Juan of the Dead: Anxious consumption and zombie cinema in Cuba

Abstract

Abstract Cuban cinema has undergone a resurgence over the past decade, often relying on different foreign sources of funding, particularly transnational co-production agreements. As global audience appeal becomes a critical factor in national cinema, incorporating global media resources entails forms of resistance that need not be guided by a refusal to engage with hegemonic forces. Instead, audio-visual production strives to acknowledge and mobilize the elasticity of social, ideological and geopolitical borders by experimenting with national and global criteria. This article explores this media environment through Alejandro Brugués’s film Juan de los muertos/Juan of the Dead (2011). The film mediates the complex material and ideological transformations in Cuba over the past two decades and provides a fertile ground for exploring the circulation of anxieties around global consumption. This article examines how Juan of the Dead contributes towards the continued reformulation of both Cuban and genre cinemas while also reproducing pervasive discourses around race, gender and sexuality in Cuba.