Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

236 reframing latin america
potentially oppositional sides is metaphorical for a broader political and/or
diplomatic project.
• What discourses of gender, race, and nation are present in the phrase
cited by Burton: All “‘priddy girls’ of uniformly pale complexion?”
• Why is Donald Duck as an inept (and animated) predator such an
effective symbol for the ostensible change in U.S. policy toward Latin
America? How would this fi lm be different if another Disney character,
such as the savvy Mickey Mouse, were chosen to represent the United
States instead of Donald Duck? How does this choice of character bolster
Burton’s interpretation of the fi lm?
• Burton interprets The Three Caballeros as presenting multiple sexual
innuendos and containing scenes with seemingly obvious sexual overtones.
She suggests that these images were not the conscious intent of the
authors and refl ect a broader sexualization of Latin America that is typical
of an imperializing ethos. Is it possible that this is not the case and that it
is just Burton and a few academics like her who see those images and thus
interpret in a way that says more about themselves than about the fi lm or
what it represents? How would Burton, or perhaps Edward Said (author of
Orientalism), respond to that question?
notes
1. Julianne Burton, “Don (Juanito) Duck and the Imperial Patriarchal Unconscious:
Disney Studios, the Good Neighbor Policy, and the Packaging
of Latin America,” ed. Andrew Parker, Nationalism and Sexualities (New
York: Routledge, 1992) 23.
2. Burton 24.
3. For a seminal study of Disney and discourse, see Ariel Dorfman and
Armand Mattelart, How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in
the Disney Comic, trans. David Kunzle (New York: International General,
1974). The excerpt is from Burton 32–38.
4. Richard Shale, Donald Duck Joins Up: The Walt Disney Studios During
World War II (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1987) 107
5. Anthony Wilden, System and Structure: Essays in Communication
and Exchange (London: Tavistock, 1980) xxxiii–xxxv.