Dr. Polo in Cuba
By Aurelio Pedroso
HAVANA – In fewer than 15 days, the newspaper Granma, official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, has twice pounced on TV programs from Miami, which are seen in Cuba one way or another. And I’m not referring to TV Martí, whose productions seldom reach the small screen, even though they’re sponsored by the government of the United States.
The most recent case involves Cuban-born Dr. Ana María Polo (Caso Cerrado / Case Closed), whose pirated DVDs are not hard to find for 2 dollars, or 50 Cuban pesos, in those street stalls where you can find the best and the worst of worldwide cinema.
Earlier, the hammer fell on La Belleza Latina (Latin Beauty), an authentic horror for anyone with half a brain, regardless of political ideology – leftist, rightist, middle of the road or none. May God illuminate us so we’ll never follow this program’s guidelines when looking for beauty in a woman, and may God counsel the TV decision-makers to produce a program that selects women on the basis of their inner, as well as outer, beauty.
Let it be said, too, that it’s time to reestablish our Carnaval Queen and enable Cuba to compete in international beauty contests, because there’s more than enough beautiful women on the island. When famous model Naomi Campbell visited Havana some years ago and strolled through the streets, the visual banquet (to the local women) was her muscular bodyguards. No Cuban male paid the slightest attention to Naomi.
The author of both opinions in Granma is a well-known and respected movie critic named Rolando Pérez Betancourt, whom I met in the 1970s in a newspaper where we both worked. Once we finished our daily tasks, we nailed a sheet to the wall, set up a Russian movie projector and reviewed memorable American films that reposed in the vaults of the Cuban Institute of Cinematic Arts and Industry (ICAIC).
I have no reason to criticize my colleague. He has touched on the issue and at any time he may use his journalistic scalpel to cut deeper into this situation. He may even recommend that something be done to keep Spanish-language TV from Miami from reaching our homes, either live or one month later, in a USB memory stick.
In a review published in Granma last Monday (June 11), titled “The Trained Eye,” Pérez Betancourt wrote: “A friend who has read more than four books and knows the difference between the French New Wave and the British Free Cinema is very enthused – because it’s a novelty to him – about a reality show where a woman judge sings, shouts, acts up before the camera and eventually sentences a man who, minutes earlier, tried to beat up his wife for having revealed to the audience the most intimate details of their nights together.”
Clear as water. They’ve put Dr. Polo, her production team and the TV channel on the defendants’ dock.
Let me say here and now that I will always defend everyone’s right to watch or read whatever pleases, entertains, educates or makes them happy. It’s something as human as culinary or sexual preferences. What is lamentable is the absence of gray matter to realize that behind the facade of that kind of entertainment lurks an insult to intelligence, ethics and good taste.
Train your eye, as Pérez Betancourt wisely counsels. Study, read, know how to listen. Those are free possibilities, available to all. A challenge to the current generations: learn to discern, so you can decide and judge for yourself.
One thing I learned early in my youth. When someone says how good a book is, or how excellent a restaurant is, or how spectacular a film is, pay attention to who’s promoting the product, because it may be the neighborhood idiot swearing to high heaven that a product or event “is faaantastic!”
Dear reader, this case is not closed. Cuban youth does not require indoctrination but a lot of cerebral calisthenics. As José Martí counseled, “Be cultured,” so you can assimilate and take apart anything that comes your way – even tragicomedies – from India, Paris or Pyongyang.
Progreso Semanal/ Weekly authorizes the total or partial reproduction of the articles written by our journalists, so long as source and author are identified.
