses to the regime’s repression—by individual musicians or by small groups of listeners—culminated in another type of response, much larger and more visibly oppositional: that of live performances in concert. As the Proceso wore on, opposition to it grew, and so did the popularity of rock nacional. Its concerts drew ever larger crowds. Since the beginning of the regime, live concerts had served as a meetingplace for young people, but toward the end of the regime in the early 1980s, this phenomenon became more pronounced, and shows often had up to 60,000 fans in attendance.⁴² As a result of the sharing of ideas in the fanzine forums and listening groups, listeners came to these concerts with a certain set of expectations. They had preconceived ideas about the meanings they would associate with the music, and about the identity that they would share with their peers. Not only fans but many artists also held similar beliefs. Charly García stated, “The audience and the artists had a very oppositional attitude, a very strong resistance to the ideological penetration. I think rock nacional was a focal point of resistance.”⁴³

García’s statement is generalized to all the audience, but in reality, the ways in which listeners engage with music are uneven and complex. Though one listener might consider lyrics in their entirety, another might focus on one or two lines repeated out of context. Likewise, one song might be interpreted by most concertgoers in the way most readily suggested by the lyrics, while another could be spontaneously given new meaning. For example, in the song “Confesiones de invierno,” the lyric voice describes how he was once unjustly jailed without cause, and explains, “I got the bail money from a friend, but the bruises were a present from the officer” (La fianza me la dio un amigo, las heridas son del official). This can easily be read as an implicit criticism of police brutality, and indeed was generally received by audiences in that way. In video and audio recordings of concerts of the time, this one line (las heridas son del oficial) received a huge ovation from the audience, who presumably understood the criticism and identified with mistreatment by an officer. However, a fragment of lyrics taken out of context can also become associated with a new meaning, such as a line from “La grasa de las capitales.” The song’s lyrics condemn superficial society, concluding with the repeated line “We won’t put up with it anymore” (No se banca más). In some concerts, though, when the audience sang along, the defiant way this line was shouted indicates that it had been attached to a new referent, that perhaps hostility toward the military government was being channeled through this reappropriated line. As a concert report from 1980 describes, “Today Charly García had forty thousand voices shouting ‘We won’t put up with it anymore’ live on national television.”⁴⁴

This case highlights the extent to which such gatherings had become an alternative venue for public speech rather than just a place to listen to music. In rock nacional concerts, the boundary between those on the stage and those gathered around it was loosened, and the fans, instead of being passive listeners, were often as much participants as the musicians themselves. This can be seen in the soccer chants that sometimes overtook an entire stadium, particularly those against the government, beginning with “Anyone who doesn’t jump is a military man” (el que no salta es un militar), which provoked the curious spectacle of the whole stadium jumping in unison upon their seats.⁴⁵ However, as time went on, the chant was slowly replaced by another: “It’s going to end, it’s going to end, the dictatorship is going to end” (se va a acabar, se va a acabar la dictadura militar). Such a phenomenon actually converted bemused musicians into a sort of audience who could only watch and interpret. This case reached its most dramatic point when at later concerts the favorite chant became “Firing squad to all those military men who sold out our nation” (paredón, paredón, a todos los milicos que vendieron la nación).⁴⁶ The concert report of a mass rock meeting in Obras stadium toward the end of the regime exemplifies the extent to which concerts had become akin to mass rallies. The band Serú Girán stopped and listened while fans chanted, “The dictatorship is going to end” (¡se va a acabar, la dictadura militar!) and then “The Disappeared—Tell us where they are!” (Los desaparecidos, ¡que digan dónde están!). Charly García danced to the rhythm of the chant for a while, then responded, “Sing, sing … you want to sing that? Great, sing it. But no one’s going to answer you. So we’re going go on with the music. But those who are disappearing now soon won’t disappear anymore. And let me tell you: what we’ve got now will soon have to disappear.” As the crowd gave him a standing ovation, he continued: “You can have faith in that.”⁴⁷