Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research

ISSN: 1326-0219 (Print) 2151-9668 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjil20

Cartooning Pre-revolutionary Cuba: The Animated

Exoticism of Time and Place in Vampiros en la
Habana (1985) and Chico and Rita (2010)

Camilo Daz Pino

To cite this article: Camilo Daz Pino (2015) Cartooning Pre-revolutionary Cuba: The
Animated Exoticism of Time and Place in Vampiros en la Habana (1985) and Chico
and Rita (2010), Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research, 21:2, 234-245, DOI:
10.1080/13260219.2015.1095692

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13260219.2015.1095692

Published online: 16 Nov 2015.

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 Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research, 2015
Vol. 21, No. 2, 234245, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13260219.2015.1095692

Cartooning Pre-revolutionary Cuba: The Animated Exoticism of

Time and Place in Vampiros en la Habana (1985) and Chico and Rita
(2010)
Camilo Daz Pino*

University of Wisconsin-Madison
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This article discusses exoticism and self-exoticism in the representation of

pre-revolutionary Cuban musicianship in two animated lms: the 2010 Spanish/British
co-production Chico and Rita and the 1985 Cuban lm, Vampiros en la Habana.
Within the similarly constructed animated archetypes on display, these lms generate
vastly different discursive outputs. Both texts are more interested in musicians as
mythical gures than as comprehensive subjects, but where the mythology of Vampiros
offers a dissenting, self-dened cultural identity, that of Chico and Rita employs a
mythology of Otherness to reafrm the cultural protagonism and hegemony of Euro-
centric discourses. Although these lms engage with similar archetypes, localities and
representations of the exotic, the ways in which they do so evidence disparities in
terms of intended audience, artistic intent, relationship to Cubas revolutionary project,
and perspective towards Cubas cultural identityall within the highly exible, but
highly codied and stigmatized, medium of animation.
Keywords: animation; caricature; Cuba; exoticism; jazz; self-exoticism

In 2012, the animated feature Chico and Rita (directed by Fernando Trueba, Javier Mar-
iscal and Tono Errando) made history in the elds of both animated and Hispanic lm
by being the rst ever Spanish-language animated feature to be nominated for an Acad-
emy Award.1 The acknowledgment of a creator-driven, adult-oriented Spanish-language
historical drama set in Cuba, within an animated media environment dominated by
child-oriented, comedic big studio Hollywood franchise lms, is an exception worthy of
some investigation. Putting aside all arguments with regard to merit or industrial poli-
tics, this recognition speaks of some signicant developments both in the sphere of
transnational animation cultures, and in the social politics surrounding the reception of
Hispanic and Latin American subjectivities in English-speaking media environments.
Given the problematic relationship the U.S. media has had with Latin American cul-
tural and political representation in generalnot to mention its particular stance of pro-
pagandistic enmity regarding Cubathe ever-growing visibility of Latin American
subjectivities in Anglo-American media raises several questions with regard to the trans-
formation of the othering gaze that Latin American subjects and localities have been
subjected to in global media even before their earliest lmic depictions. As mediated
Latin American subjects become increasingly globally visible and Latin American pro-
ducers continue to gain stronger platforms on the world stage, how and to what extent
can this entrenched culture of exoticism be addressed and negotiated? In what way does

*Email: diazpino@wisc.edu

2015 Association of Iberian and Latin American Studies of Australasia (AILASA)

 Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 235

the emergence of these Latin American voices serve to re-centre such cultural
discourses, if it indeed can do so at all?
Focusing on these issues with regard to their manifestation in the area of animated lm
in particular, this article will discuss instances of mediatic exoticism and self-exoticism
within the representation of pre-revolutionary Cuban musicianship and its localities in two
animated lms: the aforementioned 2010 Spanish/British co-production Chico and Rita,
and the landmark 1985 Cuban feature, Vampiros en La Habana (Vampires in Havana)
directed by Juan Padrn.2 To this end, I will concentrate in particular on the ways in
which the cultural and political-economic particularities of animation production can be
seen to shape the creation of intra- and extra-textual cultural identities through the exoti-
cism and self-exoticism of Latin American bodies, history and, to a lesser extent, locali-
ties. My analysis will show that, though these lms engage with similar archetypes,
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geographic locations and representations of the exotic embodied in the gure of the bohe-
mian pre-revolutionary Cuban male musician, the ways in which they do so evidence sub-
stantial disparities in discursive intent and positioning. These disparities may be
understood with respect to their intended audiences, artistic objectives, relationships to
Cubas revolutionary project, and their respective stances towards (and negotiations of)
Cuban history and cultural-symbolic identities within both past and present global
political scenarios.
Such factors must of course also take into account the highly exible, but also
incredibly codied, stigmatized and infantilized, socio-cultural positioning of animation
as an art form and media industry. Establishing an understanding of this context is
essential, given that the social status of animation informs the construction of textual
identities, which is connected to, but not wholly subsumed within, the wider lmic med-
ium. Indeed, animations engagement with the subject of identity construction is highly
idiosyncratic, thanks to its production practices and dependence upon graphic abstrac-
tion and caricature. It is more akin to the visual and cultural lexicon of comics than that
of live-action lmmaking. As such, it becomes necessary for us to engage with such
parameters of identity construction in general before examining the ways in which these
processes relate to the specic discursive structures of neo-colonialism utilized in Chico
and Rita and Vampiros.

Animating Identity
Due to a variety of factors, issues of gender, ethnic, class and cultural representation are
even more uid and difcult to pin down in animation than in other modes of lmic
representation and narrative construction. With respect to the objects of this study in
particular, I see two predominant elements as inuencing this relationship, both of
which are largely shaped by the underlying cultural dynamics and positioning of anima-
tion as an art form and an amalgam of industrial processes. The rst of these lies in the
widespread Western designation of cartoon textuality, for example in animation, comics,
and more recently videogames, as belonging to the realms of child-centred rhetorical
frameworks. The trajectory of the cartoons social positioning in this regard has been
well documented elsewhere by such authors as Jason Mittel3 and David Hajdu,4 both of
whom have commented on the distinct commercial and social dynamics tying the car-
toon text to twentieth-century child and youth cultures, as well as other modes of the
subaltern.5 As these and other authors have detailed, the contemporary association of
animation specically, and cartoon texts in general, with child audiences and sensibili-
ties may be seen as the product of a conuence of contextually specic and mutable
 236 C. Daz Pino

social-industrial processes.6 Clearly, such dynamics within the Western popular media
context have almost inextricably bound the animated art form within the social parame-
ters of childhoodso much so that the scholarly eld of childrens media and cultural
studies itself has developed largely in concert with that of animation in general.
The recent abundance of adult-oriented media in the Anglo-American animated
mediascape is clearly marked by the persistence of this link with childhood, with much
of the narrative (and comedic) tension of such media drawn precisely from a dialogue
with discourses of childhood. Adult or family oriented Western animated program-
ming, such as that of The Simpsons (1989), South Park (1997) and Family Guy
(19992003, 2005), indeed derives a certain subversive pleasure by representing sexu-
ality, social satire, and/or other topics deemed not to belong to childrens lives, in juxta-
position with this medium.7 Almost every Western adult-oriented animation produced in
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the last several years can be seen to do this, perpetuating a culture of animation that, on
the one hand, is ourishing in terms of aesthetic development and circulation among
diverse audiences, while at the same time remaining static in terms of genre, tone and
thematic approach. Though highly celebrated and often culturally dening texts have
been produced within such boundaries, these works have generally had to employ sim-
plied character types and supercial approaches to gender, class, ethnicity and labour.
Moreover, the depiction of post-colonial realities so often excused as necessary to pro-
tect childhood audiences innocence and their supposed preference for simplied nar-
rative structures, has also been utilized. Simply put, the fact that adult-oriented
animation is often formed (created?) as a parodic, satiric and generally comedic deriva-
tive of such child-centred discourses lends itself to the production of texts whose
narratives are drawn in very broad strokesthanks in large part to aesthetic and
industry convention.
The second potentially problematic factor in the relationship between animation and
cultural representation lies in the sheer level of abstraction and visual reduction made
possibleand indeed often necessitatedby animation. The cel-animated lm, which
has partly emerged from the joint traditions of comic strip and graphic caricature, is
marked by certain levels of exaggeration and simplication of form, function and beha-
vioural construction that have long been codied, and indeed, have come to be
expected, by both audiences and animated lm producers alike.8 Within the predominant
canon of animated lmmaking established by Hollywood and its imitatorscurrently
extending to virtually every major culture of animated productionthe animated body,
and thus, the identities it constructs, are truly and almost entirely performative and
ludic. Animated lmmaking is implicitly free from the constrictions of space, temporal-
ity and mortality, and often plays with social norms and wider reality in general. Slavoj
iek notes with regard to such practices within animation that [t]he universe of car-
toons is an undead universe of innite plasticity, in which every time a character is
destroyed it magically recomposes itself and the struggle recommences.9 Though many
recent animated texts have abandoned this narrative approach, establishing more inter-
nally coherent and nite intra-narrative universes, the inuences and stigmas of anima-
tions earliest days and transgressive carnivalesque possibilities are still rmly
entrenched in the global culture of animation.10 Similar to its association with child-
hood, the abstraction inherent in animated lmmaking has been both freeing and stigma-
tizing for the animated cartoon as narrative art form, entrenching animated bodies,
identities and narratives within a metatextual negotiation of constant performance and
unreality.
 Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 237

Perhaps surprisingly, this state of constant performance may not be so far removed
from the way in which identity functions as a construct in all social realities, and indeed
may be seen to serve in many ways as an analogue for wider-reaching processes. It has
indeed been argued that the abstraction and mutability of animated characters make
them easier to empathize with, rather than the inverse. As Scott McCloud observes, the
cartoon body, at its most basic, functions cognitively and semiotically as an icono-
graphic amplication through simplication.11 Physical features such as eyes, mouths,
and extremities are exaggerated in order to trigger empathic resonance in the reader
through the construction of emotionally universal, proto-human features:

Film critics will sometimes describe a live-action lm as a cartoon to acknowledge the

stripped down intensity of a simple story or visual style. Though the term is often used dis-
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paragingly, it can be equally well applied to many time-tested classics. Simplifying charac-
ters and images toward a purpose can be an effective tool for storytelling in any medium.
Cartooning isnt a way of drawing, its a way of seeing.12

Given this dimension in the processes involved in the reading of cartooned bodies,
characters and narratives, it would not be a stretch to envision that these process could
also apply to the construction of performative identity in animation.
Indeed, if, as suggested by Judith Butler, all modes of identity necessarily exist in a
state of quotidian performance, then the performance of identity carried out in animated
lm is only an extension of this dynamic enacted to its most hyperreal conclusion.13 With
respect to such a reality, we may then conclude that what makes animated bodies unique
is not merely their performative aspect, but rather that they enact a performance of anthro-
pomorphic identities (with all the limitations implied therein) without being entrenched in
the physical realities of the human form. Furthermore, animated bodies only really depend
on social realities in order to serve as referents allowing the viewers to recognize and
accept these representations as concrete subjects. As Kevin Sandler observes, when Bugs
Bunny is, for example, said to be in drag as a female, this is not to say that his so-called
male-coded performance at other times is any more real than his performance as a
woman.14 After all, at all times he remains a composite identity, a disembodied voice
attached to a series of iconographic drawings of an anthropomorphic rabbit.
As it stands, all cartoon characters are similarly embodied through such composite
anthropomorphic performances of character designers, layout and storyboard artists,
animators and, nally, voice artists, who themselves depict a multitude of characters of
different cultures, ages, ethnicities and gendersall without the discursive anchor of the
photographed body that live-action lm has at its disposal. When we add to this the cul-
tural stigma ascribed to the undead and unreal cartoon universe as described by iek,
as well as the overwhelming inuence of U.S. and European cultural hegemony in the
language and conventions of animation, then the hyperreal and supremely metatextual
nature of animated portrayal of Latin American places, people and culture becomes all
but inevitable. The discursive inuences implicit in this relationship of abstraction,
exaggeration and hybrid performativity extend even to such clearly reverent portrayals
of Cuban jazz musicians as in Chico and Rita, as well as the lmic portrayal of Cuba
by and of itself in Vampiros en La Habana.
Having analysed, albeit briey, the unique freedoms and constraints offered aestheti-
cally, semiotically, and sociologically by animation with respect to identity in these lms,
we may now begin to understand their particular negotiation of these circumstances, as
well as question their discursive intentionality in doing so. To this end, I will analyse the
 238 C. Daz Pino

ways in which these parameters shape the exoticism employed in these two features in
their depictions of Cuban identities. My analysis will further focus on how both
intra- and extra-textual self-exoticism may be taking place in such depictions.

Self-exoticism as a Bargain with Hegemonic Discourse

Though both of these lms address different narrative types, generic conventions and
audiences, they share substantial similarities in the manner in which they set out to
communicate Cuban culture, and in particular, the persona of the early to mid-twentieth-
century Latin jazz musician and his surroundings. Both situate substantial portions of
their plots in pre-revolutionary Havana and its nightlife; both feature said musicians as
protagonists; and both also employ the music of celebrated gures in Cuban jazz to rep-
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resent their artistry and aesthetic approachesArturo Sandoval in the case of Vampiros
and Bebo Valds in the case of Chico and Rita. Finally, both lms also highlight one of
the more salient aspects of Latin American exoticism in the United States and Europe,
by placing an emphasis on these protagonists virility, attractiveness and their romantic
entanglements and exploits. In addition, the lms make liberal use of an entrenched
male gaze with regard to the female animated nude, evoking eroticism in Chico and
Rita on the one hand, and picaresque humour in Vampiros en La Habana on the other.
Extratextually, both of these lms also represent signicant landmarks in the history of
Spanish language animation: Vampiros en La Habana is the rst ever Cuban feature-
length animated lm, and, as mentioned earlier, Chico and Rita is the rst Spanish
language animated feature to be nominated for an Oscar.
It is important to note how and why both of these lms centre so much of their con-
tent and textual identity on this portrayal of the pre-revolutionary jazz musician as an
icon of Cuban cultural identity. In these lms, as in many similar cases of exoticized
representation, we can see how discourses of the exotic function not only to reafrm
binary relationships of hegemonic misrepresentation and subaltern identitary erasure, but
also as sites of negotiatedif still asymmetricaldialectics of often contestatory
re-presentation of the self as a desired other. As these two lms demonstrate, the evoca-
tion of exoticized gures inherent in the mediatic representation of Latin America does
not simply work by ideologically re-centring metropolitan cultural hegemons, but also
by functioning as a site of actively negotiated self-identication, with concrete advan-
tages for those who manage to negotiate their own exoticization effectively. Such rela-
tionships, then, often work as sites of entrepreneurial labour, social ascension and
symbolic empowerment for those who are able to derive some agency from them.
The complexity and negotiation inherent in such relationships of discursive power
speak of the concept of cultural friction put forward by Anna Tsing in her volume of
the same name. As she outlines, readings of such discursive power dynamics must take
into account how asymmetric societal encounters lead not only to cultural exclusion,
hierarchization and assimilation, but also lend themselves to a variety of syntheses, nego-
tiations and contestatory formations.15 Tsing states: Friction makes global connection
powerful and effective. Meanwhile, without even trying, friction gets in the way of the
smooth operation of global power. Difference can disrupt, causing everyday malfunctions
as well as unexpected cataclysms. Friction refuses the lie that global power operates as a
well-oiled machine.16 Simply put, dynamics of self-exoticism demonstrate how periph-
eral identities, in responding to hegemonic ideologies, are negotiated and transformed
even as they are exploited and commodied, not only by hegemons themselves, but also,
and perhaps more importantly, by those who embody and represent them.
 Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 239

Self-exoticizing dynamics are overwhelmingly prevalent in virtually all areas of rep-

resentational otherness in the current media climate. These can be seen in representa-
tions of womens bodies, metropolitan ethnic minority cultures or, more recently,
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) identities. Such phenomena may be
seen as akin to the bargaining with patriarchy undergone by women identied by
Deniz Kandiyoti. Patriarchal bargaining, suggests Kandiyoti, may be seen as instances
in which womenwell aware of both the structural limitations and immediate advan-
tages and protections that their context grants themcan be observed to engage in a
calculated navigation of the parameters set up by patriarchal systems. They do this by
strategically re-afrming certain aspects of their own structural subjugation in exchange
for protections and rewards that would otherwise be difcult or impossible to attain.17
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As contextualized by Gwen Sharp and Lisa Wade, these bargains can be as subtle and
low-key as in strategically behaving and dressing in a certain way to encourage men to
buy them drinks,18 or as economically relevant as in womens building of their careers
in sports19 or popular media20 through their strategic self-presentation as gures of
(heterosexual male) desire, citing the careers of popular gures Serena Williams, and
Tila Tequila. Similar dynamics abound as well in other areas of entrepreneurial hierar-
chical bargaining. Entertaining white people, notes Dave Chappelle in the context of
racial subjugationbe it as an athlete, actor, or comedianis a more reliable and safe
way than many others for black children to escape the limitations imposed on them by
structural inequalities.21
With regard to Latin American and in particular Cuban identity formation, such
negotiations of othering are further complicated by a long history of particularly intru-
sive and hierarchical post-colonial dynamics. Cuba has undergone a variety of transfor-
mations in the construction of its postcolonial material and symbolic positioning, rst as
a ward of Spain, and then of the United States. Finally Cuba is transformed into a dis-
cursive and even military threat to the United Statess global hegemony as the sole
indomitable herald of socialist revolution in the West, not 200 kilometres from U.S.
shores, and intruding within their sphere of supposed regional domination. Prior to tak-
ing up this unique political-symbolic positioning in the international sphere, however,
Cuban identities were largely formulated as peripheral in terms of the United States
metropolitan inuence. In the period spanning the resolution of the Spanish American
war up until the success of the revolution (18981959), Cuba was constructed by hege-
monic discourses as a site for the accessibly exotic and bohemian. The gures of the
Cuban jazz musician and rumbero were archetypical not only for Cuban culture
imported into the United States. In many ways these gures were also embraced by
Cuban cultural producers and social critics themselves. This second aspect is of impor-
tance here, particularly given that one of the two lms discussed in this article was
made both by and for Cubans, and that both lms focus on this archetype. Notably, this
lm, Vampiros en La Habana, also features a protagonist that, rather than being a native
Cuban, is a European immigrant to the Cuban way of life. The hero of the rst Cuban
animated feature is in fact, of all things, a German immigrant.

Vampiros en La Habana as Historical-Identitary Conciliation

Vampiros en La Habana follows the story of the young trumpetist Pepito, otherwise
known as Joseph von Dracula, a descendant of his famous namesake, though unaware
of this for most of the lms plot. Born in Germany in the early twentieth century,
Pepito is brought to Cuba at a very young age by his uncle, a mad vampire scientist
 240 C. Daz Pino

who has enabled him to have a normal, human life by having him regularly drink an
elixir that negates both the strengths and weaknesses of vampirism to the extent that
Pepito himself does not know he is a vampire at all. This same elixir is the very reason
his uncle brought them to Cuba, intending both to ee the capitalistic vampire enclaves
in Europe and the United States who seek to privatize and prot from the elixirs
formula, as well as to have access to the primary ingredients for the elixir, which are
plentiful in Cubas warm, fertile environment. Cuba is thus set up from the lms outset
as a land, both distant and exotic, distinguished by its sun, climate and variety of natural
tropical resources. In Pepitos seamless integration into a self-consciously tropical Cuban
way of life, Cuba itself is also envisioned as being transformative to those who inhabit
and embrace it, able to turn a German vampirea frightening parasite by natureinto
a gregarious, socially productive artist. Thus, Cubanity is tied here not to ethnically-
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entrenched concepts of hispanidad, negritud or mestizaje, but to a culture fundamentally

shaped by its fertile locality and what it offers to those who embrace it.
All of these characteristics are indicative of Pepitos upbringing. Ignorant of his
vampirism and tanned by the sun, he lives his life as a proto-revolutionary and a musi-
cian in 1920s Havana, playing his trumpet by night and plotting acts of sedition, also
by night. Much to his pleasure, these plots sometimes involve the opportunity to cheat
on his fellow revolutionary girlfriend by seducing the wives of corrupt ofcials. Thanks,
however, to the eventual discovery of Pepito and the formulas location by gangster
vampires, he eventually comes to realize his own nature and endeavors to keep the elix-
irs formula from being co-opted by corrupt private interests. At the lms climax, he
succeeds in doing just this by releasing the formula to all of vampire-kind, integrating
its recipe into the lyrics of a song played live via radio broadcast. This in turn enables
vampires worldwide to freely enjoy the sun and, as the lm notes with a note of comic
ominousness, also possibly feed on humans while doing so.
The duality of Pepitos identity as a musician and revolutionary seditionistmost
clearly demonstrated by his use of song to provide socialized vampire healthcareis
of utmost importance to this lms rhetorical positioning. It allows for an intratextual
reconciliation of Cubas own dual constructs of national identity as both a site of the
bohemian and of social revolution, a set of parameters clearly divided historically
between pre- and post-revolutionary political, economic, and cultural projects. This
amalgamation in the gure of Pepito allows Vampiros to benet from the visual and cul-
tural glamour of early twentieth-century Cuba, while at the same time demonstrating
ideological commitment to the revolutionary project. Inversely, these elements also
allow for the depiction of said revolutionary project within a context that still allows for
a jovial tone and fantasy elements.

Chico and Rita as Historical Fantasy

In contrast to this discursive negotiation, Chico and Rita makes no attempt to reconcile
the schism between such identities, while still integrating the revolution into its narrative
as a substantial element. The lm sets its allegiances rmly with the perspective of the
musician as a bystander to the revolution, and indeed, as a victim of the social transfor-
mations it sparked. While it makes use of similar cultural types to those of Vampiros,
Chico and Rita takes the much less light-hearted format of a historical romance in the
classic live-action cinematic tradition of Gone with the Wind (1939) and Casablanca
(1942). Following roughly 60 years of twentieth-century history between Cuba and the
United States up to the late 2000s, it details the sometimes intersecting stories of its two
 Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 241

titular lovers: the rst a talented, womanizing pianist and composer, and the second a
beautiful, sought-after vocalist, as they attempt to build their parallel musical careers.
Taking a decidedly dramatic bent, this lm uses animation not as a means of con-
veying traditional fantasy and minimalist caricature as Vampiros does, but rather
employs the art form much more in the manner of certain Japanese animated produc-
tions, graphically reproducing a reality which would be more difcult to pull off in a
live-action production for logistical reasons. Whereas Vampiros depiction of pre-revolu-
tionary Havana is thus functional, abstract and sketchy, akin to the modern-art inected
production design of a 1960s Peanuts TV special, Chico and Rita, as betting the tech-
niques and budget available to it, uses its own rotoscope-like animation techniques to
create much more detailed and colourfulthough still highly stylizedrecreations of
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Havana, New York, and Las Vegas during the Jazz Age, populating them with represen-
tations of the actual historical personalities that inhabited them, including Dizzy
Gillespie and Chano Pozo. This tendency goes as far as inserting Chico and his
manager into a sequence depicting the latters assassination.
In this regard, Chico and Rita shows a much more explicit reverence to the environ-
ments of pre-revolutionary Cuba than Vampiros; the Pozo sequence in Chico and Rita
demonstrates a tendency towards historical fantasy no less pronounced than that in
Vampiros en La Habana. However, while Vampiros deals in more traditionalthat is,
metaphysicalforms of fantastical elements, Chico and Rita may be seen as an act of
historical fan-ction, which fulls a nostalgic desire for the long-lost temporality of pre-
revolutionary Cuba and for the fruitful artistic landscape that existed in the world of
jazz at the time. Fernando Truebas previous lmography, including the devotional and
highly stylized Latin jazz documentary and performance piece Calle 54 (2004),22 would
seem to reect this desire. In the end, after both Chico and Rita fail in their rising
careers due to exploitative working conditions, the turmoil and changing tastes brought
on by the revolution, prejudice and personal betrayal, the lovers are eventually reunited
through the reawakening of Chicos career in the contemporary jazz scene, thanks to the
fortuitous interest in his music by a young Spanish singer. The circumstances surround-
ing this particular plot resolution are of particular interest to my analysis, not least
because they form a clear metatextual link between this lms discursive construction
and Truebas own career as a devoted follower and expositor of Cuban jazz.

Cartooning the Cuban Musician

Apart from the visual possibilities that animation offers for the representation of such
gures as vampires and such environments as pre-revolutionary Havana and 1960s Las
Vegas, where does the particularity of these two lms being animated lie in regard to
the depiction they offer of the gure of the Cuban musician? I would argue that this
value lies precisely in the dynamic touched upon at the outset of this article, rooting
animated bodies and identities in the realm of archetype and the abstraction of identity.
Despite both the dissonance of their tones and their evidently contrasting budgets and
positioning within the wider transnational cinematic canon, both animated features can
be seen as the result of attempts to expand, or perhaps return, the animated lm to the
realm of more complex or adult entertainment. This is done by constructing plots with
historical and political specicity, as well as by employing a level of sexual frankness
that would be beyond the parameters of most Western child-oriented cartoons. At the
same time, both lms show some difculty in their attempts to transcend these
culturally attributed stigmas of Western animation. Both are, after all, also archetypical
 242 C. Daz Pino

examples of what has been dubbed genre lmmaking. That is, they build their narratives
on pre-established structures heavy in both narrative archetype and cultural and gender
stereotyping. This extends to virtually all of the characters constructed in these lms,
but applies most pertinently to their musician protagonists, who are dened as artisti-
cally brilliant, virile and attractive, but ultimately not much else.
Of these two lms, Chico and Rita suffers the most from these limitations, which
are not inherent to animation as an art form itself, but rather stem from a combination
of commercial industries and cultures of production, distribution and reception, particu-
larly in the West. In observing the lms intratextual narrative elements, its supplemen-
tary paratexts (trailers, posters, and so on), as well as its contexts of distribution and
presentation, it becomes obvious that Chico and Rita seeks to present itself with a cer-
tain level of gravitas regarding its history, its location and temporality, and, nally,
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regarding the artists it depicts, and allegorically alludes to, in its plot. This pretence is
however utterly betrayed by the superciality of its character construction. Indeed, like
many other lms centred on the arcs of artistic careers, Chico and Rita seems to take
the implied importance and intrigue of art and artists living in turbulent conditions for
granted. In doing so, it leans so heavily on the audiences metatextual knowledge of the
structure and archetypes inhabiting such stories that it neglects to either construct unique
characters to full these roles, or explain in any substantial way why or how the stories
and characters it depicts relate to wider social and cultural processes. Vampiros, on the
other hand, suffers much less from its own, similarly broadly drawn and simplistic char-
acters and plotlineif only because it does not present itself as such a weighty drama,
opting instead for a lighter story of revolutionary allegory and fantasy.
Though visually innovative and technically accomplished, Chico and Rita constructs
a narrative so fraught with inconsistent, bland and culturally stereotypical narrative types
that it would never have been as well regarded had its script been that of a live-action
lm. Chicos relationship with Rita in particular is marked by the volatility of
stereotyped notions of Latin American and black machismo, jealousy, indelity and un-
nuanced gender dynamics and expectations. In particular, the characterization of Rita
falls into this category, with her own story arc reduced to a bevy of similarly archetypi-
cal issues arising from her condition as an exoticized gure of male desire. The charac-
ter is constructed so as to embody a paradoxical balance of a broadly drawn socio-
historical specicity that simultaneously encapsulates the particular uses and abuses
suffered by the othered divas of the jazz era, while at the same time refusing to grant
the character herself any personality beyond a plot-driven archetype and the cul-
tural/gendered stereotypes she embodies and performs. Such shortcomings would have
been immediately evident in a non-animated lm; they may even have been read as crit-
ical meta-commentary of such narrative parameters, such as in the case of the comedic
melodramas of Pedro Almodvar. It bears repeating, however, that this is not the way in
which Chico and Rita has presented itself; the lm has attempted to take on the corre-
sponding cultural weight of its largely unprecedented position as an animated Western
historical drama. It is precisely because of this positioning that it is able to carry off
such supercial treatment of its subject matter. In other words, this lm is able to obfus-
cate its narrative shortcomings within the low expectations and infantilism that have
long been attributed to animation in the West since the 1960s and which have managed
to pervade into the worldwide culture of animation as a whole.
On perhaps a more contingent ideological level, Chico and Rita can also be seen to
embrace regressive discourses of cultural othering in its plot resolution, namely in the
heavy-handed Eurocentric paternalism implicit in having Chicos work rediscovered,
 Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 243

and his career saved, by a young Spanish singer. Despite its historical, geographical and
cultural focus on aspirational Cuban gures who struggle against systems of political,
racial and cultural oppression, Chico and Ritalike so many other lms concerned with
the oppression and exclusion of hegemonic structuresultimately works to symbolically
redeem the same oppressive and exclusionary hegemonic structures it critiques. This is
done by condemning these structures in one guise (that of the United States) while
embracing them in that of benevolent Spanish patronage. In this way, it re-embraces the
core discursive impulse of exoticism to reafrm hegemonic centrality.23 This resolution
turns Chico and Ritas narrative into one in which stereotyped subaltern protagonists
carry out failed attempts at entrepreneurial self-exoticism, from which they must ulti-
mately be rescued by the fortuitous historical legitimation of their art within the canons
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of the white European intelligentsia. In a perverse way, their failure does not serve as a
condemnation of persistent systemic inequities, but is instead brushed off as a being a
vestige of its time, with their subsequent rescue a source of re-centralization and plea-
sure for hegemonic subjectivities. It serves as a reafrmation of Latin American (and
black) otherness and inferiority through the failed mimesis these characters enact of the
reputedly European pursuit of entrepreneurialism.24 Seen in this way, it is not surprising,
then, that the Oscars would seek to recognize this lmit offers the same bait-
and-switch of pseudo-critique of established power structures that so often distinguishes
Hollywoods treatment of otherness.

Conclusions
By looking at the analogous textual elements of these lms, it is possible to see how
identical images, in this case the hypersexual, male jazz musician, can ultimately gener-
ate vastly different discursive outputs, depending on how these images are formed and
with what intent. In Vampiros en La Habana, this gure may be seen to be a cultural
re-appropriation of images similar to those taken up by black performers such as
Richard Pryor in the United States. That is, it works to embrace once-degrading stereo-
types of afnity with music and sexuality as points of pride, in turn reframing European
subjectivities as lifeless and asceticaspects which for their part are embodied in this
lms claustrophobic, capitalistic vampires. Within this re-appropriation, it is important
to bear in mind that Pepitos Cubanity is in no way implied to be a hereditary trait.
Though he is the consummate Cuban, he is so entirely because of his cultural upbring-
ing. In contrast, while Chico and Rita is clearly intended as a work of homage to both
the members and localities of the golden age of Cuban jazz, it is also entirely reliant
upon a metatextual lexicon of both generic narrative archetype and neo-colonial stereo-
type that serves to degrade its characters as narrative agents. Both texts are more inter-
ested in their musicians as gures of reafrming myth than as comprehensive subjects,
but where the mythology of Vampiros attempts to consolidate a dissenting, self-dened
model of cultural identity, that of Chico and Rita ultimately uses a mythology of other-
ness to reafrm the cultural protagonism and hegemony of Eurocentric discourses.
In spite of the early foundational analytic work of Latin American comics and
animation scholars such as Armand Mattelart and Ariel Dorfman in How to Read Donald
Duck,25 studies on the animated and cartooned construction of Latin American subjectiv-
ities are still incipient. A large portion of the rapidly growing output of animated lms
coming from, or set in, Latin America, is still largely unexplored. Cuba, however, despite
its economic difculties, still manages to hold on to its discursive position as the herald
for another way of lifea position that is invaluable not only for its own survival, but
 244 C. Daz Pino

also for those who oppose the ideologically monolithic positioning of late capitalism and
its effect on the global economy, environment, and body politic. As cultures of animation
production in particular, and lmmaking in general, continue to develop within and
between the diverse national production industries of Latin America, the discursive pre-
sentation of its people will, one hopes, continue to grow in diversity and veracity with
the emergence of new voices and venues for expression. Within these developments, we
may very well expect the emergence of new animated texts that will continue to re-align
the global mediatic representation of peripheral localities and peopleif not necessarily
as they really are, then at least as they see themselves.

Notes
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1. Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal and Tono Errando, (Directors), Chico and Rita, United
States, New Video Group, 2011.
2. Juan Pedrn, (Director), Vampiros en La Habana, Germany, Vanguard Cinema, 2002.
3. Jason Mittel, The Great Saturday Morning Exile: Scheduling Cartoons on Televisions
Periphery in the 1960s, in Carol A. Stabile and Mark Harrison (eds), Prime Time Anima-
tion: Television Animation and American Culture, London, Routledge, 2003, pp. 3354.
4. David Hajdu, Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture, New
York, Da Capo Press, 2009, p. 108.
5. Hajdu notes that comics themselves have not only been disparaged as artifacts of youth cul-
ture, but have also been associated with other modes of peripherality. He species that, early
in their history, comics also served as one of the main draws of late nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century European immigrants to U.S. newspapers, unable as they often were to
read English, but able to draw meaning from their visual storytelling. Hajdu, Heroes and
Villains, p. 9.
6. Mittel suggests that the popular perception of animation as exclusively belonging to the
realm of childhood was largely cemented during this period, with the advent of the Saturday
morning cartoon programming block. At its inception, this was a relegation of unwanted
advertising space to children, lled at rst with cheaply obtained animated theatrical shorts.
It would be a few years before advertisers would realize the effectiveness of advertising tar-
geted specically to children, thus transforming these Saturday morning blocks into sought-
after programming real estate, while at the same time re-afrming the cartoon as a (now val-
ued) artifact of childhood life and identity. Mittel, The Great Saturday Morning, p. 36.
7. Mittel, The Great Saturday Morning, p. 36.
8. Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Brattleboro, Harper, 1994, p. 30.
9. Slavoj iek, Living in the End Times, New York, Verso, 2011, p. 60.
10. Michael V. Tueth, Back to the Drawing Board: The Family in Animated Television Com-
edy, in Stabile and Harrison (eds), Prime Time Animation, pp. 13346, pp. 14041.
11. McCloud, Understanding Comics, p. 30.
12. McCloud, Understanding Comics, p. 31.
13. Judith Butler, Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and
Feminist Theory, Theatre Journal, 40:4, 1988, pp. 51931, p. 519.
14. Kevin Sandler, Reading the Rabbit: Explorations in Warner Bros. Animation. New Brunswick,
Rutgers UP, 1998, p. 156.
15. Anna Tsing, Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection, Princeton, Princeton UP,
2005, pp. 56.
16. Tsing, Friction, p. 6.
17. Deniz Kandiyoti, Bargaining With Patriarchy, Gender and Society, 2:2, 1988, pp. 27490,
p. 274.
18. Gwen Sharp, Patriarchal Bargain How-to Guide, Sociological Images, 29 June 2012, http://
thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/06/29/patriarchal-bargain-how-to-guide, accessed 19
June 2014.
19. Lisa Wade, Serena Williams Patriarchal Bargain, Sociological Images, 22 May 2011,
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/05/22/women-damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-
dont, accessed 19 June 2012.
 Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 245

20. Lisa Wade, Tila Tequilas Patriarchal Bargain, Sociological Images, 14 October 2010,
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/10/14/tila-tequilas-patriarchal-bargain, accessed 19
June 2012.
21. Stan Lathan, (Director), Dave Chappelle: For What Its Worth, United States, Sony Pictures
Home Entertainment, 2005.
22. Fernando Trueba, (Director), Calle 54, United States, Miramax Home Entertainment, 2001.
23. Edward W. Said, Orientalism, New York, Vintage Books, 1979, p. 49.
24. Homi Bhabha outlines the pleasure implicit in the imperfect mimesis of the colonized by the
colonizers, as well as the inverse. Homi Bhabha, In the Location of Culture, London, Rout-
ledge, 1994, p. 86. In Chico and Rita, the power to misrepresent the Other is supplemented
and reafrmed by the impossibility of the Other becoming a consolidated subject.
25. Armand Mattelart and Ariel Dorfman, How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in
the Disney Comic, New York, International General, 1975.
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