Disney-Mediated Images Emerging in Cross-Cultural Expression on Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Abstract

This paper points to appearance of Disney characters in popular expression on an island developed for tourism over last 25 years off coast of Quintana Roo in southeastern Mexico as an illustration of process of appropriation of Disney characters by people for their own sake and ritual, in a folk culture context, as well as for increasing market value to tourists with use of icons and images of international popular culture. Without international mass marketing of popular film and television, such a debunking of Maya cultural heritage for images manufactured in U.S. could not have occurred. Artists employed by Disney to north certainly did not initiate this process of cultural imperialism, whereby art and cultural forms of one culture take precedence over those produced by another, or eclipse local arts on their own terrain. However, one would hope those benefiting in industry might care to learn of their own impact beyond closed studio walls and protected national borders as such globalization occurs. A real island off coast of Quintana Roo with intriguing name Isla Mujeres (Island of Women) is situated in context of a Maya present and past, and in a multicultural society identifiable as typical of polyethnic countries (Coulder). But island also locates itself in context of a currently fluctuating but booming tourist industry. Hence, a variety of culturally placed visitors, workers, producers and readers demonstrate complexity of problem of dialectical influences of interactive cultures upon each other. The onlooker permanently impacts subject or object observed. Calling upon use of post-colonial hybridity theory, a polycentric multiculturalism (Shohat 46) can readily be observed, with a mix from more than one non-hierarchical center creating multilayered identities (Shohat 41). But Disney corporate culture is becoming more widespread in cultural void left by destruction of historical markers which led to naming of island. An image in particular, Ariel, from mermaid series, for reasons I will discuss, is reproduced more often than other mermaids and hence begins to dominate in lending visual meaning to island's name. A closer examination of this phenomenon can lend insight into complex ways discussed by van Elteren in which U.S. popular culture forms are appropriated and mediated abroad, which became newsworthy during GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) discussions in which reception of influences of U.S. culture industries was indicted for contesting basis of national cultures (47-49). The island I examine here is located in Caribbean. It may or may not be island on which Columbus reported sighting Sirens, Spanish term for mermaids (Columbus). It may or may not be island of women of which Columbus reported hearing in his conversations with the Indians. It may or may not have been report of this island that inspired creation of an island of women in early Renaissance Spanish romantic fiction (Rodriguez de Montalvo). It may or may not have been named such based on those who discovered it having read that fiction (Cavin, Ibanez, Leonard). The most simple, direct and straight-forward account of naming that I have found is that of Bernardo Diaz del Castillo as translated by Maudslay, discussed by contemporary scholars on Cozumel Project as part of a list of examples of coastal shrines occurring in groups at some distance from settlements along east coast of Quintana Roo (Freidel and Sabloff 45): We stayed in that bay (at Isla Mujeres) for a day and we lowered two boats and went on shore and found farms and maize plantations, and there were four Cues which are houses of their Idols, and there were many Idols in them, nearly all of them figures of tall women so that we called place Punta de Las Mujeres. Diaz del Castillo 104-OS All that can be said, really, is that stimulated replaying of these and similar narratives, either real or projected, influences those who go there today. …