Viva Che, the comandante of capitalism

Viva Che, the comandante of capitalism

February 10, 2006

One photo has rewritten the legend of a revolutionary, writes David Segal.

JUST look at what they have done to Che. The glowering visage of the
Cuban comandante pops up everywhere - in art, on magazine covers and,
more blasphemously, on lighters, wallets, coasters, T-shirts, hoodies,
key chains, tissue packs, nesting dolls and something called Red Cream Soda.

It's always the same shot - the one in which the man born Ernesto
Guevara stares into the middle distance with fiery resolve, military
beret perched on his head, leather jacket zipped up to his neck, hair
rakishly blown by the wind. Rifle-wielding freedom fighters around the
world have revered this image the way Christians revere saints.

But entrepreneurs love it, too. One US company slapped the likeness on
an ice-cream treat called Cherry Guevara.

"The revolutionary struggle of the cherries was squashed as they were
trapped between two layers of chocolate," reads the copy on the wrapper.
"May their memory live on in your mouth."

Cherry Guevara and other examples of what could be called Che abuse are
on display at the International Centre of Photography in Manhattan for
an exhibition this month titled Che! Revolution and Commerce. It's the
story of a photograph and its journey from contact sheet to
international ubiquity and into commercial kitsch. Shot by a one-time
fashion photographer, Alberto Korda, it might be, say the show's
curators, the most reproduced photo in history.

The exhibit works, too, as a lesson in the power of market economies,
which can absorb and commodify anything, even their bitter enemies.
Today, dozens of websites sell things featuring Korda's Che shot. The
likes of Thechestore.com and Fidelche.com target young people who, one
assumes, aren't gearing up for armed insurrection.

Shayn Diamond, a college student in London, Ontario, started selling
Che-wear with some friends at Cheguevarashirts.com a few months ago.
"He's a rebel, and along with rebel comes the cool factor and
trendiness." Translation: Viva los fashionistas!

The beginning of all this was more dignified. Korda took the shot at a
protest rally in Cuba, against an explosion of a ship loaded with
ammunition in Havana's harbour. More than 100 people died in early March
1960, and many Cubans believed it was a CIA-orchestrated crime, not an
accident. The following day, the country's leader, Fidel Castro, turned
a mass funeral into a mass protest and Korda captured the event for
Revolucion newspaper.

Che didn't speak that day, but he showed up briefly on the podium to
gaze at the crowd. Korda took two quick shots. The image first appeared
in April 1961, in Revolucion, to promote a conference at which Che was
speaking. Yes, Guerrillero Heroico, as Korda called his photo, started
off as an ad.

Then it just spread. Korda never kept a grip on the copyright and the
shot turned up on the covers of magazines and newspapers in Europe and
the US. National Lampoon published a satirical version in 1972, with Che
taking a pie to the face. Madonna did a variation for her American Life
album in 2003. When Taco Bell used a chihuahua in a Guevara-like beret
to promote its "revolutionary taco", the company took incoming from
Cuban exiles in Miami.

Korda, who died in Paris in 2001, apparently never earned royalties from
his most famous portrait. He did, however, win an out-of-court
settlement in England from Smirnoff, after the company ran an ad with
Guerrillero Heroico along with the words "a complete flavoured vodka" -
a riff, perhaps, on John-Paul Sartre's claim that Che was "the most
complete human being of our age".

"I am categorically against the exploitation of Che's image for the
promotion of products such as alcohol," Korda is quoted as saying, "or
for any purpose that denigrates the reputation of Che."

Why Che? How did this Argentinian-born doctor with bad asthma acquire
such worldwide cachet, not to mention enduring commercial appeal?

The hunky looks don't hurt. And few doubt his sincerity, even if his
sincerest wish was a dreary, centrally planned bummer.

"Even his ideological foes admire him because he represents the great
virtues it takes to be a revolutionary," says Jon Lee Anderson, a New
Yorker writer, who wrote the biography Che: A Revolutionary Life.
"Bravery, fearlessness, honesty, austerity and absolute conviction.
Those are the prerequisites to carry others into what is actually quite
a miserable existence."

After helping to overthrow Cuba's Batista government, he went to other
countries, including the Congo and Bolivia, to foment revolution. Adding
to the mythology, he died a martyr's death in 1967, captured and
executed at 39 as he battled US-trained troops in Bolivia. Reportedly,
his last words to the soldier who shot him were: "Shoot, coward, you're
just killing a man."

And, it seems, creating a brand. He is lionised by insurgents around the
world, says Anderson. Recently the new president of Bolivia asked for a
moment of silence at his swearing-in to remember, among others, Che
Guevara. The Cuban Government, meanwhile, presents Guevara to tourists
as the island's public face. Che T-shirts are among the first things
you'll see on landing at Havana's airport.

But at least the Cubans know who they're glorifying. Elsewhere, Che's
life story and ambitions are beside the point, or maybe they've been
reduced to caricature. His face is shorthand for "I'm against the status
quo". He is politics's answer to James Dean - a rebel with a specific
cause. And, since few know much about the cause, or the rebel, the Che
shirt has the whiff of inside info about it. It makes you part of the
thrift-shop intelligentsia.

This, in brief, is why capitalism won. It's the only system that
understands we'd all like to change the world, but we are way too lazy
for that sort of thing. Especially if there's ice-cream around. On
finishing a Cherry Guevara, you're left with a stick with the words "We
will bite to the end!" stamped on it. If there are nails in Che's
coffin, this, no doubt, is what they look like.

The Washington Post
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/02/09/1139465799877.html?from=top5