Throughout the decade which I have spent living in the United States, I have often pondered the following: Why is it that the image that Americans seem to have of Cuba is, for the most part, a nostalgic-based one, seemingly fueled by a desire to return to a pre-revolutionary period where the island was seen as a sort of a playground for the American middle-class? Indeed, American media depictions of Cuba often involve the following:
• Old Chevrolet cars which have somehow managed to last more than the Revolution. If you type “Cuba” on Google and go to the image section, about seventy five percent of the first forty images are of cars.
• Forbidden Cuban cigars which can only be mentioned in hushed tones. Remember Tony Montana from Scarface? Google him, too, and you’ll see that the first pictures that show up are of him either smoking or holding a cigar.
• Buildings in a perpetual state of decay, as if signaling how the condition of the island has worsened after the Revolution.
• And last but not least: the melodies of a music from a land which has remained, in many ways and for a lot of people, lost in time. I am thinking here of the tour de force that was the release of the Buena Vista Social Club album in the United States and the world, and the criticism that it received from young Cuban musicians, who felt left out and declared that the album had very little to do with the music that they were currently producing.
I have been thinking about these things for a long time, and the way in which these images get fomented in a manner that has more to do with fantasy than reality. (This is not to say that in Cuba there are not old cars, or decaying buildings, or that people do not smoke cigars or listen to music from older times. That, however, is not all that Cuba is.)
Then I read Arjun Appadurai’s concept of mediascapes in his seminal work, Modernity at Large (1996), and a lot of things became clearer to me.
Appadurai defines mediascapes as “the distribution of the electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information (newspaper, magazines, television stations, and film-production studios)…[and] the images of the world created by these media.” Appaduarai argues that these mediascapes provide “large and complex repertoires of images [and] narratives…to viewers throughout the world, in which the world of commodities and the world of news and politics are profoundly mixed.”
These nostalgia-driven images of Cuba suddenly made a bit more sense, especially after considering who was producing these images, for which audiences, and how closely-related to international politics these representations of Cuba were. Indeed, these images which, as Appadurai states, “help to constitute narratives of the Other”—in this case, of Cubans—serve as a form of constructing an imagined world that downplays, if not outright erases, the blow that the Cuban Revolution of 1959 represented to American interests in Latin America. For the Cuban Revolution showed that Latin America could indeed stand up to the United States and its hypocritical “Good Neighbor” policy, which it had violated time and again through the funding of military coups, its assistance in the creation of guerrilla wars that would destabilize democratic governments, and the support of dictatorships that benefited American interests, as was the case of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. (That the Cuban Revolution took a turn for the worst, as shown by the disenchantment expressed by many Latin American thinkers who had at first supported it, well, that’s a different story which falls outside of the scope of this short reflection.)
By maintaining and disseminating images of Cuba that allude to a pre-revolutionary period, by fomenting the idea of a country whose people are still stuck in the past and have not been able to move beyond what the United States left them with (e.g. cars) and now suffer the consequences of their actions (e.g. decaying old buildings), all the while dissuading the general public, through sanctions on travel to Cuba, from personally experiencing the transformations that have occurred in the island for more than half a century—through all this, Cuba has remained the fantasy land of exotic beaches and dancers, of the mojito and the daiquiri; in other words, it has remained the land of commodities that is was up to 1959 in the eyes of the American public. In 2014, just as it was in 1959, Cuba is anything but.
But Hollywood does not seem to think so, and neither does Google Images.
Appadurai’s concept of mediascapes, therefore, provided me with a starting point for thinking about how to navigate the political and cultural intricacies of these representations, of this “Othering” that does not exclusively pertain to the case of Cuba, for a similar argument could be made for the images that the American public is currently receiving from other countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
Daybert, I found your post very interesting as, like you, I have noticed a similar trend in the representation of Cuba (and other countries) by Western media and as a native of that nation it was very interesting to hear your thoughts and considerations of the mediascapes and their goal in disseminating such an archaic image of Cuba. It also reminded me of “Persepolis” and a personal epiphany that I had in reading this graphic novel. I believe that Western media has similarly disseminated a notion of the “Middle East” with one, all-encompassing image of antiquity, extremism, and oppression. In reading “Persepolis” I learned that Iran (and presumably many other Middle Eastern countries) has been depicted incorrectly by Western media. The fact that the veil was not imposed by the Iranian government until Satrapi’s childhood, her interest in American rock bands, and her family’s liberal structure all caught me off guard as they did not line up with my Western media-indoctrinated expectations of Iran. From what you have said about Cuba, it appears to be likely that the American media has similarly disseminated a forced but incorrect image of other nations as well through Google images, the news, etc.
I agree with you, Daybert. And I feel also identified with the situation you described but from the image of my country. Since I came to US to teach, when I asked my students what they know about Spanish culture, they normally answer two things: the first one is “bullfighting” where they describe the festival of San Fermine, where the bull is the main character. This cultural aspect always makes them think of Spain as crazyness (eventhough, tourists and people from outside Spanish national borders are always those who become the craziest in those parties). The second answer is always: “El clásico” (Madrid vs Barcelona soccer teams). These ideas of Spanish people are representative of how we reduce all of the culture to the images input from outside. I consider Spain a very cultural place, enriched by particularities regarding popular festivals, customs and traditions and I always wonder why those images, particularly, are the only ones for describing Spanish people in the US instead of others. Clearly, I could say that perhaps these particular events are more transnational than others and the main reasons are economical. We studied how transnationalism is affected by capitalism and those images are clearly those who produce more economical interests: San Fermine for tourism and football because having the best soccer players from around the world is also a global and “transnational” business.
Another thing you considered is the cinema. Almodovar, arguably the most transnational Spanish film maker and director in Hollywood, always used very specific elements of Spanish society such as people sexually, gendered or economically marginalized as a means to denounce it. He always constructed a social critique which sometimes went beyond the screen. This fascinating and intellectual way of representing and denouncing society was not always well interpreted and it could provoke a misunderstanding from a foreign view. I remembered first time I watched “Volver” with my American students and they thought that people in Spain are like the characters in Almodovar’s movies. However, when I arrived in the US my first impression was “like being in an American movie”: people in the streets, houses and skyscrapers, American flags around… And when people from my country still ask me how America is, I continue saying the same. How transnational is all of this? It makes me think one more time that images taken and given from outside national borders are commercialized. Thinking on the social reception and the economic market, American movies are much more sold out than Almodovar’s movies with no consideration of difference in quality.
Daybert, I agree with your comment. The imagined Cuba takes the place of the real Cuba and it’s perpetuated. A similar process happens with the perception of other countries. Sometimes even us, as instructors, contribute to the construction of these imagined places. It is common for language textbooks to include stereotypical images and information as “culture”. For example, Spain is usually associated with Flamenco and paella (along with the examples that Mariluz provided in her comment), Argentina, with soccer and tango, and so on. The book that the Spanish Department uses for the introductory courses is no exception. I’ve noticed a tendency to include beaches, hotels, paradisiacal destinations. These images and information create a false/imagined conception in the mind of students. In every chapter I am forced to make clarification and deconstruct the “culture” that the book includes.