Powerpoint Presentation

CORE Lecture Outline

Performing Post-Mexican Identities on Global Stages

Bruce-Novoa

Reading: Roger Bartra and Subcomandante Marcos

June 6-7

I. In 1994 the EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation) declared war on the Mexican Government through their spokesman Subcomandante Marcos

    1. Their declarations stated what could be seen as obvious information
      1. Just Cause: when government fails, Article 39 of Mexican Constitution gives the people the right to change the government
      2. Indian Exclusion: commonly accepted that the Indians have been marginalized for centuries and continue to be neglected
      3. Systemic Corruption: complaints about corruption have been endemic for years, and events in the 1980s exacerbated the situation.
      4. Tired of Waiting: Indians have waited centuries for reforms that have never materialized.
      5. NAFTA: to the Zapatistas free trade meant the sale of the nation's patrimony. The charge fit with the tradition of Malinchismo
      6. Popular Cause: the protest met widespread support
    2. Style of Presentation
      1. Common Sense: Marcos phrases his arguments as if the conclusions were clear to anyone.
      2. Folksy Tone: personal, conversational, often utilizing popular culture references, as if he were a "common man" of the people.
      3. Indigenous Authority: references to Indian beliefs appropriate the authority of ancient myth.
      4. Humor: makes fun of himself and others.
      5. Simple Binaries: We vs. They. Keeps the choices clear.
      6. Moral High Ground: Speaks with assurance of having God(s) on their side.
    3. The Zapatistas successfully market themselves
      1. Initially represented themselves differently to different audiences.
        1. Mexico: Black-masked Revolutionaries.
        2. U.S.: Colorful innocence of folkloric peasants.
      2. Quickly realize the appeal of the mask as a popular icon and marketing tool.
      3. Zapatismo becomes a hot item for academic to popular writers.
    4. Roger Bartra's Critique: reading beyond the script and costumes.
      1. Degrees of local autonomy? Questions how a country can function with areas and groups outside the "national" law.
      2. Reactionary Core in Primitive Mystique. Traditional forms of authority and procedures deprive certain populations of constitutional rights: i.e., women, the young, minorities.
      3. Politically Correct Relativism: Declaring the "Other's" beliefs true, correct, and unquestionable is to abandon the tradition of debate, and in Mexico the ideal of cultural and racial miscegenation.
      4. Jezebel Syndrome. The Zapatistas represent the outside threat that allows the system to retrench and demand solidarity from citizens.
      5. Melancholia. Bartra compares Mexico's mode to the depression-like state of melancholia, marked with indecision, paranoia, doubt, and irritability.
    5. Within the context of the nostalgia for absolutes amid postmodern uncertainty—the "drifting in the sea of marks"—Zapatistas provides an old fashion belief system of clear values.
      1. Anchored Signs and Safe Harbors: People want certainties on which to base everyday life.
      2. Essential Identity. While reserving the right to be different, people they want an essential core of national customs and traditions: a Mexican reality.
      3. Heroic Revolution. Both the political right and left feel nostalgia for the myth of the heroic revolution, especially faced with implacable globalization.
      4. Binary Simplicity: Marcos offers a return to a simple, binary world of clear choice in the face of proliferating possibilities.
    6. Subcomandante Marcos as Internet Super Star
      1. Marcos used the internet from the start to launch Zapatismo.
      2. Celebrity visitors become website proof of Marcos as political, cultural guru.
      3. The internet provides "immediacy" and "reality" in a media climate of virtual experience.

II. The Internet as Space of Virtual Citizenship.

    1. Mexican foreign residents organize an internet nation.
      1. Where can/does the nation reside?
      2. Geography vs. cyberspace.
      3. Changing experience of immigration.
    2. "Migrant Latino" in Yahoo Geocities vs. "Sponsored Links"
    3. The word's real silent power—the net itself; the media is the message.

III. Postmodern Mexico or Post-Mexican Performances.

    1. Literature: Opening the polyvalent closet
      1. Minorities
        1. Religious
        2. Regional
        3. Gender
      2. Linguistic polyvalence
      3. Indeterminate identity: Errancy Without End.
    2. Visual arts
      1. Kitsch
      2. Popular arts
      3. Intertextuality and Pastiche
    3. Sculpture
      1. Kitsch
      2. Popular
      3. Topology and Fractals
    4. Architecture
      1. Rejection of functionalism.
      2. Citation and Pastiche
      3. Legorreta, Mexico's superstar architect.
    5. Film as Global market
      1. The Mexican Code—Bartra's discursive cage.
      2. National portal to global opportunity.
    6. Concerts as Global Stage
      1. Traditional Mexican identity on tour: Ballet Folklórico
        1. History
        2. Geography
        3. Ethnicity
        4. Mexico as essential national identity
      2. Café Tacuba: Un Viaje (A Trip)
        1. Postmodern Mexico on tour
        2. Mexico as global discourse
        3. Deconstructing Mexican icons
        4. Mexico as local discourse
        5. Mexico as quest.

IV. Café Tacuba as National Allegory: Mexico's Postmodern Family.