A picture of Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Coco Fusco in "The Couple in the Cage".Do you all remember a few weeks ago before Spring Break when Damián showed us a shocking video from Guillermo Gómez-Peña? Of course haha we all do. I found a video of the controversial performance piece that he and Coco Fusco did in the early 90s. They presented themselves as "unknown specimens representative of the Guatinaui people" by dressing themselves in outrageous costumes and performed crazy "native" tasks that included lifting weights, watching tv, sewing voodoo dolls and working on laptops. During feeding time museum guards would pass them bananas through the cage and when they needed to use the bathroom, they were escorted from their cage on leashes. They first staged this performance in 1992 in Madrid. Although Gómez-Peña and Fusco intended for this to be purely satirical, it is obvious that many people believed them to be from an undiscovered island in the Caribbean.
I found a quote from Fusco on an Emory University website: "Our cage became a blank screen onto which audiences projected their fantasies of who and what we are. As we assumed the stereotypical role of the domesticated savage, many audience members felt entitled to assume the role of colonizer, only to find themselves uncomfortable with the implications of the game."
Would people do the same thing today if they were to do this again in 2012? I'm not sure if this is a critique of colonialism or simply a satirical commentary on the notion of discovery, but it must have changed the way in which people began to view how history is packaged up and given to us without question.
Take a look at how this video dramatizes the dilemma of the cross-cultural misunderstanding that we still live with today.
We watched this full video in one of my classes last semester--it was shocking to see how many of the audience members in various places bought into it and had no objections to the whole idea! I remember only one interviewee saying it was offensive (although who knows how many of those were edited out). The thing that bothered me the most was that they put the cage in public places and, from the video, quite a few children were exposed to it. I realize its about satire and exposing our willingness (eagerness?) to exotify the "other," but to present it to children in a situation where they don't necessarily have a way to understand or process it seems to just perpetuate a harmful mentality rather than change it. But for adults, its quite interesting & exposes a lot!
ResponderBorrarGoodness... the comment at the end of the video "they seem to be happier and more free than we are." I hear this so much from people who have traveled in the 3rd world but really don't know much about it. The idea of "poor but happy."I'm so over this... for so many reasons.
ResponderBorrarBut I do love the lady who spoke out about them being calling "specimens" and I have to admit am digging the 90s style in this video. :)