Blair Woodard, University of Portland
February 11, time TBD
Location TBD

From 1957 until 1960, U.S. visions of the bravery and fortitude of the 26 of July rebels were similar to the images contained in popular Western films, jungle adventure stories, and action comics of the 1940s and 1950s that formed the basis for what much of the U.S. public imagined “real men” to be like. Like the heroes from Westerns, the U.S. media presented Castro and his men as possessing exemplary masculine virtues—brave and decisive, willing to risk everything for what they believed. As the U.S. media equated the Cuban revolutionaries with popular visions of “true manhood,” Fidel Castro became the ultimate vision of the romanticized masculine ideal—a courageous, idealistic, father figure. Even though the United States official sided with the Batista government, the intimate popular connections between the United States and Cuba produced an alternative relationship between the two countries. This separate relationship allowed the rebels to cultivate and construct a favorable vision of themselves for the U.S. and Cuban public and for the U.S. public to feel personally connected to Fidel Castro and the 26 of July Movement before they entered Havana.

The media love affair and the myth of the heroic revolutionary ended when the “real men” of the Sierra Maestra came down from the mountains and began the real work of reform. When the military rebellion turned into actual social revolution with all its components—executions, agrarian reform, commitment to fervent nationalism, and anti-Americanism—the U.S. government, press, and public abandoned Castro and “his” revolution. The long-promised reforms placed Castro and the revolutionary government in direct confrontation with the dominant commercial interests of the United States, and, by extension, with the Eisenhower administration. The U.S. reaction to the Cuba’s revolutionary reforms would eventually push the island away from its intimate neighbor and into the Soviet sphere of influence. The myth of “The man with the beard” Fidel Castro, and the “real men” of the 26 of July Movement created by the U.S. press, eventually exploded into enemy images of a communist threat ninety miles away. The image of the Cuban revolutionary fighter who was linked in spirit to the United States own heroic myths would be replaced by an aesthetic of the enemy that would dominate the visual discourse between the two nations for the next fifty years.

Woodard grew up in Fullerton, California and attended the University of California, Santa Barbara. After graduating from UCSB, he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala. His experiences as a volunteer and wanderings throughout Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean deepened his love for all things Latin American. The region’s diversity, history, and cultural richness became a constant source of fascination. It was this deep appreciation for Latin America that eventually led Woodard to earn his Ph.D. in history at the University of New Mexico. Currently, Woodard is an Associate Professor of History and Director of Latin American Studies at the University of Portland. His broader interests include transnational history, borderlands, U.S.-Latin American relations, and popular culture. His research focuses on the interplay of popular culture and official diplomacy in the creation of U.S.-Latin American relations. Woodard has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Mellon Foundation, the Society for American Foreign Relations, and the University of Portland. At UP, he teachs courses on the histories of colonial and modern Latin America, Cuba, Mexico, environmental history, the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, and Latin American popular culture.