Usos de lo Cubano en la transnación Española : la (re)visión del deseo, 1984-2004

Access restricted to the OSU CommunityMy dissertation, Usos de lo cubano en la transnación española: la revisión del deseo, 1984-2004 (Uses of Cuban (Un) Exoticism in Transnational Spain: The Desire Revisted. 1984-2004) addresses contemporary Spain's transforming national culture through representations of Cuban imagery from 1989 to 2004. During this period, massive migration from Latin America, and Cuba in particular, has arrived to Spain changing Spanish perceptions of othemess. A resultant transformed desire for lo cubano demonstrates not only new sexual attitudes but also a change of Spanish national imagery to multicultural transnation. Spain, in a post-colonial gesture, has begun community building with its formerly exotic others and marketing its Transatlantic Latino-chic image. My research is organized around a series of "uses", both cultural and political, of new perceptions regarding Cuban imagery in Spain, as reflected in films and popular culture of the period. I base my investigation on the studies of Louis Perez, Ann McClintock and Antonio Benítez Rojo about the transformations of Cuban imagery; and the works of Paul Julián Smith, Jo Labanyi, Marsha Kinder and Isabel Santaolalla, who study Spain's national identity to transnational representation after Cuban (and Latin American) presence in present Iberian Península. I develop four thematic chapters organized around the cultural and political "uses" of transformed Cuban representations in Spain. In the first chapter entitled "Uses of Desire: The Erotic Cubanía and The Passional Espajñolidad I analyze the Cuban national imagery as well as Spanish cultural representation and the particular transformations of Cuban imagery in Spain until present migration to Iberian Peninsula. The second chapter "Un-exotic Cuban Women, Flowers From This World: The Feminine Subject", I focus on the emergence of a cultural production which represents Cuban women from a different perspective: From exotic sexual objects to un-exotic feminine subjects, and the postcolonial implications of this cultural process. I analyze the films: Flores de otro mundo (lciar Bollain, 1998); Maité (Eneko Olasagasti, 1994) y Cosas que dejé en La Habana (Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, 1999). The third chapter, "Encountering Masculinities: The Cuban "conquistador" and The End of Spaniard Male Leyend", studies the transformation of Cuban masculinity stereotypes in Spain after the migration experience, and the influence of this change in the new representation of Spanish masculinity. I analyze these images in Alex de La Iglesia's, La Comunidad (2002); Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón's Cosas que dejé en La Habana (1999) and Femando Colomo's Cuarteto de La Habana (2000). The four chapter, "Negros y Blancos, todo mezclado: Cannibalism; Transatlantic fussion and Latino-Chic Industry", addresses the representation of Cubannes and Spanishness in global market under these new cultural tendencies. This dissertation is a contribution to the field of Contemporary Hispanic Transatlantic Studies