Soy Cuba

“Rapid population growth and urbanization were creating massive shortages of the most basic social necessities.”

Soy Cuba’s strongest message was it’s anti-American, anti-imperialistic ideas. It really showed how Americans came to Cuba hoping to have a good time and suck every bit of life out of it. They did not care whether it was at the expense of the people living there. One perfect example of this was in the bar. The bar was in a Cuban indigenous theme showing the American’s misunderstanding of the Cuban culture. They just saw the statues and the costumes as a game to be consumed. But for the people working there it was real. Many times such as the girl they had to sacrifice real happiness for capitalism.

Susan Eckstein is able to show why and how the pre-revolutionary Cuba was made. One of the reasons is because of the economic suppression that Batista had on the country. She is able to portray this through her graphs by showing that economically Cuba never came up on top until 1980.

The most significant part of Eckstein’s essay was about the changes brought on by Revolution. As shown in Soy Cuba sugar was an exploitative and corporate crop. The man who has leased out his land to the man loses it to the United Fruit Company. But as Eckstein points out, “Sugar workers, enjoy more social benefits, job security, and earnings-in comparison to other workers-than before the revolution.” This showed that by the revolution occurring they were benefited. It follows well the theme of the movie that they are Cuba and have to further live and die that way. She also shows what changed for all workers, “Workers on the state farms were granted year-round employment, social benefits, and wage increases.”

That is one of the defining parts of the movie about who and what Cuba is. By using the Vignette format Mikhail Kalatozov uses a form that Eisenstein also used. The difference is that this movie is in the final format so that this movie’s point is brought across completely. Soy Cuba is a whole spectrum of the Cuban life experience. From the indigenous to the prostitute to the family in the mountains suffering from the results of revolution. It was also a very honest movie. In the scene where the man has paid the woman for sleeping with him he walks through the shantytown and is barraged with kids. This is such a strong portrayal, as if to say you have paid for the woman and also for the town in which she is from. They want the watcher to really see where she is from. What she has to deal with everyday.

This vulnerability brought on by a strong revolution could be an invitation to outside sources. So the happy exciting ending that is at the end of the movie could lead to an eventual unhappy revolutionary government.

“To anti-communists, especially in the United States but also in Latin America, the surgery of social revolution created a Frankenstein’s monster-unnatural, powerful, and frightening.”

Till next week,

matteavs

The Price Paid Was Great

“But the price paid was great, and the rapid modernization contained seeds of self-destruction”

Que Viva Mexico’s cinematic history is as interesting if not more then what is portrayed inside the movie. It is a story of challenging authority and influence, just like any of the themes that are discussed in the movie. The two actually parallel one another quite perfectly. This movie as Chris Robe discusses in his article was at the center of a debate within leftist movie theater. It used critically the montage scheme, which was not accepted in Hollywood. But, that was the challenge. To take away the strong hold the Hollywood had had on cinema and show that others could do it just as well. But, in the end the dominant Hollywood culture won out. Another movie was released entitled Thunder over Mexico. This success is very much like in the movie when the plantation owners are able to put down the rebellion of the indigenous workers. In the movie business if someone outside of Hollywood tried to make a movie, especially with experimental qualities they would be put down such as Eisenstein was. The movie also takes out the historical context of the movie so that is does not have a larger meaning. The whole purpose of Que Viva Mexico was to portray a larger meaning of the Mexican Revolution. But, this does not go with a Hollywood stylized movie. Another element that affected the finished product was the power of Marxism. Eisenstein naturally had a Marxist view and that would have played into his portrayal of the indigenous workers. It can defiantly be seen in the sixth section where the masks are removed and all of the previous rulers who had cut down the lower classes are dead. It symbolizes the working class triumphing through the revolution. From than on through generations would live happier.

Because of the role of montage and in Stephen Hart’s article what he calls ideational, Eisenstein’s own emotions come out quite a bit. They do through how he is portraying Mexico. He shows his love of culture and the building of that culture. He shows that through starting at the most basic history of Mexico and that is the Mayan. It also helps to build a basis of a strong indigenous group with a strong culture. If this is described well than the death of that culture at the hands of a white European is even greater. Also, Eisenstein’s interest in ritual is shown quite a bit. In many of the sections he uses Mexican rituals to tell the story instead of himself. One of these scenes is the Fiesta, also the marriage ceremony in the third section.

Like many of the other films, the use of symbolism is strong. In the section entitled the Maquey Cactus when Sebastian comes and takes Maria back to the plantation she is riding on a donkey much like Mary and Joseph. But, instead of Maria’s son being sacrificed it is Maria herself. She will taken unfairly and have to sacrifice for the greater good. But, the message that would have been carried further in the Soldadera section is that her sacrifice one made by so many women during the revolution would have been for a greater good. Eventually generations would have escaped the rigid plantation and dictatorship that is described in The Course of Mexican History. But, through Eisenstein’s very well done portrayal the viewer is able to get the view even further that, “The dichotomies of nineteenth-century Mexican life, especially those of wealth and poverty, are almost all to be found on the hacienda.”

Till next week,

matteavs

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

“One can suggest that the accumulation of small investments could have been an important element in the financing of the district's main commercial enterprise.”

This week’s readings were all about finding the object and subject of a particular argument. It was also about deciphering the structure that is used in a particular paper. The object of the research is the question that the researcher is trying to answer. The subject of the argument is how the researcher answers the question. The structure is how the researcher frames the narrative to explain their argument. The evidence that they use is how they support the argument that they are trying to explain.

In this week’s readings there were two examples these structures. The first was Kimberly Gauderman’s article on women in textiles in seventeenth century Quito. Gauderman uses a very strict structure that is framed much like a funnel. This structure also helps her to bring together her argument that women’s economic lives were not actually set apart by their gender but by their ability to use economic prosperity and work. But, what gave even more support to Guaderman’s argument was at what cost these women gained their economic stability. Her evidence through court cases and notarial records. These revealed while the elite women who actually owned may not have been involved in the day to day lives of their obraje, there were maestros of lower social status that were involved. Fueled by the demand for their textiles they pushed the indigenous people in their care very hard. An important part of this that is revealed is female-to-female relations. Women were not any easier on their female employees because they were women. In many ways they were harder, accusing them when they became pregnant. Another gender relation that is revealed is that women could hold their own in court as well as men. Gauderman’s article divulges that women gained equality but at the expense of other women’s lives.

In another article written about the working class in Victorian England, it states that E.P. Thompson stated, “everything, from their schools to their shops, their chapels to their amusements, was turned into a battle-ground of class.” E.P. Thompson’s object was what the determining factor behind the English crowd’s riots were. He states how they are not just an outburst determined by nothing. They were hungry because of bread prices and realized their voice in the larger political spectrum. He talks about how in thinking about economy not through capitalism but through a moral economy. Relies more on the cultural and justified reasoning behind economy then a laissez-faire type economy. His ideas are much supported because there were starving populations that did not rise up such as the Irish during the potato blight.

Till next week,

matteavs

Everything in society must progress or be left behind....-Gabriela

“Many men inevitably greeted changes and threatened changes in gender roles with insecurity, frustration, and growing fears of demasculinization.”

In Gabriela, there are two contrasting scenes. As the movie goes on one grows into the other. The first is of the man coming into the house and killing the two lovers. The other is of the couple coming out of the house at the end of the movie after the husband has found them. This progression mirrors the progress of Brazil that also occurs in the movie.

Through the progress that occurs in Brazil Marriage is also progressed. As Besse stated the idea that men killed their wives, as a right was barbaric. For Brazil to be brought up to the civilized “ideal” they had to lose this old tradition. To insist on order the disorder in marriage had to be taken out. This disorder was the relentless unchecked passion. If these passions were not stopped than they would cut down the progress that they had made. As seen in the movie between Mr. Nacib and Gabriela if there is not murder than it does not stop the social progress in the town. In the beginning of the movie when the man knows that his wife is cheating he hires a man that is a peasant to go and kill them. This also contributes to violent peasant involvement. It cut down the decency in the middle class life. It also disrupted the social life in the town. After the murder is committed everyone talks about it and life is stopped. To the modern person in Europe this unchecked male vanity and control of women would have seemed uncivilized. It would be a step back from everything they had worked to.

Like everything in the town marriage had to be modernized, at the end of the movie Mr. Nacib does not kill his wife and the cheater. He says he is afraid that people will judge him but they do not. A decent break up between the two was becoming the norm in the society. To just go back to the way they were. It also helped to set back into civilization a marriage that in itself was uncivilized.

Gabriela is the incarnation of the old peasant population of Brazil. She is the population that is wild and untamed. They are affected by all of changes brought in by the invading population. They new population tries to modernize them. Such as Mr. Nacib with Gabriela. Gabriela is a wild peasant that is brought in and she is fine with the social situation that comes between her and Mr. Nacib. She does not understand the need of marriage. But, just as Brazil is becoming civilized, she is forced into marriage. She tries to fit into the very specific mold that is set for her. She tries to wear the constricting clothes especially the shoes. Her unwillingness to wear shoes is very symbolic of the fact that she cannot change into the progressive strict mold. In the end just like in Brazil there is a population that gets left behind in the modernization. They do not progress but just have to watch and even be exploited.

As Sueann Caulfield argues racial improvement was being tried throughout Brazil especially in the cities. They believed if they made the cities more progressive by bringing in Europeans that it would then make them more European and attract that kind of civilization. The police in defending this progression also promoted the family and the maintaining of it. Through a man killing his wife and her lover it created a scene in which visitors would be privy to. But, if separations were done in a progressive silent manner it would not attract attention. Another perfect example from the movie of such a separation was the professor and his lover. The Colonel went into the house and then the lovers came out and left. One man is even heard during this scene stating this is even to, “This is to progressive for me.”

Caulfield also brings up the idea that Gabriela as “the servant” could have also been constituted in society as a prostitute. This can be seen especially into movie through the contrasting clothes that she wears in the beginning then when she is married to him. Through society’s shunning of this role of prostitute, Mr. Nacib is pressured to marry her to take away this potential label.

Till next week,

matteavs

Is the foreign so foreign?

“Structures then are “virtual” and are put into practice in the production and reproduction of social life.”

The Leslie Reagan book in an essence describes the idea of history being a foreign country. The vocabulary and their view on life were completely different. But, through the interpretation that Raegan gives, she is able to give understanding and significance to a time that is foreign to the modern reader. She is able to point out what is significant in that time and then come up with a thesis that is relevant in a modern perspective. She is able to take a study that is centered when abortion was a crime and then make conclusions to when it became legal. She is able to give a perspective on that change that is well thought out and shows the positive and negative changes that occurred because of the legalization. This is the responsibility of the historian to take the foreign country and interpret. To give their interpretation of the events in the most unbiased way possible. Inevitably it will come out, and that is what makes historiography interesting. It is what historians do with the research they have in presenting it in their final product.

In Sewall’s discussion of structure one of the first points he talks about is how structure can be limiting in thinking about the past. One of the best quotes he talks about this is, “A social Science trapped in an unexamined metaphor of structure tends to reduce actors to cleverly programmed automatons.” This is a huge boundary to get over as a historian. To give people of the past real human emotions. They were in some ways very much like modern humans. They had thoughts and feelings. These emotions effect their decisions, which in turn would have affected the process of events following these decisions.

Anthony Gidden’s idea of structure was the most useful to determining the importance of structure. Especially in the form of resources. Gidden’s best quote was when he stated; “resources are anything that can serve as a source of power in social interactions.” Another quote that helped to not just explain Gidden’s own ideas about structure but Sewell’s was “Structures are not the patterned social practices that make up social systems, but the principles that pattern these practices.” The metaphor of the working class in England could work in this situation. For the point of structure it is not the actual social structure of that society it was the decisions and then the eventual revolution that put them in that situation. Gidden puts it very simply as the process that is the structure. This fits into agency because agency then is the situation that the structure has put them in.

Till next week,

matteavs

Camila-Subliminal Latin America

Camila-Subliminal Latin America

Latin America duplicates the problems in Europe on a larger scale even after colonialism. They carry with them the problems of Europe and in many ways model themselves in the image of Europe. The patriarchal, familial, and governmental structural all remained the same. A ruler by the name of Juan Manuel de Rosas ruled very strongly with an iron fist. This movie comes out as a satire against the oppression that he forced on these people. Maria Luisa Bemberg is able to do this without even showing him, Stevens states “The governor remains in the shadows of the film, behind the omnipresent portraits, the universal red ribbons, and the pervasive atmosphere of red ribbons.” All of these techniques are used through the film to convey his presence in their lives. It also describes how in a volatile environment two young people who did not believe in the society would use romance to combat the governmental structure.

The character of Father Ludislao is portrayed in the movie as pure. But has Hurt says Bemberg was also a Roman Catholic so the perspective of wanting to portray a priest as spotless is very likely. He did not have strong emotions for Camila but was trying to deal with an unprecedented amount of lust in his heart.

Camila is the modern woman, the anti-colonialist woman. She goes against all of the social structures that are part of post-colonialism. By doing this she herself is a physical satire of this governmental structure. Hart discusses how Bemberg had Camilla seduce the priest not the other way around. This is a strong reversal of the social order itself in that usually a man was supposed to approach a woman. But, for her to first even put her emotions out there and then second lay her heart out to him is very significant.

The scene where she describes her erotic dream is in itself very significant to the satire that the movie is portraying and the actual movie itself. During this time it was not proper for women to talk about having any kind of sexual emotions at all especially for pleasure. Sex, in the public atmosphere was for reproduction only. Women’s discussion of this was forbidden. So for Camilla to open up about these erotic feelings in a public atmosphere was important for furthering the story line but also for showing how Camilla was different than other women. She felt she had full control of her body and that she deserved to have as much sexual pleasure from that as she saw fit. This was a very strong difference from what society felt.

Camilla also breaks the social norm through her relationship with her grandmother and the slaves. The grandmother at the beginning of the movie is as actually an ironic foreshadowing of the sexual misconduct that Camila herself will be involved in. Camilla becomes very close to the Grandmother and there is an illusion that Camilla learns to crave the love and passion that her Grandmother has experienced. She also had a very significant relationship with the slave woman. She is very close to her. This would have gone against the master slave relationship that was typical at the time.  

One thing that Bemberg is very good at is comparing the love that Camila holds and Ladislao’s. Camila’s is a very strong womanly passion. She goes after him very strongly. She has strong emotions towards him. Ladislao’s does not have emotions just carnal passion it is shown through the sexual encounters between them that he has an erotic passion for her and that is it. His emotions in his heart will always belong to God.

An irony in the story is when Camila’s brother tells Adolfo that she has run away with the priest it is at the same time as they are slaughtering a cow in a very gruesome way. This is done on purpose to be an analogy with the lack of caring that the father has. He is portrayed as only being mad because this has one ruined his reputation and now soiled his daughter’s forever.

The importance of the loss of Camila as a marriage partner is also important to the story. It is not completely asserted in the movie but many wealthy families could gain political and social connections from a daughter marrying into another family. By Camila breaking the social and patriarchal structure she has destroyed this chance for her family. She has also destroyed it for her sisters because no one will want to marry them with a soiled sister.

“European norms defined what was “civilized,” “stylish,” and ultimately, “decent” in the eyes of postcolonial Latin Americans. Those at the top of the social hierarchy and most in touch with Europe obviously held the winning cards in this parlor game.”

Till next week,

matteavs

Historiography 2

Historiography 2-Blog 2

Mark Bevir stated, “We can say that the working out of objectivity is itself a profoundly historical process.”

This is very true given the readings and what has been stated in class. From the in class time from last week there seemed to come about two ways of looking at history. One through Historical Materialism the other through Historical Culture. From looking at this it would seem that the most egocentric way of looking at history is through Historical Materialism. Through culturism the historian interprets the culture within its own world. It does not try to compare and contrast itself to another culture. In materialism, there is always going to be a comparison against the most technologically advanced country. But, what is that technology is negative. This is what makes both sides objective. Because a historian cannot put himself or herself into the past it is physically impossible. Also the historian cannot investigate a country, which had a lower living standard than the richest country in the world at the time.

One of the ways that I appreciated Bevir’s comments was through his idea that, “Of course, as interpretations reveal the particular character of a fact, they often partially define the way we regard the fact.” This is very true in that what the historian states in his work will shape the reader’s perception of that event until he or she reads another work about that subject and it may change.

I am reminded through this of how this could work in a primary source work where the historian is the self telling the story. After the Battle of Gettysburg, there were many interpretations of who shot the first shot there. But, the one that was written was from the Confederate side that said the Seventh Tennessee Regiment of Archer’s Brigade shot down one of Beaufort’s cavalry. Because this was the only thing written about that particular part of the battle it was accepted. But, many years later many more accounts were written and it was officially decided that is was actually one of Beaufort’s cavalry. Because of the Tennesseans bias toward making their contribution to the battle bigger they changed their interpretation and thereby changing history.

Through the contributions of historiography, it has now become a wide field that can be argued over and interpreted time and time again.

Till next week,

matteavs