Uses of Cuban (un)exoticism in transnational Spain: The desire revisited, 1985--2005
Experience the future of the Tulane University Digital Library.
We invite you to visit the new Digital Collections website.
Description
My dissertation addresses contemporary Spain's transforming national culture through representations of Cuban sexual imagery from 1989 to 2004. During this period, massive migration from Latin America, and Cuba in particular, has arrived to Spain changing Spanish perceptions of otherness and, consequently, Spanish national identity. For years, the imagery of Cuba in Spain was exemplified by sexual exoticism but, the enhanced presence of Cubans in the Iberian Peninsula, has recast Spain's idea of Cubanness. A resultant transformed desire for lo cubano demonstrates not only new sexual attitudes but also a change of Spanish national imaginary to multicultural transnation. Spain, in a post-colonial gesture, has begun community building with its formerly exotic others and marketing its Latinized-chic image. My research is organized around a series of 'uses', both cultural and political, of new sexual and gender perceptions regarding Cuban imagery in Spain, as reflected in films, literature, and popular culture of the period, which are the sources for the analysis of this dissertation I base my investigation on the studies of Louis Perez, Ann McClintock and Antonio Benitez Rojo, who analyze the transformations of Cubanness imagery; and the works of Paul Julian Smith, Marsha Kinder, Jo Labanyi and Isabel Santaolalla, who study Spain's transforming national identity to transnational representation after Cuban, and Latin American, presence in Iberian Peninsula I will develop four thematic chapters organized around the cultural and political 'uses' of transformed Cuban representations in Spain. In the first chapter entitled 'Uses of Desire: The Erotic Cubania and The Passional Espanolidad', after a historical introduction that illustrates Cuban and Spanish cultural representations from the beginning of 20th century to present, I analyze the particular transformations of Cuban imagery in Spain and the political 'uses' of each period until present Cuban migration phenomenon to Iberian Peninsula. This first chapter has a historical character and it will review the academic works around this issue The second chapter, 'Desexotic Cuban Women, Flowers from this World: The Feminine Subject', will focus on the emergence of a cultural production which represents Cuban women from a different perspective: From exotic sexual objects to 'desexotic' feminine subjects. I will analyze Spanish films, and coproductions Cuba-Spain as well, such as Iciar Bollain's Flores de otro mundo; Eneko Olasagasti's Maite or Manuel Gutierrez Aragon's Cosas que deje en La Habana. I shall study popular as well as visual culture representations, which show the change of perception about Cuban women otherness and the postcolonial implications of this process The third chapter, 'The Cuban conquistador: Encountering masculinities', addresses the transformation of Cuban masculinity stereotypes in Spain after the migration experience. I also analyze the influence of this change in the new representation of Spanish masculinity as well. I study these images in Alex de La Iglesia's La Comunidad; Fernando Colomo's Cuarteto de La Habana and Benito Zambrano's Habana Blues The fourth chapter, 'Posing the invisible difference: Canibalism and chic-latinization in transculture', develops the study of the global representation of Cubanness and Spanishness through the 'latino-chic' essence, and the new gender stereotypes. I also study the transcultural phenomenon now in the Iberian Peninsula, the popular cultural production of this period and the theoretical works about this issue This dissertation is a contribution to investigate the social and cultural consequences of the massive migration from Cuba, and Latin America, to Spain by the late eighties to present