Utilising an interdisciplinary methodology that draws from cultural studies and critical tourism studies, this article examines the production of difference at the intersection of hedonism and revolution in the Cuban Ministry of Tourism's international campaign, Auténtica Cuba. I analyse how the campaign's feature film, Auténtica Cuba, carefully crafts a narrative of authenticity in its construction of the island as ‘an unrivalled paradise’. I pay close attention to how the production, commodification and marketing of Cuban difference for tourist consumption is contested and perpetuated, especially as difference is embodied by Afro-Cubans in the film. I conclude by considering whether the campaign provides what Stuart Hall terms, effective translation, in its aims to challenge the gendered, racialised and sexualised constructions of Cuba and Cubans as objects for tourist consumption. As tourism shapes and is shaped by neocolonial discourses of difference, this work is timely as – in light of the speculation about future transformations on the island – it considers the implications of the state's renewed framing of the expansion of tourism development as central to the work of the revolution.
The mirror reflections of Junior, the young protagonist of Mariana Rondón’s film Pelo malo, attempting to straighten his hair for a school photograph reveal the racialized, gendered, sexualized, and classed aspects of normative subjecthood in Venezuela. An examination of the circumstances that frame each mirror reflection and the reactions they elicit in his mother and grandmother and of Junior’s efforts to constitute himself as a normative child reveals the possibilities the film presents for existing outside of normativity. Los reflejos en el espejo de Junior, el joven protagonista de la película Pelo malo de Mariana Rondón, quien intenta alaciar su cabello para una fotografía escolar, revelan los aspectos raciales, de género, sexuales y de clase de la subjetivación normativa en Venezuela. Un análisis de las circunstancias que enmarcan cada reflejo y las reacciones que estas provocan en su madre y abuela, así como los esfuerzos del mismo Junior por constituirse como un niño normativo, revela las posibilidades que nos presenta la película para existir fuera de la normatividad.
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