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

the socialist utopia 259
Guevara was born in Latin America’s hour of the hero. So many of our
leaders have been so corrupt, and the range of allowed and possible public
activity has been so narrow, and injustice has cried out so piercingly to the
heavens, that only a hero could answer the call, and only a heroic mode of
life could seem worthy. Guevara stood out against the infl amed horizon of
his time, alone and unique.
There is, however, a problem with the heroic fi gure (as the Cubans, who
kept Che’s diaries and documents secret all this while, perceived), and that
is that the hero can have no faults, and is answerable, as Che was, only to
his own exalted sense of honor. This picture of the hero is still satisfying
to large numbers of Latin Americans who are not in a position to exact an
accounting from their leaders but do, on the other hand, demand that their
leaders act grandly and provoke fervor and states of rapture, as the dead
Che now does. But the living Che was not the perfect hero for his time and
place: he demanded that others follow his impossible example, and never
understood how to combine what he wanted with what was achievable. It
remains forever a matter of debate whether Che’s life and example speeded
the advent of the present era, in which there are no perfect causes, and
where men like him are more than ever out of place.
Discussion Questions
• What identity issues or discourses does Guillermoprieto identify
as defi ning Guevara’s personality and his political and ideological
orientations?
• How does Guillermoprieto, in so many words, portray Guevara to be
a “dead author” and how does this transform our reading of The Motorcycle
Diaries?
• According to Guevara, what are the qualities of a good revolutionary?
How does this reveal Guevara’s own essentialist interpretation of the
world?
• Given the opportunity, how would Guillermoprieto critique the fi lm
version of The Motorcycle Diaries?
Film Analysis: SOY CUBA/ YA KUBA (I AM CUBA)
Soy Cuba/Ya Kuba, set in prerevolutionary Havana, attempts to legitimize
further the Cuban Revolution that had triumphed over the U.S.-backed
dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista fi ve years earlier. The fi lm was directed
and photographed in 1964 by the acclaimed Russian fi lmmaking team of